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] David Hedgecock: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to The Corner Box. I'm your host, David Hedgecock, and with me, as always, is my very good friend,

[00:35] John Barber: John Barber.

[00:36] David: John Barber, that handsome devil. John, how’re you doing?

[00:42] John: I’m doing all right. It's been quite a year for comics already.

[00:45] David: Yeah. It's been the most momentous three weeks of my comic book life, I think. There’s quite a lot to talk about, but we're going to ignore all of that, John, and talk about a book from 1974 today.

[00:55] John: 1974?

[00:56] David: It's a reprint of a book from 19-- No, John. I’m kidding. We can't ignore the news of the day, John. We have to be talking about the things that are happening right now. We're trying to get more than four listeners, John. So, we have to be very topical with our topics.

[01:13] John: With pineapples and coconuts? Oh, that's tropical.

[01:18] David: Right. I don't know. Do you want to toot your own horn here?

[01:24] John: Yes. That's why I came. So, as we're recording this, we just released the predictions for 2025, and already, Diamond Comics has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That's one for me. No, I mean, they're still in business, joking aside. It's just, who knows?

[01:42] David: No, no, John. I feel you made a bold prediction for 2025, and we posted it on our podcast, and literally one hour later, Diamond Comics declared bankruptcy to the public. Was it our fault? Steve Geppi, he's probably one of our four listeners, and he was like, “oh, well then, forget it. Why even bother? I'm out of here.” Dang, John. You're one for one, and that is very impressive. Are you some Nostradami?

[02:13] John: Hey, just wait till 6 PM. That's probably too bold. I don't even remember what other things-- I think some of it was the box office for movies not coming out for six months. Yeah. I don't know if we'll know that, for sure, by this afternoon.

[02:28] David: I'm a little bummed. It's the end of an era, John—Diamond Comics going into bankruptcy. I don't know if that means they're going to go out of business, but it seems like, yeah, that could be a thing. I was talking to Chase, editor-in-chief of Fun Time Go, and Chase, I was telling him, “man, if Diamond Comics had declared bankruptcy in 2010, that would have been the end of comic books in North America.” Legit, that would have been the end of things. There’s no way, in 2010, that the comic book industry could have let Diamond Distribution fail. It was too big to fail, literally, and now, in 2024, it feels like—I'm sure there are going to be retailers out there that are going to feel the pain of this, and I'm feeling bad for them. I'm sure they're already feeling pain, because I'm hearing from the grapevine that Diamond hasn't shipped books for a month, to some accounts, and people are not getting books, period. So, I hope that most comic book retailers are savvy enough, or have been savvy enough, to see the writing on the wall and diversify their distribution purchases so that they're not feeling too much pain from this. I really hope that Diamond isn't taking down a lot of comic bookshops, because we don't have a lot of those around to afford to lose, I think, at this point.

[03:48] John: Yeah, no, it's definitely a weird time for them, in the sense that, I think a lot of retailers were ordering through Diamond, but Diamond was buying from other distributors.

[03:58] David: This is all happening in real-time, for us. There’s a couple things that have been on my mind. One, with this new advent of multiple distributors, I wonder what the retailer discounts are these days. If Diamond was your only distribution partner, your discounts could get pretty steep. You could get a really good discount, by the time you were racking up a big enough bill. So, I know that there were accounts that were getting 55/60% off cover, for their discount, and that can't possibly be the case now, with Marvel in one hand and DC in another, and a bunch of other indies in another. I wonder what the average retailer discount is these days. I wonder if they're even hitting 45%, and that's a big number to lose. Even if it's 5%, can you imagine cutting 5% off the top of your gross, just because? That seems bad.

[04:53] John: I definitely agree, and I think that is why some retailers were continuing to order through Diamond, was to get that high level of discount.

[05:01] David: Would that have been the reason to keep Diamond?

[05:03] John: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't know how that financially works, for Diamond. You know what? Not super good.

[05:15] David: Yeah, I feel like that evidence is right there for us to find. I wonder if we can get the owner of SoCal comics on here and chat with us about all this stuff. That would be fun, to chat with somebody, a retailer, to get their take on this stuff. The other thing that was occurring to me, just before we got on, was, I wonder what that means for the publishers who, I think, are still exclusive at Diamond. Isn't Dynamite an exclusive partner with Diamond?

[05:41] John: […].

[05:42] David: I wonder what that's going to mean for those guys that are exclusive, for the direct market, at least.

[05:49] John: Yeah, that's--

[05:51] David: Because if anybody has benefited from the big cats leaving the Diamond distribution channel, it's Dynamite. Dynamite's profile, they’ve always been that 6th or 7th publisher out there, but their profile definitely seems like it's been raised in the last two years, and I think that part of the reason for that is that they're now a big fish in a much smaller Diamond pond, and with Boom! leaving, they were going be even bigger, and more important to Diamond, but--

[06:23] John: As we're recording, Lunar made an announcement, an update, that they're going to accept late orders, late FOC, on Image Comics, to replace Diamond orders, but this implies Lunar will not be fulfilling any sub-distribution stuff. So, they're not going to ship anything to Diamond, but they're opening the window longer for retailers to place orders with Lunar.

[06:50] David: Oh, man. It's going to be chaos for the next couple of months.

[06:52] John: For Image. This e-mail’s specific to Image.

[06:58] David: Was Image still exclusive to Diamond? They weren't, right?

[07:01] John: No, they-- 

[07:05] David: So, yeah. That's just one of the things, John, that's happened in the last day and a half.

[07:11] John: Yeah. The other piece was a very lengthy and detailed report on Neil Gaiman that came out. Yeah, man. I am sorry for everyone who was hurt in that, and it's also one of those ones that's-- I mean, it's, what do you call it? I mean, it's selfish, or whatever, to think about it, but man, it's tough, for me. I imagine it's tough for other people who grew up with Gaiman.

[07:39] David: You took the wind out of my sails here, John, by taking a serious approach to this discussion.

[07:45] John: Oh, boy.

[07:46] David: I was going to lead with something that Chase told me, which was, “wow, who knew Neil Gaiman was a pervert out of British antiquity?”

[07:54] John: Yeah, I was going to go with Vertigo's Bill Cosby, but that's not exactly accurate.

[07:58] David: What was the other one you said? There was another one. Chase, in the background, saying Castle creep. I don't even know what that means. Marquis de Sade told him to calm down.

