Welcome to The Corner Box, where your hosts, David Hedgecock and John Barber, lean into their decades of comic book industry experience, writing, drawing, editing, and publishing. They'll talk to fellow professionals, deep dive into influential and overlooked works, and analyze the state of the art and business of comics and pop culture. Thanks for joining us on The Corner Box.

[00:28] John Barber: Hello, and welcome to Corner Box International. That's right. We're coming to you from all around the globe, bringing you the newest in comics predictions, news, events, and I don't know. This is John Barber. I'm here with, as usual, my friend and co-host.

[00:45] David Hedgecock: David Hedgecock. I don't think Hawaii would be considered international, though, John.

[00:50] John: What? Oh, no.

[00:51] David: I don't think it's a different country. I think I'm still in the United States.

[00:56] John: Oh, man.

[00:56] David: I’m on vacation, John. I'm starting off 2025 in the sunny city of Honolulu.

[01:01] John: Like Magnum, P.I.

[01:02] David: Yeah. I've seen him at least three times since I've been here.

[01:06] John: All right.

[01:07] David: It’s funny. Everybody here has a mustache, and I think that is the Magnum, P.I. influence that has somehow infiltrated the entire region.

[01:16] John: NosferatuMania is sweeping Hawaii, it sounds like. That's not Nosferatu. He has a mustache. That's the joke. If you’re in Hawaii, you possibly have not seen the most Gothic vampire movie ever made.

[01:32] David: Yeah, I have not seen that movie yet, but I'm I am actually looking forward to seeing that one. The reviews are good. What do you think? Did you like it?

[01:40] John: Oh, yeah, I liked it a lot. Yeah, it's cool.

[01:42] David: Good review, John. Thanks for that. I am running to the theater at this moment. We are the most qualified podcasters in the history of podcasting. We crush pop culture.

[01:56] John: “Crushing pop culture since whenever we started.” That should be our slogan.

[02:00] David: 14 years ago? We're doing something good today. I like the topic.

[02:06] John: I don't know what you got for the holidays, what you got for Christmas. I got a bunch of comics. I got a bunch of graphic novels because my Christmas wishlist has not changed since I was 12. So, I got a bunch of comics, a couple of video games. You know what I did with those comics that I got, all the graphic novels? I read them.

[02:26] David: What? You've been reading? That's fantastic.

[02:30] John: I started with Danger and Other Unknown Risks by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. […] the creators of the Squirrel Girl graphic novel. Ryan North is very funny in other things. Erica Henderson is also great. Really good. Really nice thematic twist to it. It's about this guy that keeps trying to remake 1999. Y2K, magic returned to the world, and electronics stopped working because electrons just stopped doing the thing that they used to do. Anyway, very good. I really liked that. I read Gleem, by Freddy Carrasco, which is super cool. It’s three short stories, very in style of Tekkonkinkreet, the manga, if you've ever seen that.

[03:14] David: No, I've never read that.

[03:16] John: Then also, a manga called Tokyo These Days by Taiyo Matsumoto, the creator of Tekkonkinkreet. It's about a manga editor who quits after his magazine fails, and it's these other mangaka who know him, and then he starts to create a new magazine, his ultimate statement on manga. There's three volumes of it out. I think they all came out this year in the US. I have the original Viz Tekkonkinkreet, when they still called it Black and White, the manga that I'm a huge fan of. I didn't realize that that's what it was. Spectacular. It couldn't have been made more for me.

[03:55] David: Yeah, it sounds like a day in the life of John Barber.

[03:59] John: Hexagon Bridge by Richard Blake, which is a maybe a Euro-ish, Hickman-ish story about an artificial reality situation. Very cool. Richard McGuire’s Here.

[04:12] David: Man, you read all of this?

[04:14] John: I did. This is what's so amazing, David. This is why I'm so proud of myself.

[04:17] David: I need our listeners to understand, because you’re just holding these, these are all thick, hard cover, hard-bound—well, some of them are hard-bound—graphic novels. Serious page counts.

[04:27] John: Yeah, yeah.

[04:28] David: Where is your family? Did they leave you?

[04:31] John: We were up in Burbank. So, the puppy worked to my advantage. When I don't have a job and I still have to get up at 7 in the morning every morning, regardless of if I'm on vacation, and nobody else is up for a couple hours. So, I got a couple hours of reading every morning, and then occasionally, somebody else would watch one of the little creatures running around my house. Here, by Richard McGuire, which was just made into an unsuccessful Robert Zemeckis movie. Sidebar—Have you ever seen The Polar Express?

[04:58] David: The movie?

[05:59] John: Yeah.

[05:00] David: Yes.

[05:01] John: David, that's the worst thing I've ever seen.

[05:03] David: Did you just see it for the first time?

[05:05] John: Yes.

[05:07] David: Let me tell you, that is not my favorite movie. I wouldn't say it's the worst. It is not my favorite movie, but if you are 7 years old, that thing is the bomb. I'm telling you. I've never met a 7-year-old that doesn't love the heck out of that movie, my son included.

[05:25] John: Yeah, my son watched it. I was like, “I'm going to try it,” because I like Robert Zemeckis. I've never met him, but I work with Bob Gale a bunch. We talked with Bob Zemeckis’ wife about doing a graphic novel at one point, but gee whiz, man, that uncanny valley stuff on that is just—it's so horrifying. I couldn't take it. So, then I left the room, and I'm sitting in another room, and the worst thing about it is, everybody looks monstrous and not-quite-human, and just isn't quite right, and the exaggerations don't work with the way human bodies work. That's the worst thing about it. So, I'm just listening to this thing—listening to it—it sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit, where frequent host, Tom Hanks, shows up to what he thinks is an All-Star animated movie, and then finds out that he has to play all the roles, and he's just making up stupid voices for everybody that he does, in the booth. The audio is appalling.

