Funny Book Forensics 447 That's the Spirit

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Great. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:05] Speaker A: We have a guest for the second week in a row. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Two weeks in a row. [00:00:11] Speaker A: Two weeks in a row. And already, based on smiling, seems much happier than Travis. [00:00:16] Speaker B: This is an amazing thing. [00:00:19] Speaker C: I don't know how high of a bar that is. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Alan, do you know Travis by chance? [00:00:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, Travis, as you guys know, is the one who introduced me to you guys. We're both writers here in Las Vegas, so, yeah, we're just here enduring the sweltering heat together. [00:00:39] Speaker A: So how do you feel about Travis's Web works name? Because if you put an X in a name, it means you're extreme, right? [00:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. How many X's does he have? Like two. Two or just, Just one. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Well, one X is, like extreme, right? And then a couple X's. [00:00:57] Speaker C: As long as you don't. As long as you don't go up to three. Three X's. [00:01:01] Speaker A: That's triple extreme. So that's, that's, that's like triple X stream is like 8 or 9 inches, I think. [00:01:07] Speaker B: Well, Vin Diesel will come after you [00:01:09] Speaker C: at that point because, you know, all sorts of risks. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Dan spits out his water or whatever he's drinking now. [00:01:16] Speaker A: This. No, I'm sorry. Today. It was a long workday, so I actually have a, A very tasty, kind of sugary Trader Joe's margarita today. I don't know, could you fancy. [00:01:27] Speaker C: Fancy Dan? [00:01:28] Speaker A: So if we do have to take a drink for anything in this, this issue, which I think there is some Kirby Crackle in here, so we may have to. I may have to take a drink if we see some Kirby Crackle in this one. [00:01:38] Speaker C: I have two bobas on my desk right now, so I'm, I'm good to go. [00:01:43] Speaker A: There you go. I heard that you really like boba. That's. [00:01:46] Speaker C: Yeah. That is becoming, like, a concerningly, like, prominent part of my reputation and brand, it seems. [00:01:56] Speaker A: So does that mean we're going to see, like, a Boba horror book soon? [00:02:01] Speaker C: You know, I have pitched a short that was essentially that it did not get picked up. But, you know, maybe, maybe one day [00:02:11] Speaker A: I, I, I, I do know an imprint that may want that. [00:02:15] Speaker C: Okay. Because if, if you guys have seen, like, the cauldrons that they actually make boba in, like, they straight up just look like witches cauldrons. And it. And when you see the boba, it's like black goop inside it. Like, it already is horror, honestly. [00:02:33] Speaker B: Oh, yes, it's very, it's very scary looking. [00:02:38] Speaker A: Could you retell the story in outer space with Trans dimensional spider wizards. [00:02:43] Speaker C: Yeah. Sound. Sounds like it'd be a good collab with. With Travis. You know, I think, like, I don't know, like, a lot of things could be. Could be combined with Travis's intergalactic spider wizards, I feel. Very versatile. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Birthing sack in which they're. They're. They're sucked up through a straw. [00:03:05] Speaker A: Like, that's not okay. [00:03:06] Speaker B: And then, Dan, you have a spider inside your stomach. Think about that. All crawling around. [00:03:11] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I'm. I'm good. I don't know why I went down this route. Why did I bring up spiders? We had the saga episode a couple episodes ago where we had the weird spider lady, and then we've got your book with spider wizards, and we had vines and like, it's. Now I'm stressing out, like, this is. Okay. I'm a big fan of spiders, Alan. Really big ones that come after you, and it's all Lord of the Rings fault. Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:03:39] Speaker C: Some trauma to unpack there. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, there's definitely some trauma to underpack. I'm also a big fan of large snakes, too. He's pretty much any monster that wants [00:03:51] Speaker C: to eat, like, any. Anything that could just, like, destroy you. [00:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't really like alligators either. As long as we're getting into it, I mean, all of this is anything that wants to eat me. Yeah. [00:04:01] Speaker C: Crocodiles, sharks. Like them or you. You don't like them? [00:04:09] Speaker A: I don't. No. [00:04:10] Speaker C: Okay. Okay. There. [00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Alligators especially, they just want to eat you. Like, that's. I mean, their sole purpose is to eat things with their giant jaws. Like, that's not okay. They can stay away. [00:04:23] Speaker C: Buffalo. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Well, do you see the bison throw that. Dude, that was crazy. He's like, oh, I'll just hang out next to these bison. You know, those are wild animals. I don't recommend hanging out next to bison. Right. Like, very true. I have. I have two piece of recommendation for this podcast. One, don't open the door for the police, and two, don't hang out with bison. [00:04:44] Speaker C: Words to live by. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Well, especially like, M. Bison. He's a bad dude. [00:04:51] Speaker C: What? [00:04:53] Speaker A: I did not expect an M. Bison reference on this podcast. I mean, we probably should get to. I mean, I know I'll have Alan plug some things at the end, but Alan mentioned already comic book writer Alan, you have written for which companies recently? [00:05:07] Speaker C: Yeah, so I got my first direct market credits recently through onypress in their EC line. So I have one story in Cruel Universe and one in Catacomb of Torment recently as well, and I'd say that is the only company, but we're working on getting some more opportunities in the future as well. [00:05:35] Speaker A: When you do other writing as well, right? [00:05:38] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I do screenwriting, sort of, but it's kind of a long road to breaking in on that front. I also, you know, I self publish some comics as well through my little imprint, Tortoise and Hare Comics. I big fan of rabbits and bunnies. So when I do stuff that's like, my personal brand usually involves, you know, rabbits or bunnies in some capacity, so I do that. Also, I do an online, just free to read ongoing manga series called My Internet Friends. And that's a fun, weird sci fi series that's completely available online. So it's an easy thing to point people to. [00:06:27] Speaker A: You're gonna have to put the link in our chat so I make sure that I link it to everybody in the podcast notes so they can read My Internet friends too. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Yes, because they like to read comics. Of course. That's why they. [00:06:39] Speaker A: A lot of the listeners do like to read comics, though I did learn today. Travis wants to now write an issue after reading the first issue of Kingdom Come, which he has not read the rest of it still. So he's still complaining about a story that he hasn't read the rest of, but he wanted to write a comic book where Sarah Destroy just murders baby boomers, so. [00:07:01] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:07:03] Speaker A: So maybe that could be like a collab there too, like Travis meets horror comics. I do have a sad thing to say. I'm going to admit Allan, the small animal next to me right now, she is also a big fan of rabbits, but I don't think in the same way that you. [00:07:22] Speaker C: Oh, no, yeah, no, she's not. [00:07:26] Speaker B: I mean, she is a big fan of rabbits, just not the same way. [00:07:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like the enemy. So don't be mad at her when you see her. I mean, she can't really help it. It's like her instinct. I mean, she's a 30 pound lab shepherd mix. So when you're the. You got to prove your dominance, right? [00:07:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's fair. I mean, and you know, I feel like it's like their instinct to, you know, protect. Protect the, the crops in the garden from. From those pesky rodents. [00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah, but she's. Well, we do have a lot of bunnies up here though too. I think somebody in like 1950 let a bunny out during like Easter and then maybe they. [00:08:04] Speaker C: They let two bunnies out. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah, they let two bunnies out. There are bunnies Everywhere. That is a buff bunny. [00:08:10] Speaker C: That's a muscle. My guardian bunny. I use. I usually feel a little self conscious about how plain my background is because, you know, most people like, like you, Dan. Like, you have these, like, really impressive, like, you know, collections of comics and figurines and stuff behind you. And I just have this, like, the most bland wall in history. So at some point I put this buff bunny here. So it's like I have, like a little bit of. A little bit of, you know, something in the background at least. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Well, some people would call this hoarding. So behind me. So you have a bunny and I have a lot of crazy things. But yeah, I mean, we do have. We. We did read comics about ducks on this podcast, though. [00:08:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:54] Speaker A: We did review Destroyer Duck, which. Have you heard of Howard the Duck, Alan? [00:09:00] Speaker C: Yeah, of course. [00:09:02] Speaker A: Okay, well, Destroyer Duck. When Steve Gerber left Marvel in a contract dispute, he created Destroyer Duck. And he got this. We mentioned him already on the. We were talking about him earlier today before the podcast. He got this really obscure unknown artist, Jack Kirby, to draw Destroyer Duck for him. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Nobody's ever heard of that because Jack [00:09:21] Speaker A: Kirby was also mad at Marvel at the time. So they got together and they drew this wild and they made this wild story. It was absolutely nuts. [00:09:32] Speaker C: Bonkers enacted their revenge by just making a knockoff Howard the Duck. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Pretty much. [00:09:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:40] Speaker A: But of course, it wasn't a knockoff Howard the Duck. It was Destroyer Duck. Completely different, of course. [00:09:45] Speaker C: Of course. Yes. [00:09:46] Speaker A: Yeah, completely duck different duck universe. You know, you wouldn't. You wouldn't. It wouldn't be the same. No, yeah, it's, it's, it's. It was a duck. [00:09:54] Speaker C: It's a cooler, cooler name, too. So there's, there's that going for it. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Destroyer Duck is an inherently cool name for anything. Right? Yeah. Destroyer Duck teams up with Muscle Rabbit would be. [00:10:06] Speaker C: Yeah, there we go. It's so many pitches coming out of this. This episode already. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. I mean, they're going to be a lot of pitches. I don't know if any of them will be good. [00:10:14] Speaker B: There'd be swords. Would they have swords? [00:10:17] Speaker C: A hundred percent of the. The shots you don't take, [00:10:22] Speaker A: you know, And Greg is actually really good at pitching everything, so I will say, oh, yeah, gotta. [00:10:27] Speaker C: Gotta give me some. Some pointers sometime. [00:10:29] Speaker A: How many times has the second or third thing you pitched been the thing that got picked up instead of the first thing? Like, what percentage if you're going into a pitch and something gets picked? [00:10:41] Speaker B: Pretty much every time. [00:10:44] Speaker C: I've Heard that's a really common thing that happens. So it's like, you have to be careful. You have to be really careful about which ideas you bring up at all. Right. And I also see, like, artists often say, like, if, you know, if they do the thing where they present, like, three options for, like, the COVID the designer, whatever, it's like, often like the one that they like least that gets picked [00:11:08] Speaker B: up. [00:11:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, there you go. [00:11:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I tend to usually lead with the thing that I'm like. [00:11:12] Speaker C: I, I'm. [00:11:13] Speaker B: I'm not like, that's. That's the thing that I'm like, yeah, that. That might be good, but I always know that the one in my back pocket is the. That's. That's the thing kind of, you know, that's so, so. [00:11:27] Speaker C: So it works out well then that, like. And it's partially intentional then that the thing that you bring up second or third is. Is what you kind of actually want. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:11:39] Speaker C: That's interesting. [00:11:40] Speaker B: It's a. [00:11:41] Speaker C: Because I guess it is more common to, like, lead with, like, you know, the thing that you're most excited about, but maybe that's what's working against us. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Go in with the same excitement that you have. Going with the same excitement for both projects, you know, because who knows, they might, like. They might. They might really like that idea, but be ready for that second one with that same, you know, like. Or, you know, be ready and have that. That kind of energy. Because who knows, you might get. They might be like, oh, no, we like that first one. [00:12:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Or. Or maybe they'll. They feel more pressured to, like, the second one if they don't like the first one because it's like, oh, no, like, got. Gotta. Gotta give them something. I don't know. [00:12:24] Speaker B: I. There's been. I mean, there's. There's definitely like. [00:12:27] Speaker C: There's that. [00:12:28] Speaker B: That feeling too where, like, they. They. Publishers can get up and leave whenever they want. They don't have to sit around. [00:12:35] Speaker C: They're. [00:12:36] Speaker B: They're. [00:12:37] Speaker A: They're. [00:12:37] Speaker B: They don't need you. They've got probably five or six other people that they need to meet with during a weekend or whatever, you know, so it's like. [00:12:47] Speaker C: But yeah, it's. It's scary to imagine what an editor's email inbox looks like. Oh, yeah. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. [00:12:54] Speaker B: It's probably full of stuff all the time. [00:12:56] Speaker A: What does an editor's email box look like? [00:12:59] Speaker B: I mean, when I'm editing, it's. It's full of like, hey, why aren't [00:13:06] Speaker C: you getting back to me. [00:13:10] Speaker B: Or are you still editing this? Yes, I'm still working on it, but I try. I try to. I try to be timely, so. [00:13:21] Speaker A: Well, we are super lucky today because Alan got me to read a book that I didn't pick up initially [00:13:29] Speaker C: a [00:13:29] Speaker A: couple years ago that came out of this big DC Universe Lazarus thing. And there were. There were three reasons I didn't pick up the book. One was because I was behind schedule on reading my comics, Greg. Like normal. Because I read them once a month and I was behind schedule, and so I didn't. On brand for Dan, didn't get to them in time. Well, if I. So it's one of those things, the way we buy comics now. Right. Like, if you don't order it three months in advance, you don't get it. And so by the time I read the stories. Right. Even if I liked the characters, which. That is a cool character design. [00:14:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:04] Speaker A: Then I would have to go through some effort to go get the book. And then I might let Alan say it. But I think you said it before the podcast. I saw a push for some new characters, and it looked like they would just drop them in six or seven months. So I was really excited to go get my money behind something that was just like going to disappear because I didn't see a lot of momentum coming out of Lazarus. Like it. And, you know, DC has really flipped that around, right. With the absolute line. They've. They're still publishing them two years later. They've added new characters to it. They did a lot with that all in run. But wasn't Lazarus Planet. Weren't we still toward the end of Bendis being at DC and that that sort of transition to Scott Snyder had taken over the Batman universe? Not Scott Snyder. Sorry, what is wrong with my brain? Did I get that right? Yeah, Scott Snyder. I got that right. Making sure I don't say Zack Snyder. Scott Snyder had taken over the Batman universe already. We'd been through Dark Knight's metal, and then we were sneaking into some of these others, like Lazarus Product Project, and then Absolute Power came out. We were talking about that beforehand, and that's where we transitioned to really Snyder doing the books. Joshua Williamson and Superman. Mark Waid came back, had been on for a while, so we. We sort of transitioned to those big three. And then a couple of other writers. Tom King was writing a lot of Elseworld stuff and still working with DC a lot. Tom Taylor doing a lot of books for dc. So we kind of transitioned out of the. Bendis is Coming stuff from like five, six years ago into this new thing. But Lazarus Project kind of gets stuck in the middle of that. And I think after reading this, I may have to go back and read some more books because there was some good storytelling coming out of this. But I don't think gets the attention that these new books got. Certainly we're not selling. We're about to read spirit world number one, and we're not selling spirit world number one in foil online for 900 bucks, rated at a 9.8. Right. Like it. These didn't take off like the absolute universe did, but I feel like DC was almost there and wow, these are some beautiful books. [00:16:19] Speaker C: Yeah. For me, you were saying that this Spirit World and We Are Legends kind of came at a lull between these bigger initiatives. For me going in though, as I mentioned to you guys, this was kind of my entry point into going into comic book stores. So it was like kind of my introduction to the world of like current ongoing comics. It was after I had already started reading like older comics for a couple of years. But when I heard the premise for Spirit World, that's what got me to start checking out some of these series. And I think looking back, I went in like so like naive in a way. But it was also good because it let me really engage with these stories and characters without some of the, I guess the jadedness that I might have developed even after a short amount of time of reading comics. Because now that I've been following the scene very actively for a couple years, I see yet pretty often you'll see these characters come out and get a big push and if you haven't been part of the cycle before then you might think, oh, like, of course these are going to stick around. They're so prominent and then they just disappear. Right. And if you're reading comics actively, you kind of see that happen again and again. But because I was going in with so little idea of how comics work, I saw, I think this was around the time when Yara Flor was being pushed as the new Wonder Girl and she kind of disappeared after that as well. Although she's, I feel like she's coming back again a little bit. But yeah, like I was like, oh, you know, wow, there's like a new Wonder Girl, there's these new Asian characters. And I came in with a lot of like bright eyed excitement at the time. [00:18:21] Speaker A: And it does make sense too because I will say the dawn of dc. So a bunch of the mainline books start at number one at this point. Again, Right. So Wonder Woman starts at number one. Right. Superman starts at number one. Green Lantern, Green Lantern, Corpse comes a little bit later. And then the absolute books come like two years later. Right. So where the absolute books are numbered around like 21, 22 at this time, the mainline books are. The other mainline books were numbered around like 40, 38, 39 right now. And then Mark Wade had come in with that world finest book, which is one of my favorites, where he's writing about Superman and Batman stories from anywhere in time he wants to, at any time, and plopping some of those down. So these did come out at a time when DC was pushing a lot of things and maybe also got lost in the shuffle a little bit. Because if you're relaunching Batman, if you're relaunching Superman, if you're relaunching Wonder Woman, if you're relaunching Green Lantern, if you're relaunching Green Arrow, all these different books relaunching Flash, I believe too. What's going to get the press? Spirit World or Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman. Flat, you know, like it's, it. It wasn't a really affair and we talked about too. So this was a whole line of books that came out of the Lazarus Project and we were listing them off [00:19:36] Speaker C: earlier was Spirit World City Boy, Monkey Prince. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Monkey Prince. [00:19:41] Speaker C: Oh, the, the, the Rambi one was the Vigil, I believe. [00:19:45] Speaker A: The vigil. Yeah, that's correct. [00:19:46] Speaker C: That was. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Yep. The team book. And, and so, yeah, some interesting stories and also, you know, a little bit of a push to engage more Asian creators in the process at DC Comics. Right. Similar. And DC has done this a few times in history, I think probably the most not famous, I mean, with minority creators. Right. So obviously in the 90s they brought in Icon and Static and that whole universe. Right. And you know, so this has happened at DC through times. It's happened at Marvel too. I don't want to exclude Marvel, but just getting into to DC's attempts a little bit at engaging somebody who's not me. Right. They don't need to engage 51 year old white male like comic book readers that have been reading since they were kids. Right. Like how about reach out to a different audience once in a while. And I'm on enough groups online that all they want is the comics still written to reach out to them. The Legion is coming out with a new book and Travis is gonna. I can hear Travis now. All Dan does just talk about the Legion of Superheroes. Well, yeah, this because it's my favorite book since I was like, you know, a little kid. So the same way Alan picked up this book and is like, oh, this is my entryway into comic books. I can recite to you what happens in legion of superheroes 306 when Starboy has his origin story and. Because that book came off the spinner rack for me, Right. And I don't care if it's 40 years old, because I remember everything about that book. And I might read 30 books this month, and I'm not going to remember the same way that I remember those books. Right. Because those were mine. But I also recognize that you don't need to have the exact same art storytelling to attract an audience now. And, yeah, there's a lot of. There's some new books coming out in September. We've got, like, a new Teen Titans book. You've got a new Legion book. There's another book coming out. Totally. Oh, Doom Patrol book. New Doom Patrol book coming out. And then they just released a Deathstroke book, Lobo book. And I was just holding it up, wasn't I? So one more I'm totally drawing a blank on, but there's a lot of new things coming out, and they're trying to build on their success. And DC outsold Marvel for the first time since the 70s last year, which is kind of crazy when you think about it, how long Marvel had the dominance and as predicted, Greg. Not that I'm proud of myself, but, hey, it only took dc. It only took, you know, it only took Disney about 17 years to destroy that momentum. So congratulations, Disney. [00:22:26] Speaker B: I'll tell you, I know what it was that did it. It was the Blue Beetle movie. [00:22:32] Speaker A: That was a DC movie, and that did not spur confidence in anyone. [00:22:36] Speaker B: I actually loved it. I thought it was fantastic. [00:22:40] Speaker C: Zolo is returning as Blue Beetle in the new dcu, isn't he? I saw some news about that. [00:22:45] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:22:47] Speaker C: I like the movie. I thought it was. [00:22:49] Speaker A: So I get really upset because I'm okay with people liking the movie. The comic was constructed so well. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:23:01] Speaker A: That I hated that they didn't do that. Right. Like, he's in El Paso. His family is Mexican. There's like, drug wars and culture and things are talking about. And then they make the movie and they just, like, threw away all of that. And we're like, we're gonna just make something else. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Miami. [00:23:19] Speaker A: And I really felt they had something in that book that would really go great in a movie. And then they're like, nah, let's. Let's do something else. So that's my issue with the movie. My other issue is I love Ted Kord, and I didn't think Ted Kord got good service in the movie, but, you know, we don't have to, like, the same things. Well, it's okay. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Okay, Dan. To pad you a little bit. Then it was. Wonder Woman 84 brought all the new readers to the door. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Oh, God. [00:23:54] Speaker C: No. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Stop, stop. That movie's trash. [00:23:57] Speaker B: I love that movie, too. [00:23:58] Speaker A: So good. I'm just. You, you're lying now. [00:24:05] Speaker B: No, I actually, I, I, I, I love that movie. [00:24:09] Speaker A: That movie's trash. Like, it's, it's just. I. [00:24:13] Speaker C: You, you. [00:24:15] Speaker A: Yeah, well, let's stop talking about DC movies and talk about good things like the comics they're making. Because dc, Superman, Supergirl, good movies like those. And if anybody wants to trash a Supergirl movie, they can come fight me. I don't care. Like, let's go. [00:24:33] Speaker C: I do, I do think that, like, have you guys seen, like, people putting, like, that one, that's one needle drop song over, like, other, like, comic book movie scenes? Those are pretty funny. But I like the movie, too. [00:24:49] Speaker A: It's, it's, it's not all movies with female leads need to be love stories. What? What? [00:24:58] Speaker B: They can be a movie. [00:25:00] Speaker A: You don't need a man. [00:25:02] Speaker B: Oh, my. [00:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Shocking. I know. [00:25:06] Speaker C: It's crazy. [00:25:08] Speaker A: Do you know that there's all sorts of people in the world that go through different life events that don't involve love stories? It's crazy. Crazy. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Dan. You're, you're, you're, you're telling me stuff that I didn't know. [00:25:20] Speaker A: And I can't believe if the, if the, if the lead actress or actor or actor or person acting, wherever we're going to call this in a freaking movie doesn't meet your stereotypical visual appeal because you're some old ledge watching, you know, teenage high school thing. I do. Wait, I do that. I've been watching the Elite. I'm going to admit it right now. Do y' all know what the Elite is? [00:25:44] Speaker C: No, what is that? What is the Elite? [00:25:46] Speaker A: It's like a Spanish high school soap opera. It's the worst. [00:25:49] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:25:50] Speaker A: Been watching it while I work out. It's basically Riverdale, except without the spookiness. It's like a murder mystery every season. [00:25:58] Speaker B: But that's what makes the Riverdale so good. All the spooky. [00:26:01] Speaker A: I know, but that's what it. Well, no, but Riverdale, first season, first season was just a murder mystery. [00:26:05] Speaker C: Yeah, true. [00:26:07] Speaker B: And they're getting spooky. [00:26:08] Speaker A: So that's. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm. Anyway, it's, it's good workout fodder. I don't really have to pay attention and I can just lift anyway. All right, so Spirit world, we're going to talk about this book, I promise. All right. [00:26:19] Speaker B: More spooky. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Oh, goodness. Yeah, it is spooky. So it's not really spooky, actually. [00:26:27] Speaker B: 26 minutes in, folks. 26 minutes in. [00:26:31] Speaker A: You know what, Greg? [00:26:32] Speaker B: Yes, Dan? [00:26:33] Speaker A: I don't want to hear it. Like, I don't think last, last week we didn't talk about the comic for like an hour. [00:26:39] Speaker B: So I, I know this. [00:26:41] Speaker C: We're on, we're on good pace. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, Alan, we are on. [00:26:45] Speaker C: Good. [00:26:45] Speaker B: But you're not trapped. [00:26:46] Speaker A: We're, we're on great pace. We're, we're picking it right up. So we have a whole bunch of characters in this book. But yeah, I mean, this cover is. Unfortunately, I only have this one on on my tablet, but you'll still be able to see it. But this cover is absolutely beautiful. The coloring on this. Does this wash out in the book, Alan? I think. Is it this bright? [00:27:11] Speaker C: No. [00:27:12] Speaker A: You got a big glossy cover. [00:27:13] Speaker C: Yeah, this is the trade paper I have. [00:27:17] Speaker A: I love that. [00:27:18] Speaker C: But yeah, no, it's really amazing cover by Eining and Sebastian Chen. Should we say the premise of the book or people who might not be familiar, maybe? [00:27:30] Speaker A: Oh, sure, yeah, that'd be a great idea. [00:27:33] Speaker C: Just give us in on a little bit of context. I mean, I don't want to interrupt on how you guys do things, but just really quick interrupt on how we [00:27:44] Speaker A: do things because we have such a strategy every time we get into this. [00:27:50] Speaker C: But okay, so the book Spirit World, it's a six issue miniseries by Alyssa Wong, Hai Ning and Sebastian Chang on colors. And it is essentially about Cassandra Cain and a new character created by Alyssa Wang Xanth, who I think their hero name is the Envoy. They get sucked into the Chinese underworld and they have a very contained adventure exploring that, dealing with these Chinese concepts of afterlife and fighting some cool, you know, spooky spiritual monsters. And yeah, it's very neat, contained miniseries that I personally really loved. As I said, it was kind of, it was the series that got me to start going to comic bookstores. So I wanted to kind of, you know, sing its praises a bit and recommend it to Dan and Greg as well. [00:28:49] Speaker A: Yeah, and it looks like Alyssa has done some work on some other stuff too, outside of dc. Some Star wars work, it looks like. [00:28:58] Speaker C: Yeah, they had quite a long run on Dr. Aphra, like a 50 issue run or something like that. And then more recently they've done some series at Marvel. Like they did a Captain Marvel one and a Psylocker one more recently. [00:29:22] Speaker A: Looks like there's a really cool iron fist here. [00:29:25] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, that one I'm, I'm. That one I haven't read. But yeah, they're. They're more recent stuff. I've tried to basically pick up anything that they write that's cool. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Legend of Shang Chi. I'm just. I just grabbed. I went onto their page and took a look. Their webpage. Yeah. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Ooh. [00:29:48] Speaker A: I don't know how they feel about this one. [00:29:51] Speaker C: What? [00:29:52] Speaker A: They wrote a section. Oh, I haven't read it. I actually have it. They wrote a Section 31 Star Trek book. Wasn't a super big fan of that movie. But now I've got to go dig that book out because I like, I like the writing here. [00:30:07] Speaker C: Also realizing I forgot to mention that Constantine is in this book, I also forgot that he was actually in it. I'm generally like, not a Constantine fan. So it was when I was reading this series, it was like, yeah, it has, it has one of my favorite. It has my absolute favorite DC character in it in Cassandra Cain. And it also has, like, I don't want to say least favorite, but like, one of the characters I feel the most like, middling about in Constantine. [00:30:35] Speaker B: It's fine. You can feel that way because he's kind of like he's there, but he's like, he, It's. [00:30:41] Speaker A: I. [00:30:42] Speaker B: As you're reading through the series, it's like he's. It's. It's like when, you know, like, like, [00:30:49] Speaker C: why is he there, though? You know, like, like, like he's like a. He's comic relief. I mean, British guy who like, stumbled [00:30:55] Speaker A: into, like, why is he there? [00:30:57] Speaker C: Is the Chinatown. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Why is he anywhere? That's a better question. I'm. I'm with Alan on this. I'm burnt out on Constantine or Constantine or whatever we're saying. It's. [00:31:08] Speaker C: However, is it Constantine? [00:31:10] Speaker A: It doesn't. You know, I believe that. I believe that the guy whose dog was killed and then he went on to murder people and then he played, you know, then like he was in like, Bill and Ted's excellent adventure and, and some other movie where you're like, get, you know, eaten by the AI and like put in a matrix or something. He might tell you how to pronounce it differently. I don't know. But he also basically died of cancer in his movie, so, you know, because that movie was. Yeah. Talk about not DC movies. I wasn't a big fan of, like, the character. Much better on Legends of Tomorrow where they. Where Constantine plays a comic relief role most of the time. Right. Like, I did. I did like that. But, yeah. I mean, Constantine has killed Zatanna for me. I won't even buy those books with the two of them together. It makes me not happy. [00:32:07] Speaker C: I feel the same way, honestly. That's another case where Zatanna, actually, funnily enough, is. I'd say sometimes she's my second favorite DC character. Generally, she's somewhere in top five. And with her, it's a very. With her, it's a much more regular occurrence where I'm, like, enjoying myself reading Zatanna, and then Constantine shows up. So it was kind of funny that this happened. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Why? [00:32:35] Speaker C: With Cassandra Cain as well. [00:32:39] Speaker A: You know, it's funny that I. It's funny that we have the exact same feelings on this, and we have never, ever, ever discussed this. And I'm not joking around. This is. I have never mentioned this before. [00:32:49] Speaker B: It's unfolding in real time, folks. You're hearing it here first. [00:32:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:54] Speaker C: That staged. [00:32:56] Speaker A: It's not staged. This is. No, this is hilarious. Yeah. And you know, Cassandra Cain. I had dropped off of Cassandra Cain because I don't read the Batman Universe. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Because now you will. [00:33:07] Speaker A: I get. I get, like, 28 comics a month, and I had to stop at some point, and they turned me off the Batman Universe. I'm going to tell everybody a secret. I was not a big fan of Scott Snyder's Batman, and I think people listen to the podcast know that. And I'm so sorry. I started reading the Absolute Batman finally. I'm like, three issues in, really enjoying it. Everybody, you know, and again, that's where, you know, they're not writing for me. They're writing to build their brand. And that's the cool thing about it. And there's plenty of old people for me to read. Mark Wade's still writing for them. I can go read all the Mark Wade stuff, be happy, and everybody else can read Scott Snyder. Scott Snyder. Met him at a con, like, eight years ago. Super nice guy. Had me announce his name in my baseball announcer voice for the whole con to here, right in the middle of the show. Super friendly guy. His writing bounces around a lot, and it drives me nuts. Like, I like things to be very linear. And so when I'm reading His stories. It's like you read. Read the issue, and the next issue you're like, somewhere else. And I'm like, what the is I'm not supposed to swear? We're preparing for next week with our guest, Randy Umberland. Next week. So I'm still swearing, but I'm trying not to. [00:34:16] Speaker C: So I almost said I'm the. The practice round. [00:34:18] Speaker A: You're the practice round? [00:34:19] Speaker C: Yeah, Travis. Travis was the practice. Oh, Travis. [00:34:23] Speaker A: Travis is where I got all the swear words out. [00:34:25] Speaker C: Yeah, Travis. That might not be good. Good practice for that. [00:34:29] Speaker A: So first week, Travis on Dan gets rid of all the swear words. Right. And then you're here, and I can practice a little bit better. And then now Randy told us we could swear. There's just a couple of swear words that they would prefer we not use. This is like. But yeah, it's, you know, I, I. And I think, like, what I don't want to undersell is the absolute success that him and Joshua Williamson have had, like, both creating this universe. Tom Taylor has to get some credit too. Right. I think for the long run on Nightwing. I mean, I think that's only fair. And they. And what hurt me, too, is they bought. Brought Matte Fraction in to write Batman, and I didn't buy it because I haven't been buying the Batman books and he didn't. And I love Matt Fraction. Yeah. I. I usually do if they're not at Marvel now. Yeah. And that's the. No, the only thing I buy at Marvel is Gail's book. So I'm only buying Uncanny X Men because Gail writes it. And I love Gail. [00:35:30] Speaker C: Fair. Fair. [00:35:31] Speaker A: The end. I mean, I, I mean, who. Who else starts in comics as a hairdresser in rural Oregon and then becomes super famous and, you know, can write things on the Internet that people go, like, insane for whatever she says. Right. Either way, anyway. Getting totally distracted. So we're back on the buck. But we are getting a Dawn of DC thing. And it's funny, when I flipped the first page in my book, actually, even though I'm on the DC Universe Infinite, it still has an advertisement right on the front page for dawn of D.C. titans number one. So they had reintroduced the. Which is funny because we talk about callbacks. They basically reintroduced the 1984 Titans team without Lilith, but it's basically Cyborg, Starfire, Nightwing, changeling. Well, he's not changeling. Beast Boy, Wonder Girl, and the flat Kid Flash and. But not Kid Flash. But Flash, but. And Raven and Tom Taylor wrote it. And fun stuff. And it's still running strong, so boom. Yeah, those were those number ones we were talking about. What are you pumping out? Oh, hey, we're bringing back the titans from the 80s. We're going to hit all those old men in their fandom and try to hit some new people too. We're going to push that and then we're going to push these other cool books aside a little bit, which marketing. [00:36:54] Speaker C: Right. [00:36:56] Speaker A: I do think, I do think. I don't know about you, Alan, but I feel like these books would have benefited from a stagger start. Like some of the books in the new line, in the all in line got where they. They like the JSA book released like six months later and then they did another wave of books and then another wave of books. I felt like these might have benefited from like a six month stagger start. [00:37:18] Speaker C: I actually don't know, like off the top of my head, like what the release schedule for these was like, because initially I was like, like much more like focused in specifically on Spirit World. And then when I discovered that it was like part of the We Are Legends line, I went back and tried to read some of the others as well. But did they all launch very closely together or. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah, they all launched one. [00:37:42] Speaker C: One big push. [00:37:43] Speaker A: They all launched right after this Lazarus product project and they all launched again with all these other number ones that were happening. So yeah, that was a, that was, that was a tough. And again, part of the reason I didn't get any of them is just because there were so many other number ones coming out. Right. It's like if I'm going to add, you know, it's four bucks a pop. Right. So if I'm going to add six books a month now, I have to be careful about what I choose, right? [00:38:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:12] Speaker C: Right. Right. Too many options all at once. And I think I feel like one of the hardest things like in, in comics or especially, especially like with like the big two is like getting people on board with like new characters. Right. Because like on one hand people are always saying like, you know, we want to see new stuff, new characters instead of recycling the same characters again and again. But also it legitimately is very hard to get people to show up for new characters as well. Right. So I think something that Spirit World has going for it is that Cassandra Cain is such a big part of the premise because with some of the other ones like Monkey Prince and I guess the Vigil and City Boy, they're kind of more exclusively focused on those new characters. So it doesn't have that immediate, like, name recognition factor that might draw people in because, like, with. With me, like, I feel like I'm, you know, with. With my interests, I'm probably more likely to pick up, like, a book with, like, you know, brand new, like, ancient characters than, like, the majority of comics readers, probably. But even for me, the one that I gravitated to initially was Spirit World, and that was partially because, like, Cassandra Cain was in it. So there was, like, you know, there was some cool new characters, but there's also something for me to latch onto in terms of there being, like, a character that I already recognized and enjoyed. So, I don't know, I guess that just kind of goes to show that, like, how hard it really is to successfully push a new character or team. Well. [00:39:55] Speaker A: And I really like to write what you're saying there. Obviously, agree. And then to add on to that. Right. You know, I had. I like what they're doing with the Bat Girls, too, where they just all exist. So they're kind of doing that with the Superboys now, too. [00:40:13] Speaker C: I feel like they're doing that with. With all of the characters who they could do that to. Right. Because there was, like, there was more of a period where it was like, oh, you know, they're like, going. Kind of going between, like, oh, you can only really have one who has the mantle. But now and then there was. There would always be people who are kind of unhappy. Right. Because it's not like their chosen one or whatever. But now it's like, yeah, there's just three or four. Superman and Batgirl and Flashes and all of that. [00:40:43] Speaker A: When we mentioned that last week, too, when Mark Waid took over Justice League and called it Justice League Unlimited, he just said, everybody's in the Justice League, everyone. So I don't have to have a roster of my favorite seven. It's just like, everybody's there. And then for three or four issues, I'm going to tell a story with these eight characters, and then for the next five or six issues, I'll tell a story with these seven characters. Right. And I just think it gives a writer, especially when you have a big cast book like that, some flexibility to not write themselves into a corner. [00:41:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:12] Speaker A: And I think the same thing here. These characters can pop up, coexist, and you can give everybody a little bit of their favorite somewhere. And it's also good for marketing. And it's. Obviously, it's working because, you know, D.C. is doing a lot of stuff that works right now because, you know, who. Who would have thought again, that DC would be outselling Marvel 1 and 2. Now, you know, it's interesting