Funny Book Forensics 448 A Not So Dark Knight

[00:00:06] Speaker A: And this is exactly how these podcasts start. They do, you know. [00:00:10] Speaker B: So we staying in the room. You are consenting to be recorded. Yes. [00:00:16] Speaker A: You want that? [00:00:17] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Randy, welcome. You know, Greg, we're welcoming. We're welcoming. Welcoming Randy Umberlin to the podcast. And, Randy, that was a perfect way to start this podcast, because this is generally how it's it. [00:00:31] Speaker C: It is. It is. [00:00:34] Speaker A: We just walk right in. [00:00:36] Speaker B: What's the name of this show? Funny, but the name of this darn show. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:40] Speaker C: Okay. [00:00:41] Speaker A: That's why. [00:00:41] Speaker B: Okay, there you go. The Dead. [00:00:43] Speaker A: Exactly. That's why. That's why Greg has. If Greg holds up his shirt, it says I press the button because that's his contribution. It used to be a contribution to the show. Or click the button. [00:00:52] Speaker C: The button, yes. Why? I still have a button to click [00:00:56] Speaker A: back or two back when we recorded in something, you know, while. I bet we used to record an Audacity. [00:01:02] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:01:03] Speaker B: So really? That's very odd. You have a lot of audacity to bring that up. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Well, we'd be like, on. We'd be on a different stream. Right. But we'd be recording on our own computers. And then I'd have to remind him to click the button every time. Right. So we could start at the same time and everything and stop. [00:01:25] Speaker B: I only had to do that a few times, you know, that was. It was the horse and buggy days or something, you know. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Well, I figured with music you'd done, you'd used Audacity at some point. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. And music. Yeah, that's true. But, you know, I'm just getting back into using electronics. I mean, I'm pretty much an acoustic. Well, I'm an electric guitar player for jazz. But, you know, I mean, that's just an amp and me. And. And I'm. Sometimes I'm playing with the computer, you know, to learn standards and stuff, but you're right. But I'm. Now I'm starting to do composing, so I've got electronics gear and starting to do more. And there's so many programs and there's so many ways to do it, and I just want to do some simple double tracking, you know, do some, you know, chords and maybe some long tones [00:02:07] Speaker C: and then play and then let it go. Yeah. And come back. [00:02:13] Speaker B: And it's like, I still spend a lot of time learning standards, jazz standards, you know, that are like Tin Pan Alley or. I mean, those are the best for understanding chords and the cycle and all of that kind of stuff. And melodies. I mean, those guys are brilliant. And they're difficult. But I'm appreciating more about going. I mean, I love Ralph Towner. He's like, you know, born in Washington, went to University of Oregon and just passed away. He was amazing in Oregon. But just take a few chords that have a lot of color and beauty and then get something going with that rhythmically and then find a melody that goes over it or just start playing over it. Even if you loop it and you can go out into the cosmos, you know, it's like, it's fantastic. [00:02:54] Speaker C: Do you ever use pedals when you're playing, like, to. [00:02:57] Speaker B: To get those loops? Yeah, if I. Yeah, not too much, but, you know, it's like I. You know, there's like, I don't know, delays and some other things. But, yeah, I would like to do that for. I mean, for live performance looping. That's a good way to do that and have a couple of different guitars. But I don't do a lot with the pedals, you know, yet. I'm. Like I said, I'm pretty standard, straight up guitar guy. Although I may do a synthesizer sound on the guitar, you know, like a flute or a trumpet or something like that, and just to, you know, carry that through. But. But yeah, I'm more interested in just, you know, playing over something that I've created or just hearing some new sounds and going, yeah, this is a great group of chords. Let's cycle this and see what comes out of it. [00:03:40] Speaker A: You know, I like it. [00:03:41] Speaker B: So it's fun. It's a lot of fun. Like, yeah, it's been 50 years to get here, so it's like, you know, I better be doing something by now. [00:03:47] Speaker A: I think it's interesting too, because you. You picked to. You. You chose a year of comics for us to review kind of. And then we. And then we picked something from that year. And you were looking at 1986 and when you taught. You know, it's funny when you talk about the music discussion bringing this in. 1986 was a pivotal moment for comics in a lot of ways, especially at the main two. And it's because, you know, the indie influence had started. Right. You had first had come on the. The board with a bunch of books. Right. And you're working for first. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I got. [00:04:28] Speaker A: And for them. [00:04:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:29] Speaker A: And what was it first and. And. And Dark Horse. Right, and that's right. [00:04:35] Speaker B: Dark Horse, Big 86 was when they were born. Well, I mean, technically, you know, Boris was around before that, but. But I helped start, you know, the. The Dark Horse Presents thing, you know, with Chris Warner. [00:04:47] Speaker A: And those guys run around Eclipse too. Right. [00:04:49] Speaker B: When we launched them and Eclipse with. I. I never got to work for that. Ron did. I never worked for Eclipse. I do have a hat and sunglasses and a T shirt and stuff from Eclipse, but no. [00:05:01] Speaker A: And some random guys drawing turtles. [00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a real weird. I mean, that, you know, you can get into that story. It's like Jim Smith turned into my assistant, the guy who did Boris the Bear. And he was really a good assistant. He was great. He would drive all the way from Seaside into Portland with pages and then, you know, And, I mean, he was a hard worker. I just felt so bad for Jim because he had that opportunity, you know, where Columbia came to Dark Horse first. And then when he and Mike couldn't get along and make a decision, they went to the turtles. And of course, you know, the rest is history. And those guys are millionaires. So, I mean, even if Jim had had, like, a short animated TV series of Boris, he would have been sad. [00:05:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:45] Speaker B: He's probably kicking himself all the way. [00:05:47] Speaker A: Like, it's interesting, too, because you had those. And there's so many influences, like, kind of moving in in Portland was a huge scene. Of course, Mike had John Sable, right? Mike Grell. Yeah. [00:06:02] Speaker B: He's kind of. Yeah. Was he doing that for. Was he doing that for. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Was that. Well, we just. I think American Flag wasn't Jacob's American Flag was. [00:06:12] Speaker B: At first, I did American Flag. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I. Yeah, I took over because those were handpicked by Jacob. [00:06:19] Speaker A: I'm trying to remember. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know how that I'm looking [00:06:22] Speaker A: behind me, which is super professional, for the podcast. [00:06:25] Speaker B: Hey, it looks cool. It's very impressive. He does it quite often. [00:06:30] Speaker A: I was gonna see if my Sable omnibus had had the actual original author [00:06:36] Speaker B: or is he still. Is he still kicking? I think he's still alive, isn't he? Like, I don't think he's well, but [00:06:44] Speaker A: he was not doing great for a while and. Okay, I don't see. It says comics, but that can't be right. That must be for this book. [00:06:55] Speaker B: You didn't do it for Eclipse. I think it was first. I think he did first before I was there. [00:07:00] Speaker A: I just remember in, like, 84, [00:07:06] Speaker B: I [00:07:07] Speaker A: was like, yeah, so I'm gonna make Randy feel old. So I was 9, and I got to buy. I got to buy one book a month. Right. So I got one Legion, I got one leg, one superheroes book. Wow. [00:07:25] Speaker B: So is this because your parents were mean? [00:07:27] Speaker A: Well, Actually, I didn't even get one book a month yet. We just don't have any money. But yeah. Yeah, well. And I was. I think so we were camping and my mom got me that. We were just starting to talk about it before the podcast. Keith Giffen's art on Legion of Superheroes and obviously later, Ambush Bug and around the same time, Omega Men. Right. And the different things. And my mom picked up the Legion of superheroes number 306 with Starboy on the COVID with the. Just his costume that Keith drew. Yeah, yeah. She thought it was Legends of the Superheroes. She didn't read closely. And. And it was a by. It was a. It was a spotlight on. So it was like the whole history of the character. So I read this and it was awesome because I think Kurt Swan drew in the book too, to do the. I'm pretty sure Kurt Swan. And if not Keith did his best. Kurt Swan possible. And so you had the Silver Age panels with the origin of the character and then the character evolves and I'm like, who is this little nine year old me is like, who is this? Like, who are all these people? I might have been eight. Like, what is going on? And then I was hooked forever. And so. And of course I pulled this out because you brought this to my house. [00:08:57] Speaker B: Oh yeah. It's like 70. So you're born in 74. 70 what? [00:09:01] Speaker A: And Randy and Judy brought this to my house. [00:09:06] Speaker B: Oh yeah. And that you had somebody do that for you there. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Some of my early. Because I off the newsstand a couple years later when Legion went direct sale only. So in 84 Titan Teen Titans goes direct sale only Legion. We've talked about this on the podcast a lot and what good and bad that did for the business. But. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Well, you know that direct sales, it saved places like Dark Horse. I mean he had all his stores, you know, went with the direct sale. And it was such a good thing. Mike had four stores and they were what they were called. Yeah, Pegasus Books. And then he changed it to Things from Another World. But those stores, you know, wow. They did. That was cracking business, man. Black and whites were killing it in the 85, 86, you know, 87. I mean they were making a bunch of money and that's what really launched Dark Horse was, you know, Boris was selling 75,000 as a black and white 1985. [00:10:05] Speaker A: I don't remember know if you remember the store up here, but 85, 86, 87. That era I got. My dad would drive me once a month from Puyallup to Tacoma to Lakewood to go to o' Leary's Books. Yeah. And I still even have some bags with their price stickers on them in the collection. Uh, and I would. So I would save up my money over the summer picking berries or then working for my dad at his wood shop, and then I would buy extra comics with them, and I would scour those back. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:10:37] Speaker A: And of course, when you're only reading one book, then scouring the back issues for Legion was an adventure pun intended, because I found out they were in adventure comics right. As a kid, and then, you know, kind of piecing together things and. And. And, you know, that's how I. It was my glimpse into comics. You had a very different view at that time. Yeah. [00:11:01] Speaker B: I mean, you know, on my. My experience, when I was nine or eight or even seven, I mean, I started reading age four, I was reading dc, and my first comic was a Space Ranger comic book. You know, and I still have it, and it's just shred. It's shredded. I mean, it's got ink aligns. It's got stuff cut out. I've got holes. The cover's still there. And I love that comic book, and I still haven't. But, you know, I loved all of the artwork already at age 4, 5, 6. And then I met Chris Warner at 6 years old in first grade and found out he could draw better than I could. And then, you know, the few of us were drawing in second grade. We're drawing all kinds of Batman and superheroes and stuff. And, you know, we were reading, you know, Justice League, and we love Carmen Infantino's Flash and Gil Kane's, you know, Green Lantern and the Justice League. Batman was kind of, you know, lame. He was still kind of lame back then. You know, it's like Superman, I never could get into. It's, like, too powerful. This guy's too powerful. [00:12:00] Speaker A: Well, they were gonna. They were gonna cancel Detective Comics for a second during. In the implosion, and people don't know that. We've talked about it on the podcast before, but I. I think people don't believe me when I say that they were. I. But even though I read it, I grabbed a. Tomorrow's. Did a whole book on the D.C. implosion, and they say it right in the book. People still don't believe me. It's named after Detective Comics, and that's why it saved it, because they're like. We're literally named after that. [00:12:28] Speaker B: When was that? What year was that implosion thing? [00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:33] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [00:12:34] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:35] Speaker B: You know, for me, it's like the 60s were it. And even up until maybe 72, you know, when did Kirby. Kirby left D.C. or left Marvel for D.C. about that time. I forget. Is that right? 72, 73. Anyway, I. I went to San Diego Con for the first time that year that Kirby switched to dc. And it was unbelievable. I mean, I went. My parents let me go. I was 16 on the bus. Oh, man, 22 hour bus ride. And I took this giant painting that I had done in high school. Acrylic painting of like a Conan. It was like Conan fighting this yeti monster. And I ripped off Frazetta's, you know, big mountains. He had a similar painting. I was like, it was these big, gorgeous, you know, Himalayas and stuff. And it was actually a pretty good painting. I mean, it's like I couldn't believe. I was like, yeah, I did that. Wow. And everybody was trying to paint. Dave Stevens was my friend, right. This guy could paint when he was in high school. Like most people paint as adults. You know, he's like, amazing. But anyway, I took that thing all the way down there and it almost sold and it didn't sell and I had to bring it all the way home box. It was big. But the point is that Kirby was there. And it was like no other convention ever, because it was a small. It was held at the campus of a college right there in. What is it, one of the white sand beaches. And it's north of San Diego. What is the name of that famous little area? It's where the. The guys from Image had their offices. Oh, yeah, I can't think of it. It's. Anyway, it's like Scripps type campus or, you know, there's like those three colleges, right? Regents and Scripps or whatever. Anyway, we were there. Nice dorms. They had big open courtyards. They had a, you know, place to show movies all night. And you could get sandwiches out of a machine. And, you know, and then there was of course, a theater where, you know, people gave presentations. But Kirby was outside doing chalk talks and ripping off drawings and giving them away. And then he gave away all these portfolios that were like filled with his characters free. And I still have those. I say, you know, it's like, oh, and some of them he never really used, you know, there was a couple of minute. I've seen it written up. But yeah, there's probably like eight, you know, pieces in a folder. I mean, and just giving this stuff away. And so it was like, unbelievable. We were. And he's so positive. He's the nicest, nicest person, most positive guy. And it was so exciting for all of us. Whatever friends, I don't know who came besides me. Could have been one of my friends from high school, I can't remember. But the next year is when they had the inking competition and it was Orion. So things had already been happening with the new gods and Chris Warner. We all inked it. It was like a big 11 by 17 on some crappy paper. But you know, Dave Stevens inked it. He's probably the best anchor and, and I inked it and Chris inked it and a bunch of guys that were became artists. A lot of us became, we inked it. Chris won and got to have breakfast with Jack Kirby. And that was life changing. It was. I mean, he brought his sketchbooks to, to see and Kirby looked at him, he said all these guys like Chaykin and these, they were, you know, were just dissing him, you know, just like. But you're just a kid. He did, you know, it's like Chris is getting depressed. And then after Kirby looked at it, it was like this big shot in the arm of adrenaline because he was like, yeah, you have real potential. And he did. You look at Chris's inks and they were as professional as most guys. He could handle a brush like anybody, you know, anyway, and had great ideas. Kirby was great and he just praised him and gave him a lot of positive energy. And I just thought that is just such a tribute to the guy who was, he was a great role model. The end, you know, he was. And not only that, he, he didn't have to have an ego because he did everything, you know, it's like I did it all, you know. So, yeah, that was a really fun experience. You know, it was one of the early. It was. And I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. Those two years were amazing. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Back to what I know. That's, that's just my. If, if, if, if on this podcast we talk about something we want to and then we talk about other stuff we want to. It's free flowing. It's not a big deal. And that's so. [00:16:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I, well, we, I mean, we don't have to talk about totally about the dark now. You said pick a comic and in looking at it, it's not the comic that I totally remember. I mean, I, you know, you know, he's using like, you know, what is he doing? Six pages a lot of these. It's wild and it's like where the captions are. Captions are like, they have me confused. And I'm a comic book reader. It's like I'm reading them up, right? And then I think they go down here and it's like, I can't tell you how many times I got off and I was reading the caption. It's like, this is not good. It's like, you know, it should have been more encapsulated or. And when we taught comic books in our camps, we would do some of the stuff where it's like have a panel and you can have an open panel in between two closed panels because that keeps it separate and you've got that space. But when you have open panel, open panel, open panel, it's a free for all. You know, it's like you never know, you know what's going to happen there. So. Yeah, I mean there's, there's great stuff in there, but like I said, it was. For me it was all about Klaus Jansen because I was going to be an anchor in comics. I had just got my job in 85 and this came out in 86. And it was just like, you know, it's like everything is exciting. And I think I went to, to San Diego that year. It's possible it's just a, you know. Well, I guess I was a nobody. So I don't know if I had anything I may have that was in the old convention or. No, it wasn't in the. It used to be in the U.S. grant. And then it went to the convention center. And I think the convention center was the first time I was there as a professional. It was just two floors, but I had, I had Alien Legion pages and that was all I had because I was working with Chris. And then we got Dr. Strange. So, you know. Anyway, that was the early days too, [00:18:35] Speaker A: to be there in that era and you think about. That's where I kind of got myself distracted. But in 86, you had the end of crisis. You had Jim Shooter running everybody off at Marvel while he created new universe. [00:18:49] Speaker C: Right. [00:18:52] Speaker B: Can't believe that. [00:18:53] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But. [00:18:57] Speaker B: And the Watchman, you know, it's like Watchmen too, [00:19:02] Speaker A: with dc Mutant Massacre at Marvel. [00:19:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:06] Speaker A: And then, you know, there's just a tons of stuff going on. One of my favorite giant. I don't know. I don't know if you've ever seen these. I'm such a nerd, Randy. But I have these comic book chronicle books. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Of course you are. [00:19:18] Speaker A: That tomorrow's puts out goodness. Another tomorrow fantastic. They're huge. [00:19:26] Speaker B: I don't have any of those. Oh, that's so. It looks like it's got a lot of really nice. [00:19:30] Speaker A: Oh, and, oh, did I mention man of Steel came out that year, too? Yeah, John. So. Well, it's funny because you have. You think about what DC is putting out, right? Crisis. Marvel creators, right? Titans was the number one selling book right up until Crisis. Right. But then Wolfman got burned out writing it, but still, you know, obviously, so major Marvel influence coming to the universe there, you know, that people don't realize this, but Superman wasn't the number one selling book. Wonder Woman was not the number one selling book. Batman was not so number one. Number one and two coming into this era for DC were Titans and Legion, and three of the four creators were Marvel. Because Giffen started out at Marvel, too. Yeah. Rocket Raccoon. What did he do? [00:20:27] Speaker B: He. What did he. Did he do that after what's his face before his series? [00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah, he did. In the 70s or before. So I wouldn't call Giffen a Marvel guy because I think he's definitely a dart there. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Right? [00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Right. Well, I mean, that was the first thing I saw from Mike Mignola because that's when I went back in 85 to New York and stayed with and he was doing Rocket Raccoon when I came into the offices, you know, it was like. [00:20:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's like, it's. It's amazing all this stuff here. And of course, Marvel are still mad at John Byrne for. For what he did with Superman, but Marvel person, I don't even know. [00:21:06] Speaker B: What do you, like, screwed it up? [00:21:08] Speaker A: You don't know. Well, everybody else knows because I whine about it all the to. [00:21:13] Speaker B: When he went to dc, I was just like, I don't care read you. [00:21:17] Speaker A: He decided. I can't believe. I love Randy for saying that because you sound like Travis, our friend Travis, who is tired of me talking about the legion of superheroes all the time. But John Byrne decided Superman became Superman as a man. If there's no Superboy, how do you have superheroes [00:21:38] Speaker B: right. [00:21:38] Speaker C: Exist. [00:21:39] Speaker B: That's right. It kind of wipes out history. I know. You can't do that. You can't go around wiping out things that exist. Wait, look at you. I want one of those. Yeah, we can have those on the show. [00:21:52] Speaker A: I don't know what Greg's drinking. [00:21:54] Speaker B: I forgot. I did bring it in. I won't be any read. This is just lime Lacroix, but I've [00:21:59] Speaker A: got electric cold and it hasn't this [00:22:01] Speaker B: is just apple juice. Here we go. It's just apple juice. [00:22:05] Speaker A: Oh, I mean, last week I had a margarita on the podcast, so you can, you know, it's. It's possible. [00:22:11] Speaker B: Well, I was just getting thirsty there, [00:22:13] Speaker A: and I thought I got. Yeah. And, you know, when you said, you know, do something from 86, right, and you said do Watchmen or Dark Knight, I think getting into this, I was kind of glad. I was sad because I have avoided reading the Dark Knight for all of these years. Until now, his whole life. [00:22:35] Speaker B: That's funny. [00:22:37] Speaker A: What did it do? [00:22:37] Speaker B: It sold a lot, though, right? It sold gajillion well. And it's a lot. [00:22:42] Speaker A: You kind of think, like, for me, as a. As a. As a reader, made a lot of money. There's a hole. It's sort. There's sort of a hole in my collection from, like, the early 80s, right? Because I had, you know, I could get one. I was getting like one book a month, maybe two, until I started having my own money. And so 88, 89, 90, I got more and more comics. And then Greg and I started going to the comic shop together. [00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you're older. I mean, I can't believe you're, like, that young back then. It's like I was married. Let's see, in 86, Elizabeth was born. We got our house in 80s. A lot of things happened in 86, I gotta tell you. [00:23:20] Speaker A: And, yeah, for me, you know, I was just getting my, like, one or two comics a month, getting into learning all about comics. And, you know, my. My first exposure to comics was in the 70s as a little kid, but my mom got me a subscription to the Hulk comic when the TV show was on, because as a little kid, but as a, like 4 or 5 year old, those. Those books were not written for kids. Jarella was not a character for kids. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Well, you know, you mentioned it just as an aside, but isn't it amazing that, you know, Bill Bixby in the Incredible Hulk became a popular series that had a life, and actually they did a bunch of seasons, and it was. It was kind of like the Fugitive or something, you know, it's like, you know, every episode he's got to go help somebody, then run on right before they come get him, you know, and it's like, it worked. It totally worked. And that's the last person I would have imagined, you know, Bill Bixby. But that was, you know, he. And for, you know, it was amazing. I was blown away. And I got to meet Perigno a bunch of times. Super nice guy. Super nice guy. He's still around. He was at one of the. I think he was up at. Was he at summercon? [00:24:35] Speaker C: Maybe he wasn't. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Somebody said they saw we were staying [00:24:37] Speaker A: away from that area. We were hanging out with you all. So, yeah, we were. [00:24:43] Speaker B: As you should. [00:24:44] Speaker A: We were too busy talking to you and talking to Engelhardt about his run on. On Green Lantern and didn't even ask him about dropping LSD and doing Doctor Strange in the 70s. [00:24:53] Speaker B: So, yeah, I'm telling you, I wanted to go over and talk to him so bad because of all this stuff. I mean, I met him first early on, like, you know, after Chris and I were on Dr. Strange, he was invited to this. What was it? San Antonio Fantasy Fantasy Festival we went to. And that was in. Gosh, I can't remember when, but we were both newbies, you know, like, Chris had worked longer than I had, and Steve was there, and he was totally hilarious and, you know, stories. And we hung out. I mean, we were probably. He was probably the big name, and, you know, like, we were new, but, you know, he liked us, and so it was fun. But I didn't get to talk to him. You know, I was too busy just getting slammed that we killed it. Oh, yeah. Summercon again. Every year we've done better. This is three years in a row. And it's, you know, I don't know. I know the economy's bad, but apparently for discretionary income, people still. [00:25:47] Speaker C: Somebody came into the shop. I saw your picture up on the wall, and they're like, oh, you know Randy Emberlin. I saw him at Summer Con. So, I mean, like, that. That was. Yeah, it was just so funny. [00:25:59] Speaker B: And, you know, I'm gonna p. I'm gonna post that thing you guys did when I appeared at your store. It's a Daily Bugle. It says Extra Artist at Large. It's so cool. In fact, he's pulling it. [00:26:11] Speaker C: We are. [00:26:13] Speaker A: There it is. Yeah, that's the thing. [00:26:18] Speaker B: And it's like, it's got me down here. And then, you know, it's got extra. Daily Bugle and what does it say up here? Special event to take place in Kent, Washington. Childhood found at Kent's retro emporium. Daily Bugle Artist at Large. Comic book artist Randy Umberland will be making his notorious appearance. No, it's like, it's. Yeah, there it is. Anyway, it's. And the famous picture that's, you know, black and white. I like this. So I'm going to post it. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Oh, Randy, you're saving us some time too, because now I can just say. And you can revisit your childhood at the Retro Emporium on Kent, Washington, on Meeker Street. You can see Greg and Anne and. So, yeah, one plug out of the way. One plug out of the plug out of the way. [00:26:57] Speaker B: And I was there. I've been there a couple of times, in fact. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Have you come here when you just thought I was the guy hanging out at the store and you. And you gave me this. [00:27:07] Speaker B: Yeah, you were sweeping up. I sweep it up or something. I can't remember. No, you were putting things back in order. [00:27:13] Speaker C: You were very ridiculous for hanging out. [00:27:16] Speaker A: And I got this. Awesome. Yeah. You know what? If you all aren't watching this one on video, I'm sure this one's entertaining on audio, but on video, you're getting all the cool artwork. So. [00:27:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Meanwhile. Meanwhile, here's my favorite. The. I mean, I love Spider man and stuff, but. But I love doing Dr. Strange. That. That's one that actually came out pretty well. So one of the prints. If you see me at a show, you can come have me sign that Dr. Strange print. I have a red version and a blue version, so. But Doc was, you know, hey, Steve Ditko, man, He's my man. Right? This is the other one, everybody. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Big deal. No, was it big deal. [00:27:56] Speaker C: Some people. [00:27:58] Speaker B: I wish he was the same as Jack. [00:28:00] Speaker A: How excited were you when I walked up with those creeper books at summercon? [00:28:05] Speaker B: Well, those are awesome. You know, I mean, I was so sad when he left Marvel and. And Spider Man. It was just at the peak of, you know, Spiderman was just. I mean, the last couple issues kind of faded a little like Guy Named Joe and all that. But that three part story, you know, that's incredible. Saving Aunt May. I mean, it's just like. [00:28:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Tears to your eyes. [00:28:26] Speaker A: You know, I'm just thinking you. [00:28:30] Speaker B: We'll get. [00:28:31] Speaker A: I want to get to Klaus, I promise. I just. I was trying to remember too. Like you're. [00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:39] Speaker A: You were seeing as a kid. As a really young kid. I had to go look it up because I forgot his name. But did you have. So you had. On Justice League, you had Dick, Dillon and Giordano. [00:28:52] Speaker B: You know, you had to tell me that because I wouldn't have known. I had forgotten. It's like, I know those are the days, like the early 60s, right? [00:29:01] Speaker A: Dylan was like late 60s. The other guy, I think on it. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Well, wait, okay, so before him was the guy who had done a lot of that On. On. [00:29:11] Speaker A: Right. Let me go back. [00:29:12] Speaker B: What was his. [00:29:13] Speaker A: A little bit. Because at that time would have been doing action heroes too. Right, [00:29:20] Speaker B: right. Yeah. No, I remember it was Crisis. [00:29:24] Speaker A: Mike Sikowski, you know, like, that's. [00:29:27] Speaker B: That's it. Sakowski. [00:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:29] Speaker B: And he actually had drawn some other books. You know what? He may have even done a story, a backup story in that Space Ranger comic. [00:29:39] Speaker C: It was. [00:29:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it was weird. It was like, about robots and. And it was like. I remember. All I remember as a kid was like, they kept saying, were like police robots going, cease resistance. Cease resistance. Just like tons of Samaritan. [00:29:53] Speaker A: He had a definite Dick Dylan. Yeah. With. And then obviously, then Giordano comes over to DC from Charlton when they. When dc, I guess Charlton goes out of business, basically. Right. [00:30:06] Speaker C: Choir. Choir. [00:30:09] Speaker B: You know, I. How long. I mean, they were around, and I was buying the Ditko stuff at Charlton. You know, when he went over, he left Marvel and he was doing all that Charl. I love the Blue Beetle and the question. [00:30:20] Speaker A: We love the blue. [00:30:21] Speaker B: You know. [00:30:22] Speaker A: Yes, we do. And. And. And to get us back to 1986. Right. Watchmen, which we didn't read. [00:30:29] Speaker B: Okay. [00:30:31] Speaker A: No, I read it. [00:30:31] Speaker B: You didn't read it? [00:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:32] Speaker A: Not for the podcast. Not for. I've read Watchmen lots of times. Yeah, but we podcast. But Watchmen. Watchmen was originally supposed to be all of those Charlton action heroes. And D.C. was like, wait, Len Wean wants to do a Blue Beetle book? So you can't. Like. You can't have them. Right, Alan Moore. [00:30:55] Speaker B: You can't. [00:30:56] Speaker A: So they're all analogs of those Charlton action heroes. Right? Yeah. [00:31:01] Speaker C: Well, I mean. [00:31:02] Speaker B: Yeah. What is it? The owl or whatever he is. He's got that same. Yeah, exactly. [00:31:11] Speaker A: And Dr. Manhattan is Captain Adam. Nightshade is. [00:31:15] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Alman's girlfriend. [00:31:20] Speaker B: I forget. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Why am I blanking? Silk Specter is Nightshade and. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Oh, right, obviously. [00:31:28] Speaker A: And I forget who Rorschach is. Oh, no, no, he is. Yeah. [00:31:35] Speaker B: I think. I think he's actually Karn Martin. Oh, that's right. Because of the mask. Right. [00:31:42] Speaker A: And Peter Cannon. [00:31:43] Speaker B: Thunderbolt, of course. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. It's Ozymandias. Yeah. So you have all the analogs. It's just interesting. But, yeah, and all these things, like, it's. It's crazy. All these things kind of coalesce into 86. 86 is a crazy year in comics. [00:32:01] Speaker C: Good year. [00:32:01] Speaker B: It was. I'm telling you. You know, my daughter, my first child born, got a house that year, you know, got a job at Marvel. The Year before and so probably went to San Diego for the first time in years and it's like that was [00:32:14] Speaker A: a huge year and here. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Huge. [00:32:16] Speaker A: And then you gave me this book Randy and we got. [00:32:19] Speaker B: We have Dr. [00:32:20] Speaker A: Strange and Randy and you gave me this book to read. I mean Dark Night Reacher. [00:32:26] Speaker B: Which ones? [00:32:27] Speaker C: I mean it's, it's like you gave me this. But Dan, I mean it was like the same, same time I moved down the street. So I mean it's all good. [00:32:36] Speaker A: That. That is true. That is true. So that is true. No, I'm just teasing Randy a little bit because you didn't buy that book. [00:32:45] Speaker C: No, no. [00:32:45] Speaker B: You were too young. Got it. [00:32:50] Speaker C: I moved down the street from around that same time. [00:32:52] Speaker A: So yeah, he's two years younger than me, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:32:57] Speaker B: Oh really? [00:32:58] Speaker A: Wow. [00:32:58] Speaker B: You're really. [00:33:00] Speaker C: Literally down like two blocks from his house. [00:33:03] Speaker B: So. [00:33:04] Speaker A: But he had. Greg had access to a lot of older books that I didn't have access to. [00:33:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:12] Speaker A: Growing up. Yeah. [00:33:13] Speaker B: Didn't you guys have a used bookstore [00:33:16] Speaker A: where you could buy like not, not in our town. I mean but we had to, we had to go. [00:33:23] Speaker C: It wasn't close to Tacoma, Lakewood or Canada. [00:33:27] Speaker A: We could go to Book World in Kent. Back when it existed. [00:33:31] Speaker B: I had, I had a bookstores downtown that were amazing. Like people would dump their collections there. And you know, like my friend Mark Von Shalin who I went to grade school with, his dad owned a building downtown and it was the famous building One, Chandler. It had the. Has the big sign. It looks like the state of Oregon. It has the White Stag jumping on it. It was the White Stag. Now it says Portland, you know. But it has that, that sign. It was always burned out