[08:15] John: This is gallows humor, everybody. This is not a laughing matter. I feel very bad for everybody. Man, that article keeps going, too.

[08:24] David: I think I can probably make light of it, because I have not read the article, because truly, the headlines for the article are so hard to read and damning that I can't even bring myself to read the article, because I don't need to expose my soul to that level of degradation. It's far beyond anything I want to be exposing myself to. Got to protect your soul, John.

[08:52] John: Yeah. I’ll resist making any exposing-yourself joke, at this time. I was talking to a friend of mine who has, over his bed, a Sandman poster, autographed by Neil Gaiman, and when he got it autographed, he presented the poster to Gaiman, and Gaiman was like, “oh, I didn't know they made this into a poster.” He goes, “oh, well, do you want this one?” He's like, “No. I have the original hanging over my bed.” So, I'm pretty sure he can get fully cancelled just by having that poster above his bed right now. For the non-victims of the actual events, or alleged events, that's the whole thing in a nutshell, I think, is just, you got the poster, you got it autographed, it means a lot to you, it’s still a beautiful poster, somebody else drew that beautiful poster. I feel justified, today, in my never having cared for Carrie Underwood's music and not having finished watching Sandman Season 1 on Netflix. I think I made the right call, as it turned out.

[09:57] David: So, confession time, for me. I've never read Sandman, John. I tried one time, and I was not into it. I didn't get it. I was like, “I guess, this is for other people. It’s not for me.” So, I've actually never been a Neil Gaiman. The only thing that I ever truly tried to read, of Neil Gaiman’s, and I still didn't really like it that much, was that 1602 thing that he did. I think he did it with Andy or Adam Kubert, or something, and it was painted by--

[10:26] John: Isanove.

[10:25] David: Yeah, Isanove, and I really gave it my all to try to like that, I did not like it. I guess, I'm feeling glad today that I was never a fan anyway. So, I don't have to deal with that the way I know other people are having to deal with it today. So, for me, it's all about, what do you do when somebody, a creative talent like this, what do we do with Neil Gaiman's work now? Do we throw that to the side? If you liked that work already, and bought and consumed that work, it's okay to keep liking that, or can we not separate those things? I'll say, for me, I've never purchased any of Neil Gaiman’s work, outside of the 1602 thing that I talked about. So, for me, moving forward, it's not hard for me to say this, but I'll certainly not be supporting that creative talent moving forward, but I was never probably going to anyway. Sandman was never really on the table, for me, and now, it’s definitely not on the table, for me. I don't want to lend support to that person anymore. If you've already purchased those things, already consumed those things, or you're wanting to get something in the secondary market that's signed by Sam Kieth, or whatever, is that still on the table, for you?

[11:59] John: That's one of the things that I hit so much with. Dave McKean sprung from this stuff. The one time I met Neil Gaiman was in, I believe, 1991 when I got my copy of Violent Cases signed by him at the Tundra booth, and I should have known then.

[12:14] David: I was going to make a poop joke, but I won't.

[12:16] John: But that’s a treasured possession of mine. It's a pretty rare comic. It’s not like I’m going to sell it. Well, now I’m definitely not.

[12:26] David: I think the value might have dropped on that, a little bit.

[12:28] John: Actually, you know what? This is America in 2025. Maybe the value shot way up. I don’t know. I haven't checked. Regardless, I joked about Cosby a second ago, but it is similar to the Cosby Show. The Cosby show is an enjoyable, well put-together show, and it's made up of a lot of other people that did a lot of good. The other people are good in the show. Lisa Bonet, when she was on there, and what's his name? The brother-- he's really good. Everybody on there. It's a well-made show. It did really positive things for a lot of people, and it's probably the first time that a lot of people found out about black universities, and stuff like that. A lot of white people found out about that, I mean. I can't sit there and watch Cosby Show, because I'm just going to be thinking about all this other stuff, and that's how I feel with Sandman right now. I'm not going to sit down and re-read Sandman, because all I'm going to be thinking about is this, but Sandman was one of those books that reached out to so many people that didn't read comics, and brought them in, showed a depth and a different way of treating people from other walks of life in the comic. It was one of the most LGBT-forward books of the 90s. There were some missteps, of it being from the 90s and not from now, when you're comparing it to today's attitudes, but its heart was in the right place. At least, it appeared that way. I don't mean to impugn the work that much, but yeah, I'm not going to go back and read Violent Cases. I can't go back and read Black Orchid right now. Those are really important. Again, I don’t think you should throw away the work of Dave McKean, and Colleen Doran, and Jill Thompson, and Marc Hempel, and Kelley Jones—We were talking about how much we like Kelley Jones—Matt Wagner.

[14:13] David: You could probably throw away his stuff, but the rest? Totally agree. Yeah, you're right. It’s further complicated by the collaborations. You’re right.

[14:23] John: There was a point, more than any other comic, that was the comic that, if you were into it, you were reading it every month to find out what Neil Gaiman was thinking. There’s a vague throughline through the book, but you might just have a one-off story that you're either going to like or not like. I thought a lot of them were really brilliant. Not that that's an original statement, but that's a part of it, too. It isn't just a guy doing dialogue on Justice League. It's not a removable cog. It's a band leader, and it’s the thing that setup that kind of comic, that gave you James Robinson on Starman and Grant Morrison on Invisibles, and Warren Ellis on Transmetropolitan. Those are all using the paradigm of Sandman.

[15:05] David: Yeah, 100%. Vertigo doesn't exist without Sandman. Maybe Preacher? Sandman certainly was the thing. What a mess. There's probably not a lesson to be learned here, but I was shocked, though. It was certainly shocking to read that.

[15:21] John: Yeah, I mean there been hints. The podcast last year that had come out, that started talking about this stuff, but I was talking to somebody else earlier, and he hadn't heard anything about it, and was like, “is it worse than what we heard before?” Well, yes. Unequivocally, yes. I think yesterday, Allan Heinberg put out a statement that Season 2 of Sandman on Netflix wasn't going to follow the comic as close. Either they knew something was up or that was the most well-timed, lucky Tweet by Allan Heinberg, ever.

[15:50] David: They had to have known?