because something Marvel did so well in the past was buffing up a character when a movie was coming out. Right. And now DC's been able to do that with Superman. And, you know, I know people are going to question the success of Supergirl. I mean, they're wrong. Supergirl is going to keep selling after it gets past whatever happened with the far right attacking it. I don't know. I. I don't know. I guess you just can't have strong women, you know, in the, in the, in the world. It's. It, it hurts your fragile masculinity. Take suck it, Andrew Tate. Go to jail. Right. Like it's, you know, so how apt. Did they get arrested right in the middle of this controversy? But yeah, you know, like it's, it said it's that time. It's a weird time and you just go out and attack something before you even watch it. It had a, it had a negative rating before the thing even debuted, which was weird. Yeah. I don't even know how that happens. But yeah, here we get in, in spirit world, we get a non, non binary character, right? [00:42:40] Speaker C: Yes. [00:42:42] Speaker A: And so it's interesting. We'll talk about that, I'm sure, as the book goes on. I, I don't know. I'm going to say it at the start. Right. One of my thoughts on this book was you get a non binary character and I'm not sure if it matters in the book and I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I haven't decided yet. I'm not sure if I really like the fact that the non binary character. It doesn't matter that they're non binary or if I really wanted it to be something in the book. Like I am. I'm kind of tugging on that one. I'm not sure. [00:43:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, I mean, it's always tricky to like find the balance on that sort of thing. Right. I personally, I think like, I feel like Alyssa hit a pretty good balance where, like, it is a pretty big part of Zant's character. Especially like in, in the earlier issues when, when you see them interacting with their family and then it does kind of like taper off a little bit where it's, it's not like the, the central, you know, it's not the central like plot or, or conflict of the series for sure, but I feel like you can kind of see how it informs the character. So it was, I thought it worked pretty well. For me. [00:44:01] Speaker A: Well, let's jump into issue one and let's see if we can give folks a taste of. Of to keep reading it. And after we do issue one, Alan, we can kind of sum up the rest of the story. [00:44:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:10] Speaker A: Without giving away too much because we want them to read the end, but yes. We flip to the first page and we get a shot of what they call Gotham City Chinatown. And they say now. And you get a small child in a rain jacket running through their. This art. I. I cannot express how beautiful this art is. And you know, we just had Travis on last week. He's always complaining about paneling. And here's one where you get some really abstract panels, but the story flows right through them, literally. Because it's water flowing, Right. And so you get water flowing. The little girl is swept up in the water. It looks like there's having a big rainstorm, struggling, and then is grabbed right out of the water by our brand new character that just appeared in Lazarus. And they have not named the character yet, Right? Oh, yeah, there we go. [00:45:13] Speaker C: Yeah. The name comes on page two. Yes. Yeah. [00:45:20] Speaker A: But saves the little girl. The little girl starts. She mentions that it'll take you away to the spirit world. And that prompts the little girl to start bawling like, gets rescued. Oh, don't let it take you away. Like, oh, no. And so I like this, though, because it clearly establishes that the spirit world is something to be concerned about. Right. In some way. And then Xanth pops out an umbrella out of paper. [00:45:50] Speaker C: I love this nice, quick little introduction of their power as well. [00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I love this power. Like, it is so cool. [00:45:59] Speaker C: You. [00:46:01] Speaker A: And I was kind of wondering about that too. They do answer that in the series. But my first thought is like, is there like a. Is it like a pouch of pre made, pre folded stuff? That's where Greg, see, there is pre toasting in this. It's. [00:46:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pre toasted. Yeah, it's pre folded. [00:46:17] Speaker C: They're. [00:46:17] Speaker B: They're ready to go. [00:46:19] Speaker C: It's. It's. [00:46:20] Speaker B: It's all right there whenever you need it until you run out. [00:46:25] Speaker A: I don't know, Alan, do you know the pre joke? [00:46:28] Speaker C: I don't know the pre toasted joke specifically, but I can just imagine how inconvenient it would be to, you know, be like having to do your origami or whatever and then burning it like on the spot in the middle of a fight, predicting it. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:43] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:46:44] Speaker B: Again, I'm all right, hold on a second. [00:46:48] Speaker A: Pre toasted book was in Tom. Tom King's Human Target book. And he was investigating all the Justice League International people as potential murderers. And Booster Gold created a bagel shop where he pre toasted the bagels. And that was the joke, right? Because you can't pre toast bagels, even though Greg insists that you can. [00:47:08] Speaker B: Alan, do you think. [00:47:09] Speaker A: I'm not sure how Greg didn't get the joke. [00:47:14] Speaker C: I. I am confused. [00:47:16] Speaker A: You can't pre toast bagels. But that was his marketing effort. He's like, my shot at my shop. We pre toast the bagels. That was the joke. [00:47:23] Speaker B: No, no, I. [00:47:24] Speaker A: They were like, my business is going to fail miserably. And here, though, I think. I think in the spirit of D D sorcery, you have to have kind of predict the spell you're going to use before you go to the fight, right? [00:47:40] Speaker B: A little bit, yeah. [00:47:41] Speaker C: Yeah. So they thought, you know, probably going to need this little paper umbrella at some point in the near future. [00:47:49] Speaker A: So my way out, I think also they also can obviously, they know origami, so they can obviously fold something relatively fast, but as it gets later on in the story, it's. There's a question of whether or not that's a great idea to do under pressure. So in the middle of a fight, should you pull out little piece of paper and start folding origami things quickly? I don't know if that's the best thing to do. [00:48:19] Speaker C: I just think it's such a neat power because it's like. It kind of has that like. Like, it's kind of like Green Lantern ish in a way, where, like, you can, like, make the character just, like, have anything that they might need, but also, like, comes at it with a bit of a unique spin on it. And for those who might not be familiar, this is kind of. It's based on an Asian custom, I suppose, or practice where. I know the main thing is that you can burn paper money as an offering to your deceased ancestors, and the idea is that they will receive that money in the afterlife. And I think you can burn paper versions of other stuff, too, to give it to them. So it's really cool and clever to see that idea turned into a power as well in this DC universe. [00:49:22] Speaker A: And unique. Right. There's a lot of things where. How do you come up with a unique power set for somebody? Well, here you go. Yeah, here's a unique power set. Has. It's steeped in tradition, but it's a unique power set for comics. Right? [00:49:37] Speaker C: For sure. [00:49:38] Speaker A: And so we get into. Well, we get in the next page. And Xanth shows up at Mr. Wins Goods and sundries and. And there's a lot of cats. [00:50:00] Speaker B: So many cats. [00:50:02] Speaker A: And a Constantine. [00:50:07] Speaker C: Look what the cats dragged in. Yeah, [00:50:13] Speaker A: yeah. And I was too. I, I will say when I started reading this, I was like, why is Constantine here? Like getting introduced to this new character? Gross. But then I had to remember it was tied to this Lazarus Planet thing, so it makes sense. Basically what happened in this story is Constantine, Cassandra, Cain and Xanth are all fighting. Right. And then Cassandra, Kane and Zanth basically switch places. Right, Alan? [00:50:45] Speaker C: No, I, I think Cass just gets like sucked into the, the spirit world. Like, well, they're, they're all like the three of them are fighting this monster that appears in the graveyard. And then as they're banishing it, the monster like grabs Cass and pulls her into the portal, I think is how that happens. [00:51:05] Speaker A: And that was the short to sort of introduce these stories. Right. So in this book there were a couple of stories designed to introduce new series or new characters. [00:51:14] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:51:15] Speaker A: And that was the. I think it's the one at the back of the book. [00:51:18] Speaker C: So, yeah, this is just a ten pager. [00:51:26] Speaker A: It's almost like it was almost like the old school, like new talent showcase stories. It was almost like that right. From the 80s, Greg. [00:51:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Just get you. Just gives you a little taste enough to make you want to hunt down something. Oh, is that going to be a real thing? Am I going to be able to find that later? Oh, and then you do. [00:51:46] Speaker A: And of course that back then they did it a little bit differently than if the fans reached out and mailed them. Then they maybe make a series as opposed to this. Where it's like this is. It was more like a 10 pager to try to sell the series. Right. As opposed to. [00:52:00] Speaker B: Oh, we got. [00:52:01] Speaker A: I do like what. DC is doing a lot of that now too. Instead of doing this, they're just straight up putting a 10 page intro to a book in the back of another book and giving you that story. And I feel like that's been a more successful marketing tool than this was. Right. Like it's, they do that a lot now. You'll be right. [00:52:25] Speaker C: Because you don't have to pick up something separate to get exposed to it. [00:52:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Yep. [00:52:30] Speaker B: I think with the advent of social media too, where they do something like this and then you're able to track that kind of traction as where they would have to rely on write ins and stuff like that back in the 80s and 70s. 80s and 90s nowadays, they just track how many times you get shared, liked, talked about, what are the analytics and stuff like that and what's going to drive for that? Is there going to be something, a fan base and will this give us a moderate success? All that. [00:53:05] Speaker A: And isn't Batman in it? Because, you know, if Batman's in it, then. Well, of course, you know, because Batman has to be in everything. Because Batman. [00:53:14] Speaker B: Batman. [00:53:16] Speaker C: Yeah, truly. You know, I. I use a League of Comic Geeks and I log everything I read and Batman is like, by far like the character I read the most. Like, despite, like, how little, like, targeted Batman reading I've done. And what makes it even crazier is that I found a screenshot of my character reading stats from the end of 2024. And based on that and my current reading stats, if I had read zero Batman appearances in the last two years, he would still be my most read character. Like, he just like, is in everything. It's really. It's true. [00:54:04] Speaker B: He just sneak. They sneak him in everything. It's. It's like raisins at Halloween. It just. It ends up in your bag. [00:54:13] Speaker A: Now, first off, I wonder what my stats would look like in League of Comic Geeks. Second, lots of. I wonder if League of. So I. I started out with Comic Collector Live years ago when it was a desktop software, and now it's online, which makes me sad. So now I want to switch to this or to clz because CLZ combines it with like, the sales data. So you get a bunch of. But nobody will transfer my database over without me paying for it because I have 18,000 comics. But. Or too many comics. Right? Like 18,000 is just enough. Right? [00:54:49] Speaker B: Just. Yeah, yeah. Dan, it's just the, you know, you could always. [00:54:52] Speaker A: It's a perfect knot, right? [00:54:53] Speaker B: Why don't you just go for just a couple hundred more? Maybe a couple thousand more. I mean, I will say rounder number [00:55:01] Speaker A: in my file cabinet. The Legion of Superheroes does not fit into one 600 book drawer. [00:55:09] Speaker C: Is it two drawers? [00:55:10] Speaker A: Actually, they don't hold six. Each drawer holds about. I've got those old vertical file cabinets, which. They're great. [00:55:15] Speaker C: They'll hold. [00:55:16] Speaker A: Each drawer holds about 500 comics. The Legion goes. Doesn't all fit in one drawer. So you have to. It actually goes over multiple drawers. But yeah, it's. Alan, I'm curious now. I want to switch over to this so it would tell me what I'm reading. Like, read. [00:55:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it's one of those things where, like, I think. See, I had the fortune of, like, being able to log, like, right when I started, like, reading and collecting. I think if you have, like, any amount of backlog to fill, it just becomes like a nightmare immediately. But fortunately, I was able to just do that from the very start. So I have, like, very up to date stats of. Of what I collect and what I read. I like the kind of. Kind of the gamification factor of it, of being able to see those reading stats. So for me, that's a. I don't know, it's a big part of the fun of reading. Reading comics. And I. I go on these, like, little, like, side quests sometimes where I'm trying to, like, get certain characters, like, in my top 20 or, like, out of it. I've been, like, fighting this war against Wolverine for months now where it's. He's, like, so hard to get out of the top 20. [00:56:30] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:56:31] Speaker A: And he should be out of the top 20. And you know who should never be in the top 20? Cyclops. If cyclops is in the top 20, you've done something wrong. [00:56:40] Speaker C: Cyclops is. Is pretty firmly entrenched in. In my top ten. Unfor Wolverine, at least. Like, he's low enough that I think I can, like, eventually get him out of there. But. But Cyclops, it's. He's in too deep. [00:56:53] Speaker B: He's too deep. [00:56:54] Speaker A: Well, we have consecutive podcasts from a couple years ago where Cyclops is a jerk. And Cyclops is still a jerk is the title of the podcast. So just saying, like, it's. And. And Travis is wrong. Cyclops is a terrible human being. I