and stuff back in those days. But we could go down there and hang out. My parents let me do that as kids, as like 8 year old kids and going to those bookstores and you know, if there were collections, we were serious collectors already. It's like, oh, and we got money. We extorted money to get you. [00:34:14] Speaker A: That wasn't Greg. And I actually had my driver's license. Yeah. So that's in early 90s when we started doing that, I started working at Fred Meyer. Well and, and, and Todd opened the store in Puyallup. Right. With, with Kim. Yeah. So. Oh he did. Yeah. [00:34:30] Speaker B: Wow. [00:34:30] Speaker A: So o' Leary is closed and became a baby store or something. And we had, but we had, we had. We started going to Spider's Web when they closed. I think we, I think we were still going to O' Leary's. But then we went to Spider's Web permanently when they closed. But how crazy is that? To have Todd McFarlane and his, you know, and his best friend, brother in law. Who's his brother in law. Right. [00:34:57] Speaker C: Like, it was surreal. [00:34:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's pretty amazing. [00:35:00] Speaker B: I. It is surreal because it wasn't like, you know, it was. I mean, it was so connected to everything, you know, it's. I can't. I. I went to high school in Milwaukee, and so it was a long ways from where I lived, which is Happy Valley. So I'd have to take the activities bus home. So if I didn't have to, you know, like, I did sports, I did track and I did basketball and stuff, but even golf one year. But my mom would come from Oregon City and a lot of times could pick me up, and so I didn't have to take that bus. So, you know, when I was 15 or 16, right. I was just getting my license, you know, I didn't have a car. So we could stop at Fred Meyer on the way home. It wasn't that far and they had attached to. It was like a little strip mall type thing with the used comic books, used comics. I got so much. I mean, I was. It. Brave and the bold first appearance of the Justice League there in great condition. So was like eight grand or something. You know, it's like. And I. I was like, I. You know, it's like, I don't even care about justice William. But this. This is pretty cool. Star of the Conqueror. And it's like. And I got green lanterns, like number two, number five, number seven, if somebody had dumped a collection. And then I got a bunch of Joe Cubert, you know, army at war or whatever. And because I wanted his art and it was just stacks. I mean. And I remember one summer going to the beach with my cousin Doug, and we always read comics and we just sat and we read war comics with, you know, like, Joe Cubert's war comics was like all week long at the beach. And then we go down and play in the sand. And it was like those days, you know, come back, bring those back. [00:36:35] Speaker A: I mean, Joe Cubert, Gil Kane, you know, you know, just. [00:36:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't get any better. I never met Gil Kane, but I did meet Joe. And Joe was amazing. [00:36:46] Speaker A: Our only. Our only issue. Our only issue with Gil Kane was the paper plate Spider man faces. We felt he drew. Yeah, he could not draw that mask. [00:36:57] Speaker B: They look like the paper plates. [00:36:59] Speaker C: Like the Spider man paper plates. [00:37:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:03] Speaker A: Like a round. [00:37:05] Speaker B: No that's so weird. I know. I've seen somebody do that before. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Other people is one of the best facial expression artists in history. [00:37:14] Speaker B: You know, he's the guy that can draw the upshot right nose and make [00:37:16] Speaker A: one of the best. [00:37:18] Speaker B: Yeah, nobody can do that. [00:37:19] Speaker A: You think the guy put a mask on a character and he can't draw it? Like it's like crazy party plate. [00:37:25] Speaker B: What? Yeah, his anatomy was copied so much by. I mean, it's straight out of the anatomy books and stuff. But other people have ripped it off and like that's how they learned anatomy was from Joe Kane. You know, it was like good source actually. You know, funny that he inked a lot of his own stuff with crappy felt pens. It's really a bummer because that stuff doesn't last. You know, it fades and looks terrible and. But he wanted the money. He was a big money guy. He wanted every dime. So he inked a lot of his stuff, you know, and it's like unfortunately in the last. So too bad others had learned to use India. Gotta use the good stuff. Good grief. [00:38:05] Speaker A: Well, we've got. We've got 16 panels. [00:38:12] Speaker B: That's right. And, and, and I couldn't mute. It kept happening. It was like page after page after page of like 16 panel pages. I never even heard of it. [00:38:22] Speaker A: Oh, go ahead, Greg. [00:38:23] Speaker C: I was just say. Every time you got done with the page, I swear I got a text message. Like it was. [00:38:31] Speaker A: That was just when I was reading [00:38:32] Speaker B: the first issue for me look. And here's a traditional, you know, like they're all bordered four times four, but there's a ton of them that are like open. They're open. And it's like 16 pound pages open. God. This one looks like it's trying to [00:38:49] Speaker A: be more like 24. That's the one with the pearls on it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the pearls. [00:38:56] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, that's. That's quite a telling of. [00:38:59] Speaker A: Yeah, well, of course. I mean we can kind of. Yes. So I'm just going to tell everybody this. This book has 16 panels. We are not. This is. [00:39:09] Speaker B: This is what. This is. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker B: That's what blew me. I was like, what the heck is going on here? What in the wide. [00:39:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:18] Speaker A: If you were expecting us to try to review this in our normal way where we like read some of the things and go through every page, that's impossible on this book. [00:39:26] Speaker B: I know. Yeah, it is. Why bother? You know, it's like just get to the heart of what the issues were and you know, the high points and Stuff like that. And there were some, you know, there were some really interesting storylines. And of course it, like I said, you know, Frank takes forever. It's like, you know, it took him forever to finish the damn thing, you know, but it's like finally it got finished and there was all of the. The new Robin and all of that kind of stuff, you know, And I did. [00:39:52] Speaker A: I did go and read all four issues with the 16 page panels. You did? [00:39:56] Speaker B: Good for you. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Well, I had to know. So first, first off, I don't think too controversial because I think this is a book people either really love or hated it. And I'm probably more on the hated it side. And there are a couple reasons for that. I won't say them all right now, but part of it. [00:40:18] Speaker C: Why not, Dan? [00:40:19] Speaker A: I'm gonna say part of it. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Usually do the art. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Okay, well, oh, no, [00:40:27] Speaker B: the art is a little bit abstract expressionistic. You know, it's like the COVID of [00:40:31] Speaker A: the second issue is one of the worst covers of comic books I've ever seen in my life. [00:40:37] Speaker B: So Chris Warner said, well, I shouldn't say it. Maybe it wasn't. But he says it looks like he's grunting on the toilet. [00:40:45] Speaker A: Greg, I didn't think about this. This could be the new Danny Chase Award winner for Poop Face. Oh, my God. Danny Chase, the character from the Teen Titans that. Yeah, that is George. Every time he used his powers and in his first appearance, for some reason, George Perez did not draw that book. And so every time that character was using his mental powers, it looks like he was taking a big poop. Yeah, no, and so he gets. That is the word on this podcast, if you look like you're doing that, you get the Danny Chase Award for taking a poop. So you are. [00:41:22] Speaker C: You are here. [00:41:25] Speaker B: Have you got all four? What are the other two covers look like? I can't remember. [00:41:28] Speaker A: You've got the kind of. No, the other two look more like the first issue. So you've got the. You've got the silhouette with Robin in the bottom. [00:41:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:38] Speaker A: Really? And then the Superman. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Is it Carrie? Is that who becomes the freaking. What's her name? Yeah, yeah. And that. I don't even remember that one. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Well, I mean, and again, we'll. We'll cover the first issue a little bit with. With two face slash one face in it, but. [00:41:58] Speaker B: Right. That was actually interesting. [00:41:59] Speaker A: I mean, by the time we get to the end, Batman has his own brown shirts and has become a full fledged fascist. So, you know, that's, that's, that's where I have some issues with this especially. [00:42:14] Speaker B: It's like he's discovered his true self again. It's like he can't suppress it anymore. [00:42:20] Speaker A: Yeah. In this first issue. [00:42:22] Speaker B: You know what's funny? When you read that stuff, when I was reading some of that stuff where Batman's talking to himself and he's suppressing all this and it's coming back and all of the. All of the angst and the anger and the way he talks about the criminals and stuff, it's like, this is totally Daredevil. This is the new Daredevil series. This is like, go back. I mean, I've watched all of it now, and Judy has too. And it's like, I can't believe she watched it because it's so violent. But it's like, you know, that is such a Frank Miller influence thing. His whole. I mean, he's way worse than Batman. You know, like, he's nuts. Daredevil's insane. [00:42:58] Speaker A: You know, it's like you just go. [00:42:59] Speaker B: And you. He believes in justice and he wants to beat people up. [00:43:05] Speaker A: He just wants. I did some Frank Miller research a little bit. And of course, this. Tomorrow's book just has a little clip of something he said, but basically without me reading the quote, he was. This book was supposed to be a response to crime in New York at the time. [00:43:20] Speaker C: Okay. [00:43:21] Speaker A: Which does make sense. Yeah. 80s was bad because remember, that's how we get. That's how we get Rudy Giuliani in the 90s because he supposedly cleans up New York. Right. Right. Even though we ignore the fact that cities are cyclical and they go through cycles and, you know, you could. It just being lucky enough to be the Maryland crime was. [00:43:42] Speaker B: That was that one. That the guy that was the hero on the subway. That. [00:43:46] Speaker A: That was. That was around that time. Yeah. We find out he wasn't such a hero, but he. [00:43:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Doing it because he's doing it. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Everybody wants to go, well, if we were all carrying, we'd of course, all be heroes and save everybody. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Of course, you only know the African American men on the subway. Right. Because those are the only bad guys. Right. Yeah. All these premises work out really well if you're racist. Right. Like, yeah. I mean, fantastic. [00:44:12] Speaker B: Right. It's. [00:44:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:15] Speaker B: It just doesn't work that way. Yeah. We know that people with guns. It never works out. It's no good. [00:44:21] Speaker A: And this book here, at least they. At least he didn't start using guns. I will say that in the. In the book. I thought it was going to get There. [00:44:30] Speaker B: No, he. He like knives a lot, though. There's like, that Mutant game. [00:44:34] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And this is kind of what he starts. We've got, you know, Bruce Wayne's wandering around the. Looking like the Monopoly man and. [00:44:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I had that face, actually, in a couple of those pictures. He reminds me of Ronald Coleman. He's got the mustache, and he's like. I love that shadowed face. The side. I mean, I should bring that up because this is. Some of these were huge. You can look at my art in Alien Legion when I was inking Larry Stroman, and this affected that. I mean, that was after Chris left, and I'm still studying that stuff. And it's like I literally copied some of those approaches like this. Oh, right. Let's see. [00:45:14] Speaker A: There you go. [00:45:15] Speaker B: Where is it? Yeah, those two. Where he's. He's drinking and, you know, he's looking at Gordon and then you just look at the shadows on the side of his face and the way it works with his eyes and his cheeks. It's brilliant. I mean, it's like. It's just. It's got the right emotion, expression. And of course, the word balloons are blocking or any other. Anyway, that approach to, like, throwing these black. In some cases, they almost look random, you know, patches on here. But it's like Jack Kirby. It's like, you know, where to put those. Well, talk to it. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Talk to us about how the inking works here, because obviously the shadowing here, right, is Klaus's inking, not. Not the penciling being done. [00:45:58] Speaker B: Yeah, there probably is some, you know, aspect, I'm sure, because, you know, Frank ultimately became, you know, this Mr. Reversed Image Black and white guy. Look at Sin City and all that stuff. You know, he was obsessed with that kind of stuff later. So obviously it was there. But I think Klaus may have even helped him develop a sense about that because you look at all of the daredevil stuff and what Klaus did to that, you know, I mean, he did a masterful job because a lot of it was very. Was pretty poorly drawn. I mean, it wasn't. It was bitter in some ways than some of the other stuff. But, you know, I mean, it's just interesting. I've had a lot of people look at Frank's work and go, well, he kind of used piece of this and a piece of that and kind of put it together and. And his storytelling was the. That was it. It was the brilliant storytelling. And it's like how he saw images and pacing, you know, and pictures and cropping and all of that. It wasn't the drawing itself. You know, it's like. But ultimately, you did have, you know, what's his name, Klaus, to make it look pretty cool. Because, I mean, it's like black is the key. It's how you place the blacks. And if you look at this, in the Batman one, the. He used super fine, you know, like crow quill lines super thin up next to blobs of black. You know, it's like the nose made have a really hairline and then, you know, like this big blob of black and then hairline, you know, definition. And it works. It's just. You have to know where to put it, and it works. [00:47:30] Speaker A: That's very interesting. [00:47:32] Speaker B: So all of us are trying to figure that out. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Greg and I read the entire Booster Gold series that also started in 1986. However, not one of the books known for being in 1986 at all. Yeah, Booster Gold. [00:47:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:47] Speaker B: I didn't know it was. I thought it was funny. I thought Booster Gold. Oh, what are they doing? I don't know what this is, but [00:47:53] Speaker A: it's very clever because the series only went 25 issues, right? And I think Blue Beetle, also, the two big books out of Crisis were Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, right? And they each go about 25 issues, and then given makes them the pair later in the Justice League, right? And then they become famous characters from there. Blue Beetle, obviously a famous character from the Golden Age, but that Ted Kord, Blue Beetle kind of really took off again right then in the 60s. [00:48:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess he was. He was like a Golden Age guy, wasn't he? I mean, I saw some pictures of that, and he had a scarab, and I don't even know. [00:48:27] Speaker A: Golden Age. I have no idea. Well, it went through a bunch. We did a podcast on it very, very early on the podcast. Because I'm obsessed with Blue Beetle, and, yeah, I love Blue Beetle. [00:48:37] Speaker B: I. I wish that character had some movies himself. You know, he did take that newest one, though. [00:48:42] Speaker A: It was so new. Blue Beetle. And it was not good. [00:48:46] Speaker B: No. What I didn't hear about. Well, I guess I did. [00:48:49] Speaker A: You should watch, actually. You should. [00:48:52] Speaker B: Well, can I watch it? [00:48:53] Speaker A: You should watch it. And I say you should read it. And so you should read it. Follow the book. Did not. [00:49:02] Speaker C: Did not. [00:49:02] Speaker B: It did follow the booker. [00:49:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:49:04] Speaker A: So Keith Giffen. So Keith Giffen relaunched Blue Beetle as Jaime Reyes. [00:49:09] Speaker B: When was that movie? [00:49:11] Speaker A: And it was what year? [00:49:13] Speaker B: Four years ago. [00:49:14] Speaker C: What, the book or the movie? [00:49:16] Speaker B: I do remember hearing about it, actually. You should watch the movie. [00:49:19] Speaker A: Watch the movie without ever reading the comic book, then you won't have my issues with it. [00:49:23] Speaker B: Okay. [00:49:23] Speaker C: You can currently watch it on HBO Max or Hulu or Amazon Prime. Okay, so it's on. It's on those. [00:49:34] Speaker B: It's called the Blue Beetle. Yeah. [00:49:36] Speaker A: There's like a. [00:49:37] Speaker B: Okay, but is it. I mean, it's not horribly made, but it's interesting. [00:49:41] Speaker C: If you go into it just like you're going to enjoy a movie, you're going to enjoy it, but if you go into it having read the book that Dan and I read in the past, you're going to draw a lot of comparisons and be kind of let down that it didn't hold up to the book that you read because the [00:49:59] Speaker A: book is so, so good. [00:50:04] Speaker B: So you're saying this is a separate book from any of the Blue Beetle [00:50:08] Speaker A: adventures that I. Yeah. So Ted Cord, they killed off Ted Cord in the late 2000s in a really, really good story. They had gone. Gail had written him into Birds of Prey. Yes. Had written him into Birds of Prey. And he was kind of like out of shape and. And had a heart condition. And. And they did this whole one shot issue leading into this big event where he would, like, he solved a mystery and he gets to the end and he gets shot. So nobody would know he actually solved the mystery. Right. Like, but it's like, it's like he gets everything back. He's like, I am an. I am a good superhero. This all happened. But none of the other superheroes would buy into what he was doing because he had kind of lost his gravitational. Right. [00:51:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:02] Speaker A: His edge. And so he does solve the mystery, but nobody's there to back him up. And the villains kill him at the end. Actually, Maxwell Lord and the movie did a little different. The movie was the next Blue Beetle. So they. The scarab comes back and they have Jaime Reyes, he's a high school kid, and he ends up with a scarab. And it's. It's wonderful storytelling. Movie a little bit different. [00:51:25] Speaker B: Okay. [00:51:27] Speaker A: But. Yeah. [00:51:28] Speaker B: Okay, well, that's. So now when you say the story that you want me to read, is it collected issues or is it a single special edition Beatles story? [00:51:39] Speaker A: If you read the first six. Yeah. Of that. [00:51:42] Speaker B: The one that you're talking about. I mean, it's not just the. It's not just the Blue Beetle 1 to 25. [00:51:46] Speaker A: No, it's a newer book. It was in the 2000s, so. Yeah. [00:51:50] Speaker B: Okay. But it was just a miniseries that they came up with. [00:51:54] Speaker A: You know, I think it ran how long? I Think four to five issues. Yeah. [00:51:59] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Well, I mean, if it's a good story, I'd read it. [00:52:02] Speaker A: I loved it. [00:52:03] Speaker B: It sounds interesting. I like that character. I just think he was a cool character, and I didn't know anything about him during the Ditko era. I mean, you didn't get any. [00:52:11] Speaker A: Ditko was. So they did. Do not Tinder it out on Blue Beetle for a second. But why not? [00:52:16] Speaker B: Why not? [00:52:17] Speaker A: Why not? So Charlton brought back Dan Garrett. [00:52:22] Speaker B: They did. Goes related to me. Despite her. [00:52:24] Speaker A: Charlton brought back the Golden Age Blue Beetle for, like, a second, and he ends up like. Ted Kord is like his. Like his mentee. But Ted Kord can't use the scarab. So Ted Kord just has the scarab. So for whatever reason, Ted Kord can't access the magic, so he creates his own superhero. And basically, you know, it's the cross between Batman and Spider man because that's what Ditko created. Right. And hence the Blue Beetle. Yeah. I love the goggle. And then Len Wein loved the character. And so Len Wein, they bring Blue Beetle back. He makes appearances in Crisis on Infinite Earths. And then Len Wein gets the series. So now you have. He was really. There was a couple of Charlton characters they revived. Right. That were success. Somewhat successful. Blue Beetle probably is the most successful. Obviously, Captain Atom still floats around. [00:53:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:53:25] Speaker A: The question was not as commercially successful, but still floats around. And I love that character. [00:53:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:32] Speaker A: Nightshade, they try to do things with. From time to time, but not as. And then I think the creator owns Peter Cannon, so they couldn't use that character. There was something. There's something with the rights where they couldn't. Even though Giordano got them the rights to all of the Charlton stuff when he came over, for some reason, they couldn't use Peter Cannon. [00:53:56] Speaker B: I'll be darn. Huh? [00:53:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:58] Speaker B: Okay. Well, that's interesting. I mean, I want to see the movie now. That'll give me something fun to look forward to. [00:54:03] Speaker A: It's a fun movie. [00:54:04] Speaker B: I mean, it's fine. [00:54:04] Speaker A: I'll just see it, read the comic. [00:54:06] Speaker B: You know, it's a. [00:54:08] Speaker C: Popcorn. [00:54:09] Speaker B: They won't. I'll watch the movie. [00:54:10] Speaker C: If you don't like it, blame me. Call me and tell me terrible. And I'll be like, I'm sorry, Randy. [00:54:15] Speaker B: I'm sure. I'm sure I'll probably enjoy it. If you said, like, if you go into it thinking that you're just watching, like, the Crystal Skull. Yeah. Yeah. That was a little long. With Indiana Jones. That's my only complaint about those movies. They just, like. They go on and on, on and on. It's like, God, I just think movies are too long in general. You know, it means they're not telling Lean films. I like Lean films. [00:54:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:43] Speaker B: For every moment, you know. [00:54:45] Speaker A: Well, and it's just. Well. And, you know, this book, which we will actually talk about at some point, [00:54:52] Speaker C: but 45 minutes, and we're not quite there. [00:54:56] Speaker A: No, I mean, Bruce wanders home. [00:54:57] Speaker C: Thank you so much. [00:54:58] Speaker A: He runs into it. He runs into a gang, and he's scared and, you know, kind of prompts him to bring Batman back. There is something I did want to point out in this book. Well, one, there's a lot of commentary, right. So you're getting a lot of. So they have newscasters and they're kind. [00:55:14] Speaker B: They're Right. That was clever. Because we hadn't seen a lot of that. And I thought, oh, that was kind of cool. It's like, I'm Bill and this. And you have the girl, and she just keeps going back and forth between all these, you know, shots. That's where you get those floating. [00:55:28] Speaker A: I think my favorite thing in all four issues, though, and not surprising, also DC's favorite thing, because they pulled it right for the Dark Knight movie. But when he falls into the cave as a kid. [00:55:42] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:55:44] Speaker B: Oh, right. Yeah. I didn't see that coming. I was kind of like, what? You know, I mean, I knew roughly. But, I mean, had they told that story the same before? [00:55:53] Speaker A: No, I think this is it. [00:55:55] Speaker B: I don't think so. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:56] Speaker B: It's in the movies, too, right? I mean. [00:55:58] Speaker A: Yeah, they take the. Out of continuity for the movies, which was smart. I mean, this is. This was. And the. And you don't. You don't have a lot of bright colors in this book. [00:56:08] Speaker C: No. [00:56:09] Speaker A: So when they show the red there and then the cave, too, when you got the Robin suit way back in the corner of the cave, it's the only thing colored. [00:56:17] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't even see that. I looked at that today. [00:56:20] Speaker A: Everything else is covered up and dusted, and you. You find out. You don't know exactly what happened, but he's estranged from Dick Grayson for whatever reason. And of course, in. In DC continuity, this is around the time that. That he becomes Nightwing. So it does make sense that they wouldn't want Dick in. [00:56:38] Speaker B: That's right. So Robin becomes Nightwing, and then with the Jason guy. What happened to him? [00:56:44] Speaker A: What happened to him is they set up a 900 number and you Got to call in to find out if you killed him or not. And. And Damattis had a. Had to write two stories. Yeah. So Damattis had a story for Mark Dattis, had a story for him living and a story from dying. And it was up to a 1900 number. [00:57:09] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It's like when they print the hats, you know, for the champion who's going to win the super bowl, the loser hat. [00:57:18] Speaker C: What's crazy is people called in and wanted him to die and then got mad that he died. [00:57:24] Speaker A: I don't think anybody was mad that Jason Todd. [00:57:26] Speaker C: Oh, there's people that are mad that he's dead. [00:57:30] Speaker A: Tim Drake. Tim Drake is such a superior character to Jason Todd, though. I mean, Tim. Tim Drake was a. Tim Drake was a fantastic character. Like the notion. Jason Todd, they try to make sort of like Dick Grayson, except with an edge. And then the next Robin is like so smart that he figured out Batman was Bruce Wayne and ended up at his house. Right. Like, I mean, okay, and he's a scientist and, and that's, that's just a cooler character. Right. It's a. If you're gonna replace Robin, you shouldn't replace him with the same thing. Right. [00:58:06] Speaker B: And Right, right. [00:58:08] Speaker C: Yes. [00:58:11] Speaker B: Comics. Right. The Batman used to be the brilliant detective. He wasn't about beating people up and killing them and using all kinds of. He was like clever and he solved mysteries and had all kinds of stuff. Now he's always doing so. Yeah, I know. Now he's old. He said. What did he say, 70? Does it say 70 somewhere in there? [00:58:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:30] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's. [00:58:31] Speaker A: What's his name? [00:58:32] Speaker B: Commissioner Gordon. Yeah, Commissioner Gordon. He's turning 70. He's going to retire. I thought. I'm 70. I'm 70. [00:58:40] Speaker A: I'm retired. Okay, well, I thought this was. And you're hardly retired. You are doing more things. You still do retirement than most. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Yeah, my wife says that, but it's like. No, it's like I. We're going on a month long trip to Canada leaving on the 11th. You know, it's going to be amazing. We're going to be two weeks in Canmore, south of Banff and we're going to be on e bikes on trails and we're going to be going up to the glacier and Jasper and you know, and we did a week at Waldo Lake recently and that's. There was no water. We had to take our own water and filtration. I mean, we're, we're roughing it, man. We got our kayaks and hiking boots. This is the world that we live in. It's so much cooler. It's like, love comics, but, you know, it's like, you can only do those for so long. Yeah. And you're running out of time. [00:59:26] Speaker A: I gotta do exactly this. Yeah. They. Batman decided not to do all the things you're suggesting. No, he. He. He decides to. [00:59:35] Speaker B: I know, I know. [00:59:37] Speaker A: He's stuck. [00:59:37] Speaker C: He has a choice. [00:59:40] Speaker A: Talk about everybody being stuck, too. So this. This first issue is really about Batman and two Face. And, you know, they give. They're kind of retelling Batman's origin. And I. I do think it's smart to. I think the way they did it with just like, one page for each part of the origin sprinkled through the issue is good. Like, if you had never picked up a Batman book and you read this, you know. You know, how Batman became Batman. [01:00:06] Speaker C: This is how I learned. [01:00:08] Speaker B: Right. [01:00:08] Speaker A: About Batman. Is it really? [01:00:11] Speaker C: No, Dan. No. [01:00:13] Speaker B: Isn't. [01:00:13] Speaker A: Don't. Don't joke like that. I'm gonna be mad. [01:00:17] Speaker C: This is how Mike Tanner learned about Batman. That's why he doesn't like Batman. [01:00:20] Speaker A: That's why he's so sad. So the. [01:00:23] Speaker C: I. [01:00:25] Speaker A: That's. Well, I. This was interesting because they introduced. They introduce Arkham, sort of. And you get a glimpse of the Joker and you get a two face. [01:00:35] Speaker B: Right. There he is. Joker's in there. Just like. No, his face. [01:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah, like, two face is all bandaged up. Like, his whole face is covered up. And I guess, you know, the premise is that they fixed him. [01:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:49] Speaker A: He couldn't cope with being fixed. [01:00:50] Speaker B: Right. [01:00:51] Speaker C: They put. [01:00:52] Speaker B: What did he mess up his face back together again? Yeah, he's hiding it. I forget. Is it. So it's actually. The face is okay, but he's upset because he. And he still has the right mark on the coin, you know, and it's like. Yeah, it was. That was good. It was good. I could see that in a movie. [01:01:12] Speaker A: And you've got some psychologists that, like, thinks he's ready to get out, so he's gonna let him out. And that's that mystery man. [01:01:21] Speaker B: Dr. Casanova Frankenstein. Right. He goes, well, Captain Amazing is here, and he's vouching for him because they're going, this crazy murderer will never. Will never. And then they go. They get out the big stamp, and he goes, here. [01:01:35] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:01:37] Speaker C: I love that movie so much. [01:01:40] Speaker B: I do, too. That's the one. I wish there were more comic, you know, superhero movies where they make fun of themselves. I mean, it's just. It's such rich. [01:01:51] Speaker C: Yes. [01:01:52] Speaker B: Genre. You could have fun with that. You know, it's really fun. And they did, you know, watch that Supergirl movie. [01:01:59] Speaker A: And it is. [01:02:01] Speaker B: I haven't yet. [01:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah. So the premise is. And it's, it's a. Tom King wrote a book, a 12 issue book called Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow, like five years ago. And that's what they based the movie off of. And the premise for the story, I think you'll love the premise. So, right. Superman's on Earth, right. And he was a little baby and he never saw his planet blow up and has no trauma associated with that or anything. Right. He's just here and he's raised by these loving parents and everything's great. Right. Well, Supergirl was a teenager when she left Krypton. Right? [01:02:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:02:39] Speaker A: I think I told you this. Yeah. She leaves. She leaves. You know, she. In. In the. She leaves Krypton. Yeah, I think it would. And so the premise in is that basically she gets here as a 16 year old, now she's 23, and she decides to make a trip bar hopping through the galaxy to deal with her trauma with her. That's the movie. It's great. And it's a crazy. It's a coming of age, right. Like, it's just. And it's, it's. Yeah, I think you'll really enjoy Lobo shows up in the movie. [01:03:16] Speaker B: Okay. That's a good thing too. [01:03:18] Speaker A: You know, one, we got to see Simon Bisley at Summercon, which. Which I was gonna say. [01:03:24] Speaker B: I was just gonna bring that up. It's like Lobo, I traded in. He came to my table and he was loved these pages that Eric Larson. I did. And I said, you would have them. I'll sign him. I'll give them to you. And then he disappeared and it was like he left early. Half the time they were at the table and I wanted to just go over and give it to him. And I find him to give him. [01:03:45] Speaker A: We got to talk to him for like 30 minutes. He told us that DC invited him back to do some covers for Lobo and was telling him how to draw Lobo and he told him to f off [01:03:56] Speaker B: a few. [01:03:58] Speaker A: I drew Lobo. [01:04:00] Speaker B: I can see him doing that. [01:04:01] Speaker A: I got my Lobo paramilitary. Yes. [01:04:04] Speaker B: He's a crusty old character now. [01:04:06] Speaker A: He signed my Lobo paramilitary Christmas special. The issue where Lobo kills Santa Claus. Yeah, it's classic from the 90s. It's the 90s. I mean. Yeah, that's what happened in the 90s. [01:04:20] Speaker B: Everything was happening well, this kind of [01:04:22] Speaker A: goes on in, in this book. And you've got a gang, too. You find out they're the Mut, and they're. They're weird, superpowered leader, and they're kind of following around, doing stuff instead of [01:04:34] Speaker C: in the backdrop in the 80s. [01:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. Well, I think it's a little bit of a stab at Marvel. I mean, let's be real, just a tiny bit. [01:04:43] Speaker B: I think so, too. The mirror. [01:04:45] Speaker C: Maybe. [01:04:45] Speaker A: Maybe. And yeah, I think. And the other random stab he takes is at Lana Lang, of all people. She's a newscaster in this and she's like doing a debate counterpoint show. [01:04:59] Speaker B: That's right. [01:05:00] Speaker A: She's. She's put on a few pounds over the years, apparently. And I was like, what does he have against Lana Lang? You know, Like, [01:05:13] Speaker B: I, you know, he's taking. [01:05:14] Speaker A: You know what's interesting, though? They may not have let him use Lois because Man of Steel was at the same time, so they were relaunching Superman, so they may not have let him use Lois. So he grabs the character that shouldn't matter anymore, because why does Lana matter if Super Superboy never existed? [01:05:33] Speaker C: Right. [01:05:34] Speaker A: And he grabs the other one. You know, that makes sense. And basically, you know, I'll probably shotgun through a little bit more of the story, but you've. [01:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, because it's going to be dinner time around here. I'm gonna get a yell. Why are you going? [01:05:55] Speaker A: But, yeah, I mean, basically Batman goes out, he's. He finds out that Two Face is behind a bunch of this stuff that's happening in the city. And for whatever reason, Two Face just cannot cope with having a face. Should we call him One Face? [01:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, apparently, yeah, they thought he was cured, but not. [01:06:21] Speaker A: The other thing I want in reading this book too, is I after seeing all of the bandaged up Face, I want. I want Klaus to be inking Negative man and Negative Woman in Doom Patrol [01:06:38] Speaker B: when Doom Patrol. Yeah, I always like Doom Patrol. [01:06:41] Speaker A: Well, and speaking of things around the same time, isn't Morrison take over Doom Patrol? No, no, that's two years later. I'm. I'm jumping the gun. They relaunched. Yeah, they relaunched Doom Patrol as a [01:06:52] Speaker B: Bad For Me book. [01:06:55] Speaker A: And then Morrison took it over. [01:06:57] Speaker B: And for. For me, it was Eric Larson getting to work on Dude Patrol because he was a kid that came down to the shows and he would go, I can draw. I can draw. And it was like Chris Warner and I were at the tables, you know, at Richard Finn's shows, that he would be, you know, One of, anyway, long