[06:26] David: Yeah. I feel that movie, Zemeckis definitely took a bunch of flyers. That animation—there was a certain type of animation that they were using for that, where I think they were attaching electrodes, or whatever, to Tom Hanks’ face, to try to mimic the—monstrous is a good word for the look of that movie. I hadn’t considered Tom Hanks making up all the voices. That’s hilarious. Yeah, it's not my favorite movie. I can sit and watch it if I have to, but I'm not going out of my way to watch that one. That's not for me.

[07:03] John: Anyway, Here, the graphic novel, very good. I read the short story it was based on, but I'd never read the graphic novel. This is one called Tender. Have you heard of this graphic novel?

[07:12] David: I don’t think I've heard of any of these, so far.

[07:14] John: It's Beth Hetland from Fantagraphics. It came out this year. It was on a couple Top Lists. I started reading it, and I forgot anything about it. When I sat down to read it, I didn't remember why I wanted it, or what the deal was. I thought, “well, this isn't really going to be for me. Maybe it's going to be okay.” Here's my spoiler-free review of this thing: Holy fucking shit.”

[07:37] David: Happy New Year, everybody.

[07:40] John: You can bleep that out if you want. I don't know. “Holy F*cking Sh*t.” Where this thing goes—Wow. I don't want to give anything away, but my mouth was just hanging open at the end of it, where the story went.

[07:56] David: I'm writing it down. I'm going to have to look that one up.

[07:59] John: Yeah.

[08:00] David: That's a much better review than describing Nosferatu.

[08:07] John: The best Aaron Taylor-[Johnson] movie to come out since Kraven. How about that? That’s the Nosferatu review. There you go. Houses of the Unholy, by Brubaker and Phillips.

[08:19] David: That seems to be on everybody's list.

[08:21] John: Yeah, terrific. Satanic panic story, but set in the present day—reaching back to stuff that happened, people who are just a little younger than me. Very interesting to see that era framed from somebody that lived through it and has perspective on it, and it's just a cool crime story by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. It’s great. The Collected Sergio Toppi Volume 1: The Enchanted World. I really enjoyed this. It’s got some really cool stories, beautiful art. Just interesting little weird stories from the 70s through the 90s.

[08:52] David: Did that just come out?

[08:53] John: No, the publisher of it, Magnetic, has a whole series of these. I think there's, at least, 10 of them.

[09:02] David: I think I got something else from Magnetic recently, and I must have seen a promo for Toppi because I was thinking about Sergio Toppi lately. Do a dive on him.

[09:11] John: Collected editions are beautiful. They're really nice introductions. This one's got an introduction by Bill Sienkiewicz.

[09:17] David: Oh, nice.

[09:18] John: You can read them in any order. They're like the old Moebius graphic novels, where it’s collecting stuff from throughout his career, loosely organized around topic, and the biggest one I got, WildC.A.T.S. Compendium One. 1000 pages of early WildC.A.T.S. comics.

[09:36] David: Oh, my God, you've read that? You read that whole thing?

[09:39] John: I did. It doesn't end as well as it begins. I'm a big fan of WildC.A.T.S.

[09:44] David: Oh, you are?

[09:45] John: I am. I was kind of known as the guy that really liked WildC.A.T.S. at Marvel. I really liked the original limited series. The only thing here that is, I don't know, unusually produced, is that the original limited series has been recolored by Alex Sinclair. I don't know if that was a technical requirement or just the preferred version that Jim Lee likes now, or something. Sinclair has been his colorist for decades, but the original Joe Chiodo colors were not bad, at all, and were very influential. I don’t remember WildC.A.T.S. being remarkable for its coloring, and there's a couple parts in there where there's some technical stuff that Sinclair mimics. It's not totally off-base, but all the rest of it is the original coloring, and I really missed that coloring in this. That’s a negative part.

[10:36] David: I wonder if there's some contractual obligation to pay Chiodo.

[10:41] John: Oh, no. He colored all the rest of this stuff.

[10:43] David: Oh, he did? So, for some reason, it's just the miniseries, then, that they did. I wonder if they lost the files somehow.

[10:51] John: That seems possible, too, and they could have just had to do that, but weirdly, nothing else looks like that. There's stuff in here that is clearly shot from the digital files, that looks great. There's a couple pages you can tell, weren't, but they look terrific. The production quality in this is really good.

[11:06] David: Who’s even drawing that book, by the time you hit the main series?

[11:11] John: So, you get the original limited series, and you get the #0 Issue that came with the original WildC.A.T.S. Compendium Paperback.

[11:17] David: Brett Booth, right?

[11:19] John: Yeah, it's Brett Booth, and that's actually one of the other negative things about it, is that it starts with Issue #0, which I haven't read since I was 16, and that is just not a good comic. I remember it not being a good comic. It answers a lot of questions, like “why did that guy walk in the room right then in Issue #1 of WildC.A.T.S.?” and doesn't give a lot more depth than that, and it just has worse introductions to all the characters, and it's not bad. I mean, Brett Booth didn't draw badly, or anything. It’s just not as well-drawn as WildC.A.T.S. #1. I'd recommend skipping Issue #0 until after you've read #1 through #4, where they have to fight Dan Quayle.

[11:58] David: Daemonite Dan Quayle?

[11:59] John: That’s right. 

[12:00] David: Yeah, baby.

[12:01] John: Then it's got the crossover with Cyber Force. So, there's some Silvestri stuff in it. It's got all the Cyber Force issues, which is really cool. It's also got foldouts from WildC.A.T.S. So, there's two 4-page foldouts in that issue.

[12:13] David: And they actually have the foldouts in the--

[12:15] John: Yeah.

[12:16] David: Oh, nice.

[12:17] John: Yeah. This is really well put together with all the stuff. There's a couple issues of WildC.A.T.S. that have never been reprinted, and I actually never read them. So, I think I stopped reading it during the Cyber Force crossover and didn't come back till a bit later, and never bought back to those issues, and then you get into Chris Claremont, coming in, introducing the Huntsman character, which I actually forgot, also introduces a bunch of other WildStorm characters that become important, like Savant, Zealot’s sister, Soldier, who I didn't remember at all, and Mister Majestic, who is called out, immediately, as having the worst name I've ever heard of a character. It's a Burt Reynolds movie, based on an Elmore Leonard novel, called Mr. Majestyk, and they just named the character that. Then it gets into when James Robinson and Travis Charest come on. It also has the WildC.A.T.S. Trilogy, by Jae Lee, the special by Steve Gerber and Travis Charest, all the little individual one-off stuff is there.