[15:53] John: Something’s going on, because […] been moved away from a lot of the stuff, a lot of the series, but yeah, I mean, there was genuinely a time at Marvel where I was like, “hey, if we can trade everything we're publishing now for the reprint rights to Watchmen and Sandman, we should do that. That's a pretty good business--or was.” Also, you liar. You've read the Medieval Spawn issue. We all owe Todd McFarlane an apology.

[16:21] David: Do we, though?

[16:22] John: This is like Joss Whedon and Zack Snyder, where it's like, “oh, that's the good guy? Okay. I didn’t realize.”

[16:30] David: Yeah, I guess he's the hero in this situation, for sure. There's no denying that, but that whole thing was about creator rights, and he was no paragon of righteousness, in that regard. I don’t think we’re here to talk about any of that stuff, John.

[16:49] John: No.

[16:50] David: We're doing another Famous First Edition, John, and I'm excited for this one.

[16:53] John: This is probably my favorite.

[16:55] David: I think it's mine, too. What is it about you and me having Wonder Woman being our favorite of the trilogy people, lately?

[17:02] John: One, this comic is just bonkers, and two, the other stories in it are what really, to me, really makes it.

[17:09] David: So what we're talking about is Famous First Edition Sensation Comics #1, and we are looking at the Oversized Edition, published in 1974. It's a gorgeous package, really. I love these packages. They're oversized. They’re almost poster size, John. 11x17, is that what you think this is? What's the size on this?

[17:29] John: Yeah, I think it's 10x15. Something like that.

[17:31] David: They're really cool in their size. I’ve got a ruler out right here. 10x14.

[17:36] John: Usually, I can divide salmon in half, within about 6g. So, I feel like I should have got that.

[17:44] David: Well, we all have to have a side business, John, when we're working in comics. So, I'm not surprised that yours is filleting salmon.

[17:52] John: Two things I'm good at, and brother, I'm all out of gum.

[17:55] David: Don't think that's how that quote works, but that's okay. Anyway. Famous First Edition Sensation Comics #1, the first appearance of Wonder Woman.

[18:04] John: And, I believe, Mister Terrific and Wildcat.

[18:07] David: Yeah, no, there's lots--

[18:11] John: I'm not trying to, in any way, denigrate Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is the biggest thing to come from this, of course.

[18:17] David: For sure, but I agree with you, in that what really makes this particular reprint, or this particular issue, a little more exciting than the other ones is that you do get some other—Mister Terrific is, to this day, a very important figure within DC, and he's in the movies. He's in the cartoons. One of my favorite portrayals of recent memory was the JSA run that Geoff Johns did, with Mister Terrific forward in that group for a good long time, and I loved that take on him, and really loved that character, at that time, and Wildcat, too. Some great stuff here. Also, John, the Gay Ghost. I think he’s just happy. I don't know if it's the other kind of gay.

[19:01] John: Yeah. Well, there's a Black Pirate and a Gay Ghost, neither of whom are black or gay.

[19:08] David: And Little Boy Blue.

[19:09] John: He needed the money.

[19:13] David: Oh, shazam. So, it’s a facsimile. It reprints the thing exactly as it was originally conceived, in the long-ago year of 1941, and on the inside front cover, the first thing that grabbed my attention was the letter to the editor. Apparently, they had sent preview copies of this book out to a few people and got a letter back from Gene Tunney. The former heavyweight champion of the world wrote in, saying how much he liked Sensation Comics #1. Published that letter right there. I thought that was cool. I was like, “that's a fun little bit of history right out” -- you barely open the cover, and you're already like, “oh, man. That's awesome.” Can you imagine Mike Tyson writing a letter to your comic book?

[20:06] John: Not the first person I’d pick for Wonder Woman.

[20:09] David: Oh, man, I thought you were going to do your impression of Mike Tyson.

[20:13] John: Ho, ho, ho. I'm Mike Tyson. Please understand, that was a reference back to another joke on another episode, where that's just the voice I was doing. Of all the things I've said, I feel bad about that one. I’m sorry.

[20:29] David: Wait, why is that bad?

[20:31] John: I just want to make sure I'm-- He's got a very distinctive voice, and the joke is that's not his voice. I don't know. I'm sorry. Anyway, though, two things that I get from this are that I have the impression it took a while to put this comic together. I have other evidence for that later. This was, I mean, directly trying to get a girl's version of these big superheroes out there. I don’t know why Heavyweight Champion is the person to reach out to for that. There's an entire Advisory Board on this, too. An educational board. That's what I was getting at, is this part where they seem to be reaching out to experts in physical fitness and William Moulton Marston, who was the creator of Wonder Woman as Charles Moulton. I didn't realize that. William Moulton Marston is listed as the editorial board. He is the same person as Charles Moulton, who's credited as doing Wonder Woman. He wrote it. He didn't draw it. He famously helped develop the lie detector, which does not actually work, is not actually a real functioning thing, but still, a member of the American Psychological Association, etc. A lot of education, and stuff like that, in here that are credited in the front cover.

[21:39] David: Yeah. I guess, you had to have that stuff in 1941, because I guess you just needed those qualifications, those accreditations, [so] parents felt good about letting their kids read this stuff. Even back then, I guess, you had to have something like that.

[21:52] John: I imagine, yeah.

[21:53] David: That must be what that is, because this is well before what's-his-face.

[21:57] John: Oh, yeah. Definitely.

[21:58] David: The Comics Code Authority, and things like that.

[22:00] John: Yeah, this is still the early days of the superhero boom, I think, too.

[22:05] David: Yeah, we're 1941. So, Superman's, what, ‘38?

[22:09] John: Yeah.

[22:13] David: The thing that grabbed my attention, right off the bat, when compared to Detective Comics #27, which we've already done a podcast on, and Action Comics #1, which we haven't done yet, but I'm hoping we will get to it at some point-- the thing that grabs you, right out of the bat, or at least, for me, is we’re three years removed from Superman, and the art style is dramatically better in this story than anything else that you see. So, H.G. Peter’s art is just so-- it's head and shoulders above what you get in the Superman origin and the Batman origins, as far as I'm concerned. I think it's some really good stuff. There's a close-up of Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, on the last page. Just really top-notch. Some of the action’s really interesting. While the paneling still very much adheres to that 9-panel grid, you do get some more interesting and varied shots throughout, when you compare it to some of the other stuff that we've looked at, in this era. There's also a shot on the one of the pages, where Wonder Woman is racing a car, and they spend quite some time in this race, going from 30 miles to 60 miles, to 80 miles an hour. She gets up to 80 miles an hour, and she's at top speed. That’s her top speed, is 80 miles an hour, which is funny, because they give you all of her powers in this story. They spell them all out very clearly for you, which I guess, if I'm a kid, that's great. Anyway, she’s topped out at 80 miles an hour. She’s running, and the drawing is immaculate. It’s a great shot of her. I just love that depiction of her running there. I just love the art in this story more than any of the others that we've seen. For me, it was head and shoulders above.

