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.

[00:27] Chase Marotz: Welcome to The Corner Box. I am Chase. I am not one of your hosts. I am just a guest. They are forcing me to do this. Send help when you can. We now return to our previously continuing episode. Welcome back.

[00:41] David Hedgecock: My next one is Little Bird, which also was an Eisner Award Winner that I hadn't read, until recently. Little Bird is by Darcy van Poelgeest, Ian Bertram, with colors by Matt Hollingsworth, and once again, I'm just blown away by the artistic talents of Ian Bertram. So, the book itself, Little Bird, I've got the collection. It was a 5-issue series that came out from Image. I'll read the back for the story. Born into an endless war between the oppressive American empire and a withering resistance, Little Bird is the rebellion’s last hope. With her village destroyed, her mother taken hostage, and her country in ruins, the young rebel fighter must traverse a dystopic Canadian landscape on a desperate quest to free the legendary Axe and reignite the flames of resistance to save her country, to save her people, to discover her true identity in a world on fire.

That is exactly the story. I found the writing to be competent. Fairly well executed. A little confusing, at times. It gets a little too full of itself, for me, from time to time, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, because the art by Ian Bertram, man--holy moly, this guy is so good, John. Man, I don't even know how to describe what he's doing here. It's got a little bit of a Frank Quitely feel to it. Frank Quitely, Andrew McLean-ish art style, but it’s just highly detailed, and just totally exquisite. It's just this super dense line work. Very tactile. You can feel everything, and while it's beautiful, it's also very grotesque, in the best way. I mean that in the best way possible. So, Little Bird was the first novel, and I liked it so much, I immediately went out and grabbed Precious Metal, which was the follow-up by the same team, set in the same world, but it's more of a prequel. It focuses on one of the characters in Little Bird, as a younger man. Well, something happens to him in Little Bird. So, we're seeing him, essentially, this particular character, 30 years earlier, but what we see in the art by Ian Bertram is a complete level-up. The level of detail, level of--I wish I had a better word for it—grotesquery, just all turned up to 11, and could not have enjoyed looking at his drawing more thoroughly. So, I highly recommend both Precious Metal and Little Bird, as a 1-2-set of amazing art by Ian Bertram.

The thing that caught my attention with Ian Bertram is, he's been doing a series of covers at Marvel, and maybe at DC. In fact, I think one of the Absolute Batman #1 covers was his. That really stood out, and it's hard for me to describe it, but it's basically Batman, faced forward and hunched over, one knee up, but a very distinctive style. That one caught my attention, and he's done similar stuff for Marvel on Incredible Hulk, and I think he might have done an Iron Man. His stuff is fantastic, and the covers that he did for Marvel and DC is what grabbed my attention, initially, but his interiors are just as good, just as exquisite, just as interesting. Really good storyteller. Very clear understanding of what's going on. I think the only problem that I had with Precious Metal and Little Bird, both, was that it was ambitious storytelling by Darcy van Poelgeest, who I think has some credits, maybe written for movies, or directed movies. I certainly recognize the craftsmanship that he is bringing to this. I think he's got some credits to his name, outside of comic books, of a quality, in a similar vein as Tom King. I recognize that he's a high-quality writer. I think Darcy is similar, but he gets into some dream-like side stuff that, I don't know--it gets a little too heady for me, and I'm just not that interested in that. I just want to see the pretty pictures and watch people smash each other, and there's plenty of that, but felt like I was reading an old issue of Rick Veitch's dream comic, at times. I was like, “I don't need this in my life.” What was the name of that book that Rick Veitch did? What was it called?

[04:57] John Barber: Rare Bit Fiends.

[04:48] David: Yeah. Thank you. Rare Bit Fiends. That's my second book. Ian Bertram, I highly recommend checking out his work. That guy's nails, and if for nothing else, if you don't want to dig into his interiors, pick up some of his covers, because some of the stuff he's doing at Marvel and DC is really cool.

[05:15] John: I think Ian Bertram's first comic was this comic called Bowery Boys. It was written by former coworker at Marvel, Cory Levine. I remember that coming out, and at the time, this is years ago now--I mean this is a while ago, 10 years ago-ish—Bertram’s stuff was very Frank Quitely. You could tell it was really good. That's definitely what you looked at, and you saw it in there, was really good Quitely style, who himself is an amalgamation of a few other artists. You can arrive at that style, I think, without directly ripping him off, but definitely that feel, and now just flipping through, online, some of the pages from the new book, like you were saying, or the newest one, man, it doesn't look like that anymore. The superficial style is different. You still see the hints of it. I don't know. You see the evolution.