All of it's really good, up to that point, and then it, weirdly, has the last James Robinson issue before Alan Moore comes on, which is a Robinson/Charest issue, but it's Part 2 of WildStorm Rising, and at that point, the story is completely incomprehensible, because it doesn't have the rest of WildStorm Rising, which is strange. For everything being so complete up to that point, to just throw in an issue of that, at that point, it just doesn't make sense anymore. You’ve missed at least one chapter of the story, maybe two. I forget. It's got the incomprehensible Team One WildC.A.T.S. and Team One: StormWatch series that does this thing that WildStorm used to do a bunch, which is tell the same story from different perspectives, but that's not interesting. It's just not interesting to read the same story from different perspectives. They’re not radically different. It's one that's maybe about more StormWatch-ish characters. It kind of falls apart at the end.

[14:19] David: I was going to say, I don't think I'm even remotely interested or following any of that stuff, by the time you hit that.

[14:25] John: The Robinson/Charest issues, I think, are great, and then the next issues, Alan Moore comes on. That is a tremendous run, I think, when it's Alan Moore’s writing the B-team, re-introducing Tao, who later went on to be the bad guy in Sleeper. Anyway, that was my Christmas reading.

[14:42] David: You did quite a chunk of reading. I've been doing Keith Giffen's Legion of Superheroes.

[14:51] John: I have a set of that that I started reading, and that I'm meaning to come back and read again. How is it?

[14:55] David: It's really good. I'm still in the Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen Edition.

[14:59] John: Oh, okay.

[15:01] David: Early 80s. I want to say it's ‘82/’83, somewhere around there, maybe. It’s very classic, turn of 1980s-style storytelling, where there's just crazy stuff happening, and the thing that is used to make the stories intricate is just a lot of different characters all having these very simple storylines happening to them. One character is having a relationship issue, and then another character is having a power issue. So, that’s the layered sophisticated storytelling that’s happening. So, it's interesting to read it. It's really fun to see early Keith Giffen art, and just to know, man, in less than 10 years, this guy's doing Trencher, which is the most wacky, oddball art style that I think anybody's ever conceived. So, it's pretty fun to see that early stuff, and I'm excited to finish off the Paul Levitz run and dive into when Keith Giffen takes over the book. I've been reading that. It’s a good read. It's good stuff.

[16:09] John: I read The Great Darkness Saga. It really hits me as being a lot like Teen Titans and X-Men from that era it.

[16:18] David: Definitely not the same. I did a recent run of the early Claremont stuff—Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, Claremont X-Men stuff. You can see Paul Levitz trying to riff off of that, and Marv Wolfman, probably, more specifically, Marv Wolfman/George Pérez stuff. He's pulling it off but he's not pulling it off to the level of sophistication, for lack of a better word, that those guys were pulling it off at, but it's good. It's good stuff. Definitely can see why Legion of Superheroes, in the late 70s and early 80s, I think, was probably one of the more popular titles, definitely at DC, but in all of comics.

[16:56] John: It was so separate from everything else. X-Men would still crossover with things, and Teen Titans […] characters from other comics, and stuff. I tried getting into it a couple times when I was a kid, and it's just, there's so many characters in that. I always found it hard, but sitting down and reading a bunch of it was really interesting. Giffen’s Five Years Later stuff is wild when that happens.

[17:22] David: Yeah, I know what's coming, and I'm excited for it, but I'm not there yet.

[17:26] John: Even though I wasn't into it, just remembering the time of it, and remembering that was making a darker Legion, or something, the fact that the Giffen Five Years Later stuff is older now than the Legion of Superheroes was when Giffen did that is wild, because I think the Legion of Superheroes as being a million years old, but it's not. Anyway.

[17:49] David: We're already 1/4 of the way through the 21st Century.

[17:52] John: Yeah, I know. Best one yet.

[17:56] David: But we're not here for that, John. We're here to make some bold predictions, John. Our bold predictions for the comic book industry in 2025. John, take it away.

[18:08] John: This is your idea. You're starting.

[18:12] David: All right, I'll start.

[18:13] John: We put a lot of work into this. Are these predictions that are verifiable or “here's where I think the trend is going to go”?

[18:21] David: I think we should do that, but I think we need more people, so we can have more skin in the game, and actually make people pay us money when their predictions don't come true, but I know you don't have any money, and I don't have any money. So, it's pointless for us to bet against each other.

[18:35] John: We’re two guys with 100% accuracy rating. We're going to tie. We need somebody else just to come in to lose.

[18:42] David: Right. Yeah. So, what is the bet here? Whoever's predictions most come true, then I don't know.

[18:53] John: We have to make the other person read a comic, or something.

[18:58] David: We did not discuss how we're going to do this. So, I thought, let’s start with the big-hitters, John, because we're trying to get more than 4 listeners. So, we have to talk about the topics top-of-mind to the most amount of people. So, I started with Marvel. Basically, my predictions for Marvel are just a lot of Marvel-bashing.

[19:16] John: Oh, no. Okay.

[19:18] David: So, looking at 2024, I felt like, Marvel, I don't want to say they had a down year, but I just felt like there was a lot of weaknesses in Marvel, in this past year. Whenever Amazing Spider-Man is not the top-selling book, I think Marvel is going to struggle, and I think Amazing Spider-Man is going to continue to struggle in 2025. I think they've taken steps to try to freshen up what's going on, but everything I’ve read and seen, and obviously this is on social media, so it's a pretty small slice, but people are just not happy with the direction of Amazing Spider-Man. I think the Joe Kelly stuff was more controversial than it needed to be. They haven't brought an artist to the table that's really caught people's attention or caught the zeitgeist, in a way, recently, and they seem to be leaning in on guys like John Romita Jr. and Ed McGuinness, who are fantastic and great, but also have been with that property for decades – literally, decades. So, I'm worried about Marvel. I think they're going to weaken further in 2025. I think they have to find a way to truly right the ship on Amazing Spider-Man. They've got to bring some new energy, art-wise, into that book, and I think if they can do that in 2025, their things are going to be good, but if they don't get Amazing Spider-Man right soon, I'm worried for the direction of where everything is going over there.

