Pick of the Week #1015 – The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery #1

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You know what I don't recommend?

I do not recommend the cancun airport delayed Saturday.

Oh God.

Yeah.

You know, I thought well the economy in Mexico is different.

Nope.

Nope.

You're paying amusement park prices in that one.

Pretty rough.

So these M&Ms are $25 you're telling me.

Like disco super fly.

Ice male sex and can't end it here.

Hey, you're listening to I fanboy pick of the week episode 1,015.

I'm Josh Flanagan for real with me as my co-host Connor kill Patrick.

You're back there.

I am.

I actually was like, did I do this last week?

I did.

Yeah, okay.

You were across the border.

I was and I made it back in the midst of conflict and storms and a plane

that needed deicing as I understand it.

Exciting.

You know what I don't recommend?

I do not recommend the cancun airport delayed Saturday.

Oh God.

Yeah.

You know, I thought well the economy in Mexico is different.

Nope.

Nope.

You're paying amusement park prices in that one.

Pretty rough.

So these M&Ms are $25 you're telling me.

That wasn't a joke by the way.

That happened.

That happened.

Hey, I'm Josh Flanagan.

I did that.

Welcome to our show.

Well, Russy, thank you.

I just want to talk to my pal.

I just forget like you're doing a thing.

It's the fine line.

This is where we talk about the comic books.

They came out this week and we've been doing that for 21 years.

We will talk about the pick of the week.

That is the one one of us has assigned to pick the best comic book that they read

of the weekly releases.

We'll talk about that book.

We talk about other books that are worthy of note one way or the other.

Good or bad.

And there should be some emails.

We will do a patron pick.

It'll be a good time.

I'm looking forward to this being a fine time.

I'm hoping it's a bright spot.

It usually is.

There will be spoilers.

This is mostly for Connor.

I'm going to tell you everything that happened that you didn't read.

But to be fair, I think you probably read everything I read,

but not the other way around.

So that's no, I didn't read stuff on the after show.

It's not these people concerned.

You had the pick many times this week to make sure I didn't.

And I was like, no, I really don't have the reverse problem.

Well, not the reverse problem.

I was halfway through my books and I went, oh, I have the pick.

So I was like, oh, shoot.

I should probably pick any more attention.

And that's north.

Big of the week is the parallel of the brutal dark and Ezra Cain mystery number one.

Chris Conn and Jacob Phillips.

Hassan, that's my nail out and DC comics from Vertigo.

Vertigo is back.

And I had a lot of books this week.

I had 26 books that I read.

I enjoyed lots of them.

There was another one that was very, very close to being picked at the week.

But I picked this one for several reasons.

One is we really enjoy this team.

Of course, Conn and Jacob Phillips are the terrific books that we would love,

like the mostly westerns over in the image.

But it doesn't have some other things too.

We've liked those as well.

Two is I love the genre.

This is a 1940s set PI story.

And number three, we went through a thing

a long period where indie books were a follow.

And I'm not calling this an indie book,

but books that are not superhero comics were sort of follow.

Image came back several years ago.

And we're reading lots of image books.

We've been reading more dark horse books.

And I did W more because they just gotten better.

And then the one thing that was missing was we didn't have Vertigo.

And Vertigo is now back.

And it almost feels like I family from 20 years ago.

Like when we had all those things going on,

there's a lot of different things to read and enjoy.

You know, yeah, DC puts this out,

but it's a book that doesn't feature super heroes.

And it's a PI story in the 40s and it's a crime book.

And it's by two guys are really like.

Three guys are really like.

And they got paid for it.

So this is great.

I'm excited about it.

So there's a lot going on here.

Ezra Cain is the main character.

He's the PI.

But it starts off in the 1913 in Greece

where archaeologists or whoever find the Anvil of Hephaestus

and are almost killed by robot guards.

But they get it out and then we jump to New York in 1941

and we meet Ezra Cain who is a World War I veteran.

So we're literally it's November.

So we're about to be entering World War II in a month.

He has several cases going on.

He's got several things happening.

But one of them is he's been called into the Museum of Natural History

because the Anvil of Hephaestus is missing.

And so that's how it ties in the beginning.

We just get a taste of him getting in this new case

because the majorities that are seeing him do other cases.

That's like the classic way to start an action movie

as you get your main character.

In a different story so that you see how they will react later on.

That's like the classic way to start an action movie is

you know, axel Foley in the back of a truck

or you know, lethal weapons stopping a different crime.

So we know later on how Martin Riggs is going to react

when he faces the bad guys.

And thankfully Ezra also has a background in archaeology

which is such a boon for this particular.

That's why he got called in.

That's why he got called him.

He's got a pencil thin mustache.

He looks a little like Flynn or Clark Gable.

And he's a little bit, you know, older.

He's so, you know, the 40s.

He was a World War I veteran.

So he's probably in his 40s.

I mean, or 50s even.

This ends in 1918.

He's back, you know, if he's 20 then 18.

Yeah.

Maybe 38.

But that's not how old he was number were.

We meet his world.

There's a cop that helps him out.

He's got clients.

And then this guy calls him into the museum.

And it turns out that his old professor

was one of the guys in the beginning

who found the end on the first place.

And now he's missing as well.

And then in the very end, one of the cases from the middle

where he's being hired to find this missing person

turns out that person's also tied into the case.

So it's a very classic first chapter,

wonderful Jacob Phillips art.

He's just getting better and better with each project.

He's working out like when he first came on,

was it the Chris Condon book we first saw Jacob Phillips

doing interiors?

Was it that book that Western?

No, I can't think of the name at the moment.

Ah, that Texas blood was that Texas blood?

Was that his first?

I saw him on.

Maybe like like he'd been doing, I want to say,

he'd been working on criminal,

but wasn't doing interiors.

Maybe did a little but something like that.

If not, he was very early.

That Texas blood was a thing.

And he was good there, but he was still a little raw in a good way.

And he's certain his art recalls his father, Sean Phillips.

But here it's just one of his,

because he's doing the art and the colors.

And it's like wonderful looking.

There's great action sequences.

He's got overhead shots.

He's got up angles.

He's got the light shining in and through the slats of the shades

and the noir way.

He's got great cityscapes.

This is a wonderful looking book.

I think he's on one level with image stuff.

I think this is a slap match up.

This is him doing a really terrific work.

You said the shades and I'm looking at them right now.

And when he's in the office and sort of a yellow light coming

through them.

And he does the colors too, right?

That's the, yeah.

But if you look like the shades are just a regular old analog brush

swipe, I don't know if it's digital or not,

but they're not perfect.

They're clearly like hand drawn.

And that's a thing that not a lot of folks can get away with.

The sort of application of ink that he does here.

It's very somnese guy who can definitely get away with that.

But it just makes it look very rustic.

And it's one of the things that I hate in comics

is when things are too perfect.

When somebody clearly used like a city scape or something

and they just trace those lines razor straight.

And sometimes it works and sometimes it's the good.

But I like to feel like this is being drawn as much as possible.

And so when you see that, just like, Bob Ross,

the Bob Ross of it is just to splatter some ink on there.

And then it looks like a thing.

And it looks real and it looks lived in.

That's what I go for.

That gets me off in the comics, pal.

You want to see the artist on the page?

His hand made that.

He didn't just drop a line in Photoshop.

He didn't just drop a square.

He drew the square.

Yeah.

That's what you want to see.

Now a lot of artists do that.

It's definitely fine.

A lot of artists would like you to use programs

to design their background and things.

That's fine.

But we prefer it this way, which is fine.

Right.

And then that's your ideal.

There's also like a, in those same sort of in the office,

there's a photo of the Festus Anvil and it's black and white.

And that's just the same thing.

It's just those beautiful,

yes.

You know, just little splatters.

Happy accidents.

