Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Why are you here?
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Why are you here?
Slight cancel. Lmao. Gotcha.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Well, I was just reading this book called American Comic book chronicles. The 90s. Yeah, 1990 to 1999.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Chat, shut up. Because I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I gotta, I gotta get off. I gotta get off. All right.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: What are you doing?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: I, I, I'm just getting off this Call of Duty game. I can't, I can't play this and talk to you at the same time.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Call of Duty.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, guilty pleasures, man. Guilty pleasures.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you know that in the already plummeting industry, wide sales decreased by an additional 25% between 1996 and 1997? That'd be comic book sales. With some of the most popular titles now selling only a fraction of what they had earlier in the decade. In June 1997, for instance, only 25 titles sold over 70,000 copies. By the way, that would be amazing today.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: And only five of them sold over 120,000 copies as recently as September 1993. A comic book that sold 120,000 copies would have barely earned a spot on a list of the top 100 bestselling books.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: At DC, Wonder Woman, Azrael and the horrible end of the Teen titans hovered around 40,000 copies a month.
Some of the long running Vertigo, Vertigo titles like Hellblazer, Hellblazer, House of Secrets and Sandman Mystery Theater lingered even lower. Around 20,000 copies at Image.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: The once hot Gen 13, remember that?
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Saw sales drop decreasing by 50,000 copies a year.
And it was only one of five Image titles selling over 70,000 copies a year.
So we were mentioning last time a decline and a crash of the industry.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Well, this wonderful book we're reading, Flex Mentalo, came out in 1996.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: And I believe it can be single handed. It is the single handed reason the comic book market collapsed. How do you feel about that analysis?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: I don't think.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: No, I saw Keith Dallas, the author of this, I believe. Yeah. Jason Sachs and Keith Dallas right here. I believe that they said exactly that in this book somewhere. I don't have a page number yet.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: On that this book. But Flex could, with his Flex could hold this, the whole industry up, Dan.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Well, it is possible though, in 1997 the industry had to change. So they handed DC Comics after this great series here.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Handed Justice League of America to Grant Morrison and Howard Porter.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: Okay.
So his, his big test was Flex Mantalo and then they gave him.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, look at this hair On Superman.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Mm, Yeah, I see it.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: I mean, how could that not destroy the industry?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: I mean, it's a question.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: I mean, it was a thing. Yeah. I mean, like the comics industry had cashed in on their late 80s, early 90s success and ruined the entire industry by over printing really terrible books.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: I don't think they overprinted Flex, Montalo, Mantalo. I mean, heck, they just.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: I have feeling it was one of the.
Yeah. You remember that character that's so popular now?
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Oh, that guy.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: I'm not naming names.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Helped ruin the comic industry.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: I mean, I thought he saved it.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: That was later. That was like the movies.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: That was later. When he came back later, it was much later. Chimichangas.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: No, I mean, all joking aside, I'll sit back up in my chair. The industry never recovered, Right?
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. It kind of tanked. And then it took a while to come back to Go.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Took a while and it came back, but it never. I mean, now if you get 40,000 books on a run, you're very, very, very happy.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: I mean. And you know, some of it's great for collectors because, like this book, this is a Liam Sharp cover of Absolute Batman. I couldn't even get the first printing because I didn't order it in time.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: And I ended up with like a third or fourth printing. So that. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I had to go back and buy that one in the aftermarket. I'm not going to tell you how much I spent on it because you'll just make fun of it.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: I won't make fun of you. Tell me how much.
No, he knows me too well, folks. But I mean, as a creator myself, like, I know sometimes it's like, if you can get a run printed, it's an amazing thing. And, you know, so.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: Well, here's the thing, too. If you all do a Kickstarter and do a small run of a thousand books, you're writing intimately to an audience. You know, we have been making a lot of fun of Grant Morrison and their writing in this book.
I was even poking fun at Frank Whiteley's art a little bit last issue just because there was one page in there that was beautiful, amazing. And I'm like, why isn't the rest of this like this? But it is the big thing here, I want to say. Yeah. I've also been digging into a lot of Seth Godin lately.
You're like, oh, no.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Oh, no, he's Godin.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: But yeah, he's. He's Godin. Yeah. But, you know, Seth Godin was talking about, like, as a creator.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: As a creative. Create to you.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: And the audience will come and, you know, don't create. Don't sell out. Don't create.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Make your own thing.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: I always think Grant takes us too far, but at the same time, you know, great. Right. Like, you all were able to do this with Starlight, where Starlight's not a book for everyone.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: No, it's not a book for everybody. And the people that do find it, when they do find it, it's. It's amazing because you don't realize how much it is something for a very specific. There are people that need this book, and you don't. You don't think about. I mean, you think about that as a writer, as a creator, but you don't.
You don't realize how much you're gonna impact somebody until they come up to you at a convention or find you eating a hamburger and they tell you how much they really enjoy it, you know, so it's like, oh, wow. But I'm pretty sure Grant Morrison, when he was writing this and putting a lot of himself into this, it was the same kind of thing. He was just putting a lot of stuff into it and.
And hoping to draw the people that needed this story to find it.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: It wasn't for you.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: And it doesn't compromise. Yeah, that's. That's one of the great things about the Vertigo imprint, too. It was a. Basically an indie imprint in dc, but they're allowing people to do short stories, try things out, and see how it works. Yeah, it's like.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: And I found, like, some. Some of the early Edward Riker stuff through Vertigo, and I was just like, this guy's fantastic. And, you know, it's like. It's just not like some of his original. Not, you know, like his original stuff. You know, it's like, oh, man. It's like, really good stuff. It's, like, super cool.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: And you have to give artists room to create. Not everything can be a hit, and in my mind, this is not a hit.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Well, and. And, you know, there's probably somebody out there that's listening to this podcast that's gonna take our suggestion to. From the last episode, to go check it out and make up your own mind. And they're gonna be like, this is exactly what I needed. This is the. The feast I was waiting for of weird and odd and everything in between. And it wasn't for Dan.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: I kind of like this cover. Yeah, it's A really. I kind of like the COVID It looks like a.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Like a hostage note.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Or.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: I like it because it's got the multiple, like, historical sort of like all the different logos on there logos and.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: You know, all the cool, like, snapshot pieces from different. Different clips of Flex and stuff to make up the singular image. It's. It's a really unique piece. It's really cool art.
And having it all put together like that, you get a really cool image.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: And also I like. I would love to see Todd Klein on his blog, analyze the logos here.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: And how they all. What they what. What the different kerning means and the.
The letters.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Yes. Like, legitimately.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah. No, no. It is interesting to hear people talk about that because as a person that doesn't know too much about it, when you have somebody knowledgeable in lettering and other things like that and logos and how it all works and fits together and how the design is, it's like, wow, there's this, this artistic style has so much depth to it, and you just glaze over it when you're looking at a book sometimes, but there's so much there.