That speaks to a larger concern of mine with Marvel—and I've said this many times—I feel like, artistically, they've lost their way, and it's odd to me that I'm saying that, because it's never been the case for me, as a fan of Marvel comic books, and I am a massive fan of a lot of Marvel stuff, or have been, historically, but it really feels like they're putting all of their money and budget into 15 different variant covers by some really great artists, instead of taking those exact same artists and putting the money and budget into having them create interiors. So, we're getting this weird effect, where you're getting somebody really cool, like Taurin Clarke, who’s doing these cool covers, or Rachta Lin, just cool cover artists, but you're not seeing any of their interiors. What we're getting on the interiors is guys who are journeymen, for lack of a better term. It is going to be the case sometimes, I certainly understand it, but it seems it's all the time, on every book that Marvel's putting out recently. There’s not a lot of guys that are really exciting me over there, that are doing interiors. So, I'm a little concerned about what's going on over there, in a larger way. It feels to me like they are trying to keep their budgets under a certain level, and that's not allowing for certain levels of talent to do interiors, and I think that is a massive mistake, if that's what's going on.

On the positive side, I think Marvel Rivals has been a pretty big hit for them. I think it's going to inform what Marvel Comics is doing in 2025. We'll see what the movies do. If the movies are a hit, then maybe everything Marvel turns to gold again, but it seems maybe something like Marvel Rivals, with Jeff The Shark, leaning into some of that stuff, or leaning big into some of the Marvel Rivals stuff might be a path for them forward, but in general, I think we're going to see-- I'm hoping that they figure it out, but it seems like they haven't figured it out. There is one bright spot. Ultimate Line seems to be doing pretty good. I hope they don't cannibalize it. I've talked about that as well. Having a really concise, tight line of 4 books that's easy to follow, one coming out each week, and easy to come in every week and grab that, as a customer, that makes sense. That’s really good, but they’ve already beefed that up to, I think, 6 titles, and who knows how many, by the end of 2025, and I'm worried that they're going to cannibalize their own sales on the Ultimate Line, but we'll see how it goes.

My most bold prediction is that, going back to Amazing Spider-Man, I think that they're going to see what Hickman is doing on Ultimate Spider-Man, and they're going to find ways to fold—they're not going to make Ultimate Spider-Man the main Spider-Man, but they're going to fold storylines from Ultimate Spider-Man into Amazing Spider-Man and make the main line, 616 Amazing Spider-Man, far more in line with some of the basics of what you're seeing in Ultimate Spider-Man. I don't think they're going to age him up or anything, but they're going to somehow get Mary Jane and Spider-Man back to square one again. We'll see.

[24:20] John: Yeah. It's funny because it's not like having kids is the only thing in Ultimate Spider-Man that makes him seem older, that you couldn't play exactly the same way with main line Spider-Man. You can see that throughout the years. You play with the age. He was older when Straczynski was writing him, while he was Welcome Back Kotter, coming back to teach in school. He got younger during Brand New Day. Not the character, literally. I just mean, the way they played him. It was very intentional. That's the fun of these characters. You can play around with their ages with the way you treat them. They were different in different eras, a little bit, but I think you're probably right. I think it's just going to be pushing more towards that. It's funny. John Romita Jr.'s been drawing Spider-Man, depending on what you count it from, very close to as long as I've been alive. He was literally drawing the comic within a year of me being born, but he created the Prowler earlier than that, when he was a kid. I think JRJr’s great, but there's nothing exciting about “he's drawing Spider-Man,” and that's one of my worries.

With Marvel, a lot of times, they seem like they’ve become more conservative with how they've put people on books, where the hot, young artist doesn't get Amazing Spider-Man. The people who've been there for a long time get it, and that wasn't the way Marvel worked, for a long time. That was actually one of the pluses. I don't want to not have these veteran artists, like JRJr—Ed McGuiness isn't as old as him but old enough that that's a legacy artist now, or even Hickman, as well. As much as I hate to admit that, he's a guy that's been there for a really long time, and is from a different era of Marvel than there is now, or came from a different era, and I feel like they've had a tougher time blowing up new names into being as big as big as the graduating class of Hickman, where it was Hickman, Kieron Gillen, Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Marjorie Liu, this crew that came up around that time. Not flawless or anything, but I think that’s a canny observation.

[26:36] David: That's a good way to put it, John – conservative. Maybe that's the better term, or the better feeling over there, it seems. Yeah, you're right. It’s too conservative. Comic books are at their best, in my opinion, when they're rock'n'roll. They're not supposed to be perfect. It’s the energy of the thing, for me, at least. That's the juice. That’s the thing that makes comic books interesting. So, take that element of hanging on by a bare thread. When you take that element of rock'n'roll out of it, and make it conservative, it's not comics. It's not entertaining. That doesn't have the opportunity to break out. You're going to know the numbers, and you're going to get exactly what you think you're going to get.

[27:18] John: Yeah. I think there's something […]. If John Romita Jr is going to draw a Spider-Man comic, I want it to be a special Spider-Man comic. I want it to be him doing Dark Knight, or something. Again, I really like John Jr. I worked with him a lot on Kick-Ass, and stuff, but he's pushing 70. He’s not as young as he was when he started. I know he's not usually a writer. I don't think he wants to write, or he didn't before. Maybe he does now. I don't know. I'd rather see him doing something with a special, unique Spider-Man book that’s the best John Romita Spider-Man book. I wouldn't want 70-year-old Will Eisner coming back and doing new Spirit stories in the style of the 1940s Spirit stuff when he was in his 70s. I wanted to see him doing Contract with God. I wanted to see him do the stuff he was doing. So, I don't know if there's a place to move JRJr there, but that kind of artist. There's some of these guys that I think should have moved up to prestige projects.