It's all negative space in that drawing.

Yeah.

You're getting the objects from their negative space.

And like he's drawing the shadows,

but not the objects.

It looks awesome.

You see 100% like believable life figures,

great anatomy or whatever.

And then when you sort of focus on it,

there's not a lot there.

Also, that's Tobias.

It's okay in the middle.

It could be Tobias grandfather.

It's a Griswold, if you care.

I finished this book and I was just like,

that was awesome.

That's like what you want from Vertigo.

I mean, I've been trying not all the Vertigo books

because one of them is continuation of the book.

We start reading.

But all the new ones I've read, all the issues.

I want to give them a shot.

We love Vertigo.

And this has been my favorite.

I've liked several.

I like the one last week called Hell of a Lot.

The Kyle Starks one.

But this has been my favorite stuff.

I'm not caught up on all of last week.

So I didn't read that.

What was the one was there?

So is this the,

I think this is the Kyle Starks.

He sees Puget like a funny hitman book.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll get to that.

Yeah, you'll like that one.

What's the one that we stopped?

What's that?

A continuation one?

The nice house by the lake or whatever.

Oh, oh, oh.

The James Kennedy book.

And then the other first one was that

zombie one by Dennis Camp.

That's the other one.

Yeah.

Two for four.

Pretty good.

It's okay.

I'm a little worried.

I think a soft rollout of this might be a better move

than like, I don't know how long this is going to go on.

But four is enough for now.

Right.

They can't be publishing eight of these

and expect them all to succeed.

So they're sort of, they're,

they're, I don't, you know,

I don't want to deflect the market with their stuff

as they're trying to get back into it.

I enjoyed this.

Well, I can do this for you.

They announced 10 titles.

That's too much.

I just is.

Like I, I, I think that that's diluting their brand.

And if I'm them, I'm focusing on like,

really getting something that captures

what that name vertigo is about.

And I think that that's where they're going to run into trouble.

The next ones return 100 bullets.

And then, I mean,

they have a book, Tom Taylor book, Simon Spirier book.

And I'm telling you, here's the problem right now.

Yeah.

These are all the same fucking people

I'm reading comic books from already.

Seriously.

That's true.

And like, for me vertigo,

and listen, I'm not the reader I was back then,

but for me vertigo was an avenue of discovery.

That's where people would come up.

So Scott Stider came from.

Right.

Or a lot of British people like came over

and did their first American work there

and certainly foreign artists

when that was like a new thing.

But right now, these are all just the same people

who are writing all the books I'm already reading.

And I find that much less interesting.

And it's also not as if they haven't had an outlet.

They're doing books and image all along.

True.

These are just books that aren't an image right now.

I would say Chris Condon is young, comparatively.

He's a young creator.

But it's not like we haven't been introduced

to his many many creator own series.

I want to people read his Western comic and image.

I don't know.

But I did.

And I'm not in this for I don't care with the audiences.

I want to have something that makes me feel like it's special

and new, not everything.

But that's what Vertigo was to me.

Like who's this my carry guy doing this book about Satan?

Who is, you know, like all of these things

and so far everything is something I this could have come out

at image at any point in the last three years.

This is not the creator's fault.

But they need to think seriously about what it is

that this is like you just trying to take images

of market share because that's all that's happening

right here with good books.

Literally having this week was I want to say

who it is is nothing to do with them.

But I saw a photo of a creator who I've only come

to appreciate recently and didn't know anything about them.

And I figured they were young and they had a full on gray beard.

And I was like, God damn it.

Like where are all the young creators?

Chris Condon isn't that young.

I don't think he's much younger than I mean he's younger than us.

But this is a guy whose name will only come across

last couple years and he's clearly, you know,

around our age and I was like, that damn it.

Like I thought he was like 25.

And like you picture Jacob Phillips, right?

And you're like, well, shit, he must be young.

This is like when we found a genre made of junior.

It wasn't fact 70.

I thought it was 28 my whole life.

You know, Jacob Phillips is probably very well

being his mid 30s by now.

Like we're picturing some young kid who just came up

and that's not necessarily the case.

I don't know.

I'm going to calculate this is so unfair to him

but I'm going to calculate Chris Condon's age right now.

I just found his birthday.

I'm bad with mass and he's in the calculator.

He's 35.

So, you know, yeah.

When he started, he was probably his late 20s.

That's not terrible.

But he's he's on the younger side.

Unfortunately, the most creators he says.

If you're curious, you can listen to the the talks

below and I did with him and he talked like he did a lot of stuff

before he came to comics and you know, it was waiting tables.

The days of Garthiness doing hellblazer and preacher 23

or whatever is probably when I do the math

of how old he was when he just did preacher.

I just am gobsmacked.

But that's over with.

And that's after years of doing judge bread.

When he started, I mean, his 13th.

They start young in Ireland.

So, you know, this was a terrific PI book.

The creative teams aside, I think people should check

out the vertical books.

I think, you know, it's a healthier industry.

Maybe they needed to start with names

so they could then branch off with

sure non names.

Who knows?

But right now they're hitting pretty high average.

I'm looking forward to reading some of them.

I probably won't read their 100 Bullets one

because I didn't read all of that series.

But let's move on to escape number six.

Book that I thought was amazing.

This was the one that was almost picked of the week.

I was going back and forth on which to pick.

But ultimately went with the PI story.

But this was great.

This is a recruitment there.

And Daniel Cuny is very thinly veiled.

World War II bomber story.

And I thought this was a fine issue.

Josh, you love this book.

Talk about it.

I love this book.

And this would have been my pick of the week.

There's not a single thing about this

that I don't like.

The last couple was this fun.

So he's kind of been on the run.

Are here.

I've got shot down for.

It's been run.

He's been hiding from.

We're just going to call him the Nazis

for the last three or four issues.

And the Batsees.

The Batsees.

He's fighting.

He's a dog.

And one point he's fighting them.

And the mass difference is so stark.

Like, you should be having no trouble

with this little skinny Bat dude.

Like, you're like four times his size.

But they're wiring going.

They're evil.

So we have the reversal where he's not sort of high.

He spent like a couple issues

like hiding with the family.

And it had a really interesting dynamic

about how that worked and why it was going on.

And the last issue was really tense.

And then this is sort of like,

he walks right into the castle.

And there was a couple of surprises.

Really fun's not the word.

But yeah, fun.

Some nifty twists.

Right.

The common dot like, you know,

has him, you know, where he wants him.

And he's been like, if he, though,

everything about you,

your vice name is here.

And then he'll go on.

And then you're like, wow.

And then the whole time,

you know, the soul just put up the tough front.

And then he's like, I did it to distract you.

Taps his foot on the floor.

And there's an explosion.

This indicates that there's somebody else around.

And I do not know.

I have no idea what I don't know.

But I didn't, I think he's alone.

And unless he had the timing perfectly,

he wouldn't have known when the tap is foot,

but he did whatever.

No, there was a device in his book.

It comes out after you're remote device.

He had a trigger in his, in his heel.

Oh, neat.

If he takes the boot off and it comes out,

you know, it's a classic bigger than life hero.

He's at the end of the, this is, you know,

this is half the Marvel Comics characters

that Rick Reminder ever wrote,

you know, but in a completely different context.

And then at the same time, you know,

Daniel Acunia, I don't know anyone better.

He's up there.

And when I sort of think of artists who I've seen,

you know, we had a question about people who have improved.

And I thought that he was always really good,

but he's really, everybody shows up now.

You're just like, this is a special artist.

And you know how you know it's a special artist

because Rick Reminder is working with him.

Because that dude can pick out guys.

And just, you know, every page is a delight.

It just looks all its own.

It is suspenseful.

It's both realistic and fantastical.

I love it.

And it's also, I don't know another Rick Reminder book

that's like this.