[06:02] David: Yeah, for sure. Precious Metal, in particular, I felt like he really stretches his wings and starts commanding his own style. You can still see that he's still a branch off the tree of the Frank Quitely trunk, but certainly got his own thing going, at this point, and just really exquisitely executed stuff. I really enjoyed it. I was a little trepidatious, because looking at the cover work that he had done, I was like, “this style is a little weird.” I was wondering how it was going to play out in the interiors, but I enjoyed it.

[06:35] John: Both the artists that you've you pulled out, I mean, seem right up my alley, and just flipping through it, you can see, I think, especially Little Bird, it looks Moebius-like, just in its structure, and stuff.

[06:48] David: Yeah. I'm glad you said that. It's just 100% got a lot of Moebius influence in there, too. Well, Chase, not to put you on the spot. You got one more?

[06:58] Chase: It's not a new comic, but it was a re-read that I did just after seeing the new Superman movie, and just on Frank Quitely, I re-read All-Star Superman when I was on my way to ComiCon.

[07:10] David: Yeah. Delicious.

[07:12] Chase: Have you not read it? It had been a long time, for me. I guess the big failure of the show is reading All-Star Superman made me want to go back and re-read DC One Million, because so many of the concepts that All-Star Superman does start in DC One Million, and then I could not find a collection of that anywhere at the show.

[07:32] John: That sucks.

[07:36] David: All right. For the listener, John, once again, literally stretched his arm about two feet off camera, came back, and had the DC One Million omnibus in his hand. Do you have a bag of holding in that room, John? How do you do that?

[07:50] John: I've got a funny one from work, because I do this in work calls sometimes, too, and we were on a call with somebody, talking about doing a deluxe version of a book that's based on a cartoon show.  The guy making the book was like, “[…] wants to have teeth in there,” and I was like, “oh, man. I'm so into that idea. Here, I've got a human tooth here,” and I do. This is a human tooth. My son lost a tooth. The reason I have it is, my son, since then, has lost two other teeth, and this is one. So, I've got two of them here and one of them somewhere else.

[08:15] David: Wow. Wait. Where's the tooth fairy? How come tooth fairy hasn't got those yet?

[08:20] John: Well, the tooth fairy returns them to us afterwards, so that they can go out, and get a little book.

[08:25] David: Oh, is that how that works? Oh, I didn't know. It's a smart idea. I never thought about that. I've got a bag hidden in my closet, because I don't—

[08:34] John: Just assorted teeth, including some from your son.

[08:38] David: I want my 15-year-old son to come to the realization that I was lying to him for a few years.

[08:44] John: We're building a new you.

[08:45] Chase: I feel like the Venn diagram Father/serial killer, random bag of human teeth in the closet is […]. All-Star Superman remains good. Like the movie, I really like how it leaned into some of the campier Silver Age concepts that make Superman so charming. The time travel, the Legion. It had a touch of a lot of different great Superman stories. I thought it really hung together well, as a project.

[09:13] John: The Gospel According to Lex Luthor is on my all-time favorite issues of any comic book.

[09:20] Chase: Yeah, especially Luthor, for me, I feel like the James Gunn Superman movie, that Lex Luthor was very much the All-Star Lex Luthor, in many ways. That felt like the most direct fingerprints that book had on the new film, which I loved it. I've been raving to David about the new Superman film.

[09:38] John: I loved it, too. I've been raving to him, too.

[09:39] Chase: And I think it's important to point out, for our listeners, that I am a f*cking miserable hater. So, if I'm raving about the Superman film, that means it's got to be really good, because I want to hate everything. It's my natural state. So, I couldn't, though. I cried 3 times.

[09:54] David: Yeah, same. Well, there's a bit in All-Star Superman that explains and defines Superman's character, in a way that was so perfect, that my jaw dropped when I read it. I think it might be that same issue you're talking about, John, but Lex Luthor gets Superman's powers--Sorry, I'm just doing this off the top of my head--and he can see how Superman sees, and he realizes the way Superman sees is that it's just us. We're all connected. He sees what Superman sees, and how Superman sees the world is that we're all together, we're all connected, it's all just one energy, and I was like, “man, what a brilliant way to bring Superman's goodness home and make it such an obvious ‘of course, Superman's like this,’” because I, myself, was like, “nobody's like that. Nobody's this good boy scout all the time,” but Superman can be, because of his vision, alone. He sees things that we don't see, and he sees how we're all connected, and how important each one of us is in that giant tapestry. Man, I loved that. I loved that explanation of Superman through Lex Luthor. I think that's my defining moment of why Superman does what he does. I loved it.

