Funny Book Forensics 406 Fantastic Decisions

[00:00:06] Speaker A: So when Greg's not here, we don't do the Wayne's World. I don't have to worry about Travis, like counting down with his face or his hands. It's probably a good thing. [00:00:17] Speaker B: Okay. Ready, Travis? [00:00:20] Speaker A: We're already. We're already going. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:00:23] Speaker A: It is like when Greg is on now. [00:00:27] Speaker B: What do I do? What do I do? What are these? I was waiting for. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Well, since we talked for an hour and 40 minutes on the first podcast where you were a guest, I. I think this will be shorter. A little bit. I think we covered every lead up to Power Pack we could possibly think of. Though we did make a mistake on the last podcast since we were reading and both reading out of a graphic novel. I. I apparently can't read the liner notes. And the issue we did last time was not into the Storm issue one, but it was indeed a one shot called Grow Up. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Same creative team, y. But now we're into. Now we're getting into into the Storm number one. [00:01:09] Speaker B: So it. So I. I do want to point out another thing that we. I got confirmed from a reputable source. That little part at the end, right, is Guruhiru. So I did get that confirmed, though I could not find that in the credits anywhere in the graphic novel. [00:01:35] Speaker A: I couldn't find it in the credits in the graphic novel on Comixology on Marvel Database. [00:01:43] Speaker B: But my. [00:01:43] Speaker A: I did not go to the Grand Comics database to check in. I guess I could have done that. [00:01:47] Speaker B: But my source is absolute. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Your source is absolute? [00:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Are. Are you sure you want to invoke absolute right now? We're in the Marvel universe at the moment. Yeah, we're not doing anything for this. [00:01:57] Speaker B: For this thing right now. For this. My source is an absolute source. I mean, you're staring from the highest. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Of the sources when you start talking about absolute. I think we're getting into these. [00:02:09] Speaker B: I messaged Jude. [00:02:11] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Whoa. Well, there you go. All right. [00:02:16] Speaker B: This is. [00:02:16] Speaker A: This is why we have creators. On your next message to June should say, how would you like to be a guest on. [00:02:25] Speaker B: On what? [00:02:27] Speaker A: On this podcast, Kraus's podcast. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:02:31] Speaker A: We could. We could. We could invite June for issue five when we eventually, someday get there. [00:02:37] Speaker B: I'm always scared to. To hit her up. She always seems so busy. Maybe I'll think about it. [00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it could be. I mean, we don't have to. I mean, this is your fun because Power Pack's your thing. So June just made it. You're the one that loved it as a kid. [00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So all Right. I'm ready, though. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Okay. Well, let's do this. So we're here. We just got out of. Guess we'll call it sort of issue zero. Yeah. And this was sort of the re. We just got out of a reintroduction to Power Pack to a new generation. At least the 80s power pack. Right. So we're kind of forgetting their visit to the islands in Washington, and we went back in time and, you know, we're getting 80s power pack, and we're going to get a whole issue where we bring back another favorite of Travis's Right into Power Pack and somebody who's not a favorite of mine. But I'm going to say I appreciated this little guy in the book look. [00:03:38] Speaker B: So I just want to point something out. For the podcast, we will be referring to this person as Tattletail. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Well, you will be. I. I will refer to him as Frank. [00:03:48] Speaker B: I am doing this to protect you. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Oh, From. Well, I'm not going to call him Franklin, so that'll protect me. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah. It's called Telltale. It's Telltale. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Well, we'll get there because we do have an appearance by his obnoxious and terrible parents, so there is that. [00:04:07] Speaker B: I can't believe you talked bad about Sue. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. [00:04:12] Speaker B: That's America's mom, right? [00:04:16] Speaker A: I thought it was Namor's wife. [00:04:18] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Okay. I see where this podcast is going. [00:04:23] Speaker A: Oh, you know what? It's gonna. I'll. I'll just. I'll just make it even worse, you know? Do you want to guess what my favorite Fantastic Four run was like? Which author? [00:04:35] Speaker B: Is it Hickman? [00:04:38] Speaker A: No. [00:04:39] Speaker B: What are you two doing? [00:04:41] Speaker A: Sorry. Well, Juliet's right here. She's right next to me. Yeah, you know what? I'm not even going to tell you. I'm going to let you get on that. [00:04:51] Speaker B: I'm going to double check on this one, because I think I know which one it is. [00:04:54] Speaker A: It's not a. He's. He's no longer in vogue as a popular comics author. I'll just say that. Yeah. I mean, and it's Surprised. It's not Hickman and it's not Mark Wade, who are two of my favorite creators. I'll just leave it at that. [00:05:12] Speaker B: It's Bendis, isn't it? [00:05:14] Speaker A: Nope. Nope. No. [00:05:18] Speaker B: Oh, wait, he's not in vogue anymore. Ellis. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Nope. [00:05:24] Speaker B: Okay, I'm done. That's all I can remember. [00:05:28] Speaker A: I'll give you a hint. I'll give you a hint. He has two initials and a last name. [00:05:37] Speaker B: Nope. [00:05:37] Speaker A: And it's not to Mattis. [00:05:40] Speaker B: Okay, hang on. I'm just going to look up who else works on the Fantastic Four. [00:05:44] Speaker A: All right. So anyway, while we're doing that, I'll flip to the first page. So we've come out of Alex turning 13, and we're into a miniseries called Power Pack into the Storm. And we get the first issue called with the story called Fireworks, and we get the whole crew charging into a while. Travis, she's driving me nuts. Right. Tries to figure out what one of my favorite FF runs is. I think his book is behind me, too, which is funny. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Every. Everybody and their moms work on Fantastic Four. Just to know. Yeah, well, that's literally when I say. [00:06:27] Speaker A: That his book's right behind me, actually. [00:06:32] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, yeah. That's some drama. [00:06:37] Speaker A: He is a lot of drama. [00:06:39] Speaker B: It's weird. That book just came up in a writer's call recently of like. Yeah, that's. Let's not have that conversation on this. Oh, wow. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Okay. I didn't know it was that bad. Well, here's what I will say. That book I read in, like, two sittings. Yeah, he's a really good book, but I don't know if it's true. But it was a really good book. [00:07:04] Speaker B: It's a really good book. [00:07:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:06] Speaker B: So. [00:07:07] Speaker A: All right, so everything in there may be not true, but it's really into the storm anyway. Yeah, Charles, like, let's not go here. So we get the fireworks, and we get the whole crew running into a cabin on the beach, and Alex tries to give away the whole team's powers by grabbing two giant heavy suitcases. And Dad's like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm 13. Teenagers are strong. Yeah. Strong willed. I don't know. Strong. Strong. But, you know, we'll roll. Roll with it. And we get Julie heading the pack. Right. Or no, that's not Julie. Julie's in the back. That's Katie leading the pack, Right? [00:07:50] Speaker B: Yep. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Julie leading the pack would make sense since she's the fastest, but she's hanging back. Oh, they put him in age order, didn't they? They tend to do that with this group, too. [00:08:01] Speaker B: They do that also. They. Julie ends up always being the responsible. [00:08:05] Speaker A: One, even though she's the fastest, which is kind of a. I kind of like that, actually, when you say it that way, because so often, like, modern iterations of the Flash, obviously not the Silver Age Barry Allen, who was extremely responsible, but like, the modern ages of Flash and quicksilver or not modern age. Let's go, like, 90s on. They were not the most responsible ones. And it was. And then Bart Allen, too. Just because they had super speed, they didn't. They made them, like, not responsible. And. Yeah, that's kind of a cool twist on it. You give the most responsible one the speed powers. [00:08:48] Speaker B: She didn't originally have the speed powers. [00:08:50] Speaker A: Well, you said they switch, right? [00:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stella. Sorry. [00:08:58] Speaker A: But it's. Well, we flip the page and she does kind of use the speed powers to go through the door. And I love this. I love the beginning of the book. They're teasing each other about their powers. They call Jack Cloud Boy, which is somewhat accurate. And they're just bantering back and they're trying to find the key. And then Katie finds the key, opens the door, and they're off to start their adventure at the cabin. [00:09:30] Speaker B: I want to point something out. Very unusual. The house on the next page, top left panel. [00:09:37] Speaker A: House on the left page, top left panel. You know if this book had page numbers. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:44] Speaker A: So you're saying page four. Ish. Yes. So where they're heading to the beach. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:51] Speaker A: And you get the background of the house. [00:09:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Just a weird thing on that one, which is in Starlight. That looks just like the house that the kids come from with the deck and everything by the water. [00:10:07] Speaker A: And it's completely coincidence. [00:10:09] Speaker B: It is coincidence. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Drawn at the same time. [00:10:12] Speaker B: But what's also coincidental about that is. That's my house. [00:10:16] Speaker A: That's your house. That's your Burmerton house. [00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's my Burmerton house. On the water. Yeah, at the beach. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Did you know, um, on this podcast, if you mentioned Bremerton, you have to mention a certain band? [00:10:28] Speaker B: No, I'm not doing that. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's. It's Greg's favorite band. Remember I said he was going to send out a CD from this band with every. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Yeah, no. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Issue of Absolute Zero's Camp Launchpad. And they're your favorite band because they tell people to move to Burmerton. [00:10:49] Speaker B: No one should ever move the Ramchan. [00:10:52] Speaker A: But, I mean, I know MXPX was the toast of all of your raves. [00:10:57] Speaker B: No. [00:10:57] Speaker A: You ever hosted. [00:10:58] Speaker B: They were gone by the time I moved out there. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think they were gone before they started, but that's all. Well, anyway, we're back here. I think I'm starting to learn the tropes because they go into the water and Katie gets hit by something and her powers turn on. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Also, side note, again, we're seeing the Marvel way right away. Right. Because they're Literally reminding everyone who everyone is, who everyone's powers is, and what everyone's relationship is in the first three pages. [00:11:32] Speaker A: So anybody can pick this book up and instantly jump in. [00:11:36] Speaker B: Yep. [00:11:37] Speaker A: And they're gonna do it again here in a page and a half. [00:11:41] Speaker B: It looks like my headset's finally worn out. [00:11:45] Speaker A: Well, see, it's okay. I can only hear myself all the words, but, you know, it's cool. Yeah, we'll just have to get you a new headset. So. [00:11:55] Speaker B: Yeah, this one's a couple years old, so. All right. [00:11:58] Speaker A: That's why I just used the Bluetooth and the cool microphone. But we are flipping the page, and we get Dan's favorite character in all of comics, Telltale, sleeping away. [00:12:11] Speaker B: Yep. [00:12:12] Speaker A: And he's dreaming about a lizard lady. It looks like a brood. [00:12:20] Speaker B: Yep. [00:12:22] Speaker A: And he wakes up and he's like, oh, man, I can't tell my parents about these dreams. Well, first he says, I gotta tell Daddy and Mommy and Uncle Johnny and Uncle Ben. And they let you know right away, too, where Travis is talking about it, because they've got the big Fantastic Four tower there. That is the Baxter Building, correct? [00:12:40] Speaker B: Yep. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Ha. See, I know some Fantastic Four. [00:12:43] Speaker B: I don't really know that much. I. I struggle Fantastic Four a lot. I feel like the Hickman run is the only run I can kind of remember enjoying. And I think I have it, like, the graphic, the trades for it laying around somewhere. [00:12:57] Speaker A: I think Fantastic Four is one of those things that when it launched, I wouldn't say it was, like, amazing, but it was amazing in the sense that it was the first book that came out for Marvel. Right before Spider man, before the relaunch of the Avengers. Right. And so Fantastic Four launches the Silver Age for Marvel. If you go back and read a couple of those original stories, there's some amazing Jack Kirby art. But didn't they lead with the Mole man in the very first issue? [00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:31] Speaker A: Like, it was not like the. It was not like they were leading with, like, some really creative villains. But what was cool about the Fantastic Four is it had the same dynamic as this book in the sense that you had a family and the reader got to follow this pseudo dysfunctional family where you had Reed and Sue. Right. And then you had Johnny and Ben always fighting. Right, Right. And then they spun off Johnny and he would show up all over the place. Right. Wasn't it, like, issue 4 ish of Spider man where the. He just shows up and him and Spider man just get in a giant argument for the entire issue? Like, it was super early on in Amazing Spider Man. [00:14:12] Speaker B: I'm just going to point out that that's an era of comics where I. I was. I. I wasn't alive. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. And. [00:14:20] Speaker B: And I don't have interest in going back and look. But I will say this. Did I already tell you the story of the time? I was working at a comic book shop and a Fantastic Four showed up? Number one. [00:14:32] Speaker A: Wow. [00:14:33] Speaker B: Here's what happened. I'm like, barely 18. I'm working at this little comic book shop. It's like I work there in a video store at the same time, right? And this guy calls up, he's like, hey, would you guys be interested? And a Fantastic Four number one. And I'm like, not. Not really. Like, you know, all these number ones that are coming out right now to give you an idea when the period was, right? Like, we. We have plenty of them. He's like, no, no, no, no. I mean, like, old school. Like a real one. Like. Like the first number one. Like the introduction. He's like, yeah. Like, hang on. So I, like, put him on hold. Called my boss, and he's like, pulling out the freaking. Was it Becker, Beaker street or whatever, looking it up. Yeah. And he's like, okay, don't pay him more than 1200. You know, I'll come by, tell them you're interested. I'll come by and drop off the cash. While I'm running out running errands, I'm like, all right, cool. So I call the guy back. I'm like, if you have it, we are interested, right? If you want to come back down to the store and show it to me so I can evaluate it. Didn't tell him I had to catch anything. And so I let him go. He's going to be there in a couple hours or whatever. Boss drives by, he's $1200 was a lot of money back then, right? And he's like, don't give him more than 1,200. Being like that is the highest price we're going to pay for Fantastic Four number one, right? And it better be mint. Like, this is before things could be slated. And it better be like a 99, right? So I put the money in the register, locked everything up. He takes off. The guy comes by, I'm like, okay, cool. This sounds really cool, right? He whips it out and I look at it. I go, covers laminated. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah, they had laminated the COVID Oh, my good. Like, destapled it. The spine. Took it to a library or something and Ran it through a traditional laminator and then restapled it at some point us, you know, to protect it and value so it wouldn't get damaged. [00:16:43] Speaker A: And see, the way I'm reacting is as the money thing, but I should be reacting. Every time I read a forum. When somebody puts up a comic and is like, do you think this group of books is worth anything? And I kind of want to say, well, it depends on what you are getting the comic for. Do you want to read the comics or do you want to sell the comics? Because a whole stack of comics is worth a lot. I've got a whole room full of comics that aren't worth all that are great to read. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:16] Speaker A: That's why I've got a few in here that are worth a lot. [00:17:21] Speaker B: All the ones I have that are worth a lot are damaged because I read them. [00:17:24] Speaker A: Right. That, and that's, that's part of the challenge. A lot of the ones, A lot of the ones that are worth a lot were read over and over again because they were great books. [00:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. So anyway, that was my Fantastic Four story. Let's move on. So we got the Fantastic Four family. I love Cats is my favorite image here. Also, sue looks adorable while she's also getting her coffee. It's very family esque. [00:17:47] Speaker A: And it's. And the parallel is very clear. Right. And Franklin jets out and he's like, they're all talking about him being safe. He hears them and he's like, oh, I can't tell them, I gotta go, I'm gonna. And so frankly, goes back to bed and back to his dreams. And you know, I think it's interesting because in, I don't want to stray too far away. But in both universes, DC and Marvel. Right. Obviously with Franklin, they did it much earlier in the 90s. Right. But they also did it with identity crisis in D.C. where anytime you start messing with somebody's brain and you start erasing memories or putting blocks on stuff, it doesn't go well long term. It just doesn't go well long term. Probably just best to teach people to deal with trauma. [00:18:47] Speaker B: I'd agree with that. I do want to point out though, at least they're consistent with, with the character of Franklin here, which is he's four years old and he's already thinking through how to play chess with his parents. [00:19:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:05] Speaker B: You know, and I think that's interesting because if I was going to write a kid, I would not write kids like this. That's not what I've witnessed from children Right. And Franklin is a genius, supposedly. Right. Savior of the universes. [00:19:22] Speaker A: Well, he is Reed's son. [00:19:24] Speaker B: So it's just interesting that, again, the consistency in the writing on the. On Power Pack is always great because of a. What's her name? Brain died anyways. [00:19:34] Speaker A: Simonson. Yeah. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And so it's just. It's just. It's so good to see that. And you believe it with Franklin, if you're a comics books fan. But I do wonder if someone wants to pick up this comic and try to read that, who doesn't have any idea who Franklin is, the history of Franklin, and sees Franklin going through those series of thoughts and how to manipulate around the situation. How. How well that would go over with someone who wasn't into that character. Just one of those things. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll say, too. And I just bit into a trope, too. I'm going to call myself out because I go, well, he is Reed's son. Well, he's also Sue's son. And you had four astronauts that were all equally like the whole idea of Fantastic Four getting their power. And everybody even forgets how intelligent theoretically Johnny should be, too. Right. [00:20:22] Speaker B: I'm just saying, you have number four in the Marvel universe as an intelligence. Sue is like nine. There's not a comp. [00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's. And that's. [00:20:33] Speaker B: I. So weird they do that, by the way. [00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah, well, they do in DC, too. And I won't get into the DC ones, but. Yeah. Mr. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Terrific. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:40] Speaker B: He's the second, third smartest person in the world. Yeah. [00:20:44] Speaker A: I knew. Yep. That's where I was going. [00:20:45] Speaker B: It was like, come on, man. This is so weird that we do, like. Do they go in and have, like, some super, like, computer thing, calculate and be like, oh, okay. You are number two. 695 million 613. Great score, dude. [00:21:03] Speaker A: We're gonna find out who. We're gonna find out very quickly who is not in the top 10 of smarts in the Marvel Universe, because we flip the page and our buddy Kofi is back. [00:21:15] Speaker B: Oh, come on, man. I'm gonna look him up in the Marvel rating system. [00:21:24] Speaker A: Well, he was smart enough to get into a special school, Eddie, so too. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Young to be in it and just pointing that out. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, I love the. I love the visual of his powers on this page. [00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Like how he's just kind of flipping in and out of things kind of like this. [00:21:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, hello. Go ahead. [00:21:47] Speaker A: And we have a cat visitor. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a cat who looks like he wants to be on Dad's lap, but he's just hanging out. [00:21:54] Speaker A: I have a dog that does that, too. But we're finding out we get some more exposition here. A lot of exposition. These couple pages are probably my least two favorite pages of the issue. But you're going to tell me as a writer that all that text is needed, Right. [00:22:14] Speaker B: Are we on the whole thing of giving the background of the snarks and the. [00:22:19] Speaker A: Yep. [00:22:19] Speaker B: And the chameleon? Yeah. Well, I mean, here's the deal. This is kind of doing the same thing, right. The audience doesn't know who these people are. They. And you need to get this all out right now because the rest of the story has to happen. So we're putting all the pieces in place quickly as possible and trying to do it in the least exposition way possible. So, yes, these sometimes do feel a little bit forced, you know, because it has a vibe of as you know, which, by the way, people do say in real life, that's a real thing. I don't know why they act like people don't say that now, but it is way overly used. But. Yeah, but you're also in a situation where these books are meant for a younger, not child audience, but like a teen audience who's, like, looking at kids. Superheroes. You need to get them up to speed. They're not like us. They're not going to go here and go, oh, look at this. Very exposition in two pages. No, man. They're gonna go like, oh, so he's a snark. Oh, he's friends with Coffee's, you know, dad, and he's an ambassador. Normally these two races don't get along, but they're the peacekeepers of the universe. You know, that's necessary here. You know what I'm saying? [00:23:31] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I