This is way more, it's a war story.

Like he's not, he's not, it's not a lot

of his regular earmarks in this, I guess.

Right. There's not a lot of his anxiety

about the world or being a dad.

Although, I guess it's family anxiety.

Yeah, no, he's got that going on.

Still there.

I thought the plot was great.

It's, you know, like he said, he's surrenders.

The Nazis grab him.

The scene with the coming up was very similar to

a scene in matches the air where they

capture one of the guys and they have his whole file,

which is not a knock.

That's what the Nazis did.

They had spies that gathered and tell people.

And then his whole mission is to go in there

and blow up this cannon.

This amazing.

Right.

Special cannon is going to blow up the cities

of the Allies.

And his whole job is like a suicide mission

is to blow up this cannon.

And so he has to get into there.

This is the V2 rocket, basically.

That, you know, if they mass produce it

and put it all into place,

that's endgame for the Allies.

Same thing here.

Like, oh, we're going to put these things in every city.

And it's a threat, but it is actually real.

Like in reality, the V2 could have been a really big problem.

Just timing worked out the way that it did.

You know, same thing here.

Like, they just bat Germany is on the verge of winning.

Yeah.

And great final page where he sneaks, you know,

dressed in a bat, you know, who I'm all the

he looks gigantic.

I think they would have picked him up.

This isn't a large bat.

Into the armory and he peels up a grenade

and says, let's jitterbug to the camera.

I thought it was this.

I've loved this whole series,

but I think this is one of the best issues.

They've all been really great for different reasons.

You get that light going across his eyes on that last.

The art, the construction, the dialogue,

and all works really, really well together.

Yeah.

It's excellent.

Let's take a quick break.

We come back.

We'll talk about more comics right after this.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

Here's a fun fact about me.

You might not know.

I love the Olympics.

I love the Olympics.

And with the summer Olympics coming to LA,

where I live in 2028,

I wanted to get some gear.

T-shirts, hat sweatshirts.

So I started shopping around,

and I imagined my excitement.

When I found out that so many of the online retailers

that I was visiting had that little purple button.

Oh, that magical little purple pay button

that has all my information saved,

making my various purchases as easy

as a simple tap on the screen.

Goodbye, shopping stress.

Shopify is your commerce expert

with world-class expertise

and everything from managing it inventory

to international shipping

to processing returns and beyond.

But what if people haven't heard about my brand?

You might be asking.

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with easy-to-run email and social media campaigns.

And what if I get stuck?

Shopify is always around to share advice

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Okay, Iron Man 682.

Number two, the second issue,

the Joshua Williams and Carmen Carnero

new run on Iron Man.

I like this a hell of a lot, Josh.

I love the cap Iron Man stuff.

I feel like we're getting some good cap more and more.

So good Steve Rogers.

I like that Tony has this Achilles heel and mat and mask.

That's an old device,

you know, the hero being all about his sexy villain,

but it really works for Tony.

This is a hell of a lot of fun.

I think that's been missing in Iron Man books for a while.

They've got the Robert Anderson personality,

but they haven't had the fun for a while.

I don't know if you notice this,

but when he shows up at the club at the end,

what is a very fun Modox scene?

Yes.

It's a Modox I've never seen before.

I didn't know he could take that off.

The bottery.

Yeah, but I don't know,

like when I was looking at that scene,

the way that he's dressed and he came in there,

I was like,

that's 70 Stanley.

He's not Robert Downey Jr.

He's 70 Stanley there.

And there's no doubt about it in my mind.

That is 100% with the end of the glasses on, for sure.

Yeah.

You're right.

It's a heck of a lot of fun.

It's very different from what's been going on.

It's like bringing it way down to,

I swashbuckles is not the word,

but like a gentleman adventurer with a high self-esteem,

you know, who has been around the block

and understands his limitations,

but also braces them in a way.

You know, and the rest of the world is kind of annoyed by him.

And I think actually that's been kind of fun.

Right.

I think that you're right.

That cap scene sort of grounds this

in the Marvel universe.

They're like, we might have a problem here.

And you're as the reader wondering,

I'm seeing this through Tony Stark's eyes.

Is he a problem?

Cause I can't tell.

And I like that.

Here's my little,

the fixer ends up in this one.

And the fixer was a Thunderbolt

and apparently I had no effect on him.

Cause now he's just evil again.

I don't think that that should be

because what happened in the Thunderbolt

should have affected these people.

Sorry, that's not to get it.

Tak no.

What I really liked about the cap,

Iron Man scene was, you know,

it opens up and after a flashback to Tony's sexy adventures

with Matt and Mask,

they're fighting.

Who are they fighting?

I can't tell in these thumbnails.

Some guys with skull masks.

And Tony gets a call from a woman he met in the last issue.

And he stops fighting to take the call

and cap him back on the whole time.

Like, what are you doing?

Like, no.

It was just a fun, these two guys,

they're not quite Superman Batman,

but that's like the closest we kind of have

in the Marvel Universe to being like,

to being like, we're buddies,

we're teammates.

We've got a deeper relationship than most.

So Steve can be more relaxed and be more like,

what the fuck is wrong with you, man?

I'm trying to fight these skull guys and you're on a phone.

Like, we talked about last time how Josh Williams

seems to be having a great time doing this.

And I think that's really coming through here.

Josh Williams seems to have a great time doing everything.

And it's funny because like, I think Matt sees it.

But I also know like he's a really cerebral

and thoughtful writer.

So he might be having fun, but he's taking,

I know that he's taking this so seriously.

Totally.

You know, in that way that like Jeff Johns did.

I got to say the, the Carmen,

Carmen,

Carnero.

Carnero.

Carnero.

The art specifically in the flashback of the beginning

is dope and shit.

I thought this looked great.

Oh, the lighting in that room that,

it comes from the Iron Man armor in the bedroom.

And it's sort of got that texturization on it

to make it look a little older.

Yeah.

I'm not going to be like, oh, this guy is my favorite artist.

But I do think that this person is perfect

for the book that is being done here.

I don't know who this artist is.

But she's been around.

Right. Well, just a hundred percent fit

on what this book needs, you know,

from the beginning stuff that I was talking about

to the nightclub stuff in Madrepoor

to, you know, the, the, the, the Bacchanalia of Modoc.

Well, I've got needs, man.

You know, just because he's got a big head

doesn't mean it doesn't have a little head.

I've had my eye on Carmen Carnar's art for a while.

She's been really good.

But again, much like Jacob Phillips

and Daniel Cunio, we talked about,

it's been getting better and better.

And this is another step up for her to the point

where I'm really excited now to see what she's up to.

Tell you something too, not offended

about the Iron Man armor that Tony Stark

is wearing in the present.

I mean, I don't know if she's changing it,

but at least it's not offensive.

It's got the two colors.

There was two things in here.

One, oh, there's a guy, they're fighting

who's in an armored suit and at the end of the fight,

he's looking at it and he goes,

oh, that's, he's got a different weave

that's way the bends is joints better.

And I was like, okay, I don't need the explanation,

but at least that's an explanation

of how these armored suits bend.

And the other one is, you know,

if you've ever been like at a wedding or something

and you're trying to get from the state of,

dressed to the state of sexy time,

I know there's a lot of shit to take off

and it's just ties and thick,

well, imagine being an Iron Man and a man of mask

and you've got all the stuff you gotta get off

to get to that bed.

And it's just, I thought it was a very funny shot

of them in the bed just surrounded by all their,

what happens after their sexy time?

Cause he can't just let her go, Kenny.

I mean, kind of have to, right?

Bad move if you don't.

Then is he the good,

is he doing the right thing then?

I don't know.

They've all got that.

All they hear is, you know, it's a bad girl.

It's the cat woman.

That's why I was a tan a man.

Cap had one.