[28:18] David: I don't know if there's a book that John Romita Jr hasn't drawn at Marvel, but I agree. John Romita Jr still, for me, is really good. I do think he's lost his step, but I think he's just really great. Put him on a New Warriors book, or something. Let's see him do something else or, to your point, that prestige story, with that prestige writer, doing that prestige book, where he's really taking the time, although I don't know that John Romita Jr knows how to take time to draw a page.

[28:51] John: Well, yeah, that's true. Yeah, and there is the part of stunt casting inking the way, when Sienkiewicz came on to Sal Buscema in the 90s, it made Sal Buscema a new artist. It turned Sal into something that was really--

[29:06] David: But still not on Spider-Man, is my point.

[29:09] John: Yes. Anyway. All right.

[29:12] David: So, there's my bold prediction for Marvel, John. 2025 is going to be a down year for Marvel. They need to breathe life into Amazing Spider-Man, specifically in the art, interior art, and Jeff the Shark is going to not jump the shark in 2025.

[29:30] John: I want to preface this here by saying that I feel pretty optimistic about things. I think stuff's going to happen this year, and my predictions are going to be about that kind of thing. I think my predictions are going to sound really negative, but I genuinely feel better and more excited, and happier, with things right now, professionally speaking, than I have in a while. I was telling that to somebody, and he was like, “oh. So, comics are really going well?” No. So, I think like all media right now, it's in a re-sorting-out period. I think there's going to be some weird casualties, and stuff. This is my prediction, and I don't know what number to say, because I'm pretty sure I have some inside information about something. I think 2 to 3 of the big Venture Capital-based IP farm-type companies are going to go out of business this year.

[30:27] David: Shocking, John.

[30:28] John: Yeah, but some of it’s going to be minor, like “Oh, yeah, that happened.” I think some of this stuff might be a little bigger than that, just in the chickens coming home to roost, in terms of getting millions of dollars to make money off of something that can't possibly make millions of dollars. Traditional comic sales are challenging. Hits can be hits, and then that can overcome the stuff, but when you have that capital money getting shoveled in there, and it's going up against big legacy companies, like Marvel, Image, and DC, that are on relatively solid footing and are cornering one side of the market, and then you've got these traditional book companies—you've got Penguin Random House, and you’ve got Scholastic putting out graphic novels in another sector. I think the health of comics is positive, but I think you're going to wind up with the health of where comics are radically shifting, and I think that that's a corridor that is not as open to success as, clearly, some venture capitalists think, but I just think that actually selling the comics is going to be hard, and we're in a very down period in media. You're not automatically getting option money and money to make money off of other media. The collapse of TV, and I don't know, the unpredictability of the box office, compared to where it was pre-pandemic.

[31:49] David: I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I feel like you could make that prediction almost every year, but I think, in particular, there's been some big moves in the last two years, that I can think of, that I don't have any inside information on, whatsoever, but I'm sure they're being funded by Venture Capital, and there's two ways I think, in general, to make money in comics, as a publisher. One is to have, a big enough back catalog that you've got evergreen sales of collections that are going at a fairly regular steady pace, and if you don't have that, what you need is a big hit, and if you don't have either one of those things, you're not going to be around very long. You’ve got a finite amount of time to get one of those things together, and I haven't seen anything like that in the last two years, where you have a publisher coming out of nowhere who's got the next hot, big thing. I haven't seen it. Not in the traditional direct market, at least. I agree with you. I think, you and I are probably not saying which ones we think it is, but I bet we're thinking about the same ones, and I'm sure that's going to happen, but don't worry, John, because there will be a whole new, fresh round of Venture Capital coming in, with new publishers. I think Ignition Press is going to do fantastic this year, in 2025.

[33:14] John: When you look back at the companies that have become really successful, or that were really successful—Dark Horse, IDW, for a long time. This is a great example. That’s not a slam on IDW. This is a place we worked. So, we saw the way that this worked. Boom!, VIZ, even, in the US. They started small, and built up around what they were doing, and didn’t outreach. They weren't coming on like CrossGen did, which is always fascinating, where they're shooting T-shirts out into the crowd at San Diego ComiCon, with T-shirt guns. They've got a modest booth, and they build up from there, and build on the successes, and that's a healthy way to go, I think, and you saw a lot of companies just trying to come out with “here, there’s a hole in the market, where we can fill it with 10 books.” Well, there isn't that hole in the market. Anyway, that's my prediction. So, there you go.

[34:10] David: Yeah, it's a good one. My next prediction, again, speaking to the big tentpole stuff—DC. The year DC is here. I think the Absolute Line is going to continue to see success. It'll be interesting to see if they can survive the cannibalization, that is certainly coming, of that line. Will that line sustain more than the three books that it's sustaining right now, and I think you've mentioned this before, John, what happens when we get to the issue 7/8/9/10/11/12 of the first three issues, where you've got fill-in artists, and what's that going to look like? So, it’ll be interesting to see how DC navigates that, but the way they've been navigating things the last couple years since the new editor-in-chief came in, I'm feeling confident that they're going to continue to go in the right direction. I think Mark Waid's going to continue to see a Renaissance at DC. His Justice League Unlimited, I think, is going to have an outsized proportion of weight on the mainline Universe stories. I think Mark Waid is going to probably run the entire mainline DC story channels, and I read the first issue of Justice League Unlimited, and it's exactly that. Mark Waid’s Justice League Unlimited is the nexus of the mainline Universe. At least, that's what it seems like they're trying to do with that book, and I'm in for it. I actually really liked that first issue, and Dan Mora is just really great. So, I'm interested to see how that works. I'm cool with Mark Waid taking over a little bit more of the, I don't know, being driving force behind the main line. I think that could work.