[23:59] John: I mean, it’s really expressive and weird as hell. It does not look like other Golden Age comics, I think. This whole story is unhinged. It isn't just the part about what you're talking about, those powers. I don't waste this much time. This is panel one: It's a splash panel. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor fighting a bunch of people. Caption: like the crash of thunder from the sky comes the Wonder Woman to save the world from the hatreds of war, of men, in a man-made world, and what a woman. A woman with the eternal beauty of Aphrodite, and the wisdom of Athena. Yet, whose lovely form hides the agility of Mercury in the steel sinews of Hercules. Who is Wonder Woman? Why does she fight for America? To find the answer, let us go back to that mysterious Amazon Isle called Paradise Island. To that enlightened land of women floated the unconscious form of a man, Captain Steve Trevor, a US Army intelligence officer, who tried to stop a mystery bomber from raining death on an American army camp. Here on Paradise Island, on which man had never before set foot, the Amazon maid, Diana, fell in love with Captain Trevor and decided to bring him back to America, and help him wage battle for freedom, democracy, and womankind throughout the world. That's the back story. Then, you get into the first panel, that takes place after all of that.

[25:16] David: Yeah, they just drop all of that on you, right out of the gate, and then, they’re like, “okay, you’ve got it. Let’s go.”

[25:22] John: So, Paradise Island doesn't show up till another comic. We don't see it in here, I believe.

[25:27] David: But John, it gets better. In the very next panel, he introduces the Invisible Plane.

[25:33] John: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. She's flying in this silent, transparent plane.

[25:36] David: Fantastic. So, you get this giant block of text that is fascinating, you get this massive origin story. In the very next panel, it’s like, “by the way, she's flying an invisible plane,” and you’re just like, “what is happening here?” Can you imagine seeing this for the first time? There is so much inventiveness and insanity, just on Page 1.

[25:59] John: If you don't mind, I’d like to walk through this story. I don't want to do this with all of them, but this one just has so much weird stuff that happens. Steve Trevor wakes up, he thinks he sees an angel, then he passes back out again. She flies the plane to the capital of the United States, hides her plane in a barn in the outskirts of Washington, carries Steve Trevor to a hospital, drops him off, and says who he is, and then runs out, and says, “I'll send you a full report sometime. Bye,” and then she goes off into Washington, and decides, “I'm going to go look at all of these beautiful dresses that I hear these women in America have.”

[26:30] David: Yeah. So, Page 1, a man convinces her to leave her Island. Page 2, she takes the man to the hospital because he's unconscious. Page 3, Panel 1, she's free, on her own, for the first time in this story, and the first thing she does is go shopping for dresses. I was like, “oh, my God.”

[26:49] John: Here's the de facto introduction of Hippolyta into the world mythos: Mother told me so much about styles of American women that I'm dying to see them. Okay. Then there's these old bitty ladies, and they're like, “that hussy. She has no clothes on,” because, indeed, she is not wearing a lot of clothes, especially by the standards of 1941.

[27:10] David: Yeah. Very tame by today's standards, I would say. Yeah, I mean, she's showing some leg. She's showing some gams. There's a lot going on in these first three panels. She's alone, and of course, she's going shopping. Even say, “always the woman, Diana goes window shopping.” Oh, man. That's brutal, and then the very next panel, other women see her and start being mean, start making comments about her dress, and I'm like, “This is a lot.”

[27:44] John: Yeah. The back story of the character is that she's based on the girlfriend of William Moulton Marston and his wife. That’s the bottle for Diana, which was not, let's say, publicized, at the time, but there's been a movie about it since then. They're definitely coming in with a, let's say, unusual-for-1941 depiction of feminine power. The next thing that happens is, a bunch of gunmen run out of a bank, see Diana, and are like, “well, let's just shoot her and scram.” At least three of them open up with their guns on her. We know she's all right, but yikes, what a world, and then she deflects all of them, thinking, “it's fun to be playing bullets and bracelets again.” I mean, that's a game that she's played growing up. Later on, you see, yes, that is in fact what happened. 100%. The cops show up and say, “wait. We want to ask you a few questions,” to which she responds, “Some other time, when I'm on the Quiz Kids Program.” She seems pretty well-versed in American culture from 1941. So, then she starts running. Like you said, this guy starts chasing her in her car, getting faster and faster. Finally, she stops, and he convinces her, like Spider-Man, to go and use her powers for show business.

[29:07] David: And I thought it was interesting that this guy, out of nowhere, was like, “hey. Let's put on a show. You could run really fast, or we could do that bullets and bracelets thing that you did,” and she's like, “Yeah, I'm not going to do a running thing, but do the bullets and bracelets.” What a weird choice.

[29:25] John: That's exactly what happened. The guy’s like, “Oh, look at that lady that just deflected a bunch of bullets with her bracelets. I’ve got a rent a stage and put her on it.”

[29:34] David: Right. What an entrepreneur.

[29:37] John: For the remainder of that page, they're doing great. There’s all these newspaper articles, photos about her, and then she's reading them, and she reads that the hospital authorizes report that Captain Trevor has recovered consciousness, which looks like back-page news. Still news.

[29:52] David: But she also reads it in the newspaper. She's not checking up on Trevor to find out whether or not he's back. She's been out making money and not really paying any attention. Then she just happens to see it in the newspaper. The other thing about this page that I loved was that she does her bullets and bracelets routine on a stage, and there’s a guy standing on one end of the stage, shooting a gun at her, and she's on the other end of the stage, deflecting the bullets, but the audience is literally right there, on top of them. So, I'm thinking, “where do those bullets go?” There's bullets that are drawn that are going towards the audience, and you're like, “man, maybe I wouldn't want to be in that show. That sounds like it might be a little dangerous.” Did things different in 1941.