He had one of those snake ladies, right?

In the surface.

Well, he had died in back, she wasn't, she turned good.

Okay.

Remember in the, in the nineties,

in the early nineties was she had,

she had the purple suit,

she was like a psychic for like half that run

with that Nolan, Graham Nolan, yeah.

Let's do a wrestle heist.

Number three, from CrowdStarks and Vlad Popov.

Last time we talked about this book, Josh,

you and I get into it over whether or not it was a comedy,

or you still wouldn't say it's not a comedy.

I think it's like a, like a comedy heist thing.

I think it's a comedy elements that are funny about it.

My main point here is no matter what you want to call it,

I love this, I love this book.

It's great.

I'm recommending it to people like in real life.

You know, there's a few people in the world who I love this book.

Yeah.

I think if you're a wrestling fan at all,

because this is all, I know a tough, not a ton,

but I know that the stuff that's in here is real.

What happens to the main character is the Montreal screw job

that happened to, was it Bret Hart, I think.

And by the way, I'm talking to you about wrestling.

If you just read the comments from some of the people

in the back that his comic industry friends,

including our own Jim Fiskarty,

those people in the restaurant, I don't.

But I do know that I've read enough

and seen documentaries and been to the, you know,

this is all very real wrestling shit, you know, in a way.

And then, you know, like this guy's of,

Vince McMahon, Pestiche of, you know,

all the evil stuff that he did,

but every other terrible promoter, it comes out

and I just go, all right.

Because I really like the characters.

And I really like that you spend so much time

with wrestlers seeing their shoot, seeing their,

their, or the K-Fave, whatever, you know, the word, you know,

like, and this is just them as guys hanging out.

And it's like, you know, it's like,

when you hang out with comic book people,

like, the insiders, you know, the way.

And so this is like being with inside people

and they've all been through it.

And I just, it's so good.

It's just, like, how stark is such a great

and unusual writer.

It's great.

One of the reasons why I really love the young rock sitcom

was because it was like that.

It was just the, it was these famous wrestlers

from the 80s that we know.

And just hanging out outside of work.

Before they got super famous, like,

watch a matter of savage and whole clothing.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the highs we're getting there.

But there's a twist at the end.

But I love the group they've got.

And then we got this crazy, like,

Norseman, who talks like a weirdo,

but he has, but he's very funny.

And he's got his back together.

And he's, he's the only one with the smart plans.

And he, because they introduced him,

he's the first or second issue.

And it was just like, this guy's super fucking annoying.

And then he shows up and the junkyard dog guy is like,

no.

And then everybody sort of comes around

and they're like, you know what, I like this guy.

Because he talks kind of like J. Peterman.

But, but he's the only one with a good plan for the money.

He's like, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to see his laundromats.

I'm a lot of the money that I moved to Amsterdam and it,

I love the drug addict son of the other guy.

The Luchidor, who was baby.

It's Thanksgiving.

So they all go on the table saying what they're going to do

with the money.

And the father's like, I'm going to put my kid rehab

in the very next page.

He's like, I'm going to buy all the drugs.

Like, he's just very funny.

He's like, what drugs make me happy, man?

Because drugs are awesome.

Like that, he's just, it's just a very funny stuff.

I also think it needs to be said.

And by the way, the twist that happens at the end, like,

yeah, that's what's supposed to, like that is what's going to get you.

It's clearly, but, you know, the camaraderie

and behind them is all very fun.

But what I want to say is that, so Kyle starts drawing this.

And we've talked about him as a writer a lot.

And he's drawn stuff before.

But most of the, you know, most of the stuff that we've read

has been drawn by other people.

And I'm going to tell you, if you look at the,

he drew Big Rock, you know, an art introduction to him, I think.

And if you looked at this art, you would think maybe this art

isn't really good enough to do what you needed to do here.

But man, it's 100% effective.

And that, to me, tells how important comic book storytelling is

and pacing and the acting of the characters

and just the cartooning as opposed to the having it look realistic

or whatever, like, this is pretty, I don't know.

I was trying to think of the word, like, just kind of raw cartooning

in a way or at least, it's very non-realistic, I suppose.

But man, it's cartooning, yeah.

But I'm saying it's like, at no point did I feel like

that ungrounded the story or the people, like, it all lives

just as if it was, you know, hyper-photo-realistic art

or whatever it is along that spectrum.

The art's perfect.

Like, he 100% is doing the art that he needs to do

to tell the story that he's telling.

And it is, it is completely effective.

And I really like that.

So I will, with everything you said,

there's one coloring mistake in the book that I caught

on page 17 and it's just-

That's Vlad's fault.

Cloud to the colors.

Oh, no, Vlad to the colors.

So Vlad is your probably.

Vlad pop off.

By the way, Vlad pop off is 100%

a wrestler name.

It's a fake name.

Come on.

Let's leave a little bit.

It's fucking Kyle Starks, the main character

and the new guy, both are kind of very similar.

They have the same kind of poofy hair and mullet.

And they're both wearing collared shirts at the dinner.

So the main guy is wearing a white shirt

and then the new guys wearing a green shirt.

So if you look on page 17, there's a bunch of headshots.

And in the second panel, it's the main guy,

but he should be wearing green.

Green.

Yep.

He's colored as the new guy.

And the hair color is wrong.

Should be blonde or hair.

We see them again.

You can see how the dialogue doesn't match up the color scheme.

It's fine.

It's a mistake.

It is tricky.

They look too much alike.

Yeah.

Now, a lot of wrestlers in the 80s

looked exactly like that.

So, you know, this is one panel that's flipped through.

That's totally fine.

It's just that the hair color and the shirt color were wrong.

That's totally fine.

That's it.

Because of the dialogue, you could actually

tell who everybody was.

You know, I'm like, oh, totally.

Just stuff really well done comic book.

And I love it.

I mean, yeah.

The irony of like the week before this book came out,

I was lamenting the fact that Kyle Starks wasn't doing humor books

anymore because he was doing all those serial killer books.

And then this comes out.

And then a few weeks later, though, the vertigo one,

which is also a humor book came out.

He's still, he's still got it.

It's not a assassination humor, which is like, it's wacky shit.

Yeah.

It's in that spectrum.

The assassination that it is to other things.

But I'm curious to see what you think of the vertigo book.

All right, one more break.

We'll be back right after this.

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while Disney World Resort.

OK, the rocket here, the island number one from IDW.

Thor and letters by John Layman, art by Jacob Edgar.

Where do we just see Jacob Edgar's name before?

I have no idea.

We just saw it recently somewhere.

I always check out the new rocketeer series,

love the rocketeer.

And this one, I went back and forth on because, you know,

this is what you're going to get going forward

with everything falling out of public domain.

But then I was like, ah, fuck it.

I just go for it.

So it starts off in a flashback where I was like, Kyle,

where, what is his name?

What's his name?

What's the Russian name?

He did Patman and Robin Hood in your life.

Cliff meets Amelia Earhart at an air show.

Hot Amelia Earhart, which I don't know if you've seen

Amelia Earhart, but they took some liberties.

They're generous.

Yeah, they're generous here.

So then we go up to the present day in 1938.

The flashback is in sometime I can't see.

We jumped, oh, 33.

So we jumped five years ahead.

And now she's missing, which actually just happened.

And they think they know where she is,

but they're putting together a team to go find her.

And so they need a pilot.

They're getting on a boat.

They're going to go out to the islands where they think

she landed at a higher him.

And then the captain of the boat is pop by 10, 10 shows up

with his dog.

I couldn't figure out the girl was someone.

I don't think she is archaeologist.

I was an entrepreneur, I googled her, couldn't find her.

And then of course, his girlfriend, Betty,

who is based on Betty page, they have broken up.

And she shows up with her new boyfriend,

who is a doormat.