I think DC is going to be the place, in 2025, where we will see a breakout artistic talent, if we see one. I think they're much more primed for that, and they seem much more capable now, more than any other time, since I've been reading comics, to do that. I think they're taking more risks, and I don't know if it'll happen, but if we do get a breakout talent in 2025, I think, from one of the Big Two, it's definitely going to be DC, or one of the Big Three, even. I think it's definitely going to be somebody in DC, and then my third prediction, I want to be careful how I word this, but a lot of the bigger-named artists, at DC and Marvel, we've got a really international flavor to the artists that are coming in from Marvel and DC. DC, in particular, you have some guys that I think are just top-notch, and it'll be interesting to see if any of those really big, growing names, artistic talents, at DC finally take over the reins of the story side of things, as well, where we're getting more foreign-born writer-artists. I think we're going to see some of that, potentially, in 2025, where you've got a guy Jorge Jimenez, who, rather than working with a writer, he's taking over the full control of art and story reigns.

I think things like ChatGPT, which can do amazing things, in terms of translating script, that might be a tool that's going to enable more foreign-born artistic talent to become the writer-artist that I'm sure many of them want to be, but the language barrier has prohibited that, or slowed that. So, I think in 2025, possibly, we're going to see more of the writer-artists, specifically at DC, these bigger-name talents taking over the full reigns, which I can't wait for. I think historically, when you have a writer-artist, many times, those generate the best runs. The Frank Millers, and the Walt Simonsons, and the Howard Chaykins of the world, their most exciting stuff is when they're handling it all. Even Rob Liefeld. I’m hoping that happens. I'm hoping that things like AI will give people the tools they need to really take on both roles more easily. So, that's my big bold prediction for DC, for 2025.

[38:34] John: I think Marie Javins, as editor-in-chief there, has done a really great job. This is the outside perspective on it. I don't really know what's going on inside Marvel, or inside DC, or anything. DC seems to be having a well-coordinated, multifaceted approach to things, where they're playing to a lot of their strengths. Mark Waid, I think, there’s a linchpin to them having a really active direct market, 2024/2025, weekly comic book sales, line of comics, where Waid hits that demographic of, the audience in those stores is probably 30/40/50/60-years-old, more than they are 8/9/10/11/12-years-old. Mark Waid has the reverence to the past, while still having a really dynamic way of storytelling that fits in just perfectly there. He's the opposite of what we were saying about Marvel, even though he's exactly in that same demographic as Ed McGuinness, or somebody. Mark Waid has been doing this for a real long time. There's a part of him that still stays fresh and exciting within that milieu. I wouldn't put him on the stuff you're targeting at kids. The kids can go read the stuff, but that's not the target on it, and I think DC’s refocusing a poorly-constructed YA middle-grade line of books, and refocusing that onto, “well, here's the Kami Garcia Teen Titans books from that,” and those work. Those sell like crazy. People really like them, and it makes sense, because there's kids that grew up with Teen Titans, but now they want to see a more adult-ish Teen Titans, and that's there for them, and it’s in a format they like, and a writing style they like, art style they like, and it's not “well, what if Bruce Wayne liked cars?” There's not that kind of storytelling to it. So, I think they've been really smart with that.

We were talking about those Compact Editions that they put out. I actually bought some of them, because it was a sale at Amazon, and there were some where it’s like, “I would like to have a book that has all the Darwyn Cooke Catwoman stuff.” I think some stuff. Yeah. I was talking about that WildC.A.T.S. Compendium, there was a time where DC Paperbacks were all like that, where you get to the end of it, and it's like, “okay, well, now I have to go read three other paperbacks to read the next issue in this paperback,” because they're just reprinting 5 or 6 issues at a time, with no consideration for the package of it. Yeah, this is stuff that, it's got all these backup stories for Catwoman that I'd never read. It's cool. It's great. You can read all of Far Sector in one sitting, or the Alan Moore/Grant Morrison/Yanick Paquette Wonder Woman, three Earth One graphic novels, and that whole publishing initiative is long gone, not headed anywhere, but here's a trilogy of Wonder Woman stories you can pull out and show somebody with a beginning, middle, and end that's readable. That's a really smart front on that, and the format’s nice and readable. It's not so small the stuff's difficult to read—not to harp on little things like that, but that's a layer that it's working at really well, and I think they’re experimenting and doing weirder stuff. I mean, Rafael Grampá's Batman comic, which Issue #3 finally came out over the holidays.

[42:09] David: Finally. Oh, my God.

[42:09] John: But that's a perfect example. I don't think he's a native US speaker, originally.

[42:17] David: I don’t think so.

[42:19] John: I think that's an example of what you're talking about, where it's like, here's somebody that's just visually really cool and drawing a story they’re going to draw. It isn't that Marvel doesn't do that stuff, but the stuff, when they do it, seems so far afield from the main line of whatever Marvel is doing that it feels more like an afterthought than a coordinated approach, and I don't know if that's a failure in the content, or just a failure in the positioning of it. I might be off base, but that's just what it looks like from here.

[42:49] David: Yeah, I agree with that.

[42:50] John: It seems like it would have behooved them to have a bunch of really cool Wolverine books coming out when the Deadpool/Wolverine movie came out, stuff that didn't have anything do with anything.

[43:00] David: Like these cool collections, is what you're saying, that were stories that had beginning, middle, and ends.

[43:04] John: What if Rafa Grampá had been doing Wolverine instead of Batman, and “here's a Wolverine story,” and what's it about? Whatever. It's about Rafa Grampá drawing it really cool. What if it had been a really cool Christian Ward Wolverine story? What if they just played into this, like, “here's their popular character […].”

[43:23] David: Yeah, exactly that.

[43:28] David: Did you see the Superman trailer?

[43:30] David: I did, yeah.

[43:31] John: Did you like it?

[43:32] David: Yeah, I thought it was okay.

[43:33] John: I like James Gunn.

[43:35] David: I have a lot of faith in James Gunn. 

[43:36] John: I do, too.