So cool.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Well, here we go. We're already into Flexmantalo number four. Yeah.
I'm trying to come in here with a better attitude on this book, so I'll do my best. We flip the page and Snake is back.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Dan, you want to escape to LA with him?
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Can you explain to me Kurt Russell's appeal as an action star?
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Oh, man, do you don't understand why he's so appealing? Look at that mug.
So, so handsome. He's. He's got that. No, he's got that voice. Not, not that voice, but he's got the, the voice, the machismo. He's. He's just. He's got that. That thing about him that, that he just brings to the character. And you're just like, oh, he's so cool. And you're like, oh, man, I want to watch a movie with a minute. It doesn't matter if he's Snake Plissken or if he's this dad that just, like, found some lady that just fell off a boat and decided to make her into his wife for a weekend to take care of his kids while he goes out and drinks and stuff, which sounds really bad. That's a really bad plot to a movie. But, hey, they went a little overboard with it.
And then, you know, or if he's going to just, like, become Santa Claus with the same lady, and then they, they, they. They don't get married in real life, but they just have kids.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Were you. Were you talking?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I was. Oh, come on, Dan. You asked a question, I gave you an answer and you didn't like it. Just like this book. Let me tell you, Dan, Kurt Russell is awesome.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Oh, okay. And he's great.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Hey, you gotta. You gotta watch him in everything else that he's done. When he was younger. When he's older. When he's really young too. Plays a great computer.
I know. You're like, what?
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Well, it looks like we turned the page.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: He's a Disney kid, right?
[00:11:22] Speaker A: And we found the Legion of Legion.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Legion of Legion. Oh my God.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: We found Nanoman and Minimus.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Oh my God.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: We found the fake question. Who I've with? Is the. Is it the Eyeful Oracle? Sage?
What was this guy's name again?
[00:11:38] Speaker B: I don't know, man.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: You forgot his name. He has the power of third sight.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: I'm Third Eye Blind Dan.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Oh, God. Wow.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: All I gotta say is look at his photograph with your arms wide open.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: That's a different group. And that's worse, cuz I mashed up two songs.
Yeah, that. You, you, you. Oh, God.
What are you doing? Like, he's telling us that the parallel realities are being consumed and the poly verse is being destroyed. And you just named two bands that might have been eliminated in the poly verse.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: They did. They got eliminated, man.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's why they combined into one.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: They combined into one because you got to look at the photograph with your.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Arms wide open while thunder crashes.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Oh, an old man dies while the babies get down to the river.
I don't know.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: To pray.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Did we just put all those bands in one movie?
Because if they had made guest appearances.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: That would be such a crazy. Imagine if everybody was just playing. Like they just do a different thing and they just walk in and say a different line. But it's like.
And then I got nothing.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: What if they had replaced John Goodman as the Bible salesman?
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
Wait, what if he. What if. What if John Goodman comes in to sell Bibles, but he actually is doing another character from one of his older movies?
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Well, I don't know. Okay, the Legion of Legions are here.
And the Legion of Legions is not here to move people out of a flood zone in Tennessee.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: But they are here.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Ah.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: To talk to their teensy weensy little friends.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yes, they are.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: And it looks like we have the famous Legion lineup of the Fake Question. Flame Head Armor Guy. Monkey Guy.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Mental Head Zero Guy.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Diamond Head. Fire Head Fire Head. Brain Head.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: And Trope Guy.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Got them all.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: All right, so they're here.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So are my dogs.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: And Mini Miss. And Nanoman, of course. Homage to the. The famous couple in Marvel Comics, where the one person became a famous character movies, and then the other one sort of did, too, and. But in the comics, it was a bad relationship.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Oh, it's a bad relationship.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: We should definitely want to relive here.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: I know.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Oh, you didn't like that story either?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Not in the comics.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Well, then the Lord Limbo. The teleporter. Someone's coming through. Who's Lord Limbo? Lord Limbo, I want to say.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Ironically, though, in the movies, they fight a guy who is just as bad in real life as the portrait, as the comics portrayed the characters in the comics. Wow. Is that just a weird bend of.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Reality imitating a weird Bendis of reality?
[00:15:03] Speaker B: I see what you did there. You bend us like Beckman.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, now did. Yeah. It's like you had all the build up in that movie, and then there was really no payoff.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: I honestly, I mean, hey, he got to find his daughter.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: It was a Bendis story.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: He got to find his daughter.
His daughter was there all along.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, right.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Like on College humor, on Game Changers. I've been here all the time.
We have people crashing through like, it's a crisis.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: I watched the moon turn red and the crumble in the sky. Saw the seas boiling. By the way, we're on flex Metallo issue 4. If I didn't say that.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: If he didn't tell you already. It's issue four, everybody. Number four, as in the dad's phantoms.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Died a second death. No more sky oceans. They're very upset here. Oh, my gosh. Yellow suit guy says, look at it. The absolute rising. Like the dawn. Nothingness eating the universe, eating everything. It's finally happening. We can't do anything to stop it. I could run at light speed, but there's nowhere left to go. Oh, who died in the crisis? The Flash, Remember?
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah. The Flash, rest in peace.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: And this other guy, Trope Guy tells that guy we can't stop it. Gwiz. Is his name really G Dam Dash Whiz?
[00:16:33] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: What if his name was, like, Cheese Whiz?
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Delicious. You could put it on his Philly cheese steak.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: And his whole goal was to stand at the top of the satellite and Cheese Whiz out off the edge.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Off the edge. Like, Wait, what he. Like, he would turn into Cheese Whiz and Go off the edge. Or he would just, like, see Cheese.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Whiz off the edge.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Oh, Dan, you. You took it to another level. That is from Book Wiz, Dan. That's from book number three. Probably page number 22, where they're. Oh, the gold.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: That was back in the Cheese Whiz.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: Factory when they had the golden thing that I was like. I asked you about, and you're like, that's. No, skip that panel.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I just skipped that.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Yep. I. I went away tipped in gold, people.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Well, we're learning all about the quantisphere. I have. I have a feeling Grant Morrison here is having fun making fun of crisis here.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: And we see a guy that looks like the moon. He said, hold that in your minds. The key is the man in the moon. Engine failure. We're going down. Oh, the Legion of Legions is going down. The Legions of Legion. The Legion is fairly famous for crashing their. Their spaceships often.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: The key is Andy Kaufman go down a lot.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Okay.
The man in the Moon. Got it.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: I'm going to give you a hint on who it might be.
He might be himself. The moon.