mean, he had. He cheated on his wife in somebody else's mind. Like, that's some messed up stuff right there. See, I didn't even cuss. [00:57:19] Speaker C: It's true. [00:57:20] Speaker B: You didn't cuss. [00:57:21] Speaker A: Not yet. I'll get there in a second. Because Constantine's back on the page. Well, we do have a whole page of getting the band back together. It's like, hey, Batgirl is trapped, and people don't live long in the spirit world, and we got to go get her. Right? Is that. [00:57:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say, like, we were kind of struggling to remember the recap, and then I flipped the page, and then it summarized everything for us. [00:57:41] Speaker A: Yeah, so we got that. [00:57:42] Speaker C: Yeah. And [00:57:47] Speaker A: then we flip the page and it says, meanwhile in the spirit world. And we have these folks walking around and they get transformed into these weird smiley creatures. [00:57:57] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, there's like, ghost spirit world entities. They've got the very, like, creepy horror Long necks going on. And I just, I mean, obviously the art on every page is spectacular, but especially when we actually get into the spirit world, starting from this first page of the two ghost ladies and then the Cassandra Cain action movements in the next few pages, it's just so, so beautiful. And yeah, I mean, Haining is one of my absolute favorite comic book artists. I think she is especially amazing at. She's really good at doing cute characters and horrifying monster ghost people. And also I feel like she does very creative, dynamic paneling as well and spirit world. It gives her plenty of opportunities to put all three of those strengths on display. [00:59:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you're looking. Heining's done some. It looks like if you're looking for more DC stuff, you probably help me out with some other stuff, but I'm on. The DC page has done a little bit in Absolute Flash. [00:59:25] Speaker C: Yeah, they've done a couple issues of Absolute. Or she's done a couple issues of Absolute Flash recently. And she also has been, I guess, like sort of a guest artist on a couple issues of Poison Ivy and I think those really showcase like how good she is at both, like paneling because, like, there's some really amazing spreads where it's like, you know, like, like vines just spreading all around the page and showing like, I don't know, like the kind of like the horror of like, you know, Poison Ivy being like reborn in the swamp and stuff like that. Really amazing work in that series. [01:00:03] Speaker A: Looks like an eight issue run on, on Poison Ivy. [01:00:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. I don't know if they're like. I don't know if she did all those issues. I'm. I'm pretty sure she didn't, but maybe she did some issues kind of here and there within that range. I'd have to check again because I specifically tried to buy the issues that she did the art for and I don't think it was that many. [01:00:31] Speaker A: It looks like a few issue run on Gotham City Siren. Oh, is a miniseries. [01:00:36] Speaker C: Yeah, she did. Yeah, there have been a couple of Gotham City Sirens miniseries and she did the entirety of, I think the most recent one, like the, the UFO one. [01:00:47] Speaker A: Yep. [01:00:48] Speaker C: Yeah, that was really fun as well. [01:00:51] Speaker A: So that's some. Yeah, I mean this, the paneling is. What you pointed out is. I mean, so as a. I'm going to ask you a question in a minute, but I do want to flip to this next page because it is terrifying. So you get the, you get the heads flying up. So that's, that's scary. But the Next page is even scarier, but it's done in a cartoony way, right? So you have all these, like, kind of Jack O' Lantern esque like faces, but it's like gray with green eyes and green mouths. And then kind of flips the real world. And Cassandra is like bouncing around and it's like, who is that? Is that a human? She's alive. A living human. She smells so good. Human come back. And it's just all these people talking. I mean, that would be a horrifying existence to be right in the middle of that and hear all of those kind of heads, like, jumping at you. And then you flip the page and it's like she's being chased through the city by these heads, but they still hold on to that whole, like, kind of Batman thing where she's like flying through the city. So we just, by the way, hey, we did actually advance the comic. Everyone got through like four pages and. And then to get out of that scenery, she just kicks some dude right in the chest, knocks him into a house. [01:02:13] Speaker C: So. [01:02:15] Speaker A: But that, that's. And that was to escape that sort of thing. And what I wanted to ask Allan, as, you know, somebody who writes horror, right, that's not all you write, obviously, but if somebody like horror, how. How do you communicate with that artist? Like, to do the paneling like this or to, like, to, To. Or do you just say, here's the script, here's the panels on the page. Go for it. [01:02:43] Speaker C: You know, I. I actually have worked with Haining on one of my. We did a short comic and anthology I did last year. So I've had the privilege of working with Haining specifically and getting some insight into her work processes. And that was also like. I read Spirit World and then reached out to Haining, and then we started working on some stuff from there. [01:03:15] Speaker A: Okay, what was this anthology? So we can all go get it. Yeah, right. [01:03:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, so it's called Memories of Spring. It's kind of a collection of short comics about an immortal rabbit woman and her human apprentice in ancient China. And it's kind of an exploration of childhood and growing up and the angst of the immortals who are always outliving their loved ones and stuff like that. But, yeah, I mean, getting to work with Eining was just like, just an immediate dream come true. But I found that sometimes as a writer, sometimes I'll have ideas for things we can do with the layout and I try to present them. It would be cool if we could do something like this. And maybe I'll send a dinky little mockup of the idea. But also sometimes a lot of the ideas come from the artists as well, where you can have a pretty basic just list of panels, and if the artist, they're usually going to have a better mind's eye for that sort of thing. So sometimes there's return to you with some magic they've conjured up out of nowhere. And I don't know if in your question, you mentioned horror. I don't know if that's a horror specific consideration, because there are, I guess, page layouts you can do to lean into creepiness or horror. But even in other genres like sci fi, fantasy or whatever, a lot of times there's some really amazingly creative paid paneling layouts as well. [01:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm just. I'm gonna sigh right now because for next week, I'm reading a different book. Yeah, it uses 16 panel grids and it's awful. [01:05:19] Speaker C: It's not awful, Dan. It's. [01:05:21] Speaker A: It is awful. It's terrible. [01:05:23] Speaker B: It is something boring. [01:05:26] Speaker A: It is just like, read, read, read, read. You could. You know what? You. You could do a. Instead of doing a 16 panel grid, if you want to have that much text, you could just do an ornate background with a couple of paragraphs for me to read and then go on with the story. I don't need to make the poor artist draw the newscaster in seven different. Now I'm cussing seven different ways with seven different facial expressions. Like, I can just read a paragraph about it, if you got to tell me that much stuff, and I can move forward. Right? Dark Knight Returns. Alan, I don't know if you've ever read it, but. [01:06:03] Speaker C: No, no, fascism is real. [01:06:06] Speaker A: Don't read it. [01:06:08] Speaker C: I remember you guys brought this up, like, when we first met, I think, and there. There's some. Some contentious opinions back then, too. [01:06:16] Speaker A: Well, I'm finally reading it, Alan. I'm finally reading it. And it's. It's lived up to everything I thought it would be. [01:06:23] Speaker C: Sorry to hear. [01:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it is really unfortunate, actually. I really wanted it to be better, honestly. [01:06:31] Speaker B: I feel it's one of those things that everyone. It's. [01:06:34] Speaker C: It's. [01:06:34] Speaker B: It's like puberty. You must go through it to grow. [01:06:40] Speaker A: What is this like if. If it's like, whatever, Greg. Yeah. [01:06:45] Speaker C: Huh? [01:06:47] Speaker A: Every country must go through their stages of fascism where we could just knock out the fascists and punch them, right? Like, I mean, it would be much easier. [01:06:55] Speaker B: It'll be easier for me to say this on this podcast versus next week. Dan. [01:07:00] Speaker C: What do you think? [01:07:01] Speaker B: I mean, you say that Batman's a fascist, but I mean, isn't every altruistic billionaire millionaire billionaire? [01:07:07] Speaker A: I didn't say Batman was a fascist. I said. I'm saying [01:07:12] Speaker C: pages are fascist. Is fascism. Okay? [01:07:16] Speaker A: I'm saying one particular writer is a fascist. [01:07:18] Speaker B: I see, I see. [01:07:19] Speaker A: When you protest again, we'll cover it next week. You know, I don't think it'll be hard. I'm not going to get distracted. I'm not. I'm not. We're talking about it next week. We're. I'm. I'm enjoying this beautiful art here and the beautiful writing here. [01:07:34] Speaker B: And that's what happens every time. [01:07:37] Speaker C: Beautiful four. Four panel layouts. [01:07:40] Speaker B: I know. Well, okay, let me. I'm going to jump back though a week because as when we covered Kingdom Come with Travis, Travis was complaining about the movement of panels and the laughter, everything. Well, yes, he was. [01:07:53] Speaker C: That's. [01:07:53] Speaker B: To be that. That truth be told, complained about the whole entire book all the way through. But he did say and point out that it felt like we're looking at oil paintings in every single panel. What you don't get in this book is that because every single panel has movement, it's fluid. There's a fluidity to the art. And it's very refreshing to move from a book that comes across like Norman Rockwell paintings and is beautiful in its own right, but to something that's very beautiful also with such great movement drawing your eye through every single panel, through the page and it's not hard to follow. And that is one of the best things and kept me reading this whole series straight through. Like, I did not stop. I just continued straight through. [01:08:47] Speaker A: I just, like, I did the same thing. [01:08:49] Speaker B: I am shotgunning this whole entire thing. How many books are there? I don't care. I'm just doing the whole thing. And it was so easy because it's just so good. [01:09:02] Speaker A: I sat outside in my table with my dog outside and read all six. Alan. I read the first issue. I just went ahead and read all six. It was fantastic. [01:09:11] Speaker C: I completely agree that the movement is really incredible. And I think one of these pages we covered where it's just cast. We see her moving all throughout the page in this kind of splash. Ish page of the spirit world is really a testament to that because every tiny cast is so mesmerizing. And you can trace the whole movement across both. Both pages, actually. [01:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:37] Speaker C: And yeah, no, it's just a wonderful sense of movement and spoiler alert. [01:09:42] Speaker A: Like, I, I don't want to spoil anybody. Anything for anybody too much. But we're gonna. Because this comic's been out for a couple years, so I don't think we're spoiling anything. I love how Heining also tells you who are the important characters and who are the slightly less important characters. [01:09:57] Speaker C: No offense by Constantine. [01:10:00] Speaker A: Yeah, like Constantine. Correct. And how that second page, Xanth, is right in the middle and then Popo right in the middle. Not in the middle. But Popo gets a full, like, on profile here where Xanth is just getting knocked. Or which Bowen is just getting knocked [01:10:14] Speaker C: around and he's just there face down on the ground. [01:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's very clear who are the who. I mean, they may become important characters later, but as far as the storytelling in this, you have hints on who are going to be the important characters in the story every time one is introduced. [01:10:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I guess it's not a good look when your intro panel is you getting drop kicked. [01:10:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:37] Speaker C: Not. [01:10:37] Speaker A: Not as good. Or getting attacked by cats, you know, like. [01:10:40] Speaker C: Right. [01:10:41] Speaker A: You know, but Cassandra gets a great intro, Popo gets a great intro, and Xanth gets a great intro. Right. And [01:10:55] Speaker C: something I want to shout out about this, this panel of cast kicking Bowen is that I feel like it's kind of. It's easy to underappreciate, like, the expressions that Hai Ning draws Cass with when she's wearing her mask. Because, you know, any character when they're wearing a full face mask, it can be pretty hard to show nuances and emotion. But the way, like, her eye is slightly narrowed in this panel, I feel like it just does such a good job of conveying her confusion and just surprise as she's entering and unexpectedly kicking this guy. And not just in this panel, but other ones as well. Even when all we see of her is the mask. And almost the only way to show any expression from her is changing her eye shape slightly. Heining still does a great job of showing those nuances in emotion and expression. [01:11:54] Speaker A: You know, I didn't notice that until you pointed it out, too. And then at the bottom of the page, when. When Cassandra is being mind controlled by the cane and the. How the eyes are wide in that bottom panel, when Popo says, come help me reach the good pans, girl. I believe you've incapacitated Bowen and dinner's not going to fix itself. Look at her eyes there. [01:12:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:18] Speaker A: And that's. It goes from, like, an attack face. And, you know, you bring this up because some of the greatest artists in history could not draw Masks. Greg and I read some Gil Kane, Spider Man a couple years ago. Gil Kane, one of the greatest facial expression artists in the history of the industry. Right. Could draw fantastic faces. Every Spider man looked like the paper plate. That's what we said it was flat. [01:12:43] Speaker C: The paper plate. [01:12:44] Speaker A: It was so all the paper plate. Spider man faces. And this is not that at all. [01:12:51] Speaker B: No. Very expressive. [01:12:54] Speaker A: Well, we flipped a page and I guess that Cassie and. Or Cassandra and had a few years back on my Cassandra Cain there for a second and. And Constantine want to go somewhere and they're at a fence and they make a stairway to go. Where are they headed here? Is this like the house of mystery or something? I don't know where we're going. [01:13:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm trying to. They're investigating this house for some reason. Trying to flip a couple pages back. [01:13:34] Speaker A: Trying to get to the spirit world. [01:13:35] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. Oh, it's. It's Constantine says he has a contact that will help them get into the spirit world. So I guess that's why they go to the house. [01:13:45] Speaker A: Of course he does. [01:13:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, trying to justify his presence in the story a little bit. [01:13:52] Speaker A: Oh, he's got a. He's got a. They're going to contact a necromancer. That's fantastic. [01:13:56] Speaker B: Okay. [01:13:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:57] Speaker B: Oh, nothing bad ever happens when you can't. When you. When you deal with necromancers. [01:14:01] Speaker A: No. Necromancers are always innocent. Yeah. [01:14:04] Speaker B: We learned this. [01:14:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:14:05] Speaker B: Like, I mean, it's always good. Good times are had. [01:14:08] Speaker A: Well, it turns out this was not such a good idea because it is a trap. You could yell it as loud as. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Say it right, Greg. It's a trap. [01:14:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So. [01:14:24] Speaker A: Well, they want xant. And that is, by the way, that's some creepy art with that dude in the chair. [01:14:33] Speaker C: Yeah. I think this kind of goes back to what I was saying about tining being good at, like, you know, cute. Cute expressions, but also like horrifying body. Body horror panels as well. And yeah, she's. She's got quite. Quite some range. [01:14:51] Speaker B: Definitely. [01:14:54] Speaker A: Have you read. I. I push this book on everybody. So if you haven't read it. Have you read Stray Dogs? [01:15:02] Speaker C: No, I haven't. [01:15:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I read their new book too, but there's a Trish Forstner. I'm gonna say it wrong. Forstner does a good job with this too. Stray Dogs looks like Disney meets horror. It's a fantastic book. They have another book out now that I read monthly. [01:15:28] Speaker B: All dogs do not go to heaven. [01:15:29] Speaker A: But Alan, I think you would love that book, by the way. I'm just tossing that out there for you. [01:15:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Stray, Stray dogs. [01:15:36] Speaker A: Stray dogs. [01:15:36] Speaker C: Let me mark that down. [01:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah, mark that down. It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it gives me goosebumps. Like I'm thinking about it and I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it. Right. [01:15:51] Speaker B: It might help get Wolverine out of [01:15:53] Speaker A: your, to your book reading. [01:15:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:15:56] Speaker A: And you can come back on and talk to me about stray dogs. It's, I can't get anybody to read it. Greg won't read it. [01:16:02] Speaker C: So I mean, I've, I, I, I've [01:16:04] Speaker B: tried, but every time I, like I'm driving around town and like, I try to pick up the dogs from the street, they run away. We already have two at the house, so it's like, you know, and they were stray, so I mean, like, can't get anymore. [01:16:18] Speaker A: Admittedly, you only have two and three quarters. [01:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah, two and three quarters. [01:16:21] Speaker A: Because one or one and three quarters. [01:16:23] Speaker B: Sorry, one and three quarter. Yeah. You know, so, and then. Yeah, so it's a, it's a tough thing. I mean, I guess maybe I can get another one. [01:16:31] Speaker A: I've got a sleepy dog right here. [01:16:33] Speaker B: Eventually, Eventually. [01:16:36] Speaker A: Well, we get a really cool page where his hands grabs a sword. No, not grabs a sword, sorry. Manifests a sword. Right, the paper. [01:16:49] Speaker C: Right. [01:16:50] Speaker A: So how does that work, Alan is. It's. Right, how lights the paper on fire, right? [01:16:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:16:59] Speaker A: And then the paper transforms into. So it's a tribute. Right. And then it transforms into like you said, like a Green Lantern. But it transforms and it's not like a Green Lantern in the sense it's a real thing. [01:17:09] Speaker C: Right. I mean, it becomes, or yeah, I guess it becomes real. It's a little bit unclear, like how long the thing sticks around afterward, if at all. But it is more real than the, the Green Lantern construct versions, it seems. [01:17:32] Speaker A: And then on the next page you get kind of like a Gambit type thing, right. Where instead of throwing cards, you transfer the paper to knives and throw them. Right. Yeah, that's kind of that same artistic motion, like a, like a Gambit card throwing type thing would do. And then anyway, they are in a big fight. And it's established very quickly that Xanth is very powerful, just in fact, a little bit. And this book may be more powerful than Constantine, which we can only hope, [01:18:07] Speaker C: My number one hope. [01:18:11] Speaker A: All the hate on Constantine today. Let's go, let's go and get a, [01:18:16] Speaker B: get a message From Constantine's number one fan. This podcast brought my expectations down to a zero. That's why I'm giving you a one star. I know that you said if I gave you a five stars I could say whatever I wanted, but the hate on Constantine. [01:18:36] Speaker A: I'm just saying if you want to give us up to a five star review on Apple or on YouTube, you know, we're welcome. Now you can like and subscribe. You know, it's very important. [01:18:46] Speaker C: Smash that like button. [01:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah, smash the like button. There we go, Alan. That's right. I'll just put. I'll put on my radio voice just for this. It's fantastic. Late night with Dan. [01:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:00] Speaker A: Nobody wants that show. [01:19:02] Speaker B: I mean, there might be some listeners [01:19:03] Speaker C: out there that want that. [01:19:05] Speaker A: I don't think anybody wants. [01:19:06] Speaker B: Nobody wants that show. Nobody. [01:19:08] Speaker A: I'm on apps that don't want that show. Like, let's go. So anyway, back to the book. So basically, we have a few pages of fight scenes and then we flip back. If I skip anything in the fight scenes, it's really super important, let me know. But I was more interested in dinner, actually, And they're having Cassandra. Drink up. Popo says this tea should help dampen your living aura and help you pass. This Popo person sure knows a lot about the spirit world and how to keep people alive. It's very convenient. Almost like his character is going to be really important because they got a profile picture and yeah, they were like, well, how did you get brought here? And she says, buy a collective. And I don't remember exactly what a collective was. And that was a little bit of a struggle at the beginning of this book. I wish they would have spent a tiny bit more time telling us what that was that was in the original story. [01:20:26] Speaker C: Yeah. I think they explained it briefly in that recap page when they say it's a twisted mass of tortured, baleful souls. Yeah. Subs it up. That's. Yeah. [01:20:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it does make sense. I mean, we're. Don't worry too. The collective will definitely get covered in the story. So there's a lot of collective all over the pages, collecting a lot of things. [01:20:52] Speaker B: It's. Yeah. It gets collected here, there, everywhere, all around, all over town. [01:20:58] Speaker A: You get to kind of just think, like, a collective is like, me to comics. Like, if it's there, I grab it. [01:21:03] Speaker C: Right. [01:21:04] Speaker B: They become part of you and part of your collection, part of your room. [01:21:09] Speaker A: In fact, I have comics all over the place right now. [01:21:11] Speaker B: It's. [01:21:11] Speaker A: It's getting, by the way. I mean, I Just not. Not that I want. I'm really excited. But do y' all see this? Like, look what's coming in September. [01:21:21] Speaker B: The Legion. [01:21:23] Speaker A: Yeah, look at that. Look at that art. Hayden Sherman, very excited about this. [01:21:32] Speaker B: It's now going to become part of the collective. [01:21:35] Speaker C: I like this panel of Bowen getting bonked. It looks like it would be like a good, like, meme reaction. [01:21:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Bonk. Yeah, just clip that. [01:21:47] Speaker A: Bowen. Bowen. He gets picked on a lot when he is not. [01:21:53] Speaker C: Or Boeing. [01:21:55] Speaker A: Kind of like Bowen. I liked Bowen as the story went on, actually. Everybody needs a little comic relief. And it doesn't have to be Constantine. [01:22:07] Speaker C: I'd say I ideally shouldn't be Constantine. [01:22:12] Speaker A: But they do give a whole page kind of explanation of the spirit world. And so kind of talks about how things are manifested here. So Bowen tells the story because Bowen has to, because who else would, right? He says, yeah. Everything here is made of paper. Food, clothes, furniture. The only way to get the things is if a living person burns a paper offering for you. When you're alive, it's just paper, but here it's real. And so then Cassie's like, that's. I keep calling Cassandra Cassie because. Sorry, bad habit from 20 years ago. But how long has Cassandra Kane been out now? That about right? [01:22:53] Speaker C: She. It's getting closer to 30 years. Wow. Don't make me feel like 25, maybe. No, it is close to 30, I believe. [01:23:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. I feel it. [01:23:10] Speaker C: Between 25 and 30. [01:23:12] Speaker A: Thanks, Alan. [01:23:13] Speaker B: You're old, Dan. [01:23:15] Speaker A: I'm well aware. No, Cassandra did not come out in 1986. That is not right. [01:23:24] Speaker C: She was. No, she was introduced in the no Man's land Batman story. [01:23:32] Speaker A: 1999. Yeah, you are correct, sir. Let's go. 26 years. [01:23:43] Speaker C: Okay. [01:23:43] Speaker A: Yeah, 27. Sorry, 27. [01:23:47] Speaker C: And I think this page is when we get the first look at her. Her spirit world. Like the spirit world version of her. Her outfit, which. Which I think looks very cool. [01:24:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And an explanation of what the spirit world does. So they do tell you how everything works, and that's talking about the myth. [01:24:09] Speaker B: The. [01:24:10] Speaker A: Well, not the myth, but the spiritual practice you were talking about earlier. Right, right. [01:24:14] Speaker C: Of bird. Of burning offerings for your. Your deceased ancestors. [01:24:22] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, this is not an American thing because nobody would burn money, Right? Capitalism. [01:24:28] Speaker C: Well, even. I mean, even in the. In the Chinese version. I. I guess. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know if they ever burned real money, but usually it's. It's paper money. So it's kind of like, you're burning, like, Monopoly money. [01:24:43] Speaker A: Okay, so they weren't. They weren't. Obviously you're not burning the coins around your neck that you're holding on to. Right. That would be silly. But they could just burn the script. No big deal. If it's script, burn it up. We'll get rid of it. It's no big deal. Not important. That makes sense. But important in the spirit world because it manifests itself, and then they can [01:25:05] Speaker B: use it for all sorts of things. [01:25:08] Speaker C: Do you think that the people in the spirit world would get regular paper? You just burned a piece of paper because it's like, how do you give them paper? Right. [01:25:23] Speaker A: Well, I guess you distinguish between writing paper and money. Right. So you spurn some writing paper, it ends up in the spirit world. [01:25:31] Speaker C: But if you just burned a piece of printer paper, like, would they get a piece of paper? Would they get like. Like, what's. How do you distinguish between that and, like a. Like a wooden rectangle, I guess. [01:25:41] Speaker A: Well, I think that's fair. And you don't want to burn the printer paper that you put back in the printer on the other side that has garbage on it, because then they would just get like, a lot of weird. Like, remember when you print something and then just a bunch of weird characters come out, and then you try to reuse the paper again. You don't have lots of money. That would be awful paper. You'd be sending that to the spirit world, and then there'd just be a bunch of random characters. They'd be really confused. Right. There'd be like, what is this? What are they trying to communicate to me? What are they trying to tell me? Like, what's the story here? [01:26:08] Speaker B: Weirdest facts. [01:26:09] Speaker A: You want to avoid that. You want white paper. Right. [01:26:13] Speaker C: These must be the challenges that Xanth deals with on a daily basis. Yeah, deciphering. [01:26:19] Speaker B: And that's why they can go back and forth. What are you trying to tell us? [01:26:24] Speaker A: Personally? I'm going to type everything in Interlac and then send it on the paper. Alan, if you don't know, Interlac is the language of the 31st century. [01:26:34] Speaker C: Oh, is that a legion? [01:26:38] Speaker A: It is a legion. But if I ran over here and got my Supergirl popcorn bucket. There is interlock on the popcorn bucket. So they actually now adopted interlac into the 21st century. Now it's the outer space language. Just think of it that way. Right? It's the language of the universe. We here use our languages on Earth, but in outer space, there is a universal language called Interlac. And everything is spelled that way. So, yes, it's a. Not that I. Not that I know that. Or have an Interlac font on my computer or anything, but, you know, if. What kind of nerd would have an Interlac font on their computer? [01:27:16] Speaker B: Not me. Text messages over by Interlac. You