[11:13] Chase: Very good. I know I describe myself as a hater, but who actually is a hater, and did think that the Superman movie was meh?

[11:19] David: David Mariotte.

[11:20] Chase: No, but you're on the right track.

[11:22] David: Who would think it's meh?

[11:24] Chase: He thinks everything is meh. Erik Larsen. No, I think Erik Larsen liked it. It’s Zach Boon.

[11:29] David: Oh, of course, Zack Boon. Yeah, of course.

[11:32] Chase: Zack had a litany of small complaints that I did not even think about.

[11:36] David: Yeah, of course. Well, it's not Batman. So, that's the first problem. Your last one, John. Make it a good one.

[11:44] John: I do have a good one. This goes back to the Moebius thing I was talking about. So, this is actually a […]. Recently, both Heavy Metal Magazine and Métal Hurlant Magazine have relaunched with new #1s. Métal Hurlant was the French magazine that much of Heavy Metal’s stuff came from. They licensed a lot of the material to National Lampoon, and the National Lampoon created Heavy Metal magazine, and Métal Hurlant is still owned by Humanoids. Heavy Metal’s gone through a number of owners over the years since National Lampoon. Kevin Eastman, for a while. Then, a weird cesspool of lawsuits emerged, most recently. I believe things were rough there for a bit, in terms of the ownership. I don't know. They both relaunched with new #1s. They're both in some ways dealing with the legacy that the two have. Recently, this is in the last few months, but Métal Hurlant was a Kickstarter. I think it's available in stores, but a super thick book that reprints some old Métal Hurlant stuff, and that has a bunch of new stories, like James Stokoe, and Tim Conway's Dorf appears with his golf tips.

[12:52] David: John, that's too deep a cut, dude. You can't cut that deep. People will just tune right out. They don't know what you're talking about.

[12:58] John: No. The kids aren't really into Dorf on Golf anymore?

[13:03] David: No, they don't know what we're talking about.

[13:06] Chase: This is how they learn.

[13:09] John: Well, first of all, they just ought to make Dorf on Golf. Just, the end. That should be a thing. Heavy Metal relaunched with some classic covers. What I would say is the essential difference, in as near as I can tell, never having red Métal Hurlant, because I don't speak French, I think one of the big differences--you could have the impression that Heavy Metal was a sword-and-sorcery magazine, and you would never have that impression about Métal Hurlant. That complicates the legacy of Heavy Metal, in that it has the same legacy as Métal Hurlant, except also all the Frazetta stuff, and all the stories that are just topless women fighting monsters, and stuff.

[13:54] Chase: So, the spirit lives on in Fun Time Go.

[13:56] John: Right. There you go.

[13:58] Chase: That's our whole bread and butter.

[14:00] David: Boobs and monsters.

[14:01] John: So, the Métal Hurlant book, I thought, was just a tremendously good book. It was really neat. It had a lot of old material, some of which I've read, some of which I hadn't, some of which I'm reading in a different context […]. So, it's got some classic Moebius, Druillet, some of the classic artists from there, and the way it wrestles with its legacy, which is interesting, in that Métal Hurlant came out of the political scene of the summer of 1968 in France, which was similar to what it was in the United States. Anti-war protests, anti-government protests going on. So, this magazine comes out, and does all these alternative stories. All those things that were once alternative, and outside the mainstream, and even a protest, in some way, are the most mainstream things in the world right now. Some of the stuff is the most mainstream stuff you're going to find. Star Wars is hugely influenced by this. The two big legendary movies that came out of this were the Dune movie that Alexander Jodorowsky never made. Alien came out of that Dune movie most directly, and then stuff like Blade Runner come out of it, and both of those movies, Dune and Alien, they’re continuing movie franchises to this day that both have TV shows that are launching. They're not weird. They're not alternative anymore. They're as mainstream as you get. So, that's a weird legacy to deal with.