The moon.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Kaufman. I mean. Well, I'm.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: No, that's been there all along.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And he. Kaufman, always playing a role, but being himself.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Well, they crash their ship into the earth and they say it's not death. Prepare to become fictional. This is right along. Andy Kroffman. And then we get an advertisement for the music from the Crow. City of Angels.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Wait.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: Featuring all of the great bands that were in the first.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Wait a minute. Wait. City of Angels? No, no, no. This. This is the sequel. This is the. The soundtrack was good. The movie was not so great.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Oh. Featuring the Murderer.
Oh, yeah.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: And then White Zombie. That's okay.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: And then White Zombie. Yeah.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: And Filter, PJ Harvey Bush, Tricky Gravediggers.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Did you know that Everclear is going to be playing at the Emerald Queen Casino in September?
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Really? Right after lit.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: No, that was before.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: I know.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: That was. I didn't go. I should have gone. We gotta go to Everclear, man.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: You know?
Okay.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: I'm gonna book this far ahead with you.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Okay. We'll go to Everclear. That'd be good. I mean, hey, there's a lot of great shows coming up, and we'll talk about one later.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Linda Perry is featuring Grace Slick. Hey, that's interesting. That's kind of cool. That's really cool.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: That I could be down with. I have to go back and listen to whatever song they did together.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: You got the writer of all pop hits plus the writer of White Rabbit.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Like done epic.
And then we get an advertisement. I have no idea what this is an advertisement for Biohazard.
Do you even know what this band is?
[00:19:55] Speaker B: Yes, I know this band.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Are they good?
[00:20:00] Speaker B: You have to like, like a very hard. Like a. Like kind of like a heavier music.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: I.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: It's.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Biohazard.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: You biohazard.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: We are biohazard.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: I don't think they would come out and say we are biohazard. Just like come out and just like start playing some thick.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Maybe just come out rhythms, you know, I'll dig out.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: I'll dig out a CD for you.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Are you aware that at. Not the Emerald Queen Casino, but at the Muckleshoot Casino, Jiu Jitsu, Lawyer Paul and I saw sticks.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Yes, I saw. I saw your.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Your post picture and Tommy shot. It's 71 years old. Looks like he's 40 and is still hitting the high notes.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. And Paul looked like he was renegadecular.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Man and man in the wilderness. Oh my God, it was. I was so happy.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: I want to distract myself from this book because we just murdered all of the legion of substitute heroes or the people that couldn't get in Legion. They're all dead now.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: They're all dead.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: That's pretty fitting. Then we just jump killed every. We've killed the industry and just stacked up the leftover shitty heroes on the side.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: And then, you know, they get into a boom tube and they're trying to figure out how to use it and then boom, they're gone place.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you might say that. They're coming to sail away.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: They're coming to sail. Say sail away.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Starship in the sky.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. They are.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: You could say that.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: You could say that.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: I mean, I would say that. I don't know. I don't know if you'd say that.
Well, our friend the detective and the hoaxer go in a teleporter boom tube and we get the multi universe version like we did on the COVID of Flex Mentalo. Grant Morrison, writer Frank quietly artist Tom McCraw, who I like Colorist. There we go. Yeah, he wrote Legion of Superhero.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: See, that's why. That's why it's such a good book for you, Dan.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: It's a terrible book. Ellie deville, Axel Alonso, editor. Axel.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Now, you edited this.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: You're really to blame, Axel.
I'm not blaming anybody else that did this book.
This Axel fellow read this and was like, man, this makes sense. You know what, Mr. Morrison, you can do whatever you want here.
And they said, sure, I will do whatever I want.
And Axl said, you just keep going right at it. And they said, absolutely. This is a good story.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: What if? What if?
[00:23:01] Speaker A: And Axel said, man, yeah, I agree. This is a good story. It's so meta and cool and nobody will get it.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Dan, what if there's an alternate to what you're saying where Grant was like, this is an eight issue miniseries. It's eight issues, and. And we're gonna do eight issues, and it's. It's gonna be this. And I need to do this type of thing for the arc and everything. And Axel's like, you know, I get what you're saying, Grant, but let's just put it into four issues.
Let's just.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: There was an alternate universe were in that eight issues. The book was so amazing that it made it into the comic book chronicles 1990 to 1999, and had, like, three pages about it.
So what if Axl actually destroyed the story by making it only four issues?
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, geez. See, here I'm trying to give you a good story where it was, like, even longer, but then it got truncated down, and that's why you have what you have. And. And that it could have been worse, but you didn't like that, and now you want to even.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: You know what's way more interesting in this book?
[00:24:09] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:24:12] Speaker A: Though he angered his business partners, Rob Liefield at least kept one friend happy in 1996.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, who is this?
[00:24:19] Speaker A: That friend was Alan Moore.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Oh, well.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: A man on a mission to change the tone and tenor of superhero comic books.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Nearly a decade after creating such works as Watchmen and V for Vendetta, Moore was now feeling a fair amount of regret for ushering in an era of dark, cynical comic book stories.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Yeah, okay.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: See, that's just all they're talking about here.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: I see.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Well, last issue. Last issue.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: See?
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, anyway, I remember struggling towards the teleport tube and Faculty X and stuff. And stuff happening. Did we mention we're not going page by page?
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah, we're just going to jump forward. But I do have something for you that you can play that you can use for your exercises and your help to get you to ABS. To ABS at 50.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: ABS at 50. And to another podcast with Jiu Jitsu lawyer Paul Boudreau. And I. I found something comes out every two.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: I think it's going to Help you? I want you to have Just Dance for Kids so you can use it on your Wii.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Oh, I have. I have a bunch of just dances.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: No, no, this is Just Dance for Kids. It's more your speed, more your style.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: What songs are on there?
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Great songs. All the hits, but sung by children.
That sounds. That sounds even weirder when I say it out loud.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: Are you sure that's not from issue three of this book, too?
[00:25:44] Speaker B: So. So it's one of those, like.
It's like Kidz Bop.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Well, Vic Sage here. Vic Sage is not Vic Sage. Wallace Sage isn't doing so well. He's got his car phone.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he's doing bad.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Literally. A car phone.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: It's a car phone.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: And he's on his kitchen floor and he's got M&Ms. In a medicine bottle and he's like, throwing up and stuff. And he goes back outside. Now he's wandering through the city, but.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: That just means he wasn't taking a bunch of. A bunch of pain meds.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: He's eating, and a little kid gives him binoculars. But the little kid is him. Remember, it's meta because the little kid is him.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: It's him.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: And then he meets up with his superhero, which is the guy with the.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Eye on his head. It was him all along.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: And he says the magic word. And then we get a commercial for Advertisement for Nada. Surf and Reach Around.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: I'm just asking, was the music industry just in as bad shape as the comic book industry at this point the time?
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Well, I mean, not a surf. That's a good album. Reach Around. Never heard of it. Just sounds. It sounds like an interesting. I don't know, is it the band's name or. Yeah, it's got to be the band.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Yes, that's. That's the band's name. The album is called who's Tommy Cooper?
