Funny Book Forensics 455 A Murder of Crows

[00:00:04] Speaker A: We are. We are giving away unrecorded gold here on. Oh, Greg, this is a show, right? It is a show. [00:00:13] Speaker B: It is the funny book forensic show. [00:00:16] Speaker A: We've been told to say that at the start of the podcast, it is talking. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Yes, it is the same show that I. I kept forgetting to. I would plug it, but at weird times during. During panels, so. [00:00:30] Speaker A: I see. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Panels, huh? Did you do something this weekend? I. I wasn't. I wasn't aware anything was happening this weekend. I stayed at home. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I know, but two of the three people on this podcast were at Rose City Comic Con. [00:00:43] Speaker A: Oh, stuff happened this weekend. You got to go to a show. [00:00:47] Speaker B: I did. I did. It was a show. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Your dogs are mad about it, too. [00:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah, no, they're. They're. [00:00:53] Speaker A: They're very upset. [00:00:54] Speaker B: Yes. No, my wife is home now, so they're like, she's home. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Well, Travis Bundy is here. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Introduce our guest. Hi, Travis. [00:01:03] Speaker C: Hello. [00:01:04] Speaker A: You should say something about things you do or something. [00:01:07] Speaker C: Oh, well, I'm a local artist in the Tacoma area. I work primarily in movie poster. I do movie poster art, and I work with the local Blue Mouse Theater in Tacoma for Friday Night Frights as their art director. And I help. I make posters myself, and I help all the other artists get their posters up to snuff and ready and prepped for those shows because we want to be kind of like a little Alamo Drafthouse, you know, like, we want to be known for the art as well as the movies and the culture that we're cultivating. [00:01:49] Speaker A: So what if somebody happened to be in the Tacoma area and they needed to know more about the Blue Mouse Theater and what it does? [00:01:58] Speaker C: Well, I mean, obviously, you could just Google the Blue Mouse. It's all. Everything is on their website. And then also, if you just want to have a fun time, you know, the third Friday of every month, you come on out to the Blue Mouse for Friday Night Frights or every. I think it's this. Say. I think it's the first or second and fourth a Saturday of every month. They do Rocky Horror and it's. They. And that troop has been doing it for over 20 years. So they've got it down. It's a big time. It's a big show. It sells out a lot of times. So. [00:02:40] Speaker A: So did we sort of screw up? Because, see, this is going to get released right after. [00:02:46] Speaker C: That's okay. It's. It's fine. We. We. It's. It's. You know, when you have something that's on the the third Friday of every month. It's pretty consistent. You know, you can mark your calendars and maybe not even. Maybe not everybody wants to go see Day of the dead from 1985, which is an amazing film. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Who wouldn't want to go see Day of the Dead? My Friday night on the big screen. My Friday night plans may have changed right now. That's. I was looking ahead to see if I could plug October. I don't see it. [00:03:18] Speaker C: That's a weird one. We're doing a weird one in that. That month. We're doing the. I think it's 86. 86, 87. Trick or treat. Not the one that everybody knows with Samhain and Sam Hain and all these, you know, characters and stuff like that. It's. It's where an aging or a dead heavy metal star comes back and tries to kill his fans. It's off the charts. It's very much an 80s horror film, but it's a true cult horror film. And it's even got Ozzy Onborne in it as a. A preacher. So that's worth the price of admission right there. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:55] Speaker A: So if you're looking at the next few months, we've got Day of the Dead, which you had to go back in time to see on September 18th. That. Trick or treat on October 16th. Nightmare on Elm street number four on November 20th. [00:04:11] Speaker C: Gotta admit, my personal favorite of all of them. It's not the best one, but it's my favorite. [00:04:15] Speaker A: The Shining on December 18th. Nobody's heard of that film, I'm sure. And. [00:04:21] Speaker C: And we get. [00:04:22] Speaker A: Oh, go ahead, Travis. I would get announced. [00:04:24] Speaker C: No, I was gonna say we get. We get cut. We get local artists to do the posters for all these shows, too. So every show has a different poster and a different style. And we get people that come to the shows mostly just to collect all the art, which is really cool. [00:04:36] Speaker A: And Thirteen Ghosts on January 15th. [00:04:40] Speaker C: Yes. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Which. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Which version of Thirteen Ghost? [00:04:43] Speaker C: The Matthew Lillard one. Nobody's going to come and see the whole black and white Vincent Price one. [00:04:48] Speaker A: Oh, come on. What? They says the guy never. [00:04:53] Speaker C: Somebody will. Somebody will. But, like, not as many. You know, you won't get as many screaming female fans for, you know, Matthew Lillard. You get some, but Matthew definitely. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, for sure. Well, I'm. I'm gonna tell everybody right now because I always think about doing this and then never do it. I'm going to commit to October 16th, even though my birthday is not for 15 days after that. But since my birthday is on Halloween, I Feel like I'm obligated to go to Trick or treat on October 16th. I mean, it seems like an obligation. Yeah. And I might just go to Day of the dead on the 18th, because why not? It's, like, one of my favorite films of all time, so. [00:05:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:39] Speaker A: And why wouldn't you like that film? [00:05:42] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Or dawn of the Dead or Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead or any of the Deads. Let's. Or any George Romero. [00:05:52] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, the Crazies is actually a movie that I think a lot of people sleep on. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Dude, that's so good. Oh, my God, both. [00:05:59] Speaker C: And then the remake isn't bad. [00:06:01] Speaker B: No, it's. [00:06:02] Speaker C: It's, you know, it's a little more. It's a little bit more 28 days later. But the original Crazies is, like, very well made. [00:06:09] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, definitely. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Well, and you need room for fast zombies and slow zombies. I mean, there is a world for all zombie types. It's very important. You need fast zombies to destroy society quickly. You need the slow zombies to see society reconstruct around the slow zombies to fight with each other. So if you don't have both, you're fucked. Right. Like, you just. Oh, I swore first. Oh, no. But you need. As a. As a human who used to give entire lectures on fast and slow zombies in the college classroom and the cultural importance of each from a communication standpoint, I'm telling you, you've got to have all these zombie types. Like, these zombie archetypes are very important now. [00:06:54] Speaker C: You need the shamblers and you need the runners. [00:06:57] Speaker A: You do. You absolutely do. And if you don't have both, they just. I mean, they're just a backdrop for very different storytelling. And then you go and create a whole thing out of mushroom people. [00:07:09] Speaker B: So. [00:07:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:10] Speaker B: Oh, matago. [00:07:11] Speaker C: Everybody saw that one coming. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Like, the Japanese. [00:07:14] Speaker A: I wasn't horror movie at all. [00:07:16] Speaker B: That is awesome. [00:07:17] Speaker A: You. [00:07:18] Speaker C: You should be talking Matanga. [00:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's like. [00:07:21] Speaker C: That movie is. That movie is. Is amazing. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Fire. If you're in sleeping on that. I mean, Toho classic right there. [00:07:28] Speaker A: We're gonna get way far out of my depths very quickly here. But that's fine. You. We all can. You all can just go on, like, venture forth. [00:07:37] Speaker B: D. I'm just gonna say this. It's like. And for listeners out there, this is like where. Where Toho went a 24 back in the 60s. Like, I mean, it is. It is such a. [00:07:48] Speaker C: That's a perfect way to put it. [00:07:49] Speaker B: It's. [00:07:50] Speaker A: It's got Your got your Kaiju style [00:07:52] Speaker B: monsters, but it's like this really, like, dramatic, like, slow burn type of film. So. But yeah, there's. There's. There's some zombie action going on there too. Mushroom people. [00:08:07] Speaker A: I was just thinking mushroom zombies. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Oh, I know what you're talking about. And you know for sure. 100. [00:08:13] Speaker A: And I wasn't talking about becoming a zombie while watching part of Star Trek Discovery and falling asleep or just. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Just drinking your mushrooms and becoming a zombie. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah, you could just do that. Yes, I'm taking shots at Star Trek Discovery. Yes, a couple of the seasons were hideous and boring and yes, Tilly was the best character. And then they, like, just took her off the show after building entire character arc around her. And, you know, I don't understand why. And I'm still upset about it. And this has nothing to do with horror films, but, you know, I just had to get that off my chest because it's all about the mycelium. So, you know. But back to what everybody actually wants to talk about, which is actual fun things, I think. [00:08:56] Speaker B: Are you sure? [00:08:57] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:08:58] Speaker B: I don't think people come to the [00:08:59] Speaker A: podcast to listen to fun things, I think. [00:09:01] Speaker C: I'm not necessarily sure that fun would be the best way to describe the book. We're talking about fun. [00:09:08] Speaker A: It has fun. It has fun boys. [00:09:13] Speaker C: It has a fun boy. [00:09:14] Speaker B: It has a fun boy. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Oh, not fun boys. I misunderstood. I completely misunderstood the assignment here. I thought we were reading a book with fun boys. [00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's the Pony on a Friday Night. [00:09:27] Speaker C: Oh. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Or like Urban Cowboy or something. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:09:34] Speaker A: No, that's. That's. That's not the movie we're going for, right? [00:09:37] Speaker B: No, no, no. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Oh, I did get the title right. Right. That was the Dustin Hoffman film. Right, Irving? Midnight Cowboy or Urban Cowboy. I always miss them. [00:09:47] Speaker B: Midnight. [00:09:48] Speaker C: Well, Urban Cowboy is a movie. [00:09:50] Speaker A: That's. I always get the titles mixed up. That's my bad. You all have a different knee. Like what? [00:09:55] Speaker B: Well, they're having a different kind of fun. [00:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah. No, not. I was talking about the cowboy prostitution movie. [00:10:01] Speaker B: Not. [00:10:02] Speaker A: Yeah, like the. The. The cowboy. No. Well, yeah, that's not too. What's the one with Dustin Hoffman? [00:10:11] Speaker C: That's Midnight Cowboy where he's like Dustin Hoffman. [00:10:14] Speaker A: Dustin Hoffman's a pimp. [00:10:15] Speaker C: Angela Angel's dad. [00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Dustin Hoffman's a pimp in that. Right? [00:10:20] Speaker C: Well, he pimps. He just pimps him. He only has one prostitute. I don't know if you can really. [00:10:25] Speaker A: So he's not a very good pimp. [00:10:28] Speaker C: I don't know if he gets invited to the pimp annual meetings or anything like that. [00:10:31] Speaker A: He doesn't get to the players ball. He doesn't have enough. [00:10:34] Speaker C: No, he doesn't get to go to the players. But they're not inviting Ratto Rizzo to the players ball. [00:10:37] Speaker A: He doesn't have enough feathers and like, [00:10:40] Speaker C: he definitely doesn't wear shiny enough clothes. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah, he. [00:10:43] Speaker B: That's for sure. [00:10:44] Speaker A: He. So, like, basically what you're saying is like, he should have slid into the whole blaxploitation movie craze, but didn't. [00:10:54] Speaker C: No, it's. He. He just slid into the. He's walking here crazy. [00:10:58] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah, see, because he's walking it. Well, anyway, the point is Grimbor will not be in these films or in this book. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Yeah, no. Grim Bore. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Does Travis know who Grimbore the Chainsman is? [00:11:13] Speaker B: I. Travis, do you know Grimbor the Chainsman? [00:11:18] Speaker C: Not personally. [00:11:18] Speaker A: I'm gonna have to show you later. [00:11:20] Speaker B: Oh. [00:11:20] Speaker A: Oh, you will. Yeah, you will. Yeah, maybe. We did mention he could show up at the Eagle. So it's. It's. It's. That would. Well, that would be as if a fictional character from a thousand years in the future that wore chains did have a bar in Seattle. That would be his bar. I think so. But anyway. Wow. Dogs are active today. See, dogs are. Both. Mine are innocent right here. They're innocent for a while until somebody comes home and then they're going to go insane. [00:11:52] Speaker C: I have a. I have a. I have a Chihuahua whippet pit mix. So all she does is bark a [00:11:59] Speaker A: Chihuahua whip it pit mix. [00:12:02] Speaker C: Right. So you take the Chihuahua and the whip it and then you take that with. [00:12:09] Speaker A: How much does your dog weigh? [00:12:12] Speaker C: She's about 30, 39 pounds. [00:12:14] Speaker B: Wow. Okay, so she's, she's. [00:12:16] Speaker C: She's a medium sized dog, but she just. She's basically like a great alarm system that just works way too well. Yeah, everything that comes within 10ft of this house, she just loses her on. So. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's important when they rank their enemies too. You know, Amazon dropped down the list because they started driving those electric vans so they can't hear them. Oh, yeah, yeah. So that pushed like ups up to the top of the enemy's list for, for my dog Juliet, like that. It's. She has her top 10. FedEx is like number two for sure. And then the post office, you know, always, always ranks up high for dogs. Amazon dropped down. It depends if it's Amazon, the car deliveries that sets up, but the, the van deliveries Drop down because she forgets until they show up at the door. And then she absolutely freaks out. Like, what? [00:13:05] Speaker B: What? [00:13:06] Speaker A: How'd that get here? Where'd that come from? [00:13:09] Speaker C: Well, they're hiring ninjas. [00:13:10] Speaker A: Welcome to Dogcast, everyone. We're back to Dogcast. No, we, we. We brought Travis on and we were talking, what do we do? Because Travis likes movies and comics and Greg likes everything. I like everything. [00:13:25] Speaker B: All the things. [00:13:26] Speaker A: I can't help it. [00:13:27] Speaker B: I do. It's true. [00:13:28] Speaker A: It really is true. But as we were just getting there, if we go too far into movies, I'm going to get way out of my depth. And if we get too far into comics, we're getting out of everybody's depth. So we decided to read the Crow because why not? And believe it or not, I had never gotten around to reading it. [00:13:50] Speaker C: That's amazing. I love that. That's. That this was. That it was something that wasn't even on your radar. Introduced it to him. That's awesome. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Well, and definitely, you know, the thing is too. And Travis, I think you grew up around here, right? Yeah. [00:14:05] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Born and raised in Tacoma. [00:14:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And so we were going. I think it also depended on where you bought your comics. Right. You know, so. And how exposed you got to some of this stuff. So, you know, when o' Leary's closed, because that's where we were going. [00:14:20] Speaker C: That's me too. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah. We ended up at Spider's Web. And so when. When one of the most prominent superhero artists owns the store, you buy superhero comics, right? I was already buying superhero comics. And when Todd McFarland and his brother in law owned the store, you get exposed to a lot of superhero comics. Right? [00:14:40] Speaker B: Comics. [00:14:41] Speaker A: And so I kept reading a lot of superhero comics. And also, you know, Dan's life story is closeted, conservative Christian boy. So I wasn't venturing into a lot of indie books. Right. Like, I read this, you know, and I probably would have loved this book. The funny thing is, my mom was like a huge, you know, she would sit there and watch the Channel 22 Godzilla Marathon, you know, like in everything on Channel 22 on Saturday and Sunday. Right. Or they're doing. [00:15:09] Speaker C: Right. [00:15:09] Speaker A: Every old monster movie possible and Vincent Price and House of Wax and, you know, all of the classics. I bring up House of Wax because she used to. She had me watch it when I was a little kid and she used to go around going, the House of Wax just to scare me. Right. Like, I was terrified of that film. And it doesn't seem that intimidating now, but I Think when I was like six, I thought that was, you know, terrifying. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Spooky. [00:15:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Is the House of W. And so, you know, I probably would have loved this reading it back then. [00:15:42] Speaker C: Yeah. And it, it falls and it's kind of one of those books where like more people know the movie source material. So when they go back and they read the book, it's like the, that story is there and that essence is there, but it's a much grittier. Like let's, they don't focus too much on the fantastical part of it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's more gritty, it's more real. If they'd made the movie exactly like the book, like you would had parents groups complaining out the wazoo. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Well you did have parents groups complaining out to Wazi when that movie was made. You had the parent Teacher Council back then. I mean, you had Tip Ragore censoring all the music. People that didn't live in the early 90s don't know about this movement now. You'll just know that we have whole institutions trying to censor everything. So now we just have. [00:16:41] Speaker C: And now we have a little doing it now we have a. And, and now we have a little black and white sticker that goes on things to tell you that there's naughty words in there. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Thanks, Tipper. [00:16:53] Speaker C: That was her whole. Yeah, you know, that was, that was her gift to humanity, I guess. But, but yeah, like it's one of those things where it's like this is, this, this book is, is so adult. And it was like, really wasn't that it was marketed necessarily to kids, but it was, it found its way into a lot of kids lives to, you know, and, and kind of clued us in on very adult themes. But we all grew up in that same era where like we were, you know, you could be closeted from things, but at large, you know, you were treated like an adult as soon as you were 12, 10, you know, you were, you were. They didn't worry necessarily so much. At least most of my friends and my parents didn't worry so much about, you know, what we were in, what we were seeing. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:57] Speaker C: You know, that we, what we were reading, especially if we were reading. So it was, it was more of like, I don't know, it was, it was one of those things where it was just like. It was kind of like. It was, it was a. It would kind of sneak its way in and it was just brutal and it was. And it was very adult. But yeah, then the movie comes out and it's all marketed to like, teenagers. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:21] Speaker C: And I'm just like, man, okay, like. And then, you know, it's an amazing film, but it's not the same. It's got the tone, but it's not the same as the book. It glosses over. It takes, it takes really. It takes really good care to gloss over the, the brutal parts necessarily. It really does nerf them a lot. And you know, you think about the time when it came out, the 90s was still very much like, you know, people were worried about what was going to be on the screen in a. In a major Hollywood, you know, thing. It was a Miramax show, which was still very much an indie company, but, you know, it was shown in every theater in the country. So it was a big movie. It had big budget, it had big names and they were like, okay, well, we absolutely can't show this scene. Yeah. But we can't hint at this scene and we can show quick flashes of this and give people the general idea. But the 90s was a, was a movie period from like, okay, you think about movies like Mother's Day in like the 80s where it's got a rape scene that. I've been in theaters watching that movie. You can hear a pin drop these days. Like, no, ever. Nobody is okay with that scene at all. Movies like I spit on your grave, you know, things like that. They were indie movies at the time and they were, you know, they got put on the video nasties. Listen, but that was. Seems like when you look at movies like that and go, maybe this is where, you know, things only get more liberal. This is where it's going. Not really. They put the, they pumped the brakes on a lot of that stuff in the eight in the late 80s and early 90s. And this was a prime example where they're like, we're not going to. We're going to give you the idea and the theme behind this, but we're not going to let you, you know, we're not going to. We're not going to make it as graphic as. Yeah, this