A lot of the stories are people telling stories about how much they liked Heavy Metal or Métal Hurlant back in the day. So, Moebius's classic Is Man Good? Is followed up by James Stokoe doing a riff on Is Man Good? One of the best new ones in the book, the Derf story, was really disappointing. He usually does My Friend Dahmer, and that kind of thing. You don't usually see him doing big cosmic stuff, and it seemed like a chance to get into that a little bit, or get into some science fiction. It's really just about him really liking Heavy Metal. It's a mostly-wordless story of Arzach dropping Heavy Metals into San Francisco when he was a kid. One of the things I thought was really good in there is, there's the interview with Alan Moore that had run in one of the previous relaunches of Métal Hurlant in France a couple of years ago. It was really trenchant, and really interesting to hear Alan Moore talking about this stuff, and talking about how he would place some of the alternative or underground artists of the 60s and 70s in today's world, or how you deal with that. The interview asked, “a lot of stuff would just get people cancelled or wouldn't be into this, or this wouldn't be around now.” “Well, sort of,”--imagine Alan Moore saying this—"but there's huge museum retrospectives of a lot of those artists. They're pretty bulletproof, by this point, and if there had been a social media, at the time, they would have rightly been pointing out that that women should be treated differently, or that you should be looking at other voices from other cultures, and stuff.” I thought it was a really sensible way to look at things. Alan Moore usually has well thought-out reasons for thinking things.

[16:59] Chase: Surprise, surprise. It's his wizarding.

[17:01] John: Yeah, exactly. So, I thought the biggest problem with Métal Hurlant--it struggles to come to a conclusion, or anything, with that wrestling with its past, and what that means for Métal Hurlant now. I can't fault it too much for that, because that is literally what the question is asking, over and over again, in these essays. It is aware of that question, and trying to find an answer, and it says that this one is more of an anniversary issue, and the new stories going forward maybe aren't all going to just be self-reflective of “Métal Hurlant sure was good” kind of stories. So, I'm looking forward to the next one. I thought the level of quality was really good, and that's a great introduction to a lot of the material that was first in there, if you have a chance to read it. Heavy Metal, which has a more complicated history, by dint of the sword-and-sorcery stuff, brings back some classic characters. So, there's literally new adventures of Valentina, who is at Guido Crepax character, who was a fashion photographer-type character from the 60s and 70s, but then also, this is a thing I didn't know about--I guess, the girl in the Heavy Metal movie is named Tarna, and there have been stories about her. So, there's new ones here by Alan Moore's daughter, Leah Moore. Some of the highlights of the new Heavy Metal are real high. A couple of really cool stories. A spectacular one by Ilias Kyriazis. Our friend, Ilias.

[18:23] Chase: Oh, yeah. That's another name where I've only seen it written, and never pronounced.

[18:27] John: Yeah. He had a really interesting one that seemed very true to the story, written by Michael Conrad, but I think where this one struggles is just on levels of basic competency, like proofreading, and I don't know, just drawing not being that good, and stuff like that. Even the design, which is by Tom Mueller, who's great, it isn't very good. There's just these super narrow panels. There's these weird sections where it's a pen-up describing an alien encounter. More than 1/3 of the page is just taken up by design garbage. It's a recurring feature that occasionally really hurts the art. It would be nice to see this as something full-size, or something, instead of the art shrunk down with the […] repeated 6 times on top.

[19:16] Chase: I wonder why that happens, when a designer’s good. It definitely does not look like something that had a lot of thought put into it. Presumably, there was.

[19:25] John: Yeah, presumably, there was. I don't know. He's listed as the art director. So, even the things of them handing it off to somebody else seem not to match the descriptions of the positions, but anyway, I did enjoy it. There's enough good stuff in there that I want to come back to it. It just seemed interesting, to me, to have these two pieces of things that I had weirdly delved into, in the last year, all coming together at roughly the same time, and that's a magazine you can buy wherever you buy magazines. I bought mine at Barnes and Noble.

[19:49] David: I did the Kickstarter for one, or both--I can't remember which--and I felt a little frustrated after the fact, because I was like, “oh, it's just going to be in comic bookshops after the fact.” I ordered my copy through Kickstarter, and then it was in comic bookshops before I got my Kickstarter fulfilled. So, I was a little bit like, “that’s not cool.”

[20:10] John: Which one?