[00:27:02] Speaker B: It have been the. It could have been the band's name. Who's Tommy Cooper?
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Not a surf's album is called High Low.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's the one with Popular on it.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: We get another advertisement for When Nature Calls.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Of all the. Of all the movies. You'd want to advertise in this Grant Morrison comic book. Yeah, it's definitely this one. I mean, I can't think of two things that fit together better.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: Oh, Ace Ventura. Nature Calls.
Yeah.
I don't know.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Well, anyway, we're on to the next page. And the young kid is aging as he grows up in comics with his beloved superhero. I kind of love that. At least they're walking through the multiverse and the miniverse and everything else.
And then the little kid now bounces out of that narrative and appears to Sage. Wallace Sage. I'm assuming this is Wallace Sage. Who knows? I don't think they ever say, except in the back matter, so it's confusing. And he says, hey, Flexman, Tal is in trouble and you've got to save him.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Save him.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: And so Flex Mentalo makes it, and he finds the big baddie villain.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: The moon.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: The man in the moon.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Oh, the man in the moon. Handy coffin, everybody. He's gonna give him cookies, but no milk or something like that.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Are you sure? Or is it just like a. Is it just like, you know, rems Descent and then rise again, and then.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Descent they rose again.
No.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's great. It starts with earthquakes.
Birds, milkshakes.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Earthquakes, milkshakes.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Yeah, I have a hurricane. Yeah, got a hurricane. Oh, well, this so story here. Yeah, it's all that.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: All that and. Yeah, no, the.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: The.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Oh, the fact. It was the fact, that's who.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but the fact got lost in time and he became the man on the moon.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: And now they're making fun of the Legion of Superheroes. The Time Trapper. Going through many iterations. Yeah, and now they're making fun of kryptonite again because they found the black kryptonite, which was used to, I gotta say though, murder this lad. The what is Gold Kryptonite do again? Do you know?
[00:29:26] Speaker B: No.
Makes you, like, chopping channel.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Takes your powers away. Oh, forever.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Okay, so black kryptonite.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: So if you're exposed to gold kryptonite, you could just like. If Clark Kent really wanted to be Clark Kent and not be the savior of the world, he could have just been exposed to gold kryptonite and gone on his life choices.
Right, but. So he makes the conscious choice to endanger his wife, his son, his everything by not. Not doing that. He knows that's a possibility.
Well, anyway, I don't even remember what black Kryptonite was supposed to do. Green kryptonite kills you. Orange, Red kryptonite changes your powers and stuff.
We know what pink Kryptonite does.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: This bottom panel, though, looks like it fell out of Pulp Fiction.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it does.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: We've got the hoaxer.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: I love the panel.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: You love the panel? You know, it does. The art is, you know, the arts again, we probably under covered the art here. The art's good. I mean, I like that beautiful art in that one pant. That one piece. But, you know, the art's really good, obviously. Frank quietly is really good.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a. It's a great piece.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: But here's what makes it not a great piece, because the story, like, it needs to be coherent through the art, too.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Well, and the bouncing back and forth. I do think it starts to become more coherent in the fourth issue here.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, it starts to make more sense when our. Our narrator. Our narrator is kind of sobering up a little bit and kind of becoming more cohesive in his. In his bit. And then he's talking to himself. Talking to himself. Talking to himself.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Talking like a dream within a dream within a dream. Like from my favorite movie.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Dude, let me tell you about this movie I saw. Oh, my gosh. Okay.
It's gonna blow your mind.
This guy, he's got this idea about doing something, but he doesn't want to do it, so he's procrastinating about doing it because somebody told him that he had to do this thing. But then he was told that if he did that thing, then he would have to do something else so that he started to procrastinate about doing the other thing.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Sounds like my life.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: So he was procrastinating. It's called procrastination. It's all because somebody put the idea in his head to procrastinate. But what happens is he's the one that did the idea inside his own head. He procrastinated himself.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: Well, if you flip the page, we have something really cool. We have, like, Stephen T. Stephen T. Siegel and Teddy Christensen doing House of Secrets.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Hey, that's pretty cool.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Procrastination.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: I wish we were reading that right now.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Nah, we'll do it later.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: All right.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Procrastination.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I noticed. I went with you on the joke, and then you ruined it, like I just said. Yeah. And I finally, like, hit on one of your jokes and, like, continued the narrative.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: And then you shut it down. I'm really sad right now because I finally, for the first time ever, maybe in this. The history of this entire podcast, actually picked up on what you were doing and extended it.
And then you killed it.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: What?
[00:32:58] Speaker A: No, you killed it dead.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: How did I kill it?
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Well, young Mr. Wallace is guiding the superhero version of him, and they're telling the story of what's happening.
And then old Mr. Wallace is dying.
Mr. Wallace Sage, that is.
And then.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Got leaky pipes inside.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: They go back to fighting the man on the moon.
And he turns the hoaxer into a box.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: He crashes him.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of that very first issue of omac. Yeah, with the weird lady box robots.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we bigger boxed.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Either that or the episode of south park where the guy at the Amazon Fulfillment center turned into a box.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: I mean, that could happen.
I've seen those videos where the people get strapped down to the table where they're trying to fix the thing, like. And then all of a sudden the strapping machines just start strapping them down and they get stuck.
Not an Amazon, but other places.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, seems scary. Make sure we say it. That wasn't at Amazon.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: It's a fully safe place. I've seen the fails.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: It's not at Amazon.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Not that I've seen.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: It does not. We don't have them.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: I mean, they don't have seen. I've seen their videos. They look safe.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: They don't have those.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: They don't have those types of machines. The strapping.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: I don't know, actually. I don't know if they do or not.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: But anyways. And then. And then the main man. The main man tries to make fat John Travolta shoot himself in the head.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Oh, the hoaxer's back. Wait, he's not in his box.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: He's not in his box.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: He hoaxed him.
The moon man is Mr. Sage.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Oh, man. All along.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: All along, it was the writer that was ruining everything.
I knew this. It's because you didn't put phone. Phone numbers. Page numbers.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Wait.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: In your comic, if.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Me?
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Oh, I'm sorry.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: You were the villain.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: We were gonna do it later, but we procrastinated.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: I'm not. The joke's over.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Wait.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Hero of the beach. Yes. Flex. Flexes, becomes the hero of the beach, defeats the bad guy. Who is the writer? He asked the writer to come back up.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: I love. At the bottom of the next page, we get Scott Pilgrim. This is so cool.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And we find out it was M and Ms. That killed him.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I mean, if you eat too many.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: And more importantly, M and M's, if you do eat too many, that could be a detriment to your health. I used to eat a lot of M&M's.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Or if you got a peanut allergy and you start eating those peanut ones. Or if you go to your grandma's house and she offers you peanuts and you start eating them and then you realize that they're just peanut M&MS. That she's been pulling off all the candy and the chocolate off of.