[30:34] John: So, then reading that, she says, “okay, I don't want to make money anymore. I’m going to leave,” and then the guy's like, “well, I can't hold her. She didn't sign any contract. When I think of all the dough we could— Dough. Say, I got her dough that she told me to hold for her.” So, he grabs her money, gets into her car, she sees this, and is like, “wait. All my money,” jumps out of a window, grabs on to the back of the car, hauls him out, hangs him on a telephone booth, and then grabs her money, and goes to the hospital, and this is where it gets good.

[31:08] David: Just, real quick. The panel where she grabs the guy out of the car, look at her pose in that panel. She's leaning back. She’s got one leg forward. She’s got a real twist to her torso. That's really good, man. That's a really exciting pose. I love that pose. Really well-drawn.

[31:25] John: It's a good a good way to brace a car in your high-heeled boots when it's driving away, too.

[31:31] David: As you do.

[31:32] John: She walks over to the hospital and sees a nurse crying in front. Honestly, this scene blew me away.

[31:37] David: Yeah, this is great.

[31:39] John: So, she sees the crying nurse and says, “I don’t mean to intrude, but can I help you?” and the woman says, “no one can help me. Boo-hoo,” and it turns out, her fiancé got a job in South America, but she can't go because his salary is too small.” She says, “that's terrible. If only you had a little money.” Then she realizes, “wait. If you take your glasses off, you look just like me. What if I gave you some money and you sold me all your nurse credentials?” So, she just offered to buy the identity of a woman who was crying on the steps, convinces her that it's good, and then Princess Diana says, “by the way, my name is Diana. What’s yours?” and she says, “what an amazing coincidence. My name is Diana Prince.” Never in my life, for a single second before reading this, did it occur to me that Diana's civilian identity was anything other than switching “Princess Diana” to “Diana Prince.” Never did it occur to me that there was a different Diana Prince that she bought the identity of.

[32:35] David: Yeah, that was a new one for me, too. I love the part where the nurse makes it real clear. She's like, “wait, you want to take my place here at the hospital?” and Wonder Woman was like, “yeah,” and she's like, “cool.”

[32:48] John: Wonder Woman does assure her that she is a trained nurse. So, it's not like she didn't check up on her. I mean, you didn't have Google in those days. So, that's probably the best you can do.

[32:57] David: Yeah, she's very reassuring. “Why wouldn’t she trust me? No harm will be done. I'm also a nurse.” What is the level of nurse training on the island?

[33:07] John: From various windows in Steve Trevor's hospital room, you can see the Washington Monument, and then you can look down upon the Capitol building. So, this is a hospital that really towers over the Capitol building that you're always seeing in those pictures. A vague MacGuffin going on here is that there's a new poison that penetrates all gas masks. So, that heats up again, Steve Trevor runs out. What does he do? Gets in a plane, gets shot down, and Wonder Woman rescues him in the invisible plane. Then they track down the base where the poison's being made, then bust in, and Steve Trevor puts on a gas mask, and then gives another one to Diana. Again, the premise is that this goes through any gas mask. So, I don't really follow their logic in having gas masks here, but Trevor blasts open some poison gas and kills everybody. So, it's vaguely like in the movie, I guess. Then at the end, he's woozy. He thinks that Diana Prince looks like that angel that rescued him, and he's like, “I think you are the beautiful angel. I think you're Wonder Woman.” He's like, “no, you can laugh, too, but I'm not delirious. There is a Wonder Woman. I saw her.” He goes, “all right, I believe you.” There are newspapers in this that show pictures of Wonder Woman. That's not a question. Everybody knows there's a Wonder Woman.

[34:29] David: Maybe she hadn't read the paper in a while.

[34:331] John: No, she did.

[34:32] David: Pretending to be Diana Prince. She’s trying to deflect, John.

[34:35] John: Yeah, all right, but then then it gets set up with the “So, I'm my own rival, eh? That's funny. If mother could only see me now. As a very feminine woman—a nurse, no less—in a world full of men, and in love, too, with myself for a rival,” and so ends the first episode of Wonder Woman, which is actually what it literally says here.

[34:56] David: Alias: Diana Prince, army nurse.

[35:02] John: This is an enjoyable comic. I really had a good time reading this.

[35:04] David: Yes, I think this is definitely my favorite of the three. Superman's pretty close. The conciseness of the Superman opening was so good, to me. The combination of, for me, the fun, weird, superior in many ways, art, mixed with just the totally bonkers, […] pretty great. I enjoyed it, for sure.

[35:30] John: Then we get over to an ad for All-Star Comics, which gives you a brief appearance of Superman and Batman there. Then we’re over to our next feature, Black Pirate. You start with a big image of this shirtless pirate that looks like, what's his name? Robin Hood. Errol Flynn.

[35:47] David: For sure.

[35:48] John: I think it’s like the male cheesecake thing, like, “here's this guy,” because I’ve got to assume, you might have a hot girl—I mean, you did, I guess, with Wonder Woman, even though she's not portrayed exactly that way. He's just looking cool and detailed in his drawing. Actually, the art's pretty good in this one, too.

[36:11] David: Yeah, I thought the art for this one was pretty decent.

[36:13] John: Yeah. The premise here goes such a long way to get to what the setup is, and that's another theme of this one, is that there's a lot of stuff that goes on. You can definitely tell, parts of this are copied off of magazine illustrations, and you can tell, parts of it are not.

[36:26] David: 100%. There's some very poor tracing happening in this book, John.

[36:32] John: Yeah. You’ve got this pirate, where he gets captured. Jon Valor is his name, AKA the Black Pirate. He starts off, he's already called that. I'm not forgetting. That's correct, right?

[36:43] David: Yeah, it starts out that way.

[36:45] John: So, the Spanish prince is after him, because they’re in love with the same woman. He captures him but doesn't realize he's the Black Pirate. He just knows he's Jon Valor, who's on the ship of the Black Pirate, which seems like such a meaningless distinction, at the time. Well, okay. He’s still going to get executed, but then a priest secretly marries the woman to Jon Valor. So, now the woman the prince loves is now married to this guy. So, they can't kill him, and now he's part of the Royal Court, but he's also secretly the Black Pirate, which is why nobody knew it before, which is actually a cool setup. That's kind of fun […]. I wouldn't mind reading another one of these stories to see what they actually do with that premise, but such a windy road to get to that premise.

[37:35] David: Soap opera, baby.