And so they're all in the boat together.

And I was like, okay, but whatever.

That's fine.

I just love you so much.

I don't think I mind it as much.

Jacob Edgar did.

Oh, sorry.

Let's go island.

So that's what King Kong saw.

So yeah, this was one of those things

where like everybody, I remember, I forgot about that bit.

Like, oh, Popeyes there.

And then you flip, this is the same thing that,

what was the book we just read where that happened?

And it was really, oh, it was the DC one

where they had all these other characters

who were not public domain.

So it's a little more impressive.

But this starts out, you've got Popeye and then Tintin.

And yeah, I was like, that's, okay,

that's a choice you can make.

But like A, whatever have fun, I think you're right.

I'm not like the world's biggest rocketeer fan,

but I've been reading every one of these worlds

because they're fun.

They're fun.

And also I just, I want this type of comic.

Like I want this high adventure flashback, you know,

but done well.

I do think that he should probably

date the other lady and not the girlfriend who's awful.

Well, okay, my real critique of the book

is that I thought Betty was completely out of character.

Yeah, she has been shown to me nothing

but as Angel on Earth before.

Like she's a, she's super nice.

She's bad-ass in a trouble situation.

You're right, you're right.

Here she's sort of like a vapid vein.

I want to say, you know, I'm a bitch, so she's terrible.

Yeah.

And so when she showed up and she was being all mean

to everyone and being to her boyfriend

and I was like, who the fuck is this?

This isn't Betty at all.

I mean, based on the evidence in this single issue,

yes, absolutely.

Forget Betty and go with the archeologist.

She smart has glasses and sort of a bob haircut.

So as I mean, you know.

They're going to the South Pacific,

Howland Island.

That's where some people think she crashed

and was maybe killed by the Japanese

because this was right before the war

and the Japan was expanding out into those islands

and there are some credible evidence.

She may have survived the crash

and was murdered by the Japanese.

But anyway, I'm sure that's not what we'll find out here.

Maybe it'll be King Kong, that killer.

Or Godzilla.

Sure, maybe Godzilla will show up.

King Kong's definitely gonna show up.

He flies in the skull island looking for whatever

they're looking for.

Yeah.

I think this is fun.

I think this is fun.

Jacob Edgar.

When you look up somebody on like the League of Communities

or whatever, like they don't just list their art book credits.

It's like every variant cover they did.

So it's hard to see which book.

He did do the ones with Bendis.

I don't know if you read that.

Yeah, I did read that.

That was it.

Yeah, he's great.

The Flash 830 or 30.

This is the final issue of this current epoch

of the Flash before Ryan North takes over the next issue.

So this is Mark Wade and Christopher Cantwell.

They've been doing the last arc, the DCKO tie-in issues.

The Vasco is Georgeive on art.

And I thought this was terrific.

I've loved this whole arc.

This felt very much like Mark Wade tying a bow on everything

at this issue featured Barry and Wally and Bart and Jay

and Max Mercury all coming together to save the day

in their particular venture

fighting the Legion of Dark Side superheroes

or whatever they're called.

I thought this is exactly what you want

from the final issue of this Flash volume.

The Mark Wade coming back to Flash

for a little bit doing his characters again

and doing them really well.

And I'm so glad I jumped back on this for that.

I didn't read the size barrier stuff,

but this has been super awesome.

I don't know if Vasco is Georgeive,

but I thought he did a really great job.

And Vasco, Georgeive is Vlad Popov.

It could be.

It's like those people to have several coding jobs.

This issue was they were trying to stop crisis.

They were trying to have Barry not die in crisis

because it's the sort of exciting event

that starts everything forward for the flashes.

And so they have to let Barry die while he embarked

in order for things to happen the way they should.

And so there's a lot of like heavy stuff.

If it was very well done from Mark Wade, Christopher Cantwell.

I think Wade's plotting it, Cantwell's dialect

could be a combination of both.

Do you know how he did today?

I purchased the entire series of Halt and Catch Fire

on Apple TV because I wanted to watch it again.

And also it turns out they only ever released

one maybe two seasons on Blue Area DVD.

The rest have just never been released

because not enough people have enjoyed

that brilliant, brilliant story.

Was it four?

Four seasons, yeah.

The finest character drama.

Josh is the underage show of the era.

Have some chili.

Just have some chili.

There we are.

Hey, we're a listener supported entity right here.

So you can directly support the show if you enjoy it,

if you can, if you are able,

if it's gonna be here for you, if not.

But if you do, there's perks and there's wonderful things.

And also you're doing the right thing

for two jimokes who want you to like us.

I watched a movie recently and that featured

the word jimok quite heavily in it.

And my wife's going, is that words from like,

no, if it's just a word that people use it,

it's in the movie as well.

The old word, because we like old things.

We just talked about, the rocket here is a flashback

of a flashback.

It's a retro, retro comic book.

That's crazy.

Anyway, you go to patreon.com slash I fanboy,

you can directly support the show,

you can be part of a great community is over there

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Discord will remain as it has been.

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We'll set up.

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Just like the rest of the world.

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after show on Sundays, this is $10 higher again.

We will talk about all the books that we read this week

that did not make this main show.

That's a mixed bag.

It's full of surprises, I think, or it's possible.

It's a possibility of surprises.

There's a discount if you sign up for a full year

and you can now send or receive gift memberships.

That is a two part thing.

If somebody sends it, someone must receive it and vice versa.

That's how I understand that.

Where it's patreon.com slash I fanboy,

you can go to fanboy.threadless.com.

That is our merch store.

There are 23 designs that can be put on t-shirts,

sweatshirts, tank tops, can we set this?

We should see if there's any new product lines

that we should know about.

Yeah, we should check that and we're like,

oh, wow, you can put these on dog shoes, spats.

Spats.

Yeah, spats.

Eventually, those have to come back, right?

I guess.

Everyone keeps forgetting about the 1800s

when they get when they grow up.

Yeah, we're just circling right back around.

I feel like fashion's gonna catch back up to me.

I want top hats to come back.

So badly.

I don't think that's gonna...

That's still always gonna be an affectation.

There's no way around it.

I came across a store now that sells them

and I was looking in the window and I was like,

throw my wife up, I was like,

I could really start rocking a top patch.

She was like, here's the problem with those.

You would and I don't want you to.

That becomes an affectation.

So that hat becomes your entire being.

You're the hat guy after that.

It also makes me about six, eight.

Yeah, yeah.

And also other people in them

with plaid long pants would challenge you.

I have to talk to people wearing them

and I probably don't want to talk to those people.

I just want to...

No one shall touch Conn's head.

And then I get into duels all the time.

There you go.

That's right.

And then you got to deal with Bosnath.

Anyway, Bosnath is gonna say Bosnath.

I really was.

Bosnath was a whole different hat.

Grabbed me a skull for the last second.

But Bosnath's Tweed might be able to get me

a patronage job.

It was gonna be great.

Bosnath's Tweed actually runs Patreon, I don't think.

Again, we are not talking about Bosnath's Tweed.

If this is not an indication of where we are.

Yeah, you're right.

What the show is about.

You're right.

Casually.

It's a very tammany haul influence comic book podcast.

I remember that I promised last support

is just a direct donation area.

There's a PayPal link there.

If you'd like to use that and chip in in that way,

there's no requirements.

There's no benefits.

There's no anything just a good warm feeling in your heart.

And then I feel about a complex Amazon

is an affiliate link for that really big retailer

on the internet that you've probably heard of.

So if you buy something through that,

then we get a cut of it.

Cost you nothing easy way to help support the show.

Bookshop.org is a aggregator of local bookstores.

And we like that idea.

So when there is a book that we can link to there

for you to buy, we'll do that on the website.

So you can do that.

I don't even think we get anything for that.

We're just getting folks like that.