And then putting them peanuts.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: By the way, that's a mighty fine hoodie you have.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Well, thank you. It's a funny book forensics hoodie for those who can't see on the YouTubes. And if you're just listening to this on audio like a plebeian. Just joking.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Well, you should do that. I mean, us on video is not that.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: No, it's not. It's not appealing at all. Nobody wants. If you're at work, at your day job or whatever in the car and you just want to listen to a. A cool sound thing, then. Yeah. Let's tell you about these cool hoodies that we have. Dan has a cool funny books forensics hoodie. I have a cool funny book forensics hoodie.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: I have a funny book forensic beanie.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: And I have a funny book forensics dad hat. That's right, it's a dad hat. I'm not even a dad.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: I. I had to get a flat bill one. Well, anyway, the.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: You two can have one of these.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: We find out products, we find out more, Ask us more, we'll get you these. Or you can buy them a nominal fee. 1,000,000 px will purchase them for you.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: Yes, MXPX will purchase them for you.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: Just like they give Greg CDs for his books.
So we found out that this whole story is stupid and annoying because the punchline is that.
The punchline is that when he was a really little kid, he had a sleigh that he played in the snow with called Rosebud. And he was so sad about not getting to play in the snow anymore and being taken away from his mom and going to live in the big city that he bought a newspaper empire and he tried to run for governor and president and. And then ruined everybody's lives around him and then died in a giant like Xanadu place. And then.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Oh, man, at the end, is that going to happen?
[00:37:41] Speaker A: That Rosebud was the reason everything was bad and why his life was so sad and that's what he thought about.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Wow, that sounds like a real story.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
And then here we found. I mean, the moon lamp where he read the comic books is what ruined his life.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: And then he died and stuff and he found the bomb thing and he ends up being the bad guy. And then Flex is looking at the earth and stuff. And then there's a cat. And that's the end.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: That is the end.
Well, I for one can say that I'm glad we're done with this.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Oh, it's not the end.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Oh, son of what?
[00:38:32] Speaker A: He lived.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
He did. He did. He lived. And then he found a crossword puzzle. He found the magic word. And guess what happened, folks? He said, just like when you're on Wheel of Fortune and you say. And you. And you get the phrase right. But this time, he didn't win. I mean, he did.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: And then it says, brace yourself for total reality.
Last call for Flight 230. They're coming through. Thank you for your participation. He says in his new superhero suit, he flies away from his girlfriend and his cat with the butts of all the other superheroes.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Butts.
Hey, it's Grimboar.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an extra special Grimboar mix.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: He doesn't have as many chains, but he definitely has a lot.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: He has a lot of straps.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: A lot of straps.
That's a strapping Lad.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: He is very strapping. That's probably. His name is probably Strapping Lad.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Strapping Lad.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: In fact, Strapping Lad's origin. You were talking about it earlier in the podcast. He was on a strapping machine.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: Oh, okay. And then it just strapped him right up.
[00:39:48] Speaker A: And then the magical straps came around his system. And then we've got the Back Matter Part two that I was accidentally reading from last podcast, thinking it was in the last issue, but gave away the ending. But, yeah, he doesn't die. I don't know.
I do know. By the way, we get it added for Joe's Apartment, one of Greg's favorite movies, actually.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: That is a really. Okay. That is the topper to this whole entire thing.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: I wasn't joking.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: I was like, that movie came out and. And I was like. I think I was living in that second apartment in Longview, the one that I moved. I moved from.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: It was kind of like Joe's Apartment.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: It was like Joe's apartment. I mean, behind the Chinese restaurant and Burger King, where all sorts of weird stuff was all over there. It was great.
And I say great in the worst, best way.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: I think the best line at the bottom of this back matter is it says. Which brings us full circle as Flexman Tallow returns once more to his own spectacular series and launches the sparkling new age of superheroes.
Yeah. No.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: But good news.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: Besides the Crow City of angels coming in August 30th, which. No. God, why did they do that?
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Big letdown.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Free DC Comics online starter kit. 1-800-203-2600. Have a computer, Got a modem? You, too, can get on American Online and talk to DC Creators. Hell yeah, let's. Let's go through DC Comics here lists all of the people that. That, that are their executives and who were very proud of this book. So Jeanette Kahn, of course, was the president and editor in chief. Paul Levitz, my Legion writer and former Facebook friend. When I had my old account and probably could get on there again, that was cool.
Executive vice president and publisher Karen Berger, famous editor of the whole. Executive editor of the whole Vertigo line. I blame all of you right now for this.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: For this. Oh, Dan. Yes, Angry Dan.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: So mad.
I was very positive during most of this podcast. But just why. Why did. Why did this happen?
[00:42:03] Speaker B: Because people wanted this story at that time. It was a. I was an interesting book. It wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't my least favorite thing I've read.
Yeah, there's been a few stinkers out there, Dan, and we know what they are. This wasn't the worst thing.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Is it the least favorite thing you've read on the podcast, or have we read worse things on the podcast?
[00:42:25] Speaker B: We've read worse things.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: You mean bondage? Bondage. Bondage. Wonder Woman.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: That was pretty bad.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: 1.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: That was pretty bad.
[00:42:33] Speaker A: That's pretty terrible.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: It's pretty terrible.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Wonder Woman Christmas Story. Yeah.
I can only be released from my.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: Bonds if I. Yeah, that was not good.
There's. There's been some bits and pieces that are far worse that even if they're even like five or six pages.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Were accidentally reading a comic book by.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yes, 100%.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: That was worse. But the story was not worse.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: The story wasn't worse, but the book itself, just because of the touch.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Well, the feeling of reading it. Yes. Is worse, but the story was not worse.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Yeah, but, you know, it's just some things you just.
You just gotta.
This.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: This is. This was well down to Strapping Ladies. I.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: This one down to Strip.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: That's a good summary. That's a good summary for the whole book right there. Just kind of gross and icky.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: I liked there was some very interesting art choices that made the book itself very neat and interesting. It brought a lot of stuff out there. It made you dig into comic book history. If you wanted to go that route, or if you just wanted to read it as a standalone, hey, this is just a really interesting read. I'm just going to jump into it.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Feet first and go say, wanted to, you know, hey, you know, after reading this, who wanted to read this as a standalone? Like, who. Who is the target audience for this book in 1996?
[00:44:06] Speaker B: I could be anybody. Could be Anybody, Dan.
Somebody. Just going, I am wanting a book that's different and unique and I just don't know what I want to spend my dollars on.
[00:44:22] Speaker A: Somebody once told me the world is gonna own me.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.
So I bought this book called Flex Mentality.
My finger and my thumb.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: My thumb.
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:37] Speaker A: The shape of an L.