because I think is the movie. Is there. Is movie R rated or is it pg? I can't remember. [00:20:25] Speaker B: I want to say it's R rated because of the violence, but it's definitely. It's a more of a tell not show situation in which when I, I'm trying to go back and think like, [00:20:36] Speaker C: this feels like a movie that would, they would have shot for a PG13 to get more kids in the audience. Yeah. [00:20:42] Speaker A: Well, I feel like that's something I should have researched before the show but I could do that right now. But yeah, like also too after reading I think 1. We all agreed we read a book so we're not going to try to go panel through. Panel through this thing. [00:21:00] Speaker B: No. [00:21:01] Speaker A: Yeah it'd be. [00:21:02] Speaker B: It'd be a disservice to the book itself and to the show. [00:21:08] Speaker A: But we are going to highlight some things and probably some differences in there. It was rated R I think part of too we were talking before the podcast started about where we were when Brandon Lee passed away and I think part of the R rating too is one the drug use and sexuality in the film. But also Brandon Lee dying I think also probably contributed to part of that R rating. Right. Like not fighting for a lower rating. And that's interesting. Sorry, I just, I, I don't understand what this website is but. Rate Your music average 3.3 out of 5 for this film. It's one of the only soundtracks I ever bought. [00:21:53] Speaker B: I know it's. It's probably one of the out. [00:21:56] Speaker A: If you were to fantastic people. [00:21:59] Speaker B: I mean at least people in our. In our general generational snapshot. Like if you were to put this soundtrack against like four others of the time, this is going to be most likely people's top choice. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Like the soundtrack also bridged 80s and 90s. I mean the Cure was on that soundtrack. [00:22:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean people. [00:22:21] Speaker C: They wrote a song specifically for the movie. And that's the other thing. The. All the tracks were written for the film. [00:22:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:28] Speaker C: They're not like, you know, they're not, they're not. They're not you know, B sides or throwaways or anything like that. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah. They're. [00:22:34] Speaker C: They're actually songs were written to. To. To create a universe. [00:22:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:39] Speaker C: That this, that this film lives in which is amazing. [00:22:42] Speaker A: And we talked about maybe watching the film later on and doing a whole watch through with Travis. Maybe we set that up at the Retro Emporium or Hell yeah. [00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:52] Speaker A: And. And, and watch it. Or set it up at Greg's house or Dan's house. Either way but. Or Travis's house if he wants me to bring all the sound equipment and set everything up. But either way. Yeah, we might do that sometime. But today we're going to talk about the book and I will say I do want to highlight. We're going to assume that most people have seen the movie that are listening to this podcast and I'd say that's [00:23:18] Speaker C: a fairly good assumption. [00:23:19] Speaker A: Not everybody like me had. Had read the book. And so one thing I want to highlight, Travis, is pointing out a lot of things I glossed over. But I think one thing immediately to point out, and I understand why they did it for the movie now when, especially when you're talking about this in the movie, they give Eric a reason for revenge, Right. They make, they make Eric and Shelley social activists. And they do. Not in the comic at all. [00:23:49] Speaker C: No, it's random. It's just random violence and it's, it's random violence in a violent society that destroys the lives of two good people. [00:24:00] Speaker A: And it's also if you're going to place a movie in Detroit in the 90s and maybe even more prescient in the 2000s, but you may be a inter city activist, right, Promoting housing in the 80s, Detroit, it was being destroyed by Reagan lightning regulations and companies moving, you know, pulling up their all motor, their Chevrolet is moving all their operations to Mexico, destroying jobs, just crushing unions in Detroit, running Detroit into the ground. And so we're going to talk, I'm sure we'll talk about James Obarr's reason for writing this book as well, because he highlights it in the very front of the pages here. And I think it's also pretty well known, but I think the setting in the book is specifically while in the movie. It's Detroit, but it's not Detroit. It's like a. I, it's, it's like a. [00:24:55] Speaker C: It's, it's. It's a generic large city on one of the Great Lakes. [00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:02] Speaker C: Because there's that great line by David Patrick Kelly that I always liked. He's like, you know, like Yuri caught on fire from all this floating around in it. Yeah, I really wish I could have seen that. [00:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:25:21] Speaker C: yeah, it's like that. That's, that's one of those great. And it's like that. And I think that's one of those moments where it's like, it takes specific care to say, hey, this is. We want to keep this in kind of a fantasy universe, but we also want to ground it in the source material a little bit and just kind of give hints as to what it [00:25:37] Speaker A: is, you know, and while the rain is important in this, this story, that it can't rain all the time doesn't need to be in this comic. It needed to be in the movie. [00:25:48] Speaker C: Right. [00:25:48] Speaker A: But it does not need to be in the comic. Right. And it makes sense with the visuals in the movie and what they're doing with the rain and like all of that made total sense. But this is very much about 80s Detroit and the decay and what's happening to the city and the drugs in the city and what happens to us. What happens to a great city when politicians completely sell it out and businesses completely sell it out and allow that to happen to an area that's thriving where you have a group of people. I feel like I'm getting on the high horse here. Great union jobs can make money with basically working on an assembly line. Can go and buy a house. Right. Beautify their neighborhood. And all of a sudden you lay them off, take their jobs away, close the factory, and what the fuck happens? And you have a youth that have no fucking hope because there's no place for them to go. Right. And that's all they've known in Detroit. People lived in Detroit. It was a beautiful city. [00:26:51] Speaker C: Yeah. And, and, and the book highlights the fact that even amongst all that, two people who are in love can see through that. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:02] Speaker C: And they still are planning for their future. They're buying a house. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Trying to make. [00:27:06] Speaker C: They're fixing it up. They're, you know, they're, they're, they're. They're living that American dream despite. In spite of that, the moral decay, the, the physical decay, the geographical decay is. It's like that love prevails. [00:27:25] Speaker A: And James Obar starts writing this in. Or drawing it and writing. But drawing the paneling in 81, he says, right. [00:27:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:31] Speaker A: And the last big hurrah. I'll get off my Detroit sand high horse in a second, but I feel like the last hurrah for Detroit was when the Tigers won the World Series in 84. [00:27:43] Speaker C: Yeah. That would have. That would have probably brought the city together. [00:27:47] Speaker A: We had the Pistons, I guess, later in 89. But I feel like the Pistons, the basketball sort of transcended that in a way. And, and they are. And the basketball team was already playing outside of the city. Right. They're playing in Auburn Hills, right? [00:28:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:04] Speaker A: So. [00:28:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:28:06] Speaker A: The Tigers played in Detroit. [00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah, they're in old Detroit. [00:28:10] Speaker A: And that was the last I kind of bastion where the, The Tigers played in. In the rich suburbs. I mean, that's. Sorry. The, the Pistons played in the rich suburbs. So. [00:28:20] Speaker C: You know, it's funny, I never really put it together just until now. I don't know why I never thought about it, but RoboCop takes place in Detroit. And RoboCop is just the crow with a. [00:28:31] Speaker B: With a robot. [00:28:33] Speaker C: And it's like I see a lot of people that do memes that are like, oh, the crow is just RoboCop for goths. But at the same time, it's like, no, I mean, the crow obviously came first, but it's funny that, like, they're both life after death redemption stories that take place in Detroit. I don't know why I never put that together, but that's pretty epic. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Well, and this book, I think you mentioned a great point redemption. This book is all about revenge. Right. It's where the movie is about revenge, too, but it's revenge for a cause. Right. Like, these people were attacking the. The nice couple who wanted to help everybody with their housing. And. And they're a nice couple here, too. Like, you know, Eric helps people with their cars and, you know, they highlight that. And, you know, they're. They're a nice couple, too. Like, they're not mean people. But this book is all about James o'. Barr, and he says it right. Writing about a tragedy in his life and then fictionalizing it in a way where he could cope with that. And Travis, you probably have dug a little bit more into this, so I'm going to shut up and let you introduce this, if you're willing. [00:29:46] Speaker C: Sure. I mean, well, I mean. So James o', Barr, he talks about in the beginning, too. And basically he, out of the love of his life, died in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver. And he blames himself for a litany of reasons, whether, you know, he had paid his. He didn't. He was calling her to pick him up because he didn't have car insurance and he knew that he would get a ticket and he couldn't really afford a ticket. So, you know, he blames him, is he puts the selfishness and the onus on himself for her death, when in reality it's part of life that death sometimes is not. You can't see it from a mile away. Sometimes it is cold and unkind and it's unfair and it's very base. And that's what happened to him. So he. This was a coping mechanism. This is a beautiful coping mechanism for him to work through this and to. And I'm sure there's still a part of him that still blames himself. He probably won't ever not blame himself for this. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:05] Speaker C: But he, you know, and I like that little thing in the beginning of the book where he writes about how people come up to him at, you know, conventions or whatever and say that. That he saved their life by writing that book. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:21] Speaker C: And he says, no, you saved your own life. I just let you know you weren't alone. And it's like that's that's key right there. That he was, this was one person and he didn't know if this book would ever become what it was. He just needed to make the thing in order to get through a horrible tragedy. And that's, you know, that's something else. You know, that's what all great art is based on in a lot of ways. It's taking something horrific and making it into something beautiful. [00:31:59] Speaker A: And who doesn't want to have a universe? Who doesn't want to build a universe where if you have that trauma, right. You build a universe where you build a character that goes in, just slays all of the demons that are in that trauma. Right. [00:32:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:16] Speaker C: Feels no pain, feels no remorse and they can even relish in that revenge. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:25] Speaker C: But then does in an artistic way. [00:32:27] Speaker A: But then does a very. Yeah. [00:32:29] Speaker C: Poetic way, you know. [00:32:31] Speaker B: Oh, very much so. Very much so. [00:32:35] Speaker C: And no, I, I, it's one of those. And, and as a kid when you're reading this, that's kind of something that you latch onto when you're a young angst filled teenager. You latch on to something like that because. Yeah, like you haven't really for the, I mean there are kids that absolutely get feel trauma and have the worst experiences of their lives when they're that young. But for the most part, you know, the suburban comic book reading kids, they're, you know, the girl they didn't, the girl they like at school doesn't know who they are and so they think it's the biggest tragedy. And it, so it's like, it's like. But you can still feel that inner pain and you can empathize and sympathize with this and then that rage that builds from that. You can really empathize with this character based on that. [00:33:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:28] Speaker C: And I think that that's one of the reasons that it's such a popular book is because it speaks to a base instinct in the youth. [00:33:37] Speaker A: And let's, let's talk about one of these panels that shocked the fuck out of me. So I, we get the start of the book and it starts out with him, you know, going after one of the gang members. Right. That, that contributed to killing. So by the way, here, let's just do a quick plot synopsis. If you have never watched the Crow or read this book or read the book or anything. So you have Eric and Shelley and actually I loved how James Abara explained the history of the names too. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:07] Speaker A: Like, so we, I believe Travis and I would both suggest going and grabbing this Crow special edition. And just reading it. Uh, it's not expensive, quite good. And it's got not. It's got enough back matter to keep you interested without overwhelming you with back matter. [00:34:26] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's. [00:34:27] Speaker A: It, It. [00:34:27] Speaker C: It. It only adds to it without making it like. It's not like, you know, a glossary at the back, like. Like a back of Dune or something like that where it's like, okay, you're building a universe before you even read one page. [00:34:41] Speaker B: It. [00:34:41] Speaker C: And it's like. No, it just. It just gives you enough to kind of like, understand the why of this book. [00:34:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:48] Speaker B: And Easter egg hints that as you're starting to. As you get through the book, you're. Oh, oh, click, click. It all starts to click into place for you. [00:34:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:59] Speaker A: And basic plot given to you right away. You find out that there's a couple. At least one of them has been murdered, probably both. You're not exactly sure at the start. And that is one difference, I think, from the movie. I feel like in the movie, you know, right away, they're both dead. You don't necessarily know that they're both dead in the. In the comic. [00:35:25] Speaker C: Right. [00:35:25] Speaker A: Which is hard because when you see the movie first, you just think they're both dead. And you're reading the book. And I had to keep remembering. I don't know if they've told me he's dead yet. And he might be alive. [00:35:35] Speaker C: Like this guy. This guy or this guy could be someone they knew who's taking revenge for them. Right? [00:35:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:42] Speaker C: Because he's just the Crow. You know, he just goes. He just goes by the name the Crow. [00:35:46] Speaker A: And he. He starts out scaring one of the gang members that killed his fiance. That you find out later, but his at least girlfriend. And then. Okay, Travis, you get to explain why I was horrified by this. But I've got this pages with the horse. Okay. [00:36:09] Speaker C: Oh, God, the horse sequence. [00:36:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:14] Speaker A: I don't. I. I was like. I was reading along, reading along, and then I get to the horse sequence and then this happens. So if you're not. If you're. If you're not on video, the horse is running into barbed wire. And if you've never run into barbed wire, which I definitely have because I grew up Puyallup, Washington, where barb wire existed. And my cousins lived in Morton where barbed wire definitely existed. I ran into barb wire and barbed wire sucks. Oh, it hurts so bad. Terrible. And I've. This animal and this man were making a connection as he rides on the Train. And then the crow. A crow looks at the. Presumably Eric, right, and says, you shouldn't have looked. Boy. I was like, I had to put the book down for a second and go pet my dog and come back. Right. I was like, ah, you know, like, dog. Are you okay? Yeah. So now if. If I missed some panels to. Travis, please bring panels in. But I figured you'd want to talk about these ones as an artist. [00:37:17] Speaker C: No, no, this. It's also. It's also this. This sequence in this book happening so early really does work on a lot of different levels. And first of all, from an artistic standpoint, when you read a comic book, you're used to having it be a very consistent art style. At least back in the day, you know, you would have one consistent art style, and it would tell you a story. And so you could get used to the characters. You could get used to the world they were building. This is done very much on purpose to kind of give you this, like, taste of, like, the ethereal inner mind part of the book. They don't really go into a huge explanation. And you kind of figure it out as you go after about three or four of these little vignettes, you kind of go, oh, okay. This is, like, all happening in his head. This is the world of his, you know, his own making, where he's really. Really trying to keep a positive mind frame and just kind of like, float through, and then it all comes crashing down. And the whole time, this crow character who. I like the fact in the book that the crow talks, or at least talks to him. Yeah, it's kind of a. It's kind of a nice, you know, connection, that it gives it a little more personality. But he basically says, you know, every time he's like, you shouldn't do this, and he's putting it on him every single time he's. And which is what James o' Barr was doing with himself, he's putting it on him that you don't have to go down this road, but you are. And, you know, you do this every time, and you're going over. And that's part of. That's part of grief, is the reliving of. Of a thing every single time. But I can tell you from an. As an artist that the reason why that middle panel on that page scares you so much is because that horse has a human eye. That is not a horse eye. Okay, there's a horse eye in the fifth panel. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:08] Speaker C: It's kind of a dark. Right, kind of generic. You know, it's a little bit more horse. Like that eye looking to the left. To its left. That's a human eye. And it might even be. [00:39:19] Speaker A: If people can maybe see it. [00:39:21] Speaker C: Yeah. It might even be a woman's eye. [00:39:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And that will give you. If I move my fingers, you get both eyes there. [00:39:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:39:27] Speaker C: It's. And so that right there is one of those things that you don't even think about. [00:39:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:39:33] Speaker C: But it's. It hits you on like a, you know, like. Like a cortex kind of level. [00:39:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:41] Speaker A: You know, like, subconscious. Definitely did that. I was like that. [00:39:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:45] Speaker A: You know. [00:39:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. And there are. And there's a lot of things that he does in these two realms where it's like, you know, he makes it look. He makes everything look very airbrushed in these mental worlds because he's trying so hard to, like, view it through, like, a positive, you know, ethereal lens, and it always ends up being horrific. It just ends up falling into. Into, like, nightmare scenarios. So. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, another point, too, right? Like, obviously, the. Oh, God, here we go. Is this. Is this a Frank Miller reference for, like, you know, five out of the last seven fucking podcast? [00:40:34] Speaker C: Well, when a guy has such a fingerprint on comics, especially in this era. [00:40:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:39] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, here we go. But Frank Miller Daredevil is not till, what, 82, 83, right? [00:40:48] Speaker C: I don't remember. [00:40:48] Speaker A: So Obar's working On this in 81. Eric is very much in purgatory, Right. [00:40:57] Speaker C: At least one of his own making. [00:40:58] Speaker A: Right. But yeah, and I say in real life, Obar is in his own purgatory. [00:41:03] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:41:05] Speaker A: Very much. He's what. They never call it purgatory in the book, but he's very locked between realms, Right. Because he keeps looking back. Like, the crow keeps telling him, don't look back, and he just is insistent on looking back. Right. He keeps looking back until he can resolve this thing in his head that will allow him to go and be with Shelley. Right? [00:41:28] Speaker C: Yeah. He's an angry ghost like. Like in Poltergeist or any other, you know, horror movie where, you know, there's a haunting in a house. It's where it's localized. It's some angry spirit that can't let something go. And in this world, he actually gets to manifest in flesh back to the world to take care of that. Whereas, like most ghost stories, they're trapped, right? They're just angry forever. [00:41:55] Speaker A: But he's like Casper the angry friendly ghost, right? Because he keeps doing really nice things as. As the book goes forward. And there are Some differences. And so one, we do get some later on. Now, unfortunately, Greg, there are no page numbers in this book is as you were aware. I'm very offended by books that don't have page numbers because you can't reference anything. And you know, we know good literature would always put page numbers. [00:42:23] Speaker B: No, no, good literature, as we've learned through the podcast, good L doesn't put page numbers in their books. [00:42:30] Speaker A: A good editor would though. And see a quality, high quality editor like Greg Smith, you would think would make sure. Travis, wouldn't you think, just for reference. [00:42:38] Speaker C: Do you think that this book had an editor? He was his own editor. [00:42:41] Speaker A: Well, I was. [00:42:42] Speaker C: He talks in the, he talks in the beginning about how he would bring a book in to be printed in the back of this comic book shop and he would have like 29 pages instead of 28. [00:42:53] Speaker A: And you had to have 32, right? So you have to have 32 each time. [00:42:57] Speaker C: It was 16, you had 1632. Like that. He was talking about like a big scale one versus like the small scale one that they had. So it was like 16, 32, 48, you know, that kind of stuff. So yeah, the editing was. I mean this book is stream of consciousness in a lot of ways. But like we were saying before the, you know, the recording started, it's like there, it actually works in this books figure. [00:43:19] Speaker A: But Travis, don't you think a high quality indie book like Starlight would have page numbers? [00:43:23] Speaker C: I mean, I mean, maybe they're doing it just so that you talk about it. [00:43:29] Speaker B: That's actually very. [00:43:30] Speaker C: Bruce. Their numbers. [00:43:31] Speaker B: That is, that's a hundred percent. [00:43:33] Speaker A: Well, one going to this, bringing anything onto this podcast. One is not boosting your numbers. That's like a, it's like negative numbers, right? That's like, it's like a, a downturn. You would, you would never want to use this podcast to promote numbers. Jesus. [00:43:51] Speaker C: No, I can't. I can't speak to any other book but. But this one. But I, I know for a fact, I mean, as somebody who produced indie books for, you know, a decade. Page numbers. We were lucky if we got a book done on time. [00:44:04] Speaker A: That's fair. [00:44:05] Speaker B: See, I'm behind that. That's fair. [00:44:09] Speaker C: If it, it was done on time and it made sense and it came in under budget. Great page numbers. Last in my worries. [00:44:19] Speaker A: That is absolutely fair. I think I, I do want to highlight some of the stuff Travis is pointing out though, and how it flips universes. So I can't give you the page numbers. But in part two of the first book called New dawn to Fate, New dawn fades. You have Eric and he's going after. Right. One of these. These folks. One of the. The gang members, Right? [00:44:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:43] Speaker A: But then you flip the page. Is that one. Okay? We're fighting Tintin there. Okay. And then we flip the page and we get the flashback with the crow and we get these little scenes of what life was before in their little house. Right. And you start to get some of the origin story. And then you get these ethereal kind of panels, right. Where Shelley kind of shows up. And that's what I wanted to highlight too, Travis, because you were starting to mention this. Right. So tell us about, like, why this works so well. Right. Because normally when you look at a nine panel grid, right. In those nine panels, you're pretty much going to have the same thing going through those nine panels. That's why you put it there. You want it for density of story. In this case, we have nine panels and four of the panels don't even have text in them. [00:45:32] Speaker C: Right. Because what they're doing is. They're. They're. What James is doing is he is. He doesn't want to just tell you, like, right up front that, like, you know, this is all in my head. This is all in my head. This is all in my head. He wants you through the story, writing through the. Through the writing, through the storytelling, through the way he's. The way the character is kind of like, you know, back and forth banter and based on what he's telling them. Whenever he mentions Shelley, even when he's, like, trying to get them to remember and show remorse and just admit that what they did was fucked up. [00:46:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:11] Speaker C: He can't help but go back and think of her like that. Yeah, he. And that's all. This is all a way to put you squarely into his body and in his mind and how he cannot stop the back and forth between the quote, unquote, real world where he's, you know, an avenging angel and the world that he wants to be in and that he can't stop thinking about. [00:46:38] Speaker A: And I actually jumped. [00:46:40] Speaker C: And it's a really good way to do it, too. It's a really. From a visual and aesthetic way, from an artist's perspective, it's a fantastic way to kind of let the, you know, to use the medium to kind of get that point across. Yeah. [00:46:55] Speaker A: And I did bounce ahead, too. I would have known it was Tintin because I wanted to show the page where he kills the woman. But I think a major difference between the movie and the book is Gabriel was not his cat. [00:47:11] Speaker C: No, no. It's the woman who dies in the beginning's cat that his landlord chucks out [00:47:16] Speaker A: on the street and he ends up getting the cat. And so it's, it's like. That's why I said it was like Casper the friendly angry ghost. Right. Because he keeps going through doing these really nice things for people, just like he did when he was alive. [00:47:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:29] Speaker C: He's still a nice person at heart, even though he's, he's just now been imbued with the powers to right the wrongs and, and get his revenge. He's still at his core, though, gonna go out of his way to be nice to a girl who's stuck with a drug addled junkie mom, you know, Or a woman who gets shot in the street for no reason and her cat is gonna starve to death on the street. [00:47:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:00] Speaker C: You know, like he's, he's still that guy because he always was and always will be that guy. [00:48:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:07] Speaker C: That's just part of. That's just who he is. But now he's been imbued with, you know, an otherworldly power to get his revenge. And I feel like that's, that's something he mentions too, where he talks, he quotes. Was it Nietzsche? I forget. But it's where he says, you know, when you're fighting monsters, take care to not become a monster yourself. Yeah. And that's, that's his core tenet because he knows exactly who he needs to help and who. Well, he knows who he needs to hurt. [00:48:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:43] Speaker C: And anybody else that comes in between, he's more than likely he's going to help them. [00:48:50] Speaker A: Well, and just this, I don't want to read the whole thing above like a concave screen, but there's the poetry you were talking about before we started the podcast on this page. But I love this page because it shows so much. It's terrifying and lovely at the same time. So you've got this very scary monster who's all muscled up, walking. [00:49:13] Speaker C: He's almost like Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein. [00:49:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:49:17] Speaker A: But he's got a cat on top of him. He's got a present under his arm, he's got wine with him, and he's walking through this incredibly gritty city. And then of course, quite possibly one of the saddest scenes in the book when he holds the dinner for his, you know, deceased partner. Right, yeah. And says he got her a cat. And. But then we go from the, you know, it's less gritty here, but we go from the less gritty to, like you said, the very ethereal. Right? Yeah. And. And showing that back and forth and [00:49:57] Speaker C: the use of white versus the use of black is. It's all he had to work with. [00:50:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:05] Speaker C: And so I feel like he does. You have to make those. As an artist, you have to know your parameters and you have to make those decisions. You know, it's not like now where everybody can have a copy of, you know, Procreate and you have 10,000 colors to choose from and the digital output is there, or you can just put it on a website that's full color. So you can do, you know, you can do more or you can do like, you know, you can put different textures over the top of it to say, oh, to make people think this is a flashback or whatever. Didn't have any of that. It was all just pen and ink and maybe some. Some. Some light ink washes over some of the areas, so. [00:50:45] Speaker A: And that scene where he's having dinner with his deceased wife, who's not there, there was another. It reminded me of. I don't know if. Travis, did you read Identity Crisis back in the day? [00:51:04] Speaker C: It sounds like I would have. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Brad. Brad Metzler, Rags Morales book, obviously. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Rags. [00:51:10] Speaker A: Absolutely beautiful, right? [00:51:12] Speaker C: I mean, sounds familiar, but let's just [00:51:13] Speaker A: assume I am obviously. Rags's art is obviously amazing in the book, but it was this DC went and got again. Dc, instead of doing what they do now and building in house and getting a bunch of really great people and then passing Marvel in sales because they've built up over the years and made you want to keep reading their books because they bring back people like Mark Wade, but then keep Scott Snyder in house and keep Joshua Williamson, you know, who writes for everybody, but, you know, keep all these folks and then build us, you know, great artists and. And build it that way. That's back, you know, in the 2000s when they were still trying to go out and grab people, right? So they grab a mystery writer, right? So they grab Brad Meltzer to go write this book. Right? And it's a great book. I like it. There's some. There's some problems with it now. I. I think if you read it now, there's probably some parts of it, but ultimately in the book, you find out the spoiler from 2005. Everyone there. It's a big murder mystery and you find out, but you find out. You find at the beginning, but you're trying to find out who. Mary, who murders Sue Dibney The Elongated Man's wife. Right. And the whole book is about that in, in, you know, what happened, how she dies. So I don't have to actually give away who murdered her. But in the last sequence of the story, Ralph is lying in bed with his elastic arm stretched over to the other side of the empty bed, talking to his deceased wife. It's powerful. Like, it may be more powerful than the whole story because you've gone through this story with all these characters and they've just done the superhero things. Right? And this man still has not, after seven issues, has not come to grips with the fact that his wife died. [00:53:06] Speaker C: Well, yeah, because they're, they're building it into a real. It's not, it's not every. Everything in superhero books is fantasy. And you can, you can disassociate from a lot of it, but they're making it real on purpose. And that's, that's jarring in that universe and in that, that storytelling way, but that's jarring to do that human just take a moment to take a beat and just go, this guy's, this guy's wife is really dead and he's really screwed up from