Yeah, a little bit, but not a lot.

That's fine.

That's not why we do it.

Yeah, I didn't even know anything from that, really.

Let's talk about speaking of tammany haul,

tammany haul addition in the 30s.

This book takes place in the 30s.

Batman, second night book three,

the final issue of this, second volume from Dangerings

of Mike Perkins looking at Batman taking place

within the timeframe, which with the character

was first created in reality.

So it takes place in the 30s.

In this volume, we've had Superman

mostly in show up.

They're fighting scarecrow.

I liked this, but I don't know how long it's been

since the second issue, but I'd forgotten about it.

I think I'd forgotten about it when it came back

for this second series.

And it's kind of like a, it's like a, it's like,

oh, it's a surprise.

That's great.

It's like a pleasant thing.

I do, I wonder, loudly, why does this exist?

It's really interesting, because it just seems like,

it seems like it might be a bit of a hard sell.

But then again, I'll,

I really don't understand the market at all.

What I do like about this is that a,

Dan Jurgens is a legend.

He should still be getting regular work.

We know that, because he wrote regularly

on Superman a few years ago.

And like sometimes it's like people who wrote in the 80s,

they kind of go away and he's like,

well, I guess there it's, you know, it's like, no,

they can still do all the work they used to be able to do,

you know, like we have this great treasure trove of people.

And you know what, since nobody really buys

based on creators anymore, give these guys more work,

because they're so good at it.

Dan Jurgens is not in the 70s yet.

He's still in the 60s.

He's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, yeah, man.

So this you two came out in December while we were on break.

So that's a good way.

Yeah.

Well, they're like 50 pages.

What I was, last thing I was going to say is that

a lot of times when you do a story like this,

not exactly else worlds, but you know, like the same character

at a different time or place or whatever,

they make sure to hit all of the beats

so that it still feels just like the character.

But there's things that happen in this one.

Batman does things and makes decisions

that genuinely surprise me.

I was like, oh, I'm, okay, I don't see this.

I love that he's just the best friends with this rabbi

and they both have this little crisis of confidence

and it's just a weird, great book.

I feel like we're lucky to have read it.

You know, the first one came out

and we definitely had at least one pick of the week for it

and, you know, we both loved it so much

and I was so surprised I got a second volume

which made me feel like it's a soul.

It sold whatever their number, you know,

because they, they get pitched a book

and then the sales team has to do a like analysis

and what they think it'll sell

and can they do the book for that but, you know,

it's all a business.

I got to make the numbers work

and apparently they made those numbers

because they did another one.

So I don't know, hopefully we'll get a third one.

If it doesn't happen, that's fine.

We had two great ones, but if they do, then awesome.

I loved having Superman in this.

I just thought I was really, you know,

and they're both, they're 30s versions of the characters.

Right.

Not modern versions.

Right.

Yeah.

If there's a thing like those, like,

small bullets, you know, I think it bounced off me

but a big one and I'm cooked or something like.

He said something like that

and then he's like, because they were talking about the morality

of, because the war's coming and it hasn't happened,

you know, over two is coming.

Right.

And he's like, what am I going to do?

Hop across boats all the way to like get there?

I guess I could do it, but now it's like, that's great.

I just, like in a world where we're just talking about it.

It's a lot of work.

Superman's way too overpowered.

This is probably underpowered, but it's interesting.

It, it gives him a different,

it just makes it a little more interesting.

Real good.

Hulk smash everything number three

from Ryan North and Vincenzo Karatu.

This is the Ryan North book you're not reading,

but I wanted to mention it for versions of the recent.

So this series has been about the leader

sending the Hulk into different scenarios

where he might finally get killed

because he's sick of losing to him.

So like last issue, he sends him to dinosaurs,

but of course, Hulk be the dinosaurs.

Come on.

This issue, he sends him into the middle of a black hole.

And we were, I don't know if you were in the conversation.

We were just talking to our other host, Ryan, about black holes.

And we were talking about going across the event horizon,

what happens when you go across the event horizon

and how time and from the outside looks like you're falling

forever, but the inside you're spick edified.

Yes.

Were you in this conversation?

I was a text conversation.

It was a text conversation.

Then we had it again on the hangout last weekend.

Oh, okay.

And this issue, Hulk gets spick edified,

like literally the same spick edification

and he gets spick edified.

That is a technical scientific term.

I laughed and then I texted Ryan.

I was like, don't miss this book,

but I want to tell him why.

And then funny and insulated,

he wrote back a pic of the week.

It's just, if you're a science nerd,

this is all, I mean, he gets, Hulk gets basically spick edified

into nothing, the corks and then he comes,

he builds himself back up with rage,

rages himself out of a black hole.

Because I think Hulk's overpowered.

I think Hulk's overpowered.

I think he is.

If you get the spick edified by a black hole,

you should be dead.

Everyone will reign Hulk.

You're being taken apart at an atomic level.

At that point.

So that should kill the Hulk.

I'm sorry.

I think the Hulk has been overpowered over the last decades.

I think he should be very strong and very angry,

but he's not should be immune to anything.

Yeah, but you can't kill him in the book.

So then you're saying, well,

let's not use the black hole story.

And I don't agree with that.

If there's a black hole story, he's the black hole story.

By the time he punches out of the black hole,

obviously, you know, as you know, relativity speaking,

time is going quickly past him.

As he's punched his way out years.

So he comes out and he's in that part

of the Marvel universe where it's just Galactus

and Franklin Richards.

Oh, yeah.

He's got that story.

So like in the way in the future,

do we go to the left of us those two?

So it's these three.

I think the next issue is Hulk versus Galactus.

We'll see.

And Matthew McConaughey's there also, correct?

Yeah, he cries.

He's behind us the joke.

He's slick.

I got that recorded on my DVR.

I haven't watched it in a long time.

I haven't watched it again, because I didn't love it.

But you love it so much.

I need to give it another shot.

I love it so much.

Those are the books I'm going to talk about.

But at patreon.com slash I found

where every patron could devote to the book to the rundown.

And this week, the overwhelming favorite for Patreon

Pick was the parallel to brutal dark and Ezra Kane mystery,

which we just talked about.

It was the pick of the week.

It was the patron pick and the pick of the week.

So we won't talk about it again, but we will rate it.

I'm out.

I'm walking.

Rating's on the parallel to brutal dark.

And Ezra Kane mystery number one, I'm going to give it

for 4.5 out of 5.

I really liked it.

It's 3.95.

Woo.

OK.

I liked it, but I didn't love it.

But again, I keep wanting.

I really want them to pull something out

that I don't expect.

And I expect this book from these two creators.

And it's what I would have thought.

So that's more for knock against Vertigo

than the creators of the book.

Sure.

Sure.

Your numbered rating is going down because of Vertigo

issue, not the greater vision.

No, not at all.

No, I literally like that's how much I enjoyed it.

Own it.

Yeah.

Sticky with it.

I'm sticking with it.

I'm sticking with it.

Sure.

Absolutely.

We both were going to read it either way.

So there you go.

Patreon.com slash I fanboy every page.

You can sort that book at the rundown.

But if you give it the $5 or a higher low,

you can just prepare a live in the show.

Just like Daniel Gilley.

I hope that's how you pronounce that last time.

Yeah.

Daniel's power is one I wish I had.

That's my own little kink.

Daniel couldn't look at any photograph

and know who the people are and the story behind them.

So like you can look at an old photograph from like the 1800s

and know who that guy is.

The Skylin guy.

Not just remember things that happened.

It's all right.

No, I'm talking about it.

Because I love that.

Hour.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Who are these people?

Who is that?

It's just guys in like four of my photos.

Who?

Gary.

Your son.

Wow.

What are you talking about?

He can look at any photo.

I love like being an antique store.

I find the old photographs.