[37:36] John: Really enjoyed this. It inspired a story I'm working on, in a bizarre way. I like that set up. I don't know if you have anything to say about Black Pirate.

[37:45] David: No, nothing much to say on this one. I like the art on this one. I thought it was pretty decent, and yeah, I just thought it was fun. I hadn't thought about the continuing attempt to appeal to a broader audience, I think, but I think you're absolutely right. That would go a long way.

[38:01] John: It's kind of a sexy drawing of the guy.

[38:03] David: Yeah, I think it's calculated. I think it's calculated. I'm assuming the audience is kids, male children, boys, but they're trying to hedge their bet, maybe, or they're trying to bring in a wider audience, but they're hedging their bet by still doing—it's romance adjacent. So, maybe some girls would be interested in it, but it's still got a lot of action and adventure.

[38:26] John: Yeah, I think you wind up seeing that a lot, but the early comics, before you had Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and everything, started off as these comic strip reprints, and those are designed to be much more gender neutral than we think of mainstream comics being, and then when the superhero starts coming in, I think this is a real deliberate attempt to have a superhero role model for girls, while still not not-appealing to the boys, and having a lot of action in it.

[38:51] David: I think it worked. It was a successful attempt, because I mean, we're still talking about Wonder Woman in 2024. She's a widely recognized, popular character, and certainly, the comic book buying audience for the last 40 years is largely, predominantly male, and she's been a going concern this whole time. So, they set it up for success, and I mean, they did it. There's no doubt. So, the next one, we get introduced, for the first time, to Mr. Terrific, and right out of the gate, what I thought was fascinating is that his motto, the Fair Play motto, is right there, emblazoned on his chest.

[39:31] John: Before Geoff Johns brought in the new Mr. Terrific, this is also a white dude. This is a different guy.

[39:36] David: Yeah, this guy's different. So, his costume is, he's wearing a—I don't know what you call that—a petticoat thing, with a black girdle, and yellow gloves that go up to the middle of his forearms. He's got a mask on that covers his head and neck, his full head and neck, and it looks like a hood on the back. It's just a Zorro mask, essentially, and some tight red pants. It's like a court jester, but with a Zorro mask, in ways. So, that's his look, and yeah, definitely, a white dude. Not what we're familiar with.

[40:14] John: And the logo that says, “Fair Play.” I remember this being a goofy character in DC history, like, “here's your heroes that didn't make it,” which is funny, because he is in the Superman trailer, and all that stuff, everything we said earlier. His origin is also bonkers, David.

[40:31] David: Tell us about it, John. Let’s hear it.

[40:33] John: The setup here is, he's a young boy who, by the age of 10—what has he developed? A better and faster seaplane. He's a super genius. He makes these plans, the navy buys them. Then, these guys try to steal the plan. So, he jumps out and beats up the guys, because he’s also super physically fit. Athletics is one of his hobbies, and then he's an expert at chess. He's like, “it's no fun winning all the time.” At 11, he graduates from high school. A year in college, the professors give him an honorary degree. He knows more than they do, and they can't do anything. He wins 5 track and field events in the next panel. He's got a room full of college and athletic trophies. With college over, he becomes a success in business. The board decides to put him in charge of their largest plant. “That's Terry Sloane, the business leader. Lucky guy. He makes a fortune out of everything he touches.” He thinks, “the fools, envying me. If only they knew how sick I am of everything I'm doing.”

[41:34] David: So bored.

[41:34] John: All the girls are talking about how wonderful and handsome he is, and he's sad. So, he goes off in his car and decides, “well, I'm going to go kill myself because everything is too easy for me.”

[41:46] David: Yeah, that was the turn. Yeah, that was the twist. I was like, “whoa. Wait, what?”

[41:52] John: As he's about to jump off this bridge, there's another lady that's there, and she's about to jump off the bridge.

[41:57] David: Yeah. She beats him to it.

[41:59] John: She beats him to it. He jumps in the water, rescues her, and then it turns out, her brother's fallen in with a bad crowd, but the bad crowd has a wooden clubhouse. They’re, I don't know, adolescent boys working for gangsters with “Purple Dagger gang. Keep out” written on their clubhouse.

[42:17] David: Yeah, and all the E’s and the “Purple Dagger,” and “keep out” are backwards. You could barely squeeze three people into that little shack that they've put together. There's a smokestack on it. There's smoke coming out of it on the next page.

[42:31] John: Yeah, […] 

[42:33] David: Burning a fire in there, yeah.

[42:35] John: He shows up there and says, “hey. You fellows want to join me?” They’re like, “no, we’re already working for a big shot.” He goes, “Big shot? Well, he's just small peanuts to me. Come on, fellows. I'll show you,” and then he goes, and he shows that he’s tougher and better than the bad guys, and then all the kids decide to join him, and he knocks over their clubhouse, takes them to a gym at the Fair Play Club, and there you go.

[42:56] David: At a certain point, the kids say, “what a guy,” and another guy says, “he is terrific,” and there it is. That's it, man.

[43:05] John: Yep, that's how he gets the name.

[43:07] David: Well, he does some math on the last page, too.

[43:10] John: Oh, that's right. I’m sorry, that is great. I'm sorry, that is a gift. 

[43:14] David: Just to prove to the kids.

[43:16] John: The bad guys saying how he is. That's a really complicated math problem on there, and the guy can't figure it out, and the kids are all like, “he's a dumbbell. Get the dunce cap,” and then Mr. Terrific adds it together really quick.

[43:28] David: By solving the math problem very quickly in front of the bad guy’s eyes, the bad guy thereby decides to quit and leave town, because he’s been defeated through math, John.

[43:42] John: Did you notice, as he walks, he is, in fact, wearing a dunce cap.

[43:47] David: I did not see that. That’s right. He does.

[43:50] John: All the kids were laughing at him for not being able to do math.

[43:57] David: But that math problem, man, that’s significant for the kids. They're like, “you're our new boss now, boy.”

[44:03] John: We're on to Gay Ghost.

[44:06] David: The Gay Ghost.

[44:08] John: Okay, it is funny that the word “gay” shows up, and the word “queer” shows up in here, and stuff, and it does not mean what it means to us. I guess, apparently, this character now, he's been reprinted as, and when he shows up, he's the Grim Ghost, which unequivocally, is a better name for the character. The setup is just, it's not that he's a happy ghost. It's a weird name, given the meaning that they actually mean, let alone any joke that we have with today's meaning about it. So, he's this guy, in ancient times. It’s the year 1700. Sorry, not exactly ancient.