it. [00:53:35] Speaker A: Yep. And then I know both of you will be shocked to find out that Gail Simone grabs the concept later and uses Ralph later, but he's completely used his elastic to completely shape himself into a different looking person and is living this lie as like this suburban white male, like, living in suburbia. And he ends up hooked up with all the secret six, you know, miscreants. Right. And then, you know, has to. It eventually is exposed for who he is and then all of a sudden you're coping with all that pent up angst and frustration. And I just, I wanted to draw the comparison there because, I mean, I'm just gonna say, if you don't like Gail Simone as a writer, I'm sorry, you're wrong. You may not like everything she does. Travis Webb. No, Travis love. Travis Webb loves Gail. Travis talks to Gail on social media regular basis through the posting. Like, I'm not trying to dig at Travis, but yeah, I mean, I felt like, like there was a lot of. There were some parallels there that maybe if Brad read this or saw this was stealing a little bit from. Which is. I love it when people steal good things from other people. Stealing the good things we like, that's fine. Stealing good concepts, great. Make great art with those stolen concepts. Just don't steal the whole story. But no, yeah. [00:55:05] Speaker C: And then it's something. It's if it's your contribution to the zeitgeist. [00:55:08] Speaker A: Yep. [00:55:09] Speaker C: And, and that's just something that if it's, if it's powerful enough. Oh, it's gonna absolutely get bitten off a little bit. [00:55:19] Speaker A: And why not? Another. Do you all feel like I really like this because I read it and I'm like hitting all these points? [00:55:27] Speaker C: No, I mean, it definitely resonated. It definitely resonated in you somehow. [00:55:32] Speaker B: You seem to have enjoyed it, Dan. [00:55:33] Speaker A: I seem to enjoy it. Well, Travis, you might be aware that the listeners seem to like the podcast better when I don't enjoy the story. [00:55:41] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I mean, that's just, that's just content. You know, we, you if, if somebody plays a video game and they have a really good time doing it, it's boring. And if they're screaming at the dying at Contra 50 times. [00:55:56] Speaker B: Oh, which I did. Did, I did that at Rose City. Oh man, it's terrible. [00:56:00] Speaker C: Oh, did you really terrible. [00:56:02] Speaker A: Up, up, down, down. Left. Right. No, right. [00:56:05] Speaker B: When you're playing it on the arcade machine, it's so much, it's, it's so much different. [00:56:09] Speaker A: Well, everybody like Contra because you could get like 100 dudes. You just keep playing it. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Well, I mean, like. Yeah, on the system, yes. But on the arcade standout. [00:56:18] Speaker C: Oh, the arcade one is, is in your, in your sprite is so big. [00:56:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:21] Speaker B: And, and when you're playing it's like two players and you're trying to figure out what you're doing and the joystick's a little wonky and you're just like. Yeah, yeah. [00:56:29] Speaker C: Oh, it's the, it's the, it's the perfect. It's the, it's the exact definition of a, of a quarter muncher. [00:56:36] Speaker A: Well, well, Greg Smith, maybe if you brought the right Contra partner with you to Rose City, you would have done fine. I, I. [00:56:44] Speaker C: Here's your drama content. [00:56:45] Speaker B: I know. Here's your drama content. [00:56:46] Speaker A: I wasn't even, I, I wasn't even [00:56:49] Speaker B: playing with the, with the mic. You think I was playing with Dan? I was playing with a different mic. [00:56:53] Speaker A: Uh huh. We know it's Tanner's fault. That's right, Tanner, if you want to resolve this conflict, you come on funny book forensics. You pick a book and we'll review it. [00:57:03] Speaker B: You, if you want to talk, we'll see. [00:57:05] Speaker A: We'll see who's the real buddy of Greg Smith. [00:57:08] Speaker B: If you want to talk to the right Mike and complain to him that you weren't there playing Contra with me, bring Mike Wood on Here, from the Grind bin. Get that guy on here. Bobby Trippit's co host that we had on the show a couple weeks ago. [00:57:21] Speaker A: That just creates triangulated drama. [00:57:23] Speaker B: It does. [00:57:26] Speaker A: And we have Travis on right now. So I was gonna say, before we. I jumped off into a. I could [00:57:31] Speaker C: make drama if you guys want. [00:57:33] Speaker A: Before I dropped off into a promo, the page where he's dancing after talking to her earlier about, you know, maybe someday he'll dance for her. It just. It was like you said, I guess I feel like I'm picking the wrong parts of the things that weren't covered in the movie. You have other parts that were covered in the movie not covered in the movie, but super important to the character because it establishes him is not just out there seeking revenge, but actually just. He's. He's holding on to sort of this one. He wants to right the wrong, but he also wants to right the other wrongs. Right. Like, he wants to right the wrong of the life that he would have lived with her. [00:58:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:16] Speaker C: He wants to give her everything. He. He didn't. But he. It's one of those things where it's like, I, I, you know, it's the cat in the cradle, in the silver spoon. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:25] Speaker C: It's. It's. It's, you know, one day we'll do this. One day we'll do this. One day we'll do this, and then you can't. [00:58:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:32] Speaker C: Ever do it again. And so, yeah, he. To your point, he. He wants to right the physical wrongs against both of them, but he also wants to right the wrongs that he thinks he did, because that's what this book is about. It's about. It's about internal guilt and it's about, you know, wishing you had more time. And regret. It's really all about regret and whether it was in your hands or not, you know? And so, yeah, he wants to. He wants to give her everything he possibly could because I guess at the end of the day, this story is all about love. [00:59:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:14] Speaker C: And what. The links that people go to for love. I mean, he comes back from the grave. His love is so powerful. He just. He comes back and I think even [00:59:26] Speaker A: to right the wrongs of things he wanted to do more of in his other parts of his life. So Sherry slash. Sherry slash Sarah. So it's Sherry here. It's Sarah in the movie, right? [00:59:39] Speaker C: It's Shelly. [00:59:40] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. The little girl. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Oh. [00:59:41] Speaker C: Oh, the girl. Yeah, it's Sarah in the movie. Yeah, little girl. [00:59:45] Speaker A: Not the narrator in this Book spoiler at all. [00:59:48] Speaker C: And she doesn't have her, she doesn't have it all together and she doesn't skate down the street. [00:59:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Very, very different. [00:59:54] Speaker C: She's not a powerful character. She's more of a straight victim. [00:59:58] Speaker A: She's not empowered in this. He's trying to empower the police detective through her. Which we get at the very end of the book. [01:00:09] Speaker C: Right. [01:00:10] Speaker A: The, the mom line sticks here. I, I, I did appreciate how the source material is stuck to. Right. I loved how we just don't abandon all the source material. Right. So when he, I mean, he brought, [01:00:26] Speaker C: he brought Alex Proyos, brought James o' Bar in. [01:00:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:32] Speaker C: Like to be on the set and like, literally like, yes, this is the way we want to do it. You know, and he wrote, he helped him write it. Basically saying like, James o' Bar is like, I don't know how to write a movie. Alex Price is like, well, I know how to take this and make it more. So we need to basically your input on how we're going to make this into like a two hour format. [01:00:51] Speaker A: Yeah. The, the mother in the name. Our mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of all children. Do you understand? In the movie in here still hits either way. [01:01:03] Speaker C: Yeah. I think it's an important, it's an important line. [01:01:06] Speaker A: You could read just this and it hits you powerfully. You could watch just the movie and it hits you powerfully. When you do both, it's compounded and just the importance of that and you know, I, I understand why they make her the narrator in the film. And because you're right, it's different medium. Right. To Travis, to your point. [01:01:30] Speaker C: Right. [01:01:31] Speaker A: It doesn't need to be here though. [01:01:33] Speaker C: No. No. Because the, the book is doing a really good job of putting you squarely inside of Eric's head. [01:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah. This book does not need a narrator. [01:01:42] Speaker B: No. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Is the art. [01:01:43] Speaker C: They want to keep you. They want, they want to keep you right there with him so that you're empathizing with him. And so every time he, you know, feels this pain. You feel this pain. Every time he murders one of the people who wronged him or the people who stand in the way, then you feel his vindication. [01:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't need explanations. Right. I just need the art to get me to that point where I understand everything that happened and I'm gonna know everything that happened by the end of the story. And that's what kept me reading Greg. I read this in one sitting. Yeah. And since Greg's known me A long time, Travis. The likelihood of me reading something in one sitting that's this big is small. [01:02:27] Speaker C: Wow. [01:02:28] Speaker A: I. [01:02:28] Speaker C: That. That speaks volumes to the book's story and just the. Is it so engrossing? [01:02:36] Speaker B: It's one of those stories that you started reading it and it just. You go. You start going on that journey that Eric's going on from beginning to end, and you don't want to stop because you feel like you have to keep going with him as he. [01:02:54] Speaker C: I feel like the connection to the character is, like, within the first chapter. Easily. You're, like, locked into who he is and, yeah, you care about him. [01:03:10] Speaker A: I also felt like in the movie. And again, if we covered the movie, of course, it's a terrible scene for a lot of reasons, but the scene where he's on the table shooting or not shooting everyone. Yeah, right. It seems out of place in some respects because it seems like it went from like 0 to 150 miles an hour in a matter of minutes. [01:03:36] Speaker C: That scene exists in the book, but in a very small way. It's not. It's not every crime boss in the town. It's like, you know, it's. It's a couple of guys in like a bar. [01:03:49] Speaker A: And you work up to it, too. [01:03:52] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:03:53] Speaker A: It's almost like he's learning to murder more effectively as he goes. [01:03:57] Speaker C: Well, yeah. I mean, because again, like, just to speak to, like, what