[43:37] David: I loved Guardians of the Galaxy—loved Guardians of the Galaxy. All three movies. Loved them, and the TV show.

[43:44] John: Peacemaker.

[43:45] David: Peacemaker. I am the biggest John Cena fan now, and it's just because of Peacemaker. I had zero association with that guy before, but wow, Peacemaker was so good. So, I've got a lot of faith in James Gunn's ability to deliver. While the trailer was just like, “that's just a movie trailer,” and it looked kind of cool, but it didn't blow me away. I'm going to be watching that Superman movie, day one. There's no doubt.

[44:13] John: I agree, but I think that that Superman movie is going to have a lot to overcome. So, I don't even know if this is really a prediction, but my prediction is that it's going to underperform, and superhero movies, in general, are also going to do that, not out of the same setup of what Kraven was doing, where that just shouldn't have been made. I don't know that people who aren't intimately familiar with James Gunn—James Gunn's relationship with comics, James Gunn's relationship with fiction—Look at that trailer and see anything other than, “well, didn't a different guy play Superman on movies and TV just really recently?” I think it's really hard to reboot a DC universe in this environment where nobody cared about the last several years of DC movies, and even then, I mean, James Gunn's Suicide Squad movie was terrific, and didn't do that well. I appreciate that they have faith in him, and hopefully, the word-of-mouth on it, assuming it is a good movie, does it. Me, I see Krypto, and I liked it because I thought, “well, it's going to be another dark Superman thing,” setting it up like that, and then the dog shows up, and it's like, “oh, that's cool. It's crazy science fiction Superman, and all these superheroes.” It looks like a lot of fun, but the weight of everything against it might help sink it. So, not as much of a prediction as a “here's what I think is going to have to happen for that thing to overcome it and have a change.” What Marvel movies are coming out this year? I should know that offhand.

[45:42] David: I think the new Captain America is going to be out. I think that that might be the next one out.

[45:48] John: Yeah, I think that's going to be tough to build a lot excitement about—all of those […].

[45:52] David: We definitely seem to be in a situation where we've got full saturation of Marvel and DC superhero movies and television. It does seem like, if Superman was put on the shelf for 10 years or 15 years, and it was just being taken back off the shelf with James Gunn, then it would feel like a no-brainer, but I agree that James Gunn's got a lot to overcome on this one. I think there is a path to success, though, but you're right. Movies, in particular, are weird. Something like Mad Max: Furiosa, I'm stunned that that movie didn't, on opening day—because the previous Mad Max movie was one of the best movies I've ever seen in my life, and Furiosa just sat there. It did not launch.

[46:37] John: Yeah, it's tough, because that was a movie like, “here's a Mad Max movie unlike anything you've ever seen on the screen.”

[46:43] David: Yeah, but you didn’t necessarily know that on day one, is what I'm saying. It didn't even launch big. There's no such thing as hype, I guess, is what it seems like, around movies these days. Everything is, if it's being talked about, discussed about, at all, it's in a negative light. So, I don't know. I think you're absolutely right. I think the pitfalls and potential for bad things to happen are all over the place. I don't know. I'm so excited for that movie. The trailer certainly didn't dampen that excitement, in any way. I do hope that it does well, and I do have a lot of faith in James Gunn and his ability to rock a good story and make a great movie. So, fingers crossed. I’d really love for there to be a good Superman movie that I enjoy. It's been a very long time since I've had that.

[47:32] John: Okay, but here's the other trick with that, though—if you like Superman, if you like watching Superman stuff, there's a Superman TV show that Superman fans really loved, that ended last year. We're saying this, January 3rd. So, last year was not very long ago, but it ended months ago. A new Superman movie coming out months from now. There’s going to six years between Matt Reeves Batman movies. There's a longer gap between the Robert Pattinson Batman movie and the next Robert Pattinson Batman movie than there is between a complete Superman reboot, and that's the last time you saw-- well, you know what? Maybe I'm proving my point wrong here, because Michael Keaton did play Batman in the Flash. So, I guess he has appeared in movies in-between.

[48:23] David: That's a good point. Yeah, I won't be surprised if that prediction comes true. I'm hoping for more, just because I like it when Marvel and DC succeed.

[48:33] John: Oh, yeah. I'm not hoping for that one to come true, but I am thoroughly looking forward to this movie, and I will be happy if I'm wrong.

[48:45] David: Here's my last prediction for this upcoming 2025 year.

[48:48] John: Okay.

[48:49] David: The last of the three big publishers, North American comic book direct market publishers, Image Comics—I have one incredibly bold prediction. Rob Liefeld's Youngblood is going to set sales records in 2025, John.

[49:04] John: Wow. All right. Well, I'll be there. Is it Rob drawing?

[49:11] David: I think he's drawing it.

[49:13] John: Is he writing?

[49:14] David: He'll probably be writing and drawing the first issue, and then, who knows what happens after that, but I know that Deadpool Team-Up seems like it just did okay, or maybe slightly above average, but I think Rob Liefeld returning to the property for the first time in a while, that launched Image Comics, with some fairly decent positioning by Image, could be a real big thing. We're at that 30-year mark, I think. I think there's enough nostalgia and fandom around Rob Liefeld, thanks to Deadpool, and to a lesser-degree, Cable, and some of the other properties that he's done, like X-Force. I think there's enough nostalgia and goodwill around him that a new Youngblood could do real numbers. So, I'm only half joking when I say I think it's going to actually do really big numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if it actually just blows up and becomes this big thing, just for the first issue or two. I think, after that, the hype will probably die down, and who knows how many issues Rob would be able to commit to fully, anyway?

[50:20] John: Yeah, I was thinking about what other licensed stuff would potentially blow up the way Transformers and G.I. Joe did, the way ThunderCats did, and maybe going into that stuff in a big way is the right move after that. I don't know. Yeah, I think you might be on to something. That could really welcome in a new tide of how to look at stuff from that time period. This jaded looking at it, like, “oh, he drew a lot of pouches,” that's played out. It's far enough away in the distance.