know, you've made it in it as a friend of Dan's. If you get an Interlac message, [01:27:28] Speaker A: that is. That is fair. If you get something in interlock, you have to translate it, and then you know what's going on. Yeah, I think these are fair things. Well, all of a sudden, all this recap, and everything is interrupted. Somebody is knocking on the door. Open up, Popo. We need to talk. And they're like, oh, we do get a hint. We find out that their neighbor has been missing for a couple weeks. So kind of a hint into the story here. And they find out that that's the voice of Mr. Hong. He's back. That's their neighbor that's been missing, presumably. And Cassandra's like, don't open that door. And Popo's like, the girl is right. I'll handle this. And there is an immense amount of power coming out of that woman. It's. I love that panel at the bottom of the screen with the light coming out of her eyes, behind her, the dragon cane, like, lighting up. And I like this, too, because we go through the panel movement. When there's action, there's all these angled panels and different things. And then when the action kind of stops, you get a more traditional panel layout. [01:28:32] Speaker C: Right, right. [01:28:35] Speaker A: And I like how that moves the story along. And then the next page, literally, you get the panels going down the page again in reverse, but it shows, like, the action and the running. Right. [01:28:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:47] Speaker A: And we are back to Constantine and Xanth. Right. Here they are. And they're chasing an energy line. And then I don't know what's happening at the top, but all of a sudden, there's a text bubble, and I have no idea what's being said there. [01:29:09] Speaker C: Yeah. So I believe what's happening there is. It's. It's Zant's mother saying their dead name, essentially. So how it's being represented here is as an incomprehensible squiggle or something of that nature. Oh. [01:29:30] Speaker A: Because we must have an important character, because, boom, we get a profile, and that's Zant's mom. Right? [01:29:38] Speaker C: Yes. [01:29:40] Speaker A: And nobody's being kicked in the face, so. Or test. [01:29:43] Speaker C: So. [01:29:45] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense. And. Yeah. And no. And that is a. Okay. So says the name again on the last page. And Zan's reaction is perfect. There's no hugging back, just wide eyed, like, what is going on? Did not expect to see mom. And definitely, I don't think likes being mislabeled. No. And again, you know, this is a, this is a, this is a real thing that I think it's interesting it's being confronted in comics. You know, I have a friend and their son who's trans, used to sing and mom full on supporter, has the triangle shirts, everything. Right. Like as supportive of a mom as you could possibly be. Right. But still. Right. Had a bunch of the old music and tapes from when they were in high school and didn't know if her son would want them. [01:30:56] Speaker C: Yeah. When you have those like older, older photos and in videos, it can be very tricky to deal with. [01:31:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And conversation now good news for that relationship. Great conversation. You know, knows how to navigate a relationship. There's no issues there, but I could see how this would be a really challenging thing. And it's interesting that it's being, you know, confronted in a comic book. Right. When's the last time you saw an issue confronted in a comic book in this way that wasn't offensive or rude? [01:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:33] Speaker A: And did we read the Legion comic on one of the podcasts, Craig, the first time they DC had a trans character in comics. [01:31:44] Speaker C: We've talked about it. [01:31:45] Speaker B: I don't think we've read it. I know one trying to think it [01:31:49] Speaker A: was not handled well. Alan, I will not be surprised that in the early 90s they did not handle a trans character in comics. [01:31:55] Speaker B: Well, I know we've talked about it a number of times and I, I know it's actually one that I've read without your pushing to read, like, oh, hey, you know, because I, I want to say like, of, of the Legion books of like various books and stuff like that. I have that book. But like it's, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, definitely not handled good well. [01:32:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:18] Speaker C: Well, no. [01:32:18] Speaker A: If I go behind me tv Wonderful. [01:32:21] Speaker C: Where's my book? Behind me. [01:32:22] Speaker A: Somewhere back here. All my essays about the Legion of Superheroes. Alan, I do have a book that is all essays written about the Legion of superheroes. I know that that will probably shock you, but somebody wrote a whole, somebody rolled a whole essay about that book. Right. [01:32:39] Speaker C: Comic. [01:32:41] Speaker A: Nobody can't find it behind me right now. Somebody wrote a whole essay about the comic. Right. So just in how they address it. Right. And why it was good and why it was bad and why things. And so we have a non binary character here. And like you said. I said it wasn't a big part of the story. I'm gonna have to retract a little bit because I think what happened to me is I got so infatuated with the rest of the story, I kept going and I almost forget this part of the story early on. But yeah, I mean, they completely end the first issue addressing it. Right? [01:33:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:10] Speaker A: So, yeah, it's interesting. I'm gonna pause, though. I don't want to talk a lot about. A lot about it because I want people to read the rest of the story. [01:33:18] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. So, I mean, the. The first issue kind of ends with, you know, like in. On the spirit world side of things, Cassandra starting to deal with the storyline, while Constantine and Xanth are still trying to get into the spirit world. I think it's not too much of a spoiler to say that they will get there within the miniseries and then they kind of sync up and have the rest of the adventure there. But I think issue one is very strong start that sets up for the rest of the story, and the momentum just keeps building from there. I've just been flipping through this trade as we've been talking, and there's a lot of individual pages that I. You know, I haven't looked at some of these in a while, so it's nice to appreciate them all over again. [01:34:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. One, we got to appreciate them because you got us to read the book. Yeah, but I do want to. The group here, we mentioned Alyssa Wong and Hai Ng both penciling and inking the stories. Sebastian Chang did the beautiful colors here, Janice Shang did letters, and Ben Abernathy and Jessica Chen edited at least the first issue. And yeah, I mean, yeah, shout out [01:34:40] Speaker C: to the whole creative team, for sure. [01:34:42] Speaker B: Great team. [01:34:43] Speaker A: I mean, I don't think, again, the art is amazing, but I don't think the colors bring it to light too. I mean, the colors in the spirit world especially. And actually, I'm going to back off on that statement. The contrast between the spirit world and the dark Gotham kind of Gotham kind of real world is fantastic too. Yeah, like, it really draws. And as the series goes on, you really do see, like a color difference between the issues. Oh, you know what? If I just got the back of my book, Alan, it would have told me so. I've got an advertisement for the vigil by Ramvee. [01:35:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I just. I just got to that as well. [01:35:21] Speaker A: And then, yeah, the other books were Spirit World, Vigil, City Boy, and, like you said, Monkey Princess, which. Or Monkey King. Sorry, Monkey Prince or Monkey King. [01:35:31] Speaker C: It is Monkey Prince. Like, the myth character is, like, the folklore character is usually referred to as the Monkey King. And then the DC version that they did is the Monkey Prince, and Monkey [01:35:47] Speaker A: Prince seem to show up in all sorts of books. So that character kind of spanned a little bit. And didn't they. Didn't Keenan Kong become more prominent in this time period, too, in the Superman mythos? I may have messed that up. Give me one second. No, I'm right. [01:36:13] Speaker C: The. [01:36:15] Speaker A: Well, Kong Keenan. I said it backwards. That's why. But in Earth prime, so introduced in New Superman in 2016. But I think that character came back throughout this as well. He's a member of the Freedom fighters of China 2016. But that up in the Superman books is kind of part of this push, too. [01:36:45] Speaker C: The. The Chinese Superman character. Yeah, I'm not too familiar with him, but there was, weirdly, a Chinese version of a lot of the superheroes. I think there's the Chinese Wonder Woman, too, and then there's Avery Ho. The Chinese Flash showed up in a couple books. Yeah. Wonder what they're all up to these days. [01:37:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Avery showed up in the original Flashbugs, so that. But, yeah, [01:37:21] Speaker B: the. [01:37:22] Speaker A: I said the name backwards, and I apologize to everybody, but Kong Keenan showed up in some of the Superman books around this time, too. They were having more of a Superman family thing, though, so it was like a whole bunch of the supermen showed up. So definitely one of them. But they brought. That's kind of what you're talking about, that sort of initiative to have all the superboys and all the Superman didn't matter, but John Kent was there, and then they brought Connor back, and they brought Kong back, and so. Or I kept seeing. I think they refer to him as Kenan anyway. [01:37:54] Speaker C: Yeah, it can be confusing because with Chinese names, usually you say, like, the surname first, and because of that, like, sometimes it is unclear, like, which one is, like, the first name and which is the surname. [01:38:05] Speaker A: So I think in the book, they usually say. Or in. Right. In the text, they usually say Keenan, which is why I said it backwards, and that's why I'm apologizing. But, yeah, it's. It was. I think I could be off on my time period a tiny bit. But I believe that Keenan made some appearances in the. The Superman Con books around the same time, too. So they. They were trying something out there. And, you know, and I think what also Probably. It's not that I dislike the other creators or I, I like RAM Vs. Alyssa was unknown to me. Like Greg Pack. I had read stuff from before enjoyed, so that was probably what drew me to that book a little bit. But obviously didn't end up picking it up. I also like the concept of it too. It just seemed cool. Somebody that could talk to a city. [01:38:53] Speaker C: Right. [01:38:54] Speaker A: That seems like a hard book to write though. [01:38:57] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know how, like, I don't know how I would begin to approach that. [01:39:06] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean this, this series is fantastic. I highly recommend that you go pick it up and find out how it ends. And Constantine does not save the day. We can spoil that one for you. [01:39:21] Speaker B: Sorry everyone. [01:39:22] Speaker A: Greg, you haven't really heard your thoughts. I know, like, I've been singing it [01:39:26] Speaker C: praises from the start. [01:39:28] Speaker B: It's a, it's a great book. It's well put together, it's well written. Like Alan said, the team that was assembled to put this together, you don't get a book like this without a team like that. Like top notch work. It is definitely something that if you haven't read it, you should check it out. The story makes you want to keep reading. The art makes you want to keep looking at it. I, I couldn't not stop. So there it was, it was like, I'm really hungry now I gotta keep reading this. I gotta feed the dogs. Okay, let me feed the dogs. Let me go back to reading this. Do I need to feed myself? No, I need to finish reading this. And, and I just kept reading the, the, the series because it was that good. Just could not put it down. [01:40:23] Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, and again, I don't want to spoil the, the second issue, but the contrast of the start of the second issue with the contrast, the first issue. Ho ho. I was like, it's good stuff. I don't want to give anything away. Read it, read it. I'll just say there's some contrast there and it's going to make your little heart jump. If you like storytelling and if you have any empathy at all. Yeah, if you don't have empathy, don't worry, you can read it and there's no issue there. [01:40:59] Speaker B: You can always buy empathy. [01:41:02] Speaker A: I don't think you can. [01:41:03] Speaker B: Oh, you can't. That's right, you can't. [01:41:05] Speaker C: People try. [01:41:06] Speaker A: No, that's what Constantine tries to do. That's why everybody does. [01:41:10] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. [01:41:12] Speaker C: By the way, if you guys want a little bit more spirit world content, Alyssa Wong did a short. More recently in one of the Wonder Woman specials. Wonder Woman Black and Gold. Yeah, it came out in January this year, and there's a short story in it by Alyssa that's like Wonder Woman and Xanth teaming up. And I think, oh, cool. They go to the spirit world. Okay. But, yeah, it's a little bit more spirit world and more Xanth interacting with some other characters. Nice. Xanth also had a couple of appearances in Justice League Unlimited. But I guess everyone has appearances in Justice League Unlimited and they don't get to say or do very much. They're kind of just like in the background for a couple panels. But it's still. It's still nice to see, like, with characters like. Like Xant. Like, even if it's just a background cameo, sometimes it's nice to see that they're like, you know, D.C. remembers that they exist and. And they're being kept alive at least a little bit. [01:42:25] Speaker A: And now you sound like a true Legion of Superheroes fan. If I just get one panel, might come back someday. Yes. Yeah, it's. No, it is cool. Well, and I think we were kind of talking about it earlier. That's one of the reasons I like the way that Mark Waid's doing the Justice League Unlimited. Right. Because everybody is in it. And so, you know, Xanth may show up in a story. You never know. And I think going from, you know, I think the other cool thing, too, is it creates scenarios where you can have people that normally wouldn't team up in a book team up, and you can start to see those interactions. I mean, that's why I loved back in the day, like, the old. I was a big fan of, like, I don't have a lot of them until