I'm looking at them.

Two years old.

I'm looking at that.

Don't do that.

40.

Two.

I think they come in 86.

No, that's 40.

You can't.

You can't keep doing it.

84.

It hurts.

It hurts.

Anyway, Daniel.

You can look at any photograph and know who's in the photograph.

What their name is.

What their story is.

Their life history.

You sort of like get a download of their whole life.

You know, looking at any photograph.

One's you're in.

One's you've never seen before.

Doesn't matter.

Is this actually Billy the Kid or just some other random dude?

Is that second photo?

Actually, Billy the Kid playing rounders.

But Daniel is the only one who knows, for sure.

I make you famous.

Patreon.com slash ifanboy.

Thanks for being a patron, Daniel.

Thanks all the patrons who helped the show go.

And we appreciate all of you.

Email time.

Josh, why don't you read this first email?

John V.

Brooklyn, New York, says since the episode 1000 discussion of the creator driven 2000s.

I've been thinking about the parallels with the 70s with 70s American film.

The comics were post marvel bankruptcy movies were post studio system collapse.

There was genre revisionism by marquee named otters and architects.

Who often came from sources labeled as quote independent like Roger Korman.

There was a greater variety of visual style often based on foreign influence.

Do you see any parallels any creator director in perfect analogies?

I mean, I like everything that's going on here.

I think he nailed it.

100%.

I'm going to have a real hard time with analogies.

But I think the end of the studio system when everything went crazy for about 10 years,

which is about what happened in comics.

And then it also happened American film in the 90s too, but not to the same extent.

Yeah, but it was not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

There was definitely a new period of that, you know, when the foreign sales were independent stuff blew up.

But there was this.

And also the studios were making and financing these these weirdo movies.

Those 90s films greatly influenced those.

Late 90s 2000s comic creators.

So there is that.

Yeah.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with nothing.

The collapse of the system allowed them to go.

We don't know what the kids want.

So we'll just give these do people a lot of money to make their movies.

And you had great films coming out of the 70s.

And then Jaws and Star Wars ruins that and then they go back to corporate control.

And there's a 90s a little bit, but it's mostly independent stuff.

And then anyway, comics 2000s was post bankruptcy.

It was like, well, suck it.

We'll just give these guys a bunch of control.

And they did it.

They made really incredible, interesting superhero comics.

And that lasted for about 10 years.

And then in the 2010s things sort of changed and got less interesting.

Or they got older and they didn't get replaced.

Who knows?

But that in the same way that, you know, a lot of the directors in the 70s.

By the way, if you don't have any idea what we're talking about.

And you may not be interested in it.

But Easy Riders Raging Bulls is a book by Peter Biscond.

That really is a wonderful book that will tell you this whole thing.

You'll get stories out of it.

And you'll have movies you want to you want to see.

So you've got your, we'll just say Robert Altman's the first thing he came to mind.

But help me with directors that I now can't think of.

From the time period, I mean, you have to, of course, you're right.

You've got Deppes Hopper and you had Warren Beatty and you had, you know, with...

Warren Beatty's a film.

It's trying to think of directors.

Billy Friedkin came out of that era.

You know, a bunch of stuff like that.

Well, it's Corsese.

It's the title of the book.

Corsese, yeah.

You know, I've never seen those early movies.

I'm afraid too.

I don't want to not like them.

I'll Ashbeap, Bogdanovitch, Coppola, Dupalma, you know, Friedkin.

Now, what's interesting there too is that those weren't straighter.

Those weren't really independent movies.

Those were working within the studio system to a certain extent in a way that never had been before.

Because, you know, movies in the 60s were usually very much like mainstream comics all right now.

Kind of, you know, like they're just very like on-brand with a kind of specific vision that they're presenting.

But I also think what's interesting is that all those directors, most of them,

went from sort of a sort of homegrown sort of avant-garde thing into becoming very mainstream directors.

This is how you get Francis Ford Coppola doing, like, what was one of the worst ones?

The one with Robin Williams, where he's a kid.

You know, like, the Rainmaker or...

All the dead Popeye.

Yeah.

So, like, but...

Rainmaker Corsese broke.

Right, I get that.

But just like that, like, all those guys that came up from, you know, Bendis.

Bendis is...

I mean, like, is he Lucas?

I don't know something.

Like, he's somebody who, like, did something really original to himself,

and it became the mainstream.

Spielberg.

I don't know.

Like, he's...

He's more Spielberg because Lucas basically stopped working.

That's true.

It would have to be somebody who made a bunch of really important comics that changed the game and stopped doing them.

It's the great part about Star Wars.

One of my favorite things.

I didn't understand it then.

Like, everybody, they get blamed for, like, this is the blockbuster and this ruined everything.

But I was like, they're independent movies for fuck's sake.

Like, it was Fox.

But those are independent movies.

Also, nobody wanted it.

It wasn't like...

Right.

This was going to be...

This was going to change again.

They were like, oh, fuck, I agree with this fucking...

We'll keep moving.

I just... I just love that.

It's like...

Everything backfired as a result.

Charles was a disaster.

Like, they were like, oh, this is going to fuck us.

And, you know, these things always come out of...

You know, no one wanted to make the Godfather the way they wanted to make it.

Right.

These are just, you know, these are all mistakes.

But I think there's 100%.

It's not one for one exact, but it's really close.

That 70s movies, you know, very similar to 2000s, early 2000s comics.

And Marvel Nights and, you know, Cassada and Palmyade.

I can't control the Marvel.

I cannot understate how much I believe that Cassada and Palmyade

with those four initial Marvel Nights, I think they saved comic books.

Yeah.

Almost single-handedly.

And I mean, really.

I don't, I don't think I'm exaggerating.

You know, that's what brought Marvel out.

They said...

And then Ben is coming right on the fields of that with...

With Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil.

And, you know, bringing that indie sensibility and the indie way of writing

and the dialogue.

And that leads to Berbaker.

And that leads to Brooka.

And that leads to John's.

You can see it all happening.

And then it all sort of goes away about...

The other thing it did, I think.

And I don't know if this is any of the movies.

But I feel like they made comics good

without necessarily making them dark, which was the thing before.

So your 86th thing is we're going to make everything dark now.

And then image is the sort of culmination of that.

And they're like, no, let's make them good.

Like they don't have to be...

You know, they weren't for kids.

But they weren't, you know, it wasn't just all sad sacks yet.

They were fun, exciting stories.

But written from a modern, well-told perspective with, you know.

Credit knowledge is a harder because it's not the same kind of thing.

It's much more of a...

I'm not educated enough on the vagaries of all of those directors.

At one time, I probably could have talked about it, but it's kind of gone now.

It's just harder because it's not exactly the same kind of medium.

Who wrote Taxi Driver?

Schrader, Paul Schrader.

Schrader.

Who's the Schrader of comics?

That's what I want to know.

You don't even answer.

I'm putting that out there.

You put it in the discord or whatever.

Like, because that dude's fucked up.

Do you remember that story about him?

Like he came from like ultra-orthodox religious background.

And then just came to Hollywood.

And everything that came out of his head was fucked up.

And you just...

It's boring.

Brad G. from Exeter California writes,

I've been thinking about this question for two hours since I came across this strip

while reading the complete Calvin and Hobbes.

Our word balloon's supposed to cross.

So now, there's more to the end up.

A Brad has a visual aid here.

So if you're watching on YouTube, obviously you'll see what we're talking about.

If you're listening like the 99% of you who are listening to the show is supposed to watch it.

We'll put the images in our post and I think I'm going to come if you want to see what we're talking about.

So here's the image that Brad came across.

He took a photo of it.

Those are his fingers.

So this is a strip where actually related to what we just talked about,

Calvin wants to go fast enough in his wagon to slow down time.

He's learned about time-space.