[50:52] David: I think there are enough working artists today, that were influenced by Rob Liefeld, that loved his work, that are in comics because of his work, the first 10 or 15 years of him working at Image Comics, and those first couple years at Marvel, as well. I think it’s got potential. That's an interesting spin, though, to think that Image Comics would turn into more of a version of Marvel and DC, where they're bringing back these characters.

[51:22] John: I don't know. Reading that WildC.A.T.S Compendium and being reminded of all the—Youngblood shows up in there—being reminded of that early excitement with the Image stuff of “there's a back story to these characters, but you don't know it yet, and there's all these new things you can do, and there's Cyberdata, and they're doing bad stuff in Cyber Force, but then they're showing up in Youngblood.” That excitement was real then. That really was exciting to see.

[51:52] David: Yeah, everything was new.

[51:54] John: Yeah. To see all these characters. You're reading WildC.A.T.S., and all of a sudden, Youngblood shows up, because that's who’d do that if they exist in the universe is, the government would call them in, and also being reminded, there's a lot of characters in there with a lot of really cool potential for storytelling, the same way that a lot of the 90s characters at Marvel or DC have a lot of potential for storytelling, without doing something that's either radically opposed to what the original one was, which could be fun, but without doing that, or without doing something that's just a parody or “what if these guys got old, or something?” All those things that made sense, at a certain time, that there's great stories about. That's not a slam on Local Man. I love Local Man, but you’ve got Local Man now. What's the next way to look at this stuff? Maybe it is just doing straight-up Youngblood in the style of an exciting comic today. Media superstars. What does that mean in the world today? And not trying to refit those characters into places they don't fit in. There's nothing interesting about putting Mr. Majestic on the Justice League. The only thing interesting about that is the history of the WildC.A.T.S. and the Kherubim and Daemonite war, and all that bullshit. That's what makes that character work, and you can't just drop them into some other universe and be like, “well, he's got a hat.”

So, I've got my last one here. I'm going to go out on a limb, and I'm going to make a real clear—you're going to be able to see if I'm right or wrong about this. Diamond's going to go out of business.

[53:36] David: Yeah. That's in 2025?

[53:38] John: Yes.

[53:39] David: I won't be surprised, at all, if that prediction comes true. We've talked about this a couple times, but the second Boom! got bought, it felt like that was the death knell. I've been saying it ever since that moment, and we're seeing it with the closing of one of the distribution [centers], and you’re seeing all kinds of retailers talking about late books, and also, there's rumors that Diamond's not paying bills. So, I think you're right, and I'm sure that that's going to put some people, some comic book shops, out of business, but God, I hope they're diversifying their distribution channels. How many more canaries in the coal mine do you need before you stop having Diamond be your only distribution channel? That's not smart business. I'm hoping that we don't lose too many stores from this. Diamond going out of business 10 years ago would have been the end of the comic book industry, quite literally, but I don't know that that's what that means in 2025.

[54:44] John: Were something like that come to pass, and this is not with any inside information, by the way—I do work with Diamond, and again, I hope I'm wrong. I don't mean to be rooting for this. I do think that there's a lot of stores that are still relying on Diamond as their source, because they're still able to get books through Diamond from PRH. You're still able to get PRH books via Diamond, because PRH will sell to Diamond, and I think there's the momentum on that, and also, the part that I think a lot of stores—the storefront aspect of the store isn't the main money-making part of the store anymore. They’re stores that are selling online, doing exclusive covers, selling variants, doing back issue sales—especially the high-end back issue sales—the stuff that goes for 10s of thousands of dollars, or something, not the stuff I buy for twos and threes of dollars. I almost wonder if the idea of there being just a comic bookstore is going to have to evolve. It would have to evolve if something like this happened, where you're going to have stores that are “here's where you go to get the Mark Waid comics from,” then “here's a broader pop culture store that sells manga and graphic novels,” and you can get your Batman stuff there, because that’s still comics, but it's not going to be the same experience of going in there, and “here's a wall of every comic that's out there,” the way that I like, and the way that I'll miss.

[56:12] David: Yeah. It doesn't seem like, as an outsider looking in, it doesn't even seem like Diamond is particularly interested in staying in business. Maybe I've said this before, but it seems like Steve Geppi, the owner of Diamond, is just like, “well, I've made my millions. If it goes away, who cares? I don't.” I don't know. It doesn't seem like he's hungry or motivated to do things differently, or do more.

[56:41] John: It's also worth throwing out there, though, that Diamond doesn't only distribute comics. They are also a game distributor. They distribute other products to other stores. I think a lot of that's been--

[56:52] David: Pivoting to different things to distribute.

[56:56] John: Yeah. Possibly, the changes in the comics market affect the business enough to do damage to the perfectly healthy part of Diamond, as well. That's the sort of thing that does kill a lot of businesses is, part of it's working really great, and part of it's not. I think, all three of mine, I'm pretty much hoping they don't come true.

[57:18] David: My Marvel predictions, for sure, I hope. I don't think Marvel's going to do bad. I just think they're going to have a down year. I think it’s DC's year in 2025, the way things are shaping up. That's all. All right, John. That was cool, interesting, bold.

[57:30] John: Yeah. I just wanted to have one real bold one there. No offense to everybody at Diamond. I love you guys.

[57:36] David: No, yeah. We're not wishing bad things for anybody. Good health and good success for all parts of the comic book industry.

[57:44] John: Hear, hear. All right. Well, get back to surfing, or whatever you're doing out there.

[57:49] David: All right. Will do.

[57:50] John: All right. Thanks a lot for joining us on The Corner Box. We'll talk to everybody next time. Who knows what's going to happen? See you here.

[57:56] David: You can't predict what we're going to do next.

[57:59] John: Bingo. That's great.

[58:00] David: Bye, everybody.

[58:01] John: Bye.

Thanks for joining us, and please subscribe, rate, and tell your friends about us. You can find updates and links at www.thecornerbox.club and we’ll be back next week with more from David and John, here at The Corner Box.