can buy. I can buy into that. I think my biggest issue with this is June Brickman's backgrounds here are really beautiful, and they're also really establishing this sort of cosmic world that we're going to be in for a lot of this miniseries. And then we threw a bunch of word balloons over them. [00:23:50] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, it does go a little Chris Claremont here, but it's okay. [00:23:57] Speaker A: We love it when Chris Claremont threw his word bubbles over that, you know, beautiful Dave Cocker Mart. Right. [00:24:03] Speaker B: I will just. I. I have listened to Tom talk about that many times. [00:24:06] Speaker A: Yes. But basically, Travis just lined out what we're setting up in the book. So what's getting set up is we've got coffee and he's going to a special cool science School. And then his friend. Well, not friend yet, but his friend is going to go there. A future friend. Future friend, but a snark. And she's not supposed to go because. Well, she's supposed to go, but she's a disappointment because she was supposed to be, like, this warrior princess. Because apparently in the original series, Power Pack took down a rival clan and then put her family in power. Right. So that's where we're at. So we've got snarks, and you're gonna say the other guy's name. The chameleon. Chameleon. Not. There's no R. Dan Chimelia. [00:25:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:05] Speaker A: Okay, so we got chameleons and snarks. And snarks are lizard people, and camellias are horse people. We good there? [00:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I just want to point something out real quick. I was not taking a dig at Chris Claremont's writing when I said that. [00:25:20] Speaker A: Wow. [00:25:20] Speaker B: I just don't want that to be taken out of context there, Travis. [00:25:23] Speaker A: It's okay. We take a dig at literally everyone on this. [00:25:26] Speaker B: I don't want that, though. I like all those guys, man. [00:25:29] Speaker A: Well, I like all of them, too, but it doesn't mean that they're perf and that everything they did was amazing. [00:25:35] Speaker B: There's a lot that. You know what it is? It's that first panel with coffee and his. His uncle, I think, or his dad or whatever. Whitey was his uncle. That's right. Anyways, yeah, there. There's a beautiful piece of art there. And, yeah, there is a lot of text right down the center of that piece. But at the same time, that is the only piece area in that frame where there's room to put the text because there's so much activity going on. So. Well placed. Well placed. Bubbles. But, man, that's a lot of text. [00:26:13] Speaker A: Well, and we flipped a page, and the last thing on the page is we're kind of setting up some of the. The story for the rest of the five issues. And we get the snark saying, nor do I. I am. And I'm pleased to see a Snark clan turn from war to learning. So we've got a setup, right? [00:26:40] Speaker B: Yep. [00:26:40] Speaker A: So somebody in this story is making a change for their civilization, Right? [00:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:46] Speaker A: It's a big deal. [00:26:49] Speaker B: Oh, man. This next page has beautiful panels. [00:26:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Like the layout of the page in the beach. Yep. [00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah. This is really well done. [00:27:00] Speaker A: Like, as Traff Travis slobbers over all the art in these books. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Well, this I'm. This one is really the panel work. Just the choice of where these panels are, how the layout of the page is like, this is really using the medium. Like there are a few people who really understand panels, in my opinion. Well, you know what I'm saying? That's something like I've learned working with a lot of independent people and stuff. Because it's the only place I end up is most of the people I work with don't understand how important panels are as part of the narrative. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:36] Speaker B: You know, and this is, this is a flex, you know, I mean, there's only a few people that I could think of trying to remember the Bat. Batwoman series with the real mystical stuff and the White Queen and turns out to be her. Those panels are amazing in my opinion. Anything my friend Richard does with his, his books, he has just amazing panel cho choice and flay out because you're using the panels as part of the structure of the narrative. But on top of that, June, like I said, June really knows how to overlap things better than just about anyone. You know, like she's not stuck in the frame, but when she chooses to break something out of the panel frame or the stroke I guess is the correct term there. When she makes those choices, they're really well made. They give it the feeling of almost a three dimensional part of the story. Things pop where they should as part of the narrative. I love it. I just love it. This is why I love comics as. [00:28:50] Speaker A: A medium also with the panels too. Like I've. And you can tell me if this is bullshit, but I was always told that if you have to put an arrow to show people how to read the panels, you fucked up. [00:29:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:04] Speaker A: There is no need for arrows here. Like it is very clearly laid out and the storytelling moves right along and it's very easy to see how it moves. [00:29:16] Speaker B: Gonna point something else out here real fast. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Even though the panels are complex. Sorry, I just wanted to finish the thought there. [00:29:24] Speaker B: This, this, this book especially this issue is doing something really smart. We're establishing, right. And then both pages in two page spreads are consistent as think of like a paragraph in a book. They're completing one idea, the next PA and the coloring, everything right. Works together. I open the next two pages, I'm completing an idea. Right. She even takes the time to establish of the writer tells it is. But we have a good establishing moment so we know where everybody is. Both these pages have a color theme. Go to the next one where we're at the Fantastic Four. The color theming is the same consistent again. And we're looking at Two full pages, completing a paragraph or an idea of the story. We get to the Snark page with this green. So we've gone from blue, so the spread is orange. [00:30:24] Speaker A: And before we get to the Snark account or to the Science Academy. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:30] Speaker A: One quick thing to point out too, because I pointed out on the last one, they establish a. A piece for the entire miniseries with mentioning the. The young Princess Dejana going to school for learning. Right. And kind of breaking that up. We also get at the last panel where they're setting up the story that you were pointing out where mom is terrified at the idea that her kids would have powers. [00:30:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Voice. That's a terrible idea. [00:30:59] Speaker A: And we're going to run through both of those spoilers. Sorry. On a book that's been out for a few years now. But we're going to run through those themes through all five issues. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Very true. [00:31:10] Speaker A: I'm going to keep tying back to them and well established. Right. Yeah, it's. It's like you said, it's simple storytelling that gets you right. To the point that they want you to maintain through the rest of the book. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Dan. Yeah, that's a weird question here. I don't read a lot of Modern Marvel, but I don't either. I thought Marvel banned thought bubbles. [00:31:44] Speaker A: But. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Even if they did, I don't think they would stop it for Power Pack because how the heck are we going to talk to Franklin? [00:31:49] Speaker A: So most. Most of them. Most of the. Both of the companies generally have been using the. The square boxes. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:57] Speaker A: The narrative box. Thought puzzles. Yeah. I would say pretty much since the success of. Of Identity Crisis by Brad Metzler, where Green Arrow is just doing that. The whole book. Right. And is narrating it that way without the thought bubbles. I know that wasn't the first book to do that, so I'm not claiming that. [00:32:19] Speaker B: I just haven't seen thought bubbles in a long time. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Since the extreme success of that story. I don't remember seeing many thought bubbles since that. And it is just. It is a thought cloud. Correct term, by the way. [00:32:36] Speaker B: We just don't see them that often. [00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I think I do probably prefer the narrator boxes to a thought bubble. I also like how the narrator boxes can be placed anywhere on a page without disrupting the art. And you can mark the character just by changing the color of the box. I always thought that was just a really smart thing. And again, it probably showed up before this. Right. Probably. Somebody is screaming at me going, dan, it was here. But Identity Crisis was the series where I really remember that being just brilliant. Brilliantly used. Right. As you learned about the different members of the Justice League and how they had run through their decisions on why to brainwash somebody. And you're getting those narrations there and it would flip per character. That's where I remember it. Do you remember it showing up anywhere else before that? [00:33:33] Speaker B: I remember. Sorry. I just remember getting a note that since I was submitting to Marvel, I could not use Thought Bubbles or Thought Thought. So. And that was years and years ago. [00:33:48] Speaker A: That would have been years before that. Those books came out too, because I thought it could be my over indexing on D.C. too. [00:33:55] Speaker B: I. I do want to do. Again, I was just getting. I was just getting into this second ago. Nolan Woodward is the color on this book and it is just amazing. Blue. Now I'm in two pages of green. I'm gonna hold the book up real quick so the. The people watching the video can see what I'm talking about. I think that if you're gonna make comics, you need to be aware of things like this. Right. So we're completing a thought and we have a consistent color theme happening on both pages. Right. And then we're going to move to the next one and we're moving to the Baxter Building and. Right. We're going to complete the thought and use both pages and keep the colors consistent. Right. We're going to move to the next story, the next paragraph, if you will, in the book. Right. And we're all green themed and brown. Right. Looks like ElfQuest, actually. Okay. And just this. And then we're at the beach and we have these soft, kind of mellow, cyan feeling hues. Right. Beautiful work. So, like, these are things that are important because. And I've done this because sometimes it's just I got so many pages and there's some tricks around this, but good consistent storytelling. Understanding the left and the right page, understanding what the page turn, turn does, understanding that, you know, two pages are going to be seen at the same time. You need to be aware of that when you're writing your script, you know, and you need to be aware of that. Patron's going to do a reveal with the right side first, and then the back side is going to be revealed second. Understanding that and using that to your advantage when you're developing your book is just next level for a lot of people. This is just proof that this is a very, very experienced team. And now I'm embarrassed because, by the way, when I was looking for the credits and we were looking for them on the last podcast, Girihiro here is right here, right in the book. [00:36:06] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, there you go. [00:36:10] Speaker B: No, I feel dumb and. [00:36:12] Speaker A: Well, why do you feel dumb, though? You call it. You called it out and credited them. [00:36:16] Speaker B: So, like, it's. I just want to make sure I. I'm really big on credit, and I just want. This is a pretty page. [00:36:22] Speaker A: I'll also say. I will also say on the next page, too. Again, the color scheme changes again. [00:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:29] Speaker A: And I like how they're coloring the planets differently, too. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. To really distinguish that, I think when you do any sort of cosmic, you really need to have established backgrounds for each planet that you go to. So it's not. It doesn't just feel like the same dark universe or the same happy universe that you're going through. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:51] Speaker A: And I think they did a really amazing job here, too, with. [00:36:55] Speaker B: Oh, this is gonna. We're gonna come up some. Does the trick. One of the tricks is talking about. But. Okay, well, go ahead. I'll let you lead again. [00:37:03] Speaker A: Well, I was just gonna say we're here, and I was just gonna summarize these pages really quickly. We just. We're just establishing more characters. Right. So we're on. The Intergalactic Academy of Science and Coffee meets. I always forget. Now I've forgotten her name. It's Dejin. [00:37:23] Speaker B: What? Say again? [00:37:24] Speaker A: Dejinna. Right. It sounds like a gin. Is it Jenna or Dejinna, do you think? [00:37:31] Speaker B: Man, that's the double consonant in a name used for alien race names. That's a fairly common thing that I don't know how to help you with. [00:37:38] Speaker A: All right, well, we'll go. We'll go, Jenna. We'll do it like a gin. Like a. [00:37:43] Speaker B: The D is silent with. [00:37:45] Speaker A: The D is silent. Yeah, so we'll roll with that. But yeah, so we. We established that in. We establish their friendship extremely quickly. A bully comes up and starts to bully her, and coffee steps in. And then we find out she has this cool device that she could have used to scare him, but she's just getting really comfortable in her skin and is trying to embrace being a, you know, future leader of a planet, but she's not there yet, and that's why she's here. And she wants to learn more, and her mom's not super thrilled, but, you know, I like this, Travis. Like, I think it's a neat way to start the story. And to your point, by this point. So we're about halfway through this first issue. Right. And we have established every character that you need to know for the next four issues. Yeah. [00:38:46] Speaker B: Also going back to the art again, on this page particularly, she is like a lizard creature, which is a snark. Right. And I can tell she's a teenage girl. Yeah, right. I can tell Coffee's a teenage boy. Right. I didn't mean to gender class them like that, but I'm just saying, like, visually, their gender enough to know that she's probably gonna have a sweet. I can see this bully is also just a teenager of whatever race this is. Even though it's a large creature. [00:39:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:39:19] Speaker B: By its. By the way it's holding itself, the way it's dressed. Right. It. June does an excellent job conveying age in anamorphic characters. It's crazy looking at this right now, these. These characters on this. This whole sequence of pages and seeing that I can anamorphosize these creatures in a way that's understandable for what I'm looking at. And I can identify that who's young, who's old, who's, you know, everything in these types of characters. It's. That's something that I. I do see when people do anamorphosized characters in other books, and I'm just like, okay, well, they all look terrible to me, you know, or they'll draw, like, this creature, and it turns out it's a baby. But, like, there was no anything gave me any hint to that, you know? [00:40:13] Speaker A: And I think, you know, you're apologizing for gendering the characters, but I do think with their language and interactions, they're giving you that feeling, too. And if you're basing it off societal norms, which I know that's what we're apologizing for. But you do get that feeling, so it seems intentional. Right? Like, it. [00:40:31] Speaker B: It does. It does. That's why I didn't feel too bad. But I wanted to make sure that. I just said, I. I'm not trying because something might come out later, and we find out, like, one of these character types is gender neutral. I have that in my book. You know, the race just doesn't have genders, you know, and so I don't know if that's true yet in the story at this point. [00:40:48] Speaker A: Well, we don't know. We're gonna find out. And that's the fun of reading comics. [00:40:51] Speaker B: All right, so here we go. [00:40:54] Speaker A: We're back to get. We're back to. We're almost ready to start our story. And I mean, start the. The adventure and. Because the fantastic family is leaving. [00:41:06] Speaker B: Well, I want to Point something else out real fast again. Right. So we got. We got this thing. We have a setup here on the page. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:17] Speaker B: This is Simmons and Luis just doing excellent work. Right. So when I turn that page right away, bam, that's the reveal. Okay. But the other thing they're doing here is this is an establishing that we're still in this world. See the colors that we're using on the side? All right. [00:41:36] Speaker A: Yep. [00:41:37] Speaker B: But we're not going to get to use the other page and continue the story, because we're going to end it down here. So we're going to do a nice little cliffhanger at the bottom. But then on the. The sharing. The sharing. The spread. We're going to start in the middle of the spread. You know, in a spread, instead of taking advantage of the page turn as the spread, and we get an establishing shot, and we have a new color theming going on to establish this as a new paragraph. We even have a little. Meanwhile. [00:42:08] Speaker A: You'Ve done this to me, too. Now I'm looking at the colors really closely, too. And in addition to what you said, for this change in the paragraph, you also. It's clearly sunset. [00:42:19] Speaker B: Yep. [00:42:19] Speaker A: You're clearly transitioning from day to night. Like, they've had a full, fun day. And the color is setting that off. And I didn't notice that the first time I read the book. I just felt it. [00:42:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:31] Speaker A: Like, I didn't. And that's good coloring. Right. When I'm. I'm not thinking about the coloring, I just know this is the end of the day. [00:42:37] Speaker B: Everybody's sitting on all cylinders here and doing the Marvel way. [00:42:41] Speaker A: It's. It's really. It's. It's a pretty book. [00:42:46] Speaker B: Oh. So this next page, just full stop. [00:42:49] Speaker A: All right, so Franklin gets left with the team. Right. And the Fantastic Four are off. So our story is set. Right. We've got Franklin isolated with the power family. We've got the science Academy. We've got the new friends. And from here, we know an adventure is going to happen. We just don't know what's going to happen yet. Bam. We turn the page. And this is the one you're saying is pretty, right? [00:43:16] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Again, the colors, the theme, the panel work, we can see. [00:43:23] Speaker A: We. [00:43:23] Speaker B: We get a sense of time in this one. Like we. We haven't seen. You know, you literally can feel the beats happening so good. And action. [00:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And they're gonna run off planet. [00:43:41] Speaker B: I love this cute little green ship. [00:43:44] Speaker A: And she's very proud of her little green ship, too. [00:43:47] Speaker B: It's like. It's like your first car. Like a teenager with her bug. [00:43:52] Speaker A: Coffee is just giving her crap about it too. It's not like Friday, who crashes all the time and is super smart. [00:43:58] Speaker B: Very. [00:44:00] Speaker A: This ship, she's. She's like, look at it go. [00:44:04] Speaker B: Look at it go. Look how cool I am. I got my own ship. Like every teenager I know, man. You know? [00:44:10] Speaker A: And of course, as soon as they take off, her sister's waiting there with the bigger ship ready to blast them to oblivion. Or it's not her sister, right? Is it her? [00:44:19] Speaker B: I think it's her cousin. Yeah. [00:44:21] Speaker A: Cousin, yeah. And we're establishing a little. A little story here again. We've got some. Some family clan, right. We. We established it. They established it before. We've got the clan rivalry going on. And I know you're going to love the transition from the planet to outer space too, here on the scene. [00:44:43] Speaker B: So good. You're so happy right now staring at this. [00:44:47] Speaker A: And we've got a space battle going on. [00:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:49] Speaker A: And coffee's idea, of course, because this is a power Pack book is, oh, well, we've got to escape and I know how to get to Earth, so. [00:45:01] Speaker B: Let'S go, because that's what you have to do. Yes. That is another thing here. But that's just like a Marvel trope right there. Like, how many great stories start out with two characters being in trouble and them being like, we need to get back to the mansion, we need to get back to Earth, we need to get back to blah, blah, blah. And then they cut to, like, you know, like, I don't know, Jean Gray and. And Cyclops, you know, sipping coffee, having a normal morning for a page or so, and bam, in the kitchen. And then we have a, you know. [00:45:36] Speaker A: 26 issue run and the Star Jammers are here. [00:45:39] Speaker B: Hooray. You know exactly what I'm saying. [00:45:45] Speaker A: Well, you know, I mean, it. [00:45:48] Speaker B: It. [00:45:49] Speaker A: I mean, yes, I do know what you're saying. And the reason I know what you're saying too is obviously that's a famous scene. And then also, I'm a big Legion nerd. [00:45:58] Speaker B: So. [00:45:59] Speaker A: Dave Cockrum, you know this, right? Dave Cockrum drew the Legion in X Men because the Shia Imperial Guard is the Legion. It's like, person for. Yeah. Once you see, if you go back and see the teams next to each other, you'll never unsee it. Like, somebody had to point it out to me, and then I was like, holy crap. He just drew the Legion because he still wanted to draw the Legion when he Went to Marvel and he just drew it in the X Men. [00:46:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:26] Speaker A: Anyway, fun, fun, fun facts. But anyway, we're. We are staying with Power Pack. Now. We get Franklin wakes up in the middle of the night to let Alex know the monsters in the dream. Alex and Jack know the monsters in the dream that he had are coming to Earth right now. And they all fly out in their fantastic moon boots. [00:46:51] Speaker B: Cliffhanger. [00:46:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. Oh, yeah. [00:46:54] Speaker B: Establishing and telling us where we're at again. [00:46:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:46:58] Speaker B: And color difference. This paragraph is this color, this red, this gently thing going on. [00:47:05] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:05] Speaker B: And this here, even though still at night. So that's really smart because both these are taking place in dark areas, but the colorist and the art is taking advantage here. I don't know if this is purposeful or not. I'm going to assume it is because, again, these are some of the best of the best. Right. They don't want to have two blue pages. They need the story to change here. [00:47:26] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:26] Speaker B: So we have a lot of magenta going on here to show. And then we have a nice cliffhanger because we know we're going to share the splash. [00:47:34] Speaker A: And we get the beautiful beach scene, except now it's nighttime. And so the coloring has changed in the background, too. I love the fact that we have multiple times of the day shown by the same colorist. Boom. In. Yeah. [00:47:47] Speaker B: We're seeing the day go by. [00:47:50] Speaker A: And the ship crash lands on the beach. And out pops Jenna and Coffey. And in more establishment. Right. He quickly introduces her to the group, and they're just kind of dumbfounded for a second. [00:48:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:12] Speaker A: But, oh, here comes the other giant ship behind them. I feel like we're. I feel like we're going to set up a cliffhanger for the next issue pretty soon. And out pops Princess de Jinna and famous Coffee Tooth is my lucky day. You two will be my prisoners. But Power Pack, the monsters who destroyed my mother will die. [00:48:35] Speaker B: Such a great picture, man. Look at that part. [00:48:38] Speaker A: Yep. And let's face it, you know, we always love it when Blackfire and Starfire are fighting. [00:48:47] Speaker B: So good. What? [00:48:50] Speaker A: I went Teen Titans on. [00:48:51] Speaker B: You don't do that. Ah, so good. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Well, this is the last page, and we are set up for the future issues. So. Travis. [00:49:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:08] Speaker A: I don't think I. I don't think I need to ask, but your thoughts on issue one as a. As a story. [00:49:17] Speaker B: Man, I just love Powerfax. That's so dirty. I just. That was. I saw. You know, I read that when it came out, and I had the floppy somewhere. And just the next one I really like too, because we finally understand some storm stuff anyways, and just reading it again today and just like, looking at, like, when I was a kid reading comics, you know, I would catch on to things. But the. As I've gotten older and I've, you know, written a few now, and I enjoy it a lot. It's just so fun for me to look at it with a completely different eye and just get a big grin over either a them accidentally stumbling to something brilliant. Because I can never tell sometimes, you know, like, I don't know how many times I've been. Been talking to another writer or team and they're. I'm like, he was really smart. The way you did this thing on the thing. On the thing. And they're like, yeah, that was smart. This is how it worked out. Right. I've totally, like, you know, built it up in my head, which is fine. I've gapped it. But, like, just. Just seeing that team again, firing and understanding their characters, loving their characters, understand what works for them. And like I said before, there's just that whole thing of understanding a power pack can get weird. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:46] Speaker B: You know, and just to let it. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Happen, I would also just say it's. I've said this a lot recently with Greg, but I think it is exciting that there's a lot of books now that are just fun. [00:51:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:07] Speaker A: Like, I don't need everything to be like, Alan Moore, Batman. [00:51:16] Speaker B: Oh, man. I am. You know, one of the things I've said before, and I think I've talked to you about it, when we were working on Starlight, which is I am over the deconstructed superheroes. [00:51:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:27] Speaker B: You know, like, that was the whole thing. I wanted to reconstruct a deconstructed superhero to see if I could do it. But I want to. When I buy comics, when I see a movie, I want to escape my life. I don't want to escape into a worse life. Most of the time, other people might, and that's fine. Those comics are for them. Right. But me personally, I feel like living in these for vendetta. I don't feel like reading it. [00:51:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And in. And in D.C. right now, you have a stark contrast of people leading that universe, and which is interesting. And obviously I'll leave Williamson out of it for a second. But from a writing standpoint, you've got a very different writing standpoint right now going on in DC Comics between. I'm talking right now, 2025, between Scott Snyder and Mark Waid running very different, but they're managing to link things together. And I think it's very interesting right now because Scott Snider runs a little bit darker. Wade can run dark. I've got some dark Mark Wade right behind me, like, uncorruptible. And that stuff, the independent stuff he did. But his are much more brighter. Like, he's running flashbacks and just kind of throwing stories in the universe as they go, bringing back the Justice League, putting them on the satellite, making it like the cartoon, you know, like doing that. Yeah. And so it's a. It's just a very different. It's kind of interesting to see how those things are writing together. But I'll just go back to the. The thought we were having is I. I had a little operation on my arm today, and I came home and read all these tonight because they were fun, and I didn't feel like I had to digest them. And Greg and I a few episodes ago, and it seemed like these episodes lasted an eternity when we were going back through Flex Mantalo, and I'm like, reading Deconstructed Superheroes, and I'm just, like, dying every time I have to read one of these books. It feels exhausting. These books are not exhausting. They're fun. [00:53:52] Speaker B: You know, that's. That makes me feel really good because I do love when people find Power Pack, especially as an adult. I think it has. On Gen Xers, especially, it just. It reminds you of being a kid and being wowed and not overthinking it. Like, there. There are great comics that do that, you know? Like, I think you should read all those, too. Right. But I also want in my life something where I'm watching it feel like I'm reading the kinds of adventures I used to play through as a kid, you know, because when we played as kids, we met, you know, Was it pretend? Right. I forgot the word pretend. That's how my brain works. When you played pretend, right. You were kids and you were playing. A lot of times you'd play kids who were. Had superpowers and you'd have these weird things and, you know, all this other stuff. And here's something else, too, that I really respect on the writing on this, which is when I played pretend as a kid, we did not have weird stuff like the booger monster or, you know, just stupid stuff. You see adult writers. [00:55:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:07] Speaker B: Thinking they're thinking like a kid. You know, when we were kids, it was serious to us. When we were pretending to have superpowers, it was serious to Us when a monster was coming to get us and we had to hide on the porch or the moss. That's how pretend works. It's not all like, oh, kids are so adorable. They invent, you know, giant squirrely monsters. Okay, that's because that's all the skill the kid has to draw is the squirrely monster. It doesn't mean that they're running from a squirrely monster. They're trying to give you an expression of what they're pretending, which more than likely is a hundred times more serious in their head and important than you're giving them credit for when you replicate it with the squirrely monsters. [00:55:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting and maybe I'll finally get around to finishing writing my book, but I've shared some of my scary dreams with you, which I was writing into one of a book. They're terrifying. I don't always want that when I'm reading. Right. I want the fun dreams I had as a kid and not just the make believe, but play. I don't know if you dreamt about superheroes when you were a kid reading comic books, but when I was having happy dreams, we were the superheroes winning. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:56:15] Speaker A: Weren't. You weren't, you know, you weren't deconstructed the superhero. [00:56:19] Speaker B: You weren't dying. [00:56:20] Speaker A: And my nightmares were. My nightmares, those were different. And they didn't usually involve superheroes. And I think, you know, there's. I want, I want that feeling. So when I read a book, a lot of the time, I don't always need it to be dark and brooding and angry. And this is not. It's fun. [00:56:35] Speaker B: No, and the thing is, is like, if I was a kid reading this, I'd still be happy, you know, because like, oh, ooh, the snarks. Oh, oh, you know, oh, oh, that's Coffee's dad. Oh, that's, you know, and I'd be getting into it, you know, because I'm not fighting booger monsters. [00:56:49] Speaker A: Yep. [00:56:50] Speaker B: You know, but then what the frick, man? Stop doing that. When you write something for children, it does not have to be children like, or your interpretation of it. [00:56:59] Speaker A: The other thing I would just say in reading these books too is teens and kids don't always have to argue. [00:57:09] Speaker B: No, the banter's fun. That's real. [00:57:12] Speaker A: The banter is fun. They're bantering like kids, but they're not. And it's okay if they get in a family conflict at some point. Right. That can happen, but it doesn't need to be all the time. [00:57:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:24] Speaker A: And I appreciate that about the book, too. The way this is written, the banter. [00:57:29] Speaker B: Takes place when it should happen in reality. Like all of you running up, excited to get to the door. There's a banter point. That's where kids banter, family banters. [00:57:39] Speaker A: And the jealousy in the first issue we read when Alex is getting all the attention for his birthday. Right. That makes sense. There's going to be some feelings of jealousy there. I mean, it makes sense. [00:57:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:49] Speaker A: Well, I think we should wrap this one up because we're going to go on to another issue soon. Travis and I will start. We will work to record all five of these issues, I guess six total. Right. Because we started. [00:58:01] Speaker B: I want to point out, if we do this, though, we have to end it by watching the Power Pack television pilot. [00:58:09] Speaker A: We could do a watch along with Greg on that. I think that would be fantastic. [00:58:13] Speaker B: It won't be fantastic. [00:58:15] Speaker A: We could do that, but we could do. We could do that before we end it. I will say plugs. Let's see if I remembered all the plugs that are happening. Kickstarter, Nemesis. [00:58:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, the Nemesis. Just put in Nemesis. Yeah. Albert Prien's Nemesis. And then. [00:58:35] Speaker A: And you had another book, and I totally forgot. [00:58:38] Speaker B: It's an anthology called Bad Future. Same thing. Just type in Bad Future and Kickstarter. Actually, I worked on that today, so that's. That was fun. [00:58:47] Speaker A: Awesome. [00:58:48] Speaker B: Well, I didn't work. I organized the letter, the colorist, and the artist because there was. Being in the independent world, there's not someone to actually manage your book. So that's the writer. You end up being the person that manages everything, you know, and not the publisher. [00:59:04] Speaker A: We need. You need a Dan. And so we just need the. We just need your writing projects to be big enough. You can just put me on salary now. I'll be honest. [00:59:13] Speaker B: I just want to be my writing projects big enough to where I can hand off my book and move on to the next one and not think about the production after that, other than if they have red lines. [00:59:22] Speaker A: And. And we'll go to that and then. Anything else you're promoting right now? Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. [00:59:34] Speaker B: No. No. Good. Oh, I. I brought something to wear, though. I found this. Hang on. Okay. [00:59:46] Speaker A: You ready? Yeah. [00:59:48] Speaker B: You ready? [00:59:49] Speaker A: I'm very ready. I never. [00:59:53] Speaker B: Can you see me? [00:59:54] Speaker A: You all. Not yet. No. You have to. [00:59:56] Speaker B: You can't see me, right? [00:59:57] Speaker A: No, I cannot see you. [00:59:58] Speaker B: Okay. Cool. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Bear. Oh, are we selling those? [01:00:03] Speaker B: What? [01:00:05] Speaker A: Are we selling those? [01:00:06] Speaker B: No. [01:00:07] Speaker A: You selling this? [01:00:08] Speaker B: No. [01:00:09] Speaker A: No. [01:00:12] Speaker B: 20 of them. In existence. Greg, Brett and I have three of the 20, I think. [01:00:18] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. [01:00:19] Speaker B: So I just happen to have it because I had it shipped down for a convention for someone to wear at the convention. I would never wear this thing, but I was just so happy. [01:00:28] Speaker A: Fantastic. See? So Starlight's back right now. You can also buy Starlight still. [01:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah, you technically still buy it. [01:00:37] Speaker A: Yes, you can just go to the Starlight. [01:00:41] Speaker B: It's on Amazon. [01:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's on Amazon. It's on your website too. [01:00:46] Speaker B: Yep, yep. [01:00:48] Speaker A: So we've got that. See, I don't have anything to plug right now. You could always still support Greg by picking up a copy of Absolute Zero's Camp Launchpad. And we're getting toward the end of the summer here, but fun, cool summer kids story that adults can read too. Those are the best kind of stories. [01:01:06] Speaker B: You know, Dan, we'd be plugging your book if you finished your book. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Well, I would be, but then I'd have to sit down and finish it and then that's a challenge. [01:01:13] Speaker B: I don't know if I ever told you the greatest writing advice I ever got from Burrow Bear. [01:01:18] Speaker A: Just write. [01:01:19] Speaker B: No. 95% of all unfinished novels don't get published. [01:01:25] Speaker A: That's amazing. Yeah, I like the just right scenario too, so. But yeah, no, I'll finish my book. I promise it'll happen someday. And if you need to ply it. [01:01:36] Speaker B: Down and spend a couple days, you know, I'll lock you in a room with an Alpha smart. [01:01:41] Speaker A: That could happen. You know, that pretty much happened to me when I finished my dissertation in grad school too. [01:01:45] Speaker B: So you had an Alpha smart and you sat in your room with an Alpha smart? [01:01:48] Speaker A: Not with an Alpha smart. But we didn't have those then. But I. I was at a national debate tournament and the person running the tournament locked me in a room and wouldn't let me judge rounds until I finished my writing. [01:02:00] Speaker B: That makes sense. [01:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And I might do that to you. One of the nicest things somebody did helped me get done. So I was doing edits. So anyway, I think I'm sitting in a basement. Well, not hanging out, but I will plug two more things before we get out of here. Of course, you could go see Greg and Anne at the Retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. So if you want to see Greg in real life, he's there sometimes. Sometimes the Squatcho man is there as well. And Greg never seems to be there when the squacho man is there. Travis, do you have any insights on. [01:02:33] Speaker B: This, this is the first time I've heard of the Squacho Man. [01:02:36] Speaker A: You, you've. This is. Well, the Squacho man was once the worst writing partner. Yeah, he was. He was once the employee of the month at the Retro Emporium. [01:02:45] Speaker B: Oh, man, I miss being home up in Washington. [01:02:48] Speaker A: Well, next time the Squasher man shows up, we could always just invite you back and then. And of course a big supporter of the podcast Jiu Jitsu, lawyer Paul. We, we appreciate Paul and all of his both legal support for various Greg projects. I don't think he's had to run legal support for Travis yet or that I know of. So let's not talk about that and we'll leave that out of that. And you can find Paul on Jackson and 27th, slash Bridgeport and 27th in Tacoma, Washington, slash University Place. There's a lot of slashes there. But you could go find Paul there if you ever need some legal support too. So he's been a big help to Greg with a couple of things and he'll help you out with employment latte if you need some help. So folks, we appreciate it. Shout out to our listeners. We appreciate you. And we'll be back on another episode. I don't know what will come out next, if it will be Travis and I doing issue three or if it be Greg and I do or issue two or Greg and I doing Booster Gold number one. But there'll be something that happens on Funny Book Forensics after this and we'll be back to talk to you later. Alpha Flight. It.