we talked about before, like, this isn't part. This isn't who he is. He's having to learn to be this monster, to slay other monsters. And, you know, I feel like he almost feels sorry for them. [01:04:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:04:15] Speaker C: In. In a way. [01:04:15] Speaker B: Well, I mean, he gives people. He gives some people the choice, like, you know, like, you can leave. You don't have to be part of this. That, you know, in certain situations, like. And it's like, no, you. You chose this. This is what you want. [01:04:32] Speaker A: Also. I would. [01:04:33] Speaker C: You chose to stand between me and my vengeance. [01:04:35] Speaker A: It is a cat's general attitude to go up near guns and probably headbutt them. I mean, I think that would be. [01:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, cats just do stuff like that all the time. [01:04:44] Speaker A: Cat at nature for a no gun. No. Yeah, well. And you know, when you're looking at a lot, too, I do want to highlight, too, because I want. Obviously, I want. I want to do this page, but I don't. The one where he gets shot up. But I really want to do the next page because I've been highlighting some of the more ethereal stuff, but then the gritty stuff. I think is also incredibly important in this book. And that's the contrast you've been highlighting. I don't think we've highlighted a lot of the grit here and the reality one, we mentioned the reality of Detroit at the time. But, you know, he's definitely conveying something with the grittiness of these pages. Right. [01:05:33] Speaker C: Yeah. And as an, from an artist standpoint, the level of detail that he's putting into these panels and these full pages is off the charts. [01:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:41] Speaker C: He didn't have to do that, but [01:05:43] Speaker B: he did just, like, imagining how long that would take to, to get all those details into those panels and, and full pages. [01:05:52] Speaker C: It's. And he's doing this with, like, throwaway pens. And, you know, it's, I've been there. It's, it's a lot. And it's a, it's, it's a testament. This book is a, is a, A testament to his devotion to getting it done and just doing the thing. Because the sooner I have a feeling that, like, the sooner he got it done, the sooner it would get out of his system and the sooner he could heal. And in a way, when the tragedy like this happens, that's all you want to do. [01:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:28] Speaker A: And of course, now that you've pointed it out, I see it immediately. And so now I already know why it's so jarring. But toward the end, as he's trying to reconcile, you get back to the horse, and he's got to resolve the horse. And the horse has the human eye, doesn't it? And he's got to shoot the horse in the head. And if he doesn't kill this past thing, this past life, if he doesn't eliminate the need to look at it right, he's never going to reconnect with Shelley. [01:07:01] Speaker C: And you have to. You have to. It's part of letting go is accepting [01:07:04] Speaker A: it, and he, he has to do it. And the way it's drawn, I, I, I think purposely I wanted to highlight some of the things that aren't necessarily major movie fodder. Right. But the way that James o' Barr draws that is terrifying. I mean, it is it for me, it's scary on the level of, like. Travis, you may not know this, but I'm like, I'm terrified of the. Why? I've just drew a blank of the weeping angels in Doctor who. [01:07:45] Speaker C: Oh, Doctor and Doctor who. Yeah. Oh. [01:07:48] Speaker A: Like, why wouldn't you just. I mean, I'm equally terrified of that horse looking with the barbed wire and, you know, it's just. Well, I think. I don't know. I've been laughed at for being terrified of Weeping Angels before, but I am terrified. I think they're. [01:08:04] Speaker C: People are horrendous. People are terrified. You know what I'm terrified of? I'll be perfectly honest with you. I can't look at certain gray aliens in movies. [01:08:13] Speaker A: Okay. [01:08:14] Speaker C: Like Trinity again. Can't watch it. [01:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:17] Speaker A: Makes sense. [01:08:18] Speaker C: The. The end of. Of Close Encounters. No, no, those long arms, that thing. No, no, [01:08:31] Speaker B: it's fair. [01:08:32] Speaker A: And anything that's a long spider, [01:08:36] Speaker B: big spiders. [01:08:37] Speaker A: But yeah. No, in this, too, he even tattoos himself at a point. [01:08:44] Speaker B: Change. [01:08:46] Speaker C: That is the other thing in the book that they really glossed over and they had to change for the movie was the cutting of himself. [01:08:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's his arm. To deal with the pain, he's cutting. [01:08:57] Speaker C: He's cutting himself to feel something, to. To divert anything from. From the pain that he's going through. And he knows he can't because he can't be harmed. Yeah. And it's. It's just a ritual that he's. It's desperation. It's a physical manifestation of desperation. And then he wraps him, you know, in those. Those very iconic crow forearm wraps where in the. In the movie, the. [01:09:25] Speaker B: The mom. [01:09:26] Speaker C: The. The drug addict mom cuts him up with. With straight razor. Straight razor, yeah. And then he wraps them, which I always found funny. It's almost like he can choose which. Which wounds heal and which don't. [01:09:45] Speaker A: Right. And like, when he tattoos his chest here, he creates that. Right. It's almost like an escalation of pain from the cutting to the shooting. To the. To your point. Right. He keeps at what. You know, none of this works. [01:10:03] Speaker B: Right. [01:10:04] Speaker A: Like, it only. No, it doesn't work until he actually confesses in mental pain. Right. [01:10:09] Speaker C: He's making a target for them, too. [01:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:12] Speaker C: He's basically saying, put it here because, you know, if you do kill me and I do finally get to go where I'm going, great. But he's also. It's also kind of a. He's baiting them. [01:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:28] Speaker C: And, you know, he's. He's playing with them. [01:10:30] Speaker A: And then when he does confront his own pain and he kills the horse, the first off, the appearance of the dead horse is terrifying up there in the top panel, If. If you're on the video, you can see it, but then you get the most beautiful page next to it. I. I like his. The art is. You know, I. I mentioned to somebody, I visited somebody's house a few weeks ago, and they had a bunch of, you know, classic. Their art dealer. Right. And they had all this art and I mentioned, you know, that we could never get along because I have pop art. Right. Like, I, I don't, I don't get that. And, you know, I probably never will get it. And somebody was, you know, criticizing me and they're like, well, you know, you just don't, you, you don't get it because you don't see it. And I'm like, yeah, but I see this. [01:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:27] Speaker A: And to me, you know, when you have the grit, when you have what reflects real life and maybe that is growing up, you know, poor, closeted gay in the drama. Right. But I see this, I don't see the other. And it doesn't mean I can't appreciate the Lou. Right. Like I've been to the Louvre. It's, it, you know, it's beautiful. I did spend more time looking at sculpture than I did look at painting, honestly, because I love the sculpture, but I still looked and I walked through the, walked at the paintings. But, man, this is as good as anything that, that piece I just showed you is any good as anything I saw in that entire museum. [01:12:07] Speaker C: Well, yeah, but the art is also, especially fine art is a product of its time. [01:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:13] Speaker C: I mean, a lot of times those, those quote, unquote, great paintings were just vanity projects for rich people. [01:12:19] Speaker A: Yes. Or dead Jesus. [01:12:21] Speaker C: Yeah, they were. Well, any talk about rich people, we're talking about the church. [01:12:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:25] Speaker C: I mean, we're just, it's just at that point, it's all propaganda. They're just paying artists for propaganda. But I mean, look at Heronius Bosch. Anyway. Bosch, the, the Garden of Earthly Delights. [01:12:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:42] Speaker C: It's visceral and it's comic booky and it's terrifying and it's all, you know, I mean, and so, so you look at, you look like, you know, art is art and if it evokes a feeling in you, then it's done its job and that's, there's no difference. Anybody who wants to classify art based on fine or graphic or comics or whatever, they're, they're, they're, they're doing art a disservice in general, and they're just promoting their own ignorance because art is where you find it. [01:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:26] Speaker C: And, and it's, it's, it's in everything. And I know that sounds like kind of a wishy washy way to put it, but the truth is, is that if it evokes a feeling in you and somebody did that, made that thing to invoke a feeling, mission accomplished. [01:13:42] Speaker B: Then. Then it works. It did the. It did what it's supposed to do because it got you. [01:13:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I understand the technical brilliance of, you know, the works of, you know, people like da Vinci and, And. And like the Sistine Chapel and, you know, the, The. The high. You know, the ones that everybody knows. But in a lot of ways, those don't wow me the way, like, the crow does. Yeah, It's. It's different. It hits different. And it also is also, like, what connection do I have to, you know, the. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Yeah. What. What, What. What visceral internal connection do I have to that? But I do have an internal connection to what Eric. Dreaming Eric's going through. [01:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:14:30] Speaker C: And what Shelley went through and what. You know, and seeing more. I mean, I grew up at Tacoma. I know Moral decay. I grew up tacoma in the 80s. [01:14:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:14:39] Speaker C: It was meth central in the 80s. And, you know, to a degree, there's a lot of it that still is, but it's. It's. That is another aspect of that book is that it's, It's. It's modern and it's present, but it's. It's something you can connect with. [01:15:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And speaking of weeping angels. [01:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:08] Speaker C: Yeah. His drawings of sculpture are great in that book. [01:15:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:16] Speaker C: He's right up there with Dave Givens, in my opinion. [01:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:21] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [01:15:22] Speaker C: Because sculpture's hard to draw. I'll tell you, as an artist. It's hard to go, that's not a real person. That's fake person made out of stone. [01:15:32] Speaker A: You even got that back. [01:15:34] Speaker C: And trying to look. And trying to accomplish that with a line and a piece of paper is impossible. [01:15:40] Speaker A: And did the back of the sculpture on top of that. Yeah. Like, it's. Because sculptures360, that's one of the great things when I was at the Louvre, was walking around the sculptures. I mean, I'm not saying that I wanted to see certain parts of the anatomy on the backside of certain pieces of sculpture, but, you know, how did it measure up? Yeah. I mean, front. You need the front. You need to see the back side. It's all important. [01:16:06] Speaker C: But David's caked up. Yeah, David's caked up, bro. No shame in that. [01:16:11] Speaker A: The. And some of the. Yeah, some of the sculpture were fantastic. But the, you know, you're looking at a lot of this here. It's. It. This book said this is a great piece of art all the way through. And it is like you said, sometimes I think the storytelling. I don't want to say rough is not the word I'm looking for. I think you said finished is the word we're looking for. Right. He got through the story. [01:16:37] Speaker C: Right, Right. [01:16:39] Speaker A: Maybe a little artsy, maybe a little bit poetic at times, too. Poetic at times. I don't know if I think that or not, but, like, it's, it's a great story from start to finish. It has a complete arc you finish. So so many times when you get somebody starting out with an ambitious project like this, you don't get an ending or there's a rush to the end. There's no rush here. [01:17:06] Speaker C: No, no. But you do feel like he's. He hit the ground running. Yeah, the rush is in the beginning. [01:17:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:12] Speaker C: Like he just hit the ground running and he was like, I gotta get. I'm doing this thing whether, you know, I'm gonna make it up as I go along, but I figure it out, so. And then by the way, if, by the way, you could probably cut this part. [01:17:26] Speaker A: We don't cut anything, Travis. [01:17:28] Speaker C: Okay, that's fine. Well, then if, speaking of cutting, I might cut out because my. I thought my computer's battery would last long, as long as this podcast, I guess it's pretty crappy. So if you, if I just go away, then you'll just. [01:17:44] Speaker A: Well, so we're all cutting out. Well, I think we finished the book. It makes sense to cut out is we did a lot of plugs for you to start. Is there anything you want to plug at the end? Is there like a travis.com they could go to to buy artwork or something? [01:17:57] Speaker C: Actually, the best place you can probably go is you can go to my Instagram, which is at Bundymania. So I'm Travis Bundy and it's Bundy Mania. You can go to my Etsy shop, which is just Travis Bundy art, and that's where you can see most of my, you know, work that I have for sale. Instagram is where I mostly plug most of my actual art pieces. And I keep that, you know, as I, as I, I'm not the most app savvy person. Oh, I'll, I, I just. When I get a piece started or done, I'll just, you know, I throw it up there and I show, you know, I show the process and stuff like that. But for the most part, you know, when I get a piece going, I put it up there and hopefully people like it, you know, so now if [01:18:45] Speaker A: we lose Travis, it'll be okay because we got the plug in. But I assume you're all. You're also going to be at some Grit City comic show. [01:18:53] Speaker C: No, actually I don't. I don't do grit anymore. [01:18:56] Speaker A: You will not be there. [01:18:57] Speaker C: No, I. I will be at HorrorCon. [01:18:59] Speaker A: Ah, okay. [01:19:01] Speaker C: In. In Puyallup at the end of October. I think it's on the 25th. [01:19:04] Speaker A: Okay. Okay, perfect. [01:19:06] Speaker C: Double check that. But I think it's 25th. Yeah, I'll be an artist Alley. Because a lot of my. A lot of my posters are horror based. Probably at least 60% because horror was my first love of. Of in film. And you know, it's the one that of course Friday Night Frights feeds into. [01:19:25] Speaker A: So I will. I will give a plug to Horicon on October 23rd through the 25th. Good call. You knew it. [01:19:31] Speaker C: There you go. [01:19:32] Speaker A: And. And occasionally you could even be found at the Retro Emporium in Kent, Washington. [01:19:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I do stop in there from time to time. [01:19:40] Speaker B: He does. [01:19:41] Speaker C: That's right. That's right. That's where I get my. That's where I bring them all these things that I find, these little tchotchkes that I find. And then I. I end up, you know, just going, well, let me go in back and spend $180 on vinyl. [01:19:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it totally makes sense. And you know, that's Meeker street in Kent, Washington, where you can see Ann Smith. You can see Greg Smith. You can see new employee that replaced Squatch. O man. [01:20:08] Speaker B: Yes, David, the tall guy. [01:20:10] Speaker A: Oh, David, that's right. And you will never see Squacho man because you're gonna see Squatch. Time you went there. His employment employee of the month. They've even taken it off the wall. [01:20:22] Speaker B: We had to make room. We had to make room. There was other things that needed to go up on the wall. [01:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah, because you're. Some things change discriminating against sasquatches. [01:20:31] Speaker B: No, stop. [01:20:32] Speaker A: I'm. I. And of course, you know, in all of this, we do have to promote another Travis's book. Travis Web's book. It. He. He's going to have a Kickstarter someday. [01:20:44] Speaker B: Yes. [01:20:45] Speaker A: I'll post the link like in the thing where you can go and like maybe. Well, I've been posting the link to his company instead of his comic on kick. [01:20:53] Speaker B: Oh, that's fine. You could find. You could get all the information off of the Overcast website. [01:20:59] Speaker A: But you could go to Kickstarter too. And you know, you could get this book. I've heard it's going to be a really good one. It's it's based on, like, Albert Pune's movies and stuff. It's like what? [01:21:11] Speaker C: Like. Like cyborg and stuff? [01:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah. You know what the. Do you know what the book's called, Travis? It's called Crows Dropping Cyborg Parts from the Sky. A story. Yeah, Albert. Did I get that right? [01:21:26] Speaker C: This is a whole nother podcast. It's a whole nother podcast. Albert P. Is one of those guys that I could talk about all freaking day because he was a genius that nobody ever saw. [01:21:37] Speaker B: True. [01:21:38] Speaker C: But he kept making movies. He kept. He kept doing the thing, which is. What is. I'm so. [01:21:42] Speaker B: It's. [01:21:43] Speaker C: I'm so obsessed with. [01:21:44] Speaker A: Well, now I feel like I should get the title of the book correct. [01:21:47] Speaker B: You should get the title of the book correct. [01:21:50] Speaker A: Well, Greg, what is the title of the book? [01:21:52] Speaker B: It is. [01:21:54] Speaker A: Huh? [01:21:55] Speaker B: Nope. It's Alex Rand and Nemesis story. Or Nemesis and Alexrain Story, so. Oh, am I messing it up too? Because I've heard you mess it up so many times for like, what, a year and a half now? [01:22:07] Speaker A: Well, maybe if you get the Kickstarter launch faster, I wouldn't have time to mess it up on the podcast. I can't help it. See? Well, maybe we need to have Travis, Travis, Greg, and Dan on a podcast to talk about Albert Pune. [01:22:20] Speaker B: Yeah, because then Travis can talk to other Travis about the new cyborg Nemesis movie that's finishing and capstoning off the. The movies currently right now. [01:22:36] Speaker A: And it sounds like Greg should talk to this Travis about the book he's writing is the prequel to Cyborg the [01:22:42] Speaker B: Alex Reign prequel story. As to how Alex Reign became the Alex Reign that you meet in the Nemesis movie. And then Travis, I don't know what [01:22:52] Speaker A: artists are drawing that yet, so maybe there's opportunities for. [01:22:55] Speaker C: Oh, it's got to be somebody who can draw Tim. Tom. [01:23:00] Speaker B: It'd be. [01:23:01] Speaker C: It'd be Tim Tommerson's very important to the Nemesis Lord. [01:23:04] Speaker B: It's very true. It's very true. [01:23:06] Speaker A: But the last V, when they killed the dog. [01:23:11] Speaker B: I know it happens five minutes into the movie, but it happens halfway through the movie. [01:23:15] Speaker C: But. But they give you a. A super buff five foot, two woman. [01:23:19] Speaker B: It's true. [01:23:20] Speaker C: In later episodes. In later movies. Come on. [01:23:24] Speaker A: They give you, like, girl Wolverine. [01:23:26] Speaker B: What? [01:23:26] Speaker A: Three. [01:23:27] Speaker B: No. [01:23:28] Speaker A: In. [01:23:28] Speaker B: In 2, 3, 4, 5. [01:23:31] Speaker C: Yeah, and then there's the. Then there's those twin ones, too. [01:23:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:23:33] Speaker C: So it's like everybody's Jack and everybody [01:23:35] Speaker A: has ass, and we lost Travis. Well, on that note. What a. Perfect. How perfect was that? Well, I feel like we got in all the plugs. That was fantastic. It wouldn't be an episode of Funny Book Forensic if that didn't happen. We're gonna wrap this thing up. I think it's time to wrap this thing up. Hey, unless you have something else to plug. [01:24:03] Speaker B: I was just gonna say, I mean, if anybody. I mean, you were. You were so, so much about. About Squatch. A man and his. And his work stuff. I mean, if. If he was having issues at work, [01:24:15] Speaker A: who should he call? Oh, that's right. He should call Jiu Jitsu lawyer Paul. Did you know that? [01:24:22] Speaker B: I did not know that. What is the number that squash a man? [01:24:27] Speaker A: That's a fantastic question. If I still had the jeans on or the dress pants on that I had when I went to the Tacoma Peace Proclamation earlier, I could just pull out a card and tell you. But now I have to actually like, do you know, a couple of clicks to get the number. But that number, you could call him at 253-656-4475. Squattro man, we are awaiting your call. [01:24:52] Speaker B: I would also tell anybody that's if you all want to see some of Travis Bundy's artwork on. On another podcast, you could see it as the new logo for Nerds from the Crypt that I do with Saul Perez hosted here with the. [01:25:15] Speaker C: The. [01:25:16] Speaker A: Maybe we could get a new Funny Book forensics logo from. [01:25:18] Speaker B: Perhaps so. Perhaps so. But yeah, so. So Saul and I were looking for a new logo and I reached out to Travis and he drew up a real banger. Very, very, very good. Very fitting for. For the Nerds from the Crypt relaunch. So. And we'll start recording again pretty soon here, so be on the lookout for new episodes. [01:25:43] Speaker A: Well, there we go. And on that note, that's probably it. That was a lot of plugging. Go read this book. It's really good. You should get whatever version you can. But this is fantastic. [01:25:56] Speaker B: I also have the same copy that Dan and Travis have and it is definitely the shelf piece that you want to have. [01:26:07] Speaker A: Alrighty. Well, hi everyone. Join us next time when we very likely talk about Batman. But if we don't talk about Batman, that means we have a guest Beefy Batman. An absolute Batman mine.