I. Yeah. I mean, so I, I go through one of the worst songs ever made.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:44] Speaker A: And we get into this.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: I, I mean, it's by one of the worst bands.
Well, this is a, this is a book.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a book. And you too can have the opportunity to read it if you wish and make up your own mind and decision to, to either read it or to. And if you do, tell us what, Tell us what you think. Tell us how it makes you feel.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: After all, they're making like, you know, like I said, they're releasing it as a trade.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Pick it up.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Let us know. Tell, tell me, tell me how you know. This is your chance to put me in my place. Tell Greg how smart he is.
And I'm trying to be positive.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: Trying to be positive.
Yeah.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: I mean, well, now this is your chance. Like all those times I've said something and you didn't like it on the podcast or they didn't like it on the podcast, now is the time to let me know how quite stupid I am.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, no, no, don't tell Dan that, cuz it'll leave us a five.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Star review and take your shots.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: Yeah, leave us five star review and just say dumb, stupid.
[00:45:49] Speaker A: I hate this guy.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: I hate this pic. But the, the, it was an entertaining.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: The worst podcaster in the entire world.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: No, no, no, don't say, don't say that. Don't say we're bad. Just the pick was bad.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: Oh, it's so good though. Like, it's so good.
Oh, yeah, it was. You know, if I was picking best comic of 1996.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Best comic of 1996.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: It would be Speed Racer. A run for. Between this.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: And all the breasts on the characters in Gen 13.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: Oh my gosh.
No.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: What? I mean, did I say something wrong?
[00:46:37] Speaker B: I just don't, I, I, I don't think that's your thing, dude.
[00:46:43] Speaker A: What were the big, what were the big hits in 1996 for comics?
[00:46:50] Speaker B: Let's see. Yeah.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Kabuki. The industry was in a free fall. Kabuki.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Kabuki came out a little bit later, but it wasn't really that it wasn't for anything.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Was. Was kingdom come 96.
Cuz I believe if it was 96 and not 97, that would be it. Right?
[00:47:08] Speaker B: 96. 97. About that time.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: We'Re going to zero hour here. Impulse was a good book.
[00:47:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: Fun book.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Impulse.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: A lot of people don't like Impulse in retrospect, but they had cool cards.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: No, that was fantasm. F.
Not fantasm.
Something.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: He had really big feet.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: What? What? Okay, what is it? What's your pick?
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Oh, God.
Well, the Onslaught storyline.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: No, no.
I mean, you may be a fan and that one's.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: I mean, I might have had a book or two, but no.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: Oh, I had them all. They were just. Wasn't particularly great.
There was a Star Trek Savage crossover, which I have not read.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: I mean, Savage Dragon Man.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: It's not a dragon. Is persistent through time.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's just good stuff, but I mean, it's just interesting.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: You had the Versus universe, the Batman versus Captain America, Hulk versus Superman, and you had the mashup, didn't you? Yeah, the whole spider boy.
It's now a whole different character. I'm just looking through. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna say 96 was not.
Oh, hold up.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: Hold spaghetti.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Hang on one second. I'm gonna go back to this.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: It's got something, folks.
[00:48:36] Speaker A: One second.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: What is it? He's got it.
[00:48:39] Speaker A: We've got the Superman marriage. Kingdom come was 96. So I'm gonna make a probably argument that that was probably the best book of 1996.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, now that you.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: Now that you, Alan Moore started writing supreme in 1996.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Pretty strong effort, but I'm gonna go back here. Clearly the best book that I have never read and that we need to get a hold of immediately.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: Okay. What is it? Fried a kid.
[00:49:08] Speaker A: The Savage Dragon. Yeah. Savage Dragon.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:49:11] Speaker A: Destroyer Duck. Oh, one.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Shut up.
Okay. Yeah, no, we're gonna find it, folks.
If, you know, if you have this book, if you know that this.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: You can send it to me.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Yeah. If it belongs in your collection and you want to part with it.
[00:49:31] Speaker A: Let's talk.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Let's talk.
All right. Because we're looking for.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: I think the best thing here too, is apparently Howard the Duck teamed up with Spider man in Spider Man. Team up.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: Ah. All right.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: Same year, in the same year that Destroyer Duck teamed up with Savage Dragon.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Stick.
As the kids would say. Let's go.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: Let's, let's. All right.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: Let's make this happen.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: Hey, this is why you read things, folks. Because I bet if I Internet search for hours, I would never find Savage Dragon and Destroyer Duck. In fact.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: You know, there is a podcast out there called the Savage Fin Cast, all about Savage Dragon.
Yes.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: And I believe if we reached out.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: They would do a little talk to that.
[00:50:21] Speaker A: I may be doing some research. I may be doing this right now as we podcast.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: Dan's busy. Hey, I may be writing out to Jim Purcell if you ever decide to listen to our podcast.
I do like you on the legion of substitute podcasters. Haven't been as much into the Savage Fin cast just because I'm not a giant Savage Dragon fan, but I bet if I remember, I gotta leave myself a note to tag Jim Purcell in our post. He may give us. He may point us to this issue.
[00:50:53] Speaker B: Okay, very cool. I mean, all right.
I'd be very interested in checking it out.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: You're all choked up about it.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: I am all choked up about it. Kids, like they say, reading is fun.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: And mental, and writers are just mental.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Yeah. What? Yes. No. Yeah.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, Greg, you do things, huh? Like you write books? Yeah, they're called Absolute Zero.
[00:51:21] Speaker B: That cough is back.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Absolute Zero's Camp Launchpad, Junior Braves of the Apocalypse, Starlight and Other Stories by our favorite coughing author, Greg Smith, or Mr. G.K. wordsmith.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's me trying not to cough.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: And I'm Dan I sidekick Greg and make podcasts like abs at 50 with Jiu Jitsu lawyer Paul Boudreaux. You can find Greg at the Retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington, often.
[00:51:51] Speaker B: Yes, it's very true.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: Sometimes even in a suit.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: What suit?
[00:51:57] Speaker A: A Sasquatch suit.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: What? No. No, no, no. Although, who knows, maybe I might be wearing one on the. No, I don't think I can wear it on the 14th.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: And at the Retro Emporium in Kent, Washington in April, there's going to be a special appearance. I'm so excited. Greg will be doing a signing in April.
He's going to be signing Michael Tanner. Probably is even coming down. Actually, they're going to be signing Absolute Zero's Camp Launchpad and they've got a special guest band. I'm so excited. It's the best ever. They're going to be giving away CDs with every signed copy of the book. MXPX is going to be appearing at the Retro import. You've heard it here first. I've got news fresh from the Internet. I posted a response and made it true. MXPX will be Appearing at the Retro Emporium now.
[00:52:47] Speaker B: So let me, let me, just, let me, let me, let me step this back for a second.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: What?
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Let's step this back, actually.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: What?