story short, it's like he got work at DC and he did some view patrol, and then he went over to Marvel and he did that Marvel Comics Presents with Spider man stuff. And he must have met Todd McFarlane somewhere in there somewhere, because they hit it off. And then when Todd left, they hired him on Amazing Spider man. And he and I were buds and he called me up and he goes, randy, I want you to ink it like Walt Simons. I want to get those crow coil pens out and just rip across. And I'm like, they're going, absolutely, I'm here happy to get on Amazing Spider man with you. And it was just a miracle. It was so fun to see him go from that to there to, you know, and then it happened and it was, you know, the rest is history. He went on to do big stuff. He didn't. I mean, I guess I could have gone to Image, but, you know, I had a house and a wife and two kids. Let's see. No, yeah, Alex. Yeah, I think so. 91. Anyway, but I got on the Spider man book and it's like, why would I get off of an iconic book like that? And, you know, I mean, it was doing great and it had really high profile. And then we hit the 90s, you know, I mean, it was like. And then it was like Eric had already left before that happened. And then what's his face Bagley came in and we did the Carnage and the Venom stuff and all that. Yeah, it was huge. And so I'm glad. I, I, if I'd gone to the image, I could have thought I could have failed, you know, and then I'd be sorry. [01:08:44] Speaker A: Eric Carson has got you. I mean, maybe grew, but is at this point, Savage Dragon has to be the longest running creator, where the creator continues to do it every issue. Right. [01:09:00] Speaker B: I don't know. How many hundred issues is it? 300. [01:09:03] Speaker A: I mean, started in 93, right? Yeah. So we are, I think so 20, 26. I mean, that's. [01:09:11] Speaker B: And he doesn't miss deadlines. He's like a machine. He's just amazing. And I, I talked to him once in a show in Bellingham, which is where he's from, and, and he was working on pages there at the table, and, you know, he was just next to me, and it's like I was talking to him. I go, man, it's like, surely you've made your nut. You know, it's like. But he goes, randy, I'm living the dream. He's like, you just keep cranking this. He was writing the stories, you know, inking it himself and whatever. It's like, God, it's a lot of work. But he loved doing it. [01:09:41] Speaker A: So One Savage Dragon has its own, like, you know, it's not huge. Right. It never got gigantic like some of the other books, but it's got its own fan community. I mean, there. There was a whole, like, book of just fan stories that. That somebody published a couple years ago, which is cool, obviously, with his approval. But, I mean, that's. I. [01:10:07] Speaker B: That's what you want. You want to create something, you know, that's going to be revered somewhere by a group of fans. And he does have that. So that's good. All these other people doing their Kickstarters and their characters, and they're trying to get a following, and it's like, hey, Ron Randall's done. He's done pretty well with Trekker. He's got a good. [01:10:27] Speaker C: Right. [01:10:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm happy for him. I'm happy for him. I don't want to do it so much work. Go, Ron. [01:10:35] Speaker A: You go. I had forgotten that Eric was on Doom Patrol because Steve Lytle started it. And Eric was one of the beneficiaries of how slow Steve was. Because Steve gave up lots of books because his art was so beautiful. Yeah. [01:10:54] Speaker B: It was good for covers, and that's [01:10:56] Speaker A: what he ended up doing a lot of. Because he was too slow to do the interiors. [01:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I got to ink him a few times. It's great. [01:11:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:05] Speaker B: Not on interiors. Always on covers and commissions and stuff like that. [01:11:09] Speaker A: But this book here. Yeah, you wrapped it up pretty well. Face. Two Face, like, falls. And I know it's. You're shocked. Batman ends up winning. I mean, it's. But sort of winning because two Face ends up going back to being two Face. And. Yeah. We find about the Mutants. [01:11:32] Speaker B: There's some great panels. I like this. I like this. [01:11:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:37] Speaker B: Shot here with Batman and then where he's shooting her. Yeah, the gun. Yeah. Where he shoots the thing, you know, with the. [01:11:45] Speaker A: But they. They make this issue or the next issue, they make sure they point out he has rubber bullets, you know. [01:11:51] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:52] Speaker C: They're not real, but. [01:11:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, all in all, I read the whole thing. [01:11:59] Speaker B: What do you think? Beat him through a bloody pulp. [01:12:01] Speaker A: You know, I read the whole thing. My biggest issue with the. With the issues was the whole Batman creating his own army of brown shirts, which I did not like. Yeah. So basically, if you haven't read this spoiler, I'm assuming most people have Actually read this book. But how could you? [01:12:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:21] Speaker A: As you. As you go through the issues, you get Carrie, right? She becomes Robin, which is cool. But then Batman needs his own Robin. That's what you find out, Right? So you find out that Batman really needs some. Batman's lonely. This is what you find out. This whole story is about Batman being lonely. It really is. Batman is a sad, lonely old man. [01:12:46] Speaker B: He wants his life back. Yeah, he wants his life. [01:12:49] Speaker A: And then the government is completely inept, which I could understand how in the Reagan era you might think that. [01:12:57] Speaker C: Right. [01:12:58] Speaker A: And then. But the. The weird part of the story was so the Mutants become like a Batman gang. And then he. Superman basically, like, almost kills him because Superman now works for the government and the government are the bad guys. And the story. So Superman works for the government. He gets blown up by a nuclear bomb. He almost dies. Corta Maltese, which I think was the. Was the South American fake country for the Batman stories. Didn't Batman and the outsiders use it? [01:13:33] Speaker B: I don't know. I. I remember that as a really cool corner Maltese being a really cool black and white book drawn by a famous. What is he, Italian artist or something? Or South America. [01:13:44] Speaker A: That was basically like. They are the communists. They're Cuba, basically. And so Russia fires a nuclear bomb there. It goes off, kills all the. There's an emp. This book gets a little crazy as it goes on. There's electromagnetic poles. Superman almost dies because he's trapped under the sun, like the nuclear winters above him. And so he can't get to the sun. He almost dies. He survives, though. He comes back, the government wants him to kill Batman. [01:14:13] Speaker B: He. [01:14:14] Speaker A: He does, but doesn't. And Batman ends up surviving and then mentors his own set of. And I said they're brown shirts. But that is the criticism of the book. Like, the criticism of the book is Batman sets himself as up as the own fascist dictator of Gotham by the end of the story, which is a little weird. [01:14:30] Speaker B: It is. It got really weird. I mean, you know, in the end. Yeah, the first one is. [01:14:35] Speaker A: Yeah, the first one's kind of a cool story, [01:14:39] Speaker B: but it was like. Yeah, it got out there. You know, it's like I forgot even. I even forgot about the Superman. [01:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, good grief. Yeah. You know, Superman becoming like a government toady was just weird to me. Like, I didn't like that. I. I don't think you're supposed to like that. I mean. [01:14:53] Speaker C: No, you're not. [01:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, Frank likes to do that, you know, Likes to Bring the government in and have cover ups. And I mean, look at the Daredevil Born Again thing and the Super Soldier and all that kind of stuff. You know, it's. [01:15:07] Speaker A: Yeah, there's, Yeah. A future guest asked if we could read Daredevil Born Again. And I said, I'm a little Frank Millered out right now. Can we wait? Maybe if you come on next year? [01:15:16] Speaker C: Next year. [01:15:18] Speaker B: That's actually a really. Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's a good, fantastic one. And David Mazzucchelli is. Oh, my gosh, his art is like to die for. I, I'm amazed by his work. And if Miller was smart to get somebody that could really draw. [01:15:33] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:15:34] Speaker A: And it was awesome. I will say you did. You got a shot. You got a shout out you didn't even know about. Yeah. Our guest next week, Brian Sheridan, I mentioned to him that you were on the show. He goes, I love Randy Emberlin. Literally. I'm reading it right here. [01:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a good day. [01:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, Randy, you're fantastic. [01:15:56] Speaker B: I, I like the ends. I, I. And so does Judy like both of us, like, I mean, maybe she likes going to the shows less than I do because there's always the prep for her doing frames and ordering and, you know, all that stuff. But we don't do that many shows now. We're back. Back to about four, 25 shows a year. [01:16:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:16:14] Speaker B: And that's, you know, but I like, yeah, I like still connecting. Right. Honey, we're talking about not even on shows, doing shows and that, you know, we don't, I mean, you don't like them as much as I do, but we still do a few because we have a lot of friends and fans and people that we connect with. And it's still fun to do those shows, you know, maybe do less is what. Thank you. [01:16:38] Speaker A: Well, and I think, well, we are, [01:16:40] Speaker B: we're wrapping it up here. [01:16:41] Speaker A: They find your work. [01:16:43] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [01:16:46] Speaker B: Well, I'm Instagram is at Randy Emberland. And, you know, it's like, that's probably the best because I'm posting for shows and I post a lot of artwork and, you know, before a show, like, I did a whole series of the Spider Man Gallery of Villains back in April because I was going to do that show back in that curated Spider man show. What's it called? Little. The Little Giant show. Used to be called Venom Palooza or something. But I did like eight, I don't know, maybe it was 10, 10 different Spider man villains in black and white with marker. And you know, chose. Some of them are full figures. A lot of them are headshots. And then had them framed and you know, but I posted them as I was doing them and they're available. You know, I haven't tried to just push them to set. I sold a lot of. But they were nice. I mean, they came out pretty nice and was fun to do. And that's the kind of stuff I like to do. And then, you know, I have a lot of commissions too. People are asking me to do big stuff, you know, like either a recreation or something that has Spider Man Venom. It's always Spider Man Venom and Carnage, let's face it, you know. But I go, wow, there's all these other really great villains. You know, it's like Spider man has this incredible gallery of. I started writing them down and there was like 25 or something. I just like, this is like no other. His villains are just, to me are the greatest ones. You know, it doesn't. Yeah. And there's that. Oh yeah. He's got. But yeah, he's. I mean he is unusual beyond belief. But they tried to change him as you know, everything gets changed. We even did too. But you know, I mean, I haven't. I haven't watched that Craven movie because I know it's going to be awful. But you know, I'm sorry they ever made that. I'm not stupid. But Craven's great. He's a great character. In the Ditko days, you know, he was. And even in the Romita days, I mean, he was still a great character. And the scorpion was frightening in that first issue. I mean, that was just like amazing character. Mysterious, kind of weird. And Green Goblin's great. You know, he's got the gangland connections and there's a big mystery and it just goes on. Doc O. I mean, it's just like they go on and on. The villains, Electro, even the shocker, like they just keep on coming. [01:18:57] Speaker A: That one of the best. [01:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:59] Speaker A: Graphics ever. I mean, that villain is really the Sandman. I don't. I would say in the first appearance, not as terrifying, but the things you could do art wise with the Sandman. [01:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah, right. It was great. Yeah. And Dito had a great imagination too. He did him. He used him well, you know, those are all great. I mean, it's like. And I just. Anyway, I only did about 10. I'm gonna do more. But you know, at the same time I'm doing modern stuff too. I love Mandalorian, so I did Mandalorian and Grogu I did two or three of those prints and. And I'm working more with gray markers and stuff like that. Or monochrome colors, maybe single color. I'm not, you know, I'm colorblind, so I don't do a lot of colorful work, but black and white and gray and. And maybe, you know, monochrome. But, yeah, I do a lot of other stuff now, too. I mean, I did some Terminator stuff because people wanted that. So that's what's fun about getting commissions. You go, yeah, this will make a great print. It's like, I'm done with this original now. It's like, I get the print, you get the original. [01:20:02] Speaker A: It's like, okay, we need Dr. Connors. Right? [01:20:05] Speaker B: There's still a lot to do. It's Dr. Connors. Yeah. Yeah, that's. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of great ones, no question. I haven't done the Lizard, though. [01:20:14] Speaker A: That's when I gotta do a transform. Gotta do Doc Connors transforming into the Lizard. Like, that is. [01:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that'd be challenging. [01:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:25] Speaker B: He's growing in Marshall. [01:20:27] Speaker C: You give it. [01:20:27] Speaker A: You could give him the Hulk face, like from the TV series. Oh, where the eyes are turning green and he's. [01:20:36] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [01:20:36] Speaker A: Like the arm starting. [01:20:38] Speaker B: And that's another character. I did some thing and Hulk stuff recently, and I love drawing those in a big Kirby way, because that's the. You know, that's the way to do it. It's like you need to make the Hulk look like he weighs, you know, £4,000. You know, like everything about him weighs. You know, like you couldn't pick up his hand because it's like picking up, you know, car or something. So. Yeah, I love doing that kind of stuff. So it's fun. It's fun now to explore things and know that you're not under the pressure to get the whole darn issue done in two weeks. [01:21:11] Speaker C: You have fun with it now. [01:21:12] Speaker B: Yeah, those days. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You pull around, you know, it's like. In fact, I got one over there on the board. It's a. It's a Eric Larson that a guy got from. Eric doesn't do that many shows, but he did it in New York for this guy. And. And it was. I guess it was supposed to be a pencil sketch, but Eric kind of used a pen and went over it and kind of sketched around, and it's kind of blue line. Anyway, it was kind of a mess, but the pose is great. So this guy goes, randy, can you. Can you make it look like the days when you were inking Eric. And so I had to literally put it in Photoshop and erase a bunch of stuff and clean up lines and make room, you know, and then print it as a really light blue line. So now I can go over it and, you know, I'm looking at, you know, reference of what we did and go over it and kind of insert all of that style into the drawing. So it's kind of fun, you know, it's like. And it is. It's coming out cool. It's going to be good. I made it much bigger than what it was, so it's like, got lots of room to fool around. So that's what I do. I do that kind of stuff in between that and music. [01:22:17] Speaker A: And we will make sure in the notes for this podcast that we give a link to Randy's Instagram. So you can reach out to Randy if you want to. [01:22:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:26] Speaker B: You know, I have a Facebook too, but I. All I do with Facebook is I just copy. When I do an Instagram post, I post it at the same time on Facebook. So it's. And it only lasts 24 hours. [01:22:37] Speaker A: That is. That is very cool. I see. I think we're about to wrap up. I know we have, like, one thing to plug, right, Greg? [01:22:45] Speaker C: What's that? [01:22:46] Speaker A: Something. Something about Travis's book. It's like spider cyborgs. Spiders from outer space and landing on the earth. And see, Randy, you're not in on the joke. So I mess up the title of Travis's book every single. Every single episode every time. It's really called. It's really called something like. Cyborg the Return of Alex Rain. [01:23:13] Speaker C: Yes, that is the. That is the title. [01:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah. On Kickstarter. Yeah. So our friend Travis got. You've met Travis before, Travis. [01:23:22] Speaker B: What's his last name? [01:23:23] Speaker A: Yeah, he. Like a spider on. On Greg's book. On the. On Starlight. [01:23:31] Speaker C: Starlight. [01:23:32] Speaker A: The author. Yeah, the. Right. The writer. On Starlight. [01:23:35] Speaker B: Okay. Right. [01:23:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I knew. I knew his name, but he's done some other stuff. But he has. He's been working with Albert Pune's estate. The old cyborg movie from the 90s, the cyberpunk movie. [01:23:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I heard about it. I don't think I've seen it. [01:23:53] Speaker A: And so the Kickstarter is launching soon, so people can go pick that up. And then a future guest, too. Bobby's gonna have a Kickstarter up right now, right? [01:24:04] Speaker C: Bobby? Or you mean. [01:24:05] Speaker A: No, Brian. Brian, not Bobby. Brian has a Kickstarter. I'm messing up people. Brian who complimented? Randy has a Kickstarter up right now. Yeah, you'll learn about it next week when he's on the show. Well, I, I. [01:24:17] Speaker B: What's his name? Brian. What's Brian's last name? [01:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah, this is Greg's area. Brian. I'm, I'm, I'm just doing this to Grant. Brian Sheridan. [01:24:26] Speaker C: Brian Sheridan. [01:24:27] Speaker B: Oh, yes. [01:24:28] Speaker C: Which is ironic. The irony, not irony. We, we paid homage to, to Brian in the, in the book Starlight. The, the kids are named the Sheridans. So the, the. The two kids are named the Sheridans. That's their last name. [01:24:45] Speaker B: I've got to read that. I mean, you sent me all that stuff again. It was as it was online. I don't have a. Obviously it's digital, but I gotta go. Yeah, I wanted. It looked cool. I mean, I flipped through a lot of the artwork. [01:24:58] Speaker C: Does great work. Fantastic artist, too. [01:25:01] Speaker A: So this book is called Nighthawks. [01:25:04] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's a, it's a nor story. So very, very much like when I was reading it when he kicked me over the script and then some, some of the rough of it, I was like, feels like just picking up something that you would find on a, on a rack and, and just going, oh, wow. This is, this, this is the kind of thing that I want to sit back and, and read on a. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just. It's a nice black and white book. [01:25:41] Speaker B: Okay. Oh, oh, that's his. [01:25:44] Speaker A: Nice. [01:25:44] Speaker B: That's good. Black and white really trains your eye to look where you're supposed to look [01:25:50] Speaker C: and the storytelling is very good and it brings you right through. It's a, it's going to be a nice, a nice run when he gets it all complete. But the, the first issues out on Kickstarter right now it is. I can tell the listeners right now it is a solid story. [01:26:06] Speaker A: They should go back in. [01:26:07] Speaker C: But he'll tell us more next week, [01:26:11] Speaker A: so. [01:26:12] Speaker B: All right. We'll have to watch. So. So you do. Now, this is the 200th episode because [01:26:18] Speaker A: we bounced you back a couple weeks, but we're in the. We're in the. Sorry, you're on episode 448. And we started on episode 247 because Randy, the Legion of Superheroes first appeared in Adventure Comics 247. Of course, so. And, and of course, you know, 200 or so lost episodes when we were just one. Talking to each other in my International Scout, driving back and forth to the spider's web. And. Yeah, I had a yellow International Harvester scout in high school. Randy. [01:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:26:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:58] Speaker C: I put it. [01:26:59] Speaker A: I. I was not. [01:27:00] Speaker B: You were. Cool [01:27:04] Speaker A: people want those now, right? And I guess the last plug we have and then we'll wrap this up is, of course, Greg, you know, if you need to. If you have a legal problem to solve. Greg, where do you go? [01:27:16] Speaker C: Oh, I think I know where to go. [01:27:19] Speaker B: Where do you go? [01:27:19] Speaker A: You have to call. [01:27:20] Speaker C: You have to call the one and only Jiu Jitsu lawyer, Paul. [01:27:25] Speaker A: Oh. And. [01:27:27] Speaker C: And you. [01:27:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So. [01:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:31] Speaker C: Yes. [01:27:32] Speaker A: Not only does he run a law firm called Night Legal, but he also runs a Jiu Jitsu gym. [01:27:38] Speaker B: Okay. [01:27:40] Speaker C: Yes. [01:27:42] Speaker A: On 27th. And you. You go visit it, Randy. It's really cool. There are. [01:27:47] Speaker B: He's. He's. He's a. He's. [01:27:49] Speaker C: Yes. [01:27:50] Speaker B: He will take you to the. Take you to the map. He doesn't need to end up at the bottom of the sea like, you know. [01:27:57] Speaker A: Yes, he will. He will defeat your lawyer. He will defeat the other lawyer with an argument or make them tap out. Right. It works both ways. In both ways. Certified martial Arts. Right on, Randy. You'd be familiar with this. It's right on. On Jackson, slash bridgeport, on. At 27th. If you just turn left there before the bridge. [01:28:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:15] Speaker A: And there's really cool Dragon Ball Z murals on the wall. It looks amazing. Yeah. And you can call him, especially if you have an employment law issue, because he does. Randy, this guy, he doesn't support big insurance companies and stuff like that. [01:28:31] Speaker C: No way. [01:28:31] Speaker A: He supports people that, like, you know, when their employer is trying to cheat them. And. Yeah. [01:28:36] Speaker B: The underdog. [01:28:36] Speaker A: You can call him at 253-656-4475. And. [01:28:40] Speaker C: Oh, [01:28:43] Speaker A: it's 253-656-4475. [01:28:47] Speaker C: Oh, so that's the number to call when you need Paul. [01:28:50] Speaker A: That's the number to call. Yeah. So, Randy. Yeah. Hopefully you never need Paul when you're in Washington state, but. [01:28:59] Speaker C: Or California. [01:29:01] Speaker A: Or California. He is licensed in California. That is true. [01:29:04] Speaker C: But not in Oregon. [01:29:06] Speaker A: That's great yet. Yeah. [01:29:08] Speaker B: But not in Oregon. [01:29:09] Speaker A: So if your employer's discriminating against you and you don't know why, well, call Paul and he'll see if he can straighten them out. [01:29:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Arm bar. [01:29:19] Speaker B: Well, I wish I had something for you to advertise for me, but all I have to do, I have to advertise. [01:29:24] Speaker A: Okay. [01:29:24] Speaker B: My wife wants me to go eat dinner, so it's all right. [01:29:28] Speaker A: I'll hit the stop button. Button right now. And then when I hit that stop button. Everybody stay here for, like, a minute so those videos can upload and we'll be done. And that's a perfect way to end the podcast, is to tell everybody about the inside baseball podcasting. So goodbye, everyone. Thank you so much, Randy. [01:29:44] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:29:45] Speaker A: Bye.