Technically, he did it.

So they ended up crashing.

And so if you look at the middle bottom, I'm going to enhance.

He says, if you notice the bottom middle panel of the word balloons cross.

As I'm reading it, it in no way confuses me and seems to work.

But is that supposed to happen?

It's from August 1986.

So earlier than Calvin Hobbes run.

But I feel like Waterson is already a master of action dialogue.

So if you see here, as the wagon's going off the cliff, Calvin says,

it's time stop now.

And Hobbes is noticing my heart.

But the dialogue balloons across.

And so he says, this is supposed to happen.

The answer is not supposed to happen, but it happens.

Yes.

To put this another way, if you're listening and you don't want to go look,

imagine that you have two characters on a panel.

And the character on the left is speaking, but their word balloon comes on the right.

And the character on the right is speaking, but apparently they speak first.

And theirs is on the left.

So technically, the artist, if at all possible, should have drawn that in a way

that the letter didn't have to do that.

Well, he's the letter.

The letter is the hero.

They come in.

No, no, I don't, you know what?

I see that this is an example here that Waterson did.

Waterson is perfect.

He can do no harm.

Everything he does is, you know, before you get into lettering hero,

which is absolutely true.

Yes.

Let's explain why it happens this way.

So Western comics move from left to right.

So the action generally moves left to right.

So they're going off the cliff left to right.

Characters speak left to right as well and top to bottom.

So if Calvin speaks first, his dialogue balloon has to be on top,

but he is in the image of the bottom.

And Hobbes is on top of Calvin, but his dialogue balloon comes second.

And so there's no, there's no way to place this without crossing them.

Unless you put Hobbes's dialogue balloon on the left,

you break the forward action from left to right.

Right.

Carl Arson wants you to go from bottom left to top right with your eye.

And if you move the balloon to the left, which there's lots of space to do it,

it breaks the eye movement, which is what they're creating with the left to right movement.

And here's what I would tell you.

You're only going to do it across the streams.

And occasionally you have to cross the streams until gozer.

Because I guarantee you that Waterson got to this point and knew what he wanted to do

and recognize that to do to visually want it with the lettering and it was suboptimal.

And he went, okay, this is my best solution for it.

But there's no way that he didn't know that.

Because 99% of everything is that way, but you go, all right, I have a problem to solve

and you choose what the priority should be.

And also you have to do what you have to do.

Like, there are all kinds of rules.

Rules are sometimes broken when they need to be.

Yeah.

But if you go back and look at the old Golden Age comics,

where they were making the subway.

The layouts are fucking nuts.

They had to put arrows in to help you fall all along in the order.

Like, sometimes it's just, you got to do what you got to do.

And Waterson's more of a master at it than most.

But he knows the most important thing is the story progression from left to right

and not to break it up just to not cross the streams.

So until the day, it's not a big deal.

It's not like he's doing it all the time.

It happens once in a while.

And a lot of sort of mainstream comics where you have like, you know,

the distributed system, you know, the letter letter,

like, it's very difficult.

It's really hard to blame the letter for lettering problems in a book.

I mean, there are, but things like this, like the eight guys who are like professional letters,

like those guys know what they're doing.

So if they can fix the thing, they will.

It's never letters fall.

Unless it's never letters fall.

And then if it's a new letter, the most likely will get caught in the editorial.

And the letters also, the last one to get it and have to finish it in a short amount of time.

Because everybody else used up the whole deadline time.

It's always the art.

It's always, it's combination.

Could be the writer.

The writer might have read too many words.

But when I edited a book many years ago, a corporate book that no one has ever seen,

one of them in most common notes was, you need to move for the lettering.

Because they would just draw and fill up the panel.

Right.

Yeah.

No, I experienced that too.

There's six word balloons in this panel.

You got to redo this page.

So that's just something that sometimes some such a new artist don't think about.

If you look at the original art without the letter, there's so much empty space.

Yeah.

That's a pro move.

There's got to be room for the lettering.

And then also, but like new writers also write too much dialogue.

That's just, that's the thing that happens.

There's seven dialogue balloons in this panel.

That's too many.

I was, I spent most of last week reading Path of the Assassin by the creators of Lone Wolf and Cubs.

Whose names I can never recall.

Gaseki and Kriki.

And unlike the American Lone Wolf and Cubs that we get, it's right to left.

Right.

So I read, you know, eight days I spent reading those.

I read eight or nine.

Good break.

Three wires.

I had a regular comics like this week.

I had to start over pages a lot.

Oh, yeah.

Other way, it was a problem.

You got me, um, a Lone Wolf collection.

And it's a big one.

It's all right.

The left knows I got up.

That's going to fuck me up.

Because when they printed in the, in the US, they just reversed the whole page.

Yeah.

So, uh, Ogami, Eto is, is left handed in that book, but that's not actually the case.

When they did this recent, I forget what it's called.

But Dark Horse put out like a big leather bound edition.

It's oversized.

original left-to-right format. I'm looking forward to it, but it'll

fuck you up. It's like driving on the wrong side of the road when I came back from

driving for a week in Ireland. I was like I'm gonna get an accident because my

brain was just wired to go the other way. There was a book this week with Zatana.

It's maybe Wonder Woman, absolute Wonder Woman. Yes. And the problem with Zatana is that

too much dialogue. No, her word yes. Yes. There was too much of that

dialogue in that book. But her words go backwards, but the rest of the

letters go the other way. So you have to keep going like like back and forth,

like a typewriter. Well, the words are in the right order,

but the letters are backwards. Right. They need to put the words in

backward order if you're going to like to read it like that. I just think that's the case,

and I'd always read her words backwards. It should be logically flip the whole thing.

It's too hard to read from left to right, then move back over and left to right and

or vice versa. Kelly Thompson. So probably I didn't get like the sci-fi

nosebleed reading that book. Everybody does it. Oh, no, no, she wrote a lot of spelled my

look. That's what I'm saying. But she didn't have to do that.

She just probably wrote it out and was like, you deal with that. No, my problem.

Thanks for writing it, John and Brad. We want to hear from you contact the

fanboy.com site. You can write it and get in the show. We appreciate everyone

who writes in lots of great emails lately. You guys have been stepping it up,

and we're really excited to get to them. So thank you very much. Now let's talk

quickly about what else we got coming up. Well, actually, this show goes

out. First of all, happy birthday, Josh. Your birthday comes in between our

recording and the show coming out. That's true. That's the happy birthday.

Second of all, 65. This show comes out actually on the first of

March. So let's talk about March. We're going to have a media

explode in March 19th. We're going to talk about Star Trek, Starfleet Academy,

season one. As soon as it ends, we're going to do the show and talk about it.

Lots of people talking about it. We're going to talk about it.

And then in the end of the month, our books blowed March 26th.

We're going to look at Darwin Cook's Complete Spirit, the connoisseur edition.

The new one that just came out, the full collection of,

the oversized collection of the spirit work, including the Jeff Flow Batman spirit

crossover. So it's this complete Darwin Cook spirit work. We're going to talk

about that in the month of March 26th. You look forward to those shows coming

out the rest of the month.

In the meantime, there's a lot of library over 1500. It's a big one.

1500 shows over at fanboy.com or over podcast or so.

The never miss a show. I'll find out what the pick of the week is where the show comes out.

But following it out at fanboycomics on Instagram or at fanboy.com.

Blue Sky. It's such a bad way they do that.

And eventually we are CS Cupagic on Instagram and Jay.

If I didn't get an Instagram and don't forget,

former I fanboy writer Jeff Reed's video, deep thighs into comic book history,

every Tuesday and Friday across our social channels and on YouTube.

I haven't posted an Instagram in months.

Haven't looked at it in weeks.

Great. Sorry. Good for your mental health.

Consider writing. I just can't.