[00:52:53] Speaker B: On the 12th. On the 12th, Michael Tanner and I will be at the. At the Museum of flight on April.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: 12Th at the Museum of Flight. Museum of Flight. Books about space.
[00:53:08] Speaker B: Yes. Absolute zeros. We'll be doing an author talk for Yuri's Day.
[00:53:12] Speaker A: Will MXPX be there?
[00:53:14] Speaker B: MXPX will not be there, but we will be there. So if you want to come meet Michael and I, you can come out on April 12th. April 12th to the museum of Flight, the Boeing Museum of Flight just outside of Seattle, Washington, and come and meet us there on April 12th.
[00:53:29] Speaker A: That's a Saturday.
[00:53:30] Speaker B: That is a Saturday. And on April 13th, if you want to come to the Retro Emporium and see Green Jelly, AKA Green Jello, you can come on down. There are prices on the Retro Emporium Facebook page and Instagram, so.
[00:53:48] Speaker A: Really? Yes. A green Jello is always the shitty Jello. That's the hospital jello they would give you.
[00:53:53] Speaker B: It's delicious. It tastes like lime or something else.
[00:53:57] Speaker A: Tastes like horse hooves.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Well, yeah, of course. That's what jello is made of.
That's why it makes you so dry.
[00:54:04] Speaker A: That's where Boxer, the horse went in Animal Farm.
[00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah, to the jello factory. Duh. And also to make steaks.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: Those pigs were such.
[00:54:15] Speaker B: A. I don't know. I mean, in other places they eat horse.
Except for in America, pigs were jerks.
[00:54:22] Speaker A: The pigs were jerks. Well, anyway, so Green Jelly is going to be appearing. So wait, that's a big weekend. So on the top.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: It is a big weekend. Yes.
[00:54:29] Speaker A: You are appearing at the Museum of Flight.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: Yes, the Museum of Flight.
Yeah. So, you know. Wait, so I. In the last episode. Last episode, I complained. Not complained, I discussed, I shared about not being. Not, not going to convention or to the Emerald City Comic Con. But at the same time, I wasn't too. I wasn't too concerned about not appearing there because I am. I moved on from conventions, or at least some conventions, because I'm doing museums now, folks. Just joking.
[00:55:00] Speaker A: Oh, you're so old that you're not doing museums?
[00:55:03] Speaker B: No, no, I, I, that's what it is. Yes. I do museums and bookstores and other things like that.
[00:55:09] Speaker A: Okay, so the 12th at the Museum of Flight and the 13th at the Retro Emporium. If you're around the Seattle Tacoma area or you just want to fly in to see Green Jelly.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: Yeah, Green Jelly they're going to be.
[00:55:20] Speaker A: At the Retro Emporium.
[00:55:21] Speaker B: It's such a crazy pull.
It's so wild.
They're on tour right now and they're making this one of their stops. So what better place to have them than at the Retro Emporium? My wife is super excited and has worked some super awesome magic with some other cool stops on their, on their trip. And we are, we're gonna be doing a meet and greet.
[00:55:45] Speaker A: I'm assuming I have to go buy a ticket.
[00:55:47] Speaker B: So it's 20. It's $20 to bring in an item and get it signed. It is $30 to buy a CD and get that signed. And it is.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: What if I just want to hear them play?
[00:55:58] Speaker B: Well then you'd have to go to one of their concerts at one of their concert locations. Unless they do play some music at the store, which I don't know if that's going to happen or not. I can't say. I can't confirm or deny because, well, all I know is that they're right now, as of Today, we know 100% they're going to be there and this is what they're going to be doing.
Meet and greet, signing CDs, signing any of your items. $20 starting, $30 for CDs or $20 $20 start for any of your items. $30 for CDs, $40 for your albums. So.
So for your, for your records. So. Yeah, so that is what I know.
But dad, that. Who knows what could happen?
Expect the unexpected at the Retro Emporium. We just don't know. They might just show up and decide they're gonna send it. Yo.
[00:56:58] Speaker A: Well it's, I mean, you never know. Yeah, I mean they, they could be.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: I mean I've been a fan since I was like 13 years old. So for the 13 year old kid in me, like to get to go and do like a talk at one of my favorite air and space museums, like that I grew up at, like. And then to have green jello at my store is just like a weekend of awesome. So.
[00:57:27] Speaker A: Well, here's the thing. Green Jelly is going to be playing at Tony V's garage in Everett on the 12th. So you could go there and then you don't need a backstage pass because the literal next day you could come to the Retro Emporium and see them in person and hang out.
They're also playing in Portland on the 11th.
[00:57:48] Speaker B: So it's boom, boom, boom.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: They're playing in Klamath falls on the 18th. They had to take A break in between.
[00:57:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they're playing.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: No, I don't know. I. I kind of feel like if they'll play in Tony V's garage.
[00:58:04] Speaker B: Just sitting. Just pulling up at. Tony V's playing in his garage. No, they're playing at our friend down at the. The Retro. The.
Why can't I think of their name? The Retro.
They're meeting up down at the. The spot down in Plymouth Falls.
That is down there, so.
And it's pretty cool. So.
[00:58:29] Speaker A: Oh, I have a special guest here.
[00:58:32] Speaker B: To end the podcast.
[00:58:35] Speaker A: She came down to greet the Amazon delivery person. Now she does. Toa. Mr. Toa. Come here, Toa, come here. Come on, buddy. We have two special guests.
[00:58:47] Speaker B: Hey, Julia. Toa.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: All right, well, that's a good way to end the podcast. Two guests to honor your guests and we'll get out of here. But we're back on a roll, so we'll be back. Next time we will be reading Jimmy Olsen number 133. Jack Kirby comes to DC Comics and says, give me your lowest selling book.
[00:59:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:13] Speaker A: And what was their lowest selling book? Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen. Yeah. And Jack Kirby takes it over. And they had Al Plastino draw Superman's face over Jack Kirby.
[00:59:27] Speaker B: Wow.
Rough.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: Well, anyway, Jack Kirby, Jimmy Olsen. Craziness is it. In the next couple weeks, we're gonna get the first cameo appearance of Darkseid.
[00:59:41] Speaker B: I got a question, Dan. Is it because Jimmy Olsen has a duck bill and Jack Kirby can't draw it?
[00:59:47] Speaker A: Oh, that's a good point. He didn't not like drawing the duck bills.
[00:59:51] Speaker B: That's what we call. That's what we call a.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: That's what we call a callback.
[00:59:57] Speaker B: Callback. Yeah, that's my, my. I'm getting all these messages underneath the actual, like the. The podcast, and I'm like, what's. What?