[44:42] David: Before we start, though, I did find it interesting that Gardner Fox is the author on this one.

[44:46] John: Right. Yeah.

[44:48] David: And John, Howard [Purcell], the sports announcer, [Purcell] is the artist for this. Oh, wait. No, that's—

[44:54] John: Howard Purcell.

[44:55] David: Oh, damn it. I thought we discovered some gold, John.

[44:59] John: That flash page, especially, really looks like Alex Toth. It’s really got that feel to it—the lettering style and the composition, and everything. The rest of it, really--

[45:08] David: That’s a good call.

[45:09] John: —much less so, but it's got that feeling. So, yeah, 1700, this nobleman gets killed and then dies in front of his true love, Deborah Wallace. He says to wait. Then he comes back as a ghost to just kill all the bad guys that killed him. Justice is kneaded out. He rises up to meet his ancestors, who are just all sorts of warriors from different times, and say that his love for Deborah will be, “by our concentrated wills, we've attained strong powers,” and they surpassed that power on to him and send him back to wait for her return before he begins his new life on Earth. How long must you wait? Well, a couple 100 years, as things turn out.

[45:51] David: As it turns out.

[45:52] John: He goes and lives in a painting. Cut to present day, during World War 2.

[45:56] David: I like how they had the hourglass to denote the passage of a century going forward. I thought that was a nice little touch. Now, we're in modern times.

[46:07] John: And a young American and Deborah Wallace, whose ancestors own the castle, show up there, and I guess the guy’s supposed to be a bit of a coward, but it doesn't super come up here. It’s just the setup. He wants to atone “for the idiotic rake I have been,” as he says, trying to get Deborah to marry him, but then these spies show up. Now, they've mentioned that they've come from America to Ireland here, sailing past German U-boats, and stuff. There is a war going on. These spies want to hide out in the castle, and they spot the crew, the boyfriend warns Deborah, and then gets shot for his efforts, but then the Gay Ghost is able to go inside the dead body of the guy, revive him, take out the bad guys, and then he just inhabits that body when he wants to, and he can also not inhabit the body, but be there. I'm explaining it badly, but I don't know how to really explain it. The Ghost can enter the body and make the body work, and then the Ghost can exit the body, and then fully function as a material being, but able to have bullets pass through him, and stuff.

[47:18] David: Yeah. What's going on?

[47:20] John: So, he makes quick work of the spies, then goes back into the body where he now pretends to be the think that was trying to marry Deborah Wallace—this being the equivalent of his Deborah Wallace. He's going to be her boyfriend now. She says, “I never want to see this place again. We'll go back to America and live in peace,” and he says, “America? You mean that wild place with the Indians that Columbus discovered? Why go there?” Because, as the note explains, Keith Everet doesn't realize the changes that have taken place since 1700.

[47:55] David: Yeah,

[47:56] John: I don't know if “the place that Columbus discovered” is the first thing you would think about America in 1700, by the way. It was a place by then. Anyway. Nor does he know how to drive a car. She goes, “you drive.” “Drive? Surely, but where are the horses? This wagon is good-looking, but it won't run by itself.” Eventually, the story ends with him deciding he's going to drive anyway. This is another one where the set of, her boyfriend is actually a ghost from the 1700s, is a fun setup. It takes a while to get there, as well. Just the vague nods toward “no, it's okay that her actual boyfriend died, because he was a jerk, and he went out as a hero, but we don't really know why.”

[48:40] David: Yeah. I had trouble with this one. The art’s not very good. The girl has this weird poodle hair that looks really weird, and the whole bit where the Ghost has to inhabit a body in order to affect change, but then leaves the body and still is able to affect change, and then he goes back in the body, and it’s just like, “what is going on?” I didn't catch the bit where he decides to drive. He's like, “what is this thing? A car? Oh, okay. Well, I'll drive.” I didn’t catch that. That's good.

[49:19] John: We have a text story. Gunner Godbee, a story of the First World War. I read that. I barely remember it. It’s fine. I'm sure you didn't, right?

[49:28] David: It’s a lot of text, John.

[49:29] John: Yeah. Then, we're on to Little Boy Blue and The Blue Boys. That is honestly my favorite moment in this whole comic. The set up here is just this kid that decides to be a hero and gets his friends to join up. He wants to stop this gangster, or whatnot, Wolf Lupo, gang chief. So, he goes to his friend, who's heavy-set, by him eating an apple and being named Tubby. So, this is my favorite part. He goes up to him and says, “Hiya, Tubby. What have you got? A new comic book?” and he says, “yeah, it just came out. Sensation Comics.” “Why, that's a very comic that I'm holding in my hands.”

[50:16] David: Yeah, it is.

[50:17] John: So, then he explains, “See, this where the Wildcat reads about Green Lantern and gets the idea for his costume.” So, they're inspired by reading a comic from the very comic that you're in, but it's a comic that you haven't read yet. It's the next comic. There's […] costumes because of Ted Grant putting on the Wildcat costume, but they're not inspired by Ted Grant actually putting on the costume. They're inspired by Ted Grant, who in the next story, we will see, buys a Green Lantern comic, and is inspired to put on a costume because of Green Lantern. So, they're inspired by him being inspired by a comic book to put on the costume. This is a Grant Morrison thing. That's such a complex level of reflexivity. I thought, and this is another just, I don't know, minor eye-opening, but Barry Allen, when he becomes The Flash, he gets struck by lightning, all these chemicals splash on him, and he can suddenly move fast, and he's like, “oh, I can move fast, just my favorite comic book character when I was a kid, The Flash. I'm going to call myself The Flash,” and that's how he becomes The Flash, and then later on, we find out that those adventures really did happen in a different reality, blah, blah, blah, but I thought that was the first time you would have had that “I'm inspired by a comic book to become a comic book character,” but no—1941, in a way more complicated way.

[51:41] David: Way more complicated.

[51:43] John: But I don't know if this is actually true. Let’s say this is the first time you’ve had a character being inspired to put on a costume by reading a comic book. They're inspired to put on a costume by reading a comic book, because that character has done the same thing that they did, except he hasn't done it yet, because it's later in the comic.

[52:01] David: That’s great. I didn't catch that, but as soon as you started into it, I was like, “Oh, yeah. Wait, what?”