later, but when I got them as a kid, I always love them. Like a DC Comics present where it's like Superman teams up with. You don't know this month. Like, it could be anybody. In fact, we just reviewed one recently. Recently, Superman teams up with the Legion of Substitute Heroes. What could possibly go wrong? [01:43:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I feel like. Isn't like, random team ups and also characters fighting for no reason. Those are the two pillars of the premise of these superhero universes to begin with. Right. So it's just like we want to see weird combinations of these characters teaming up and also fighting each other and then realizing two pages in that it was just a misunderstanding. [01:43:55] Speaker B: Yep. [01:43:56] Speaker A: And I think, you know, there we go. Well, I'm gonna. We. I know we have some things to plug at the hour and 44 minute mark but I do want to share something. It probably won't show up on the podcast, unfortunately, but I want to get Alan's reaction real quick, and then we'll plug some things. Alan, I just want your reaction to Zatanna's 1978 costume. [01:44:17] Speaker C: 1978, that. It certainly stands out within this. This lineup. Yeah, I don't know, it's like. Like a. Like a Masters of the Universe villain look all of a sudden. [01:44:35] Speaker A: Let's just say that not all costumes work. [01:44:38] Speaker C: She turns, like, just turned into a vampire for a year. [01:44:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really sure what happened. You'll notice they brought back the old school costuming back pretty quickly. [01:44:48] Speaker C: Yeah, they just pretended. I mean, we've. We've all had that phase, you know? [01:44:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, there's the 1993 Zatanna, too, as well, which is maybe the worst of all of them. [01:44:58] Speaker C: Is it, though, that one. That one looks. That one looks even more like a. Like a Masters of the Universe character. Yeah, she's just power. [01:45:08] Speaker A: I just wanted to bring this up. Not again. Sometimes we change our clothing. It's not always for the best, but, you know, it's. It's good. Alan, you have a book out right now. [01:45:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So just. Just this last week had a story come out in Catacomb of Torment number 13, published through Onypress and EC Comics. Actually, you know, it. I'll say it's kind of spirit world adjacent in that it is. The story is called Thor's Death, and it kind of is concerned with the superstition of how 4 is an unlucky number in Chinese culture because it sounds like the word for death. So there's just a lot of negative associations with it. So I did a little short horror comic based on that, and it is set in New York City's Chinatown, which I feel like is very analogous to Gotham City's Chinatown. So a little bit of overlap there. And yeah, it should still be in stores right now, probably. So if anyone wants to check out some old school EC Horror. Yeah, check it out. [01:46:23] Speaker A: Pick it up. [01:46:24] Speaker B: It just numbers up. [01:46:25] Speaker A: What do you have coming up in the future? [01:46:27] Speaker C: And I'll also say a lot of these comics can be a little bit hard to find them in stores, but my manga series, My Internet Friends, is always online. Very easy to access. For people who are anime fans, it's kind of like dawn to dawn, but instead of being about Cryptids, it's about memes and Internet culture. So the quick premise for that is it's set in the Future after the Internet has become obsolete and people go into the ruins of it and they encounter Internet nostalgia and, like, these memes that have mutated into monsters. And it's, it's just like a lot of. Just exploration of, like, the best and worst that the Internet has to offer. [01:47:13] Speaker A: It sounds like Greg. Best and wow. What the Internet has to offer. [01:47:18] Speaker B: Wow, Dan, Wow. I am the best and worst that the Internet has to offer. [01:47:22] Speaker C: That is, I mean, that, that's not bad. It's very balanced. Yeah. Some, some people are only the worst that the Internet has to offer. So. [01:47:29] Speaker B: That's true. That's true. [01:47:30] Speaker A: Yeah. All you have to do is go like this if you're not on video. Sorry. I'm just giving you the worst of everything. [01:47:40] Speaker C: The worst of everything. [01:47:41] Speaker A: It's so. Well, fantastic. Alan, thank you for joining us. I guess I should let Greg say, if he has anything, I know that some, some Starlight books will be shipping soon. [01:47:53] Speaker B: Yeah, some Starlight books will be shipping soon. Well, you know, I'm, I, I know Travis discussed. [01:47:59] Speaker A: Without page numbers. [01:48:00] Speaker B: We got. Yes, without page numbers. Just how you like it, Dan, Just. [01:48:03] Speaker A: That is your preference, Alan, they don't put page numbers in their book. It's a abomination. [01:48:08] Speaker B: I didn't see any page numbers. [01:48:09] Speaker A: Should have page numbers so you can find things in them. It makes more sense, Right? It makes it really easy to find things. If there's a page number, there's no page numbers. [01:48:17] Speaker C: Did we just. No. I've gone through this as well with my anthology where it's like, would love to have page numbers. But also it is weirdly very complicated for a lot of reasons. But for me, I settled for putting the page numbers on the title pages, which I think gives some anchor points. Right. [01:48:40] Speaker A: So like a compromise. It's like a page compromise. [01:48:43] Speaker C: It's, it's a little weird to have page numbers, like, only on some pages. But I, I, I think, I don't know, I think it works because, like, because then you can have, like a table of contents. Right? [01:48:55] Speaker A: It's like, it's like, it's like pay for. It's like when you can pay for the carpooling. It's like the Republicans and Democrats came together and they were like, let's save the environment, but not. [01:49:08] Speaker C: I think you, you lost. You lost me a little bit. On. [01:49:11] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [01:49:12] Speaker C: On, on that. [01:49:13] Speaker A: I was saying it's like a page number compromise. [01:49:15] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, I could see it. [01:49:18] Speaker A: And so sometimes it's good for. And sometimes it's not good. [01:49:22] Speaker B: I'm I'm just. [01:49:24] Speaker A: But it's never good. Oh, so the analogy. Not good. Okay. [01:49:27] Speaker B: No. [01:49:27] Speaker C: Analogy is fine. [01:49:28] Speaker A: Page numbers. [01:49:29] Speaker C: Bipartisan approach to page. [01:49:31] Speaker A: Bipartisan. Page numbering. [01:49:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just gonna. [01:49:36] Speaker A: Not all that. You guys. [01:49:38] Speaker B: You guys gushed over a book that has no page numbers. Just like, literally five minutes ago. And then you bagged on a book that has no page numbers. Or the idea of. Now Dan's looking. He can't believe it. Did I tell the truth? I did. I'm not lying. [01:49:55] Speaker C: I mean, mo. Besides himself. [01:49:59] Speaker A: I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say something terrible, but I'm not. [01:50:02] Speaker C: Anyway. [01:50:03] Speaker A: What? So anyway. Anyway. [01:50:06] Speaker C: No, go ahead. No, go ahead. [01:50:07] Speaker A: Starlight. [01:50:08] Speaker C: What? [01:50:08] Speaker B: No, you're saying Dan, wait. [01:50:11] Speaker A: Maybe the book is so good and it doesn't have page numbers that I pay attention to it all the way through. Then. [01:50:16] Speaker C: Wow. [01:50:16] Speaker A: Page numbers. [01:50:17] Speaker B: Okay. He'll say it to me, but he won't say it to Travis. [01:50:20] Speaker C: He's afraid to try. [01:50:21] Speaker A: I'll say it to Travis. All morning. Say it to Brett. Travis was on his phone all morning. It was saved to my chatty chat. So say it to Brett. No, you won't say it to Brett. I won't say it to Brett. [01:50:35] Speaker B: You won't say it to Brett. [01:50:37] Speaker A: You're right. I won't say it to Brett. [01:50:38] Speaker C: I know. [01:50:38] Speaker B: You won't say it to Brett. [01:50:39] Speaker A: You won't say it to Brett. So the. That's Brett Waddelli. Like, fantastic artist. In both. Every format. In both. All formats. Yeah, every format. He does. It doesn't matter. Anything. Anything you want to do, in fact, contact Brett for a commission. He'd love that. [01:50:57] Speaker B: Yeah, he would. [01:51:00] Speaker A: But. Yeah. Starlight should be mailed shortly. And then we're gonna have a new book out there that. That Travis talked about next week. It's called. I believe it's called. Hang on. I think I'm gonna get it right this week. Are you ready? [01:51:12] Speaker B: I know you are. [01:51:14] Speaker A: It's called a cyborg nemesis. Cyborg parts from the spirit world. A tribute to Albert Pune. Okay. Does that sound about right? And we'll link to that. We'll link to that in the show notes. It'd be good. Good times. You can just back in on Kickstarter. And then you can also always find out about cyborg parts in the spirit world. I guess we'll probably run into them. In fact, Xanth might run into them. See what they're selling for. [01:51:45] Speaker B: They made out of paper. [01:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. They were. That's how they get you could you? [01:51:51] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you'd have to burn. You'd have to burn the paper cyborg part, and then it turns into a cyborg part in the spirit world, and then you build a cyborg in the spirit world of a paper offering. [01:52:04] Speaker A: Got it. [01:52:05] Speaker B: Okay. [01:52:05] Speaker A: Right. And then you make them into lions and they form one Voltron. [01:52:10] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Okay, I now that. That's the book that Travis should be writing. [01:52:17] Speaker A: Yeah. In fact, if you back it on Kickstarter, that's exactly what the book is about. [01:52:21] Speaker C: No, it's not. Are you sure? A stretch goal. [01:52:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a stretch goal. That's a stretch. All right. That's a stretch. [01:52:31] Speaker A: Oh, actually, I think I do know the name of the book, actually. Isn't it called Nemesis the Return of Alex Rain? Oh, yeah, that's the one. Okay. Hey, see, I do know the title of the book, despite what everybody thinks. Allan, if you have not listened to past podcasts, and if you haven't, I don't blame you because who. Who would? [01:52:48] Speaker B: I would. [01:52:49] Speaker A: I. Who would. But it's. Yes, I. I messed up the name so many times. [01:52:58] Speaker C: Oh, the. Of the cyborg. [01:53:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. See, I don't. [01:53:03] Speaker C: I don't even know the name right now, so. [01:53:05] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, See? Of the cyborg thing. But anyway, yeah, that's coming out on Kickstarter soon, so go read my Internet friends. Go pick up Catacombs of torment number 13. What a perfect number to have a story into. [01:53:24] Speaker C: I feel like I mentioned always when I was working on the story with editor, it was like, it's a bad and unlucky number and it comes out in issue number 13, so very lucky. Or unlucky, depending on your. [01:53:40] Speaker A: And it came out on July 15, so you should still be able to. I bet. Yeah, I bet if your local comic shop still wanted to order this, they probably could. [01:53:49] Speaker C: It's not too late. [01:53:50] Speaker B: Yeah, not too late. [01:53:51] Speaker A: It's too late. Or you can look for the very high priced copies on ebay. Buy it, slab it right now. [01:54:00] Speaker B: My gosh. [01:54:01] Speaker A: And soon it would be worth millions of dollars. [01:54:03] Speaker B: I mean, the. [01:54:04] Speaker C: The. [01:54:04] Speaker B: I mean, the super cool thing, though, is. I mean, it. [01:54:07] Speaker C: It is. [01:54:08] Speaker B: It is in that easy line. So it's. [01:54:10] Speaker C: It's. [01:54:10] Speaker B: It's classic. It is classic. [01:54:13] Speaker A: EC is kind of a big deal, Alan. [01:54:15] Speaker C: It is. [01:54:15] Speaker B: It is a freaking huge deal, dude. [01:54:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I actually, like, I didn't. I didn't know as much like, when. When I like got the. The first story, but after that I was like. I like realized like, how much History. [01:54:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:27] Speaker C: That EC has. And I was like, whoa, this is, like, this is so cool to. It's actually such an honor to be part of. Yeah. [01:54:34] Speaker B: You don't get Tales from the Crypt, like, the show without any of these comics. So, I mean, like, it is. Or the cartoon. Or the cartoon. [01:54:43] Speaker A: Yeah. If you want to be. If you want to be happy and sad all at the same time, go read about Wally Wood [01:54:52] Speaker B: and ec. [01:54:54] Speaker A: Well, and his whole career. [01:54:55] Speaker C: But. [01:54:56] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it was happy until it wasn't. [01:54:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:55:00] Speaker A: But, yeah, I mean, it's. That was some crazy. He could. He could draw anything. [01:55:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:55:07] Speaker A: But anyway. All right, we should wrap this up. Otherwise it's going to get awkward because we're just going to keep going. So. Alan, thank you so much for joining us this week. Hopefully, you will come back someday. Maybe we'll talk about more Spirit World or. [01:55:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, we. We got to do Spirit World 1971 next time. [01:55:24] Speaker A: Oh, that is true. [01:55:25] Speaker B: Yes. [01:55:25] Speaker C: Spirit World, Volume 1. [01:55:27] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. [01:55:28] Speaker A: Some. Some compare and contrast, I think. I think hyening and Jack Kirby's art, there can be some contrast. But, hey, you know what? I. I did drink my entire drink, so there was some Kirby crackle in the background of some of those. [01:55:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:55:47] Speaker C: Nice. I still have 1.5 bobas, so I did not make as much progress. [01:55:53] Speaker A: Well, I think it's a little bit more difficult than drinking just straight liquid, so. In the middle of a podcast. But, you know, it's. All right, everyone, thank you so much for joining us. And that's another wrap on this episode of Funny Book Forensics. So goodbye, everyone. [01:56:08] Speaker C: Bye. [01:56:09] Speaker A: Bye. Go home. [01:56:11] Speaker C: Thank you guys for having me. [01:56:12] Speaker A: Don't see you.