[01:00:09] Speaker A: Well, it's all good. We're good. So we're ready. You're getting messages. We need to go. But if you want to keep up with us, grab the DC Infinite app. You could also probably grab. I did not check, but I'm pretty sure it's in the omnibus. I was holding up and last week and. Yeah, in fact, we'll have to check that because if it's in the omnibus, we can both read out of our Omnibi Omnibus.
Omnibi Omnibuses. Omnibus.
[01:00:36] Speaker B: Omnibus.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: And the reason we're doing this is because I. The reason we're reading these is because I got a book from Tomorrows about the fourth world and its creation. And I Greg definitely did not get some Jimmy Olsen comics on an auction.
[01:00:55] Speaker B: Ah, Dan, been buying some books again. Dan, we talked about this.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: I know. If you look behind me, I know everybody's shocked to find out that I would buy comic books.
[01:01:06] Speaker B: Dan.
[01:01:08] Speaker A: And we may. I do have another announcement. We will probably be starting a short segment soon called Dan Reads Comics or Dan Reads a Comic.
And literally right back here in the comic book chair. I'll have the camera set up, I will read a comic, and then I will spend like a minute talking about it. Hey, you're going to love it. Dan reads a comic. No rhyme or reason. I just. You just find out what I read that day.
I mean, if Tom Green. Not the Tom Green, but the Tom Green wrestling guy can do it with like wrestling characters from the 90s.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: Uh huh.
[01:01:47] Speaker A: I can do it. It's a comic book.
[01:01:49] Speaker B: Well, Tom Green could do it.
[01:01:51] Speaker A: It's not the Tom Green.
[01:01:52] Speaker B: No, but the Tom Green could do it.
[01:01:55] Speaker A: Well, yeah, that Tom Green could probably do it too. I think his podcasting days are over.
[01:01:58] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[01:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah, he gets, he gets the full blame for Joe Rogan's current state, right?
[01:02:04] Speaker B: Oh, does he?
[01:02:05] Speaker A: I think so. No, he's the one that introduced Joe Rogan to podcasting.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: The Tom Green.
Okay, anyways. Well, anyway, I look forward to year.
[01:02:17] Speaker A: We don't want to make this political here.
Things are going so well in the economy.
[01:02:22] Speaker B: No, no, no, no.
The 201k.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah, did you hear? All right, we promised to end this podcast soon because we need to go, but Swastikar. That's got to be one of my favorites.
[01:02:38] Speaker B: My grandma even laughs.
[01:02:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's. I heard people are like changing the emblems on their Teslas because that's going to magically make them different. That is literally this frickin story we read.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: It's true.
[01:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like alternate universes. Anyway, well, anyway, not to get it political, but it's.
You know what? I am going to make it political for one second.
[01:03:02] Speaker B: Okay, one.
[01:03:03] Speaker A: And I just want to say we only have like five listeners, which is fine, but if you're struggling and you're having a hard time right now, listen to our stuff, read a comic, sit back. And I'm not saying, like, try to escape reality. The other thing I want to tell people, and I gave this advice to some friends the other day, focus on the things that can actually be done and not everything that's going to get overturned by the courts.
[01:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:30] Speaker A: If, you know, it's a power. We've given the president and you're concerned. Be concerned about that and wash away the noise, because then you can actually focus on the things that are a problem.
And I will share that with you. We're gonna keep reading comics, though. We're gonna be right here for you. If you wanna send a political note to either of us, we're happy to talk to you about it. You know why? Because we love you and we want you to make it through this time too. It's tough for everybody. So I'm gonna end on that note today because I feel like I need to say it. It's tough times and we haven't been on the air, but we're here. And if you want to send Greg or I a note and just, you know, if you want to chat, if you're our friends or, you know, us, you want to chat through something, call us up. We'll happily chat through it with you.
[01:04:11] Speaker B: And I was just going to tack on to what you just said too, dude. And if you. If you feel like things are tough and you want to take action, take action in your community. That's where you got to start.
So. So do those things and rally around the people around you, because I'm gonna.
[01:04:27] Speaker A: Take action in my community coming up here pretty soon. Yeah. One of my congress folks or senators is proposing a car tax in Washington to tax electric vehicles by the mile and like, eventually put meters in vehicles. And you know what? That may be the right solution, but I feel like there's a better one. And I'm gonna go to a town hall and ask. That doesn't seem right.
[01:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:48] Speaker A: And I'm gonna ask. And you know what? I bet a couple of you are saying, Dan, you're crazy. That is the right solution.
Because they're not paying for gas and they're not paying for taxes. And I'm kind of like thinking, well, we probably should reward the people that got the electric cars because they're probably better for the environment long term.
[01:05:04] Speaker B: But if you're paying for electricity, you're still paying taxes on electricity and you're paying for resources.
[01:05:08] Speaker A: Or maybe we tax that or maybe we figure out something else, but maybe I don't think that's the right solution. And you know what? Those are things in our community that directly impact us. So like Greg said, pay attention to what's going on right here. Act on the things around you.
[01:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:22] Speaker A: And then you don't. You don't get sucked into some of this other noise. And for God's sake, don't Watch MSNBC or Fox News. Or don't watch either of them.
[01:05:35] Speaker B: The Weather Channel. I hear the Weather Channel is fantastic this time of year.
[01:05:39] Speaker A: Read a nice Associated Press article. Read something with some fucking journalistic integrity, like King Falls Am. Yes.
[01:05:46] Speaker B: King Falls am. If you're looking for a good radio station to just tune into and zone out to King Falls am, I take you away.
[01:05:53] Speaker A: We're advertising a podcast that's been off that they were done with, like five years ago.
[01:05:57] Speaker B: Years ago. So if you want to escape, though, that'll take you there.
[01:06:02] Speaker A: Jack in the Box Jesus.
[01:06:03] Speaker B: Jack in the Box Jesus.
[01:06:08] Speaker A: Burger King of Kings. Anyway, we will. Well, we're signing off now, but, yeah, hang in there. If you're struggling and, you know, if you need to reach out, reach out to either of us. You can find us on Facebook, Blue Sky, Instagram, and soon in some YouTube shorts. Yeah, as I get that set up over the next couple months, I'm wearing them right now.
[01:06:31] Speaker B: YouTube shorts.
[01:06:32] Speaker A: Yep. I man, my YouTube shorts don't seem to have a back to them.
[01:06:37] Speaker B: Okay, cool. YouTube chaps.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, well, so we call assless YouTube coming up next month. Just. No but at all.
No buts in that one.
[01:06:50] Speaker B: No buts about it, Dan.
And on that note, well, that's it.
[01:06:56] Speaker A: So we're signing off. I hope we came. I tried to come in with a better attitude on this episode because we're wrapping up. I think I'm just really ecstatic that we're wrapping up the whole thing. So it's done. No more Grant Morrison. We're on to some crazy Jack Kirby D.C. stuff, and we'll be hitting that. So we will talk to you soon. Bye.