[52:09] John: That's all I’ve got on The Blue Boys.

[52:11] David: Yeah, I think that's all there really needs to be. Shortly after that, they put on costumes and start running around, and actually fall into finding some bad guys who chase them, and the way that they're able to defeat one of them is, Tubby trips and falls, and the bad guy trips over him and smacks his head into a tree, which I don't know, the pratfall on that one was pretty funny. I like the setup on that one. It was pretty good, but yeah, I’ve got nothing else on The Blue Boys.

[52:40] John: By degrees, but this is a kids’ comedy.

[52:43] David: Yeah, I think it's supposed to be. Exactly right. I think it’s supposed to be a little funny. Does he fart on him?

[52:50] John: What? Oh, wow. He does.

[52:52] David: There’s a [fart noise], and his buddy’s like, “nice work, Tubby,” and I'm like, “what is happening here?”

[53:00] John: I think that's the guy’s breath going out of him. I think he’s landing after knocking the wind out of him, and you're hearing the wind getting knocked out.

[53:07] David: I think you're right. I was confused.

[53:09] John: I don't know, though. Man, Dave, when they hire us to do Absolute Blue Boy and The Blue Boys, or whatever it's called, real fart.

[53:19] David: Yeah. 100%.

[53:21] John: It wasn't clear, originally. We want to make it 100% clear.

[53:24] David: Yeah, we're going to make it real edgy. We're going to bring Neil Gaiman into this thing.

[53:29] John: No.

[53:30] David: Sorry.

[53:34] John: Then, we’re on to Wildcat, Ted Grant, boxer, who reads a comic book and gets inspired to be a superhero. I don't think the art's the best in this one, but it's the coolest.

[53:46] David: It’s the coolest. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. Bill Finger is the artist on this one.

[53:51] John: He’s the writer. He's credited--

[53:54] David: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Bill Finger’s the writer.

[53:56] John: […] Bill Finger wrote this one. This one’s probably just the most solid, reasonable story in here.

[54:02] David: I would agree.

[54:03] John: Yeah. I don't mean that as a negative, at all. That stuff’s so goofy. This is a pretty solid superhero story.

[54:10] David: Yeah. Straightforward.

[54:13] John: Origin remains.

[54:18] David: The posing, and the way the artist poses him, and the way he's got him set up, especially in that very first introductory splash, which is just fantastic. It makes him a really interesting character. The design of the costume has always been, and remains to me, just a little goofy. I don't know. It needed something else to make it really pull it off, for me, but it’s cool. It’s still a cool introduction. It's cool, the way he gets portrayed in this one. So, it's interesting. You can really see why some of these things, right out of the gate, they just work, and then other ones just don't.

[54:50] John: Yeah.

[54:52] David: It's all right there, in their very first story.

[54:54] John: Yeah. It's basically the Black Panther costume, but with an open mouth and a literal cat face on it. So, he's got whiskers and a nose, and everything. That's the goofy part. He's drawn it almost like a shadow throughout. So, there's a lot of high-contrast, black-and-white, sharp edges to the art. A little […], but it is a goofy costume.

[55:15] David: The style has a sharpness to it. That's a good way to actually just describe what the artist’s trying to do. Yeah. It's a good one.

[55:26] John: A couple letters for—Fun […] books you can read for Christmas. Are you just hoping there's something that you'd recognize in here, some classic book that came out right then? The Yankee Captain in Patagonia, and Captain Kidd's Cow, a bunch of books you should go read. Try to better yourself, then go buy a Red Ryder BB Gun.

[55:51] David: Then you flip the page to the back, in the prime spot, […] “for the Red Ryder Saddle Carbine. Tell dad to hang one of these beautiful Daisies on your Christmas tree.”

[56:03] John: Yeah. They should make a movie about that.

[56:06] David: The Red Ryder Carbine features Golden Bands, adjustable double-notch Rear Sight, Lightning-Loader invention for loading 1000 shot in 20 seconds, John. Carbine style Cocking Lever, full-length Fore-piece, 16-inch Leather Thong knotted to authentic Swivel Carbine Ring—I don’t even know what these words are—and Red Ryder’s brand on pistol grip stock. Comes packed in a colored carton. You'll shoot your eye out, kid. There's a bunch of them. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5—there’s 6 different versions of these guns, and the most expensive one is $4.50.

[56:43] John: The comic was 10c. What do comic cost now? $15 bucks each. Something like that. […]

[56:51] David: I don’t know. I don't do math, John. I think in today's numbers, it's about $4.7 trillion.

[57:00] John: There you go. That was Sensation Comics. Genuinely, a good time in this comic.

[57:04] David: Yeah.

[57:05] John: There's a couple times where I feel like I'm just straight-up laughing at the absurdity of the comic and the stupidity of it, but most of the time, I feel like I'm more laughing with it, and I don't know if it's self-aware-ly aware of how goofy it is, but man, this is so goofy. It comes off as good-natured, more than--

[57:20] David: It was definitely the least offensive of the books.

[57:23] John: Yeah, you're right. There's a [paucity?] of non-white characters in here—of any other ethnicity—but at least that means there's no bad portrayals.

[57:37] David: Yeah, that is a good way to know. I mean, the misogyny is fairly rampant in that Wonder Woman.

[57:43] John: But it's such a bizarre misogyny because--

[57:45] David: Yeah. I wouldn't say it's excusable, but yeah, the bizarreness of it is certainly-- and I think there's a genuine female-power-forward attempt in it.

[58:01] John: There's a weird mix, for the time, I think, that I think the language to even describe this stuff just couldn't have existed until way after that, of a powerful but very feminine woman embracing her sexuality and her strength—in a visual sense, embracing not wearing very much clothes, and her strength—being into dresses but also into deflecting bullets, and being into falling in love with a guy, but also rescuing him all the time.

[58:30] David: Yeah, it's clumsy in its attempts, but it is an attempt, at least, whereas some of the other stuff we've seen in the other books is nothing even remotely close to that. So, yeah, I enjoyed this one. Of the ones we've read so far, this one, easily, is my favorite. At some point, we'll chat about the Action Comics one, as well. All right, John. That was fun. Thanks, everybody, for joining us here on The Corner Box. We appreciate you listening. We'll be here next week, and we hope you are, too. We'll see you next time.

[59:00] John: Bye.

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