[20:11] David: I think it was Métal Hurlant, but it might have been Heavy Metal. I don't know. I shouldn't poo-poo it too much, because I don't remember which one it was, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I was a little frustrated. I don't know. The spirit of Kickstarter, for me, is more about “you're not going immediately to comic bookshops with the thing. You're here on Kickstarter because you're wanting to do things a little differently,” and it certainly wasn't how it ended up turning out. So, I felt like I could have put my funds somewhere else, to somebody, maybe, who was needing it a little bit more. It’s like giving money to Marvel Comics for a Kickstarter. I don't need to do that, but overall, I really enjoyed it. I got a hardcover edition. I don't know if they did a hardcover edition in stores. I think they did, but it was very enjoyable. I think your review was spot-on.

I'm closing things out with a new find that I'm very excited about. This is definitely one that just popped on my radar, out of nowhere, and then I was just thoroughly entertained. I pre-order my comics from Challengers Comics out of Chicago, because I'm too lazy to go to the comic bookstore. So, I've been pre ordering my comics for the last couple of months from Challengers. They've got a really good service, and super cheap. The shipping is $6 a month, and they put everything in a box, and send it to you, and it's all packaged nicely. Anyway, I saw this thing on the pre-order, called RoboWolf #1, coming out from Dark Horse, by this guy, Jake Smith, and he's the only name on the book, and I was like, “what is that?” And the cover was bonkers. The cover looked like a bad 80s Steven Seagal movie, but anyway, it's got the neon bright colors, and just over the top. If the cover is indicative of what the interiors are going to look like, I'm going to give this a shot.

So, I gave it a shot, and man, I was not disappointed, in the slightest. It was totally super fun, over the top, 80s action film on comic book paper, and rendered in a style that is really super reminiscent of, I don't know where to put it--It's the full-color version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as rendered by an early Laird and Eastman, but way more competent. The drawing is so dense and so detailed, and so good. This guy, Jake Smith, is doing everything, too. He's writing, drawing, and coloring the whole thing. I don't know how he's doing it all, because it is a dense work, and it's really fun, and really entertaining. It is exactly the stuff I'm into. So, real quick, RoboWolf #1, here's the solicit: Robo Wolf and his crew of bank robbing criminals are in a race against time to get a fat stack of stolen money to the villainous Colonel Massacre, who has kidnapped Robo Wolf's daughter for ransom! The Colonel's not the only one with an eye on the money, however, and our heroes will have to use their combined skills to tear through an onslaught of bloodthirsty cannibals, ninjas, and more! I'm like, “yeah, sign me up. That's all the things that I love. That's exactly what I want in my comic book. I will do this,” and it totally delivered. The first issue was great. I loved it. Can't wait for another one.

So, I was like, “man, who is this Jake Smith guy?” He's fully formed. There's no way this is his first book, and lo and behold, I discovered that his next most recent work was out of IDW, and he did Godzilla: War for Humanity over at IDW, and it was written by Andrew MacLean, who I love. Head Lopper’s one of my favorite books. I love Andrew MacLean's work. So, I was like, “oh, Andrew MacLean just writing, and this Jake Smith guy, who I love, is doing pencils and inks,” and I think he did the colors, too. I'm pretty sure he did the colors, too, on this one. Yeah, he did most of the colors. Valentina Pinto came in and did some of the colors at the end, but she does a great job. She matches it.

So, it's slightly more subdued, the Godzilla: War for Humanity stuff. It's Jake Smith not quite dealing in the neon 80s coloring style that he does with RoboWolf, but still super fun, super over the top, really fantastic art, and man, I'm just in love with this guy's work. Jake Smith, he just came out of nowhere, for me. I don't know if anybody else knows who he, but he came out of nowhere, for me. We mentioned him earlier, so I'll say I'll mention it again. The series editor was David Mariotte. So, David Mariotte was doing Jake Smith and Andrew MacLean, putting those two together on a Godzilla book. That was an inspired choice. I think the thing that blows me away is that he's doing all of it, really stepping out into some serious rarefied creator air, fully orchestrating the whole thing. The pencils, inks, colors, lettering, and just the fact that he's put together this really super hyperkinetic self-made retro crime comedy thing that he's doing, I really think that it's a visual feast, and loved what he did. It was already going to be my jam, because he's diving into that 80s action film milieu, but boy, did he over-deliver, in terms of the art and coloring, and just the over-the-top insanity of the whole thing. So, I'm now a massive Jake Smith fan. I can't wait for the next issue of RoboWolf. I don't know how he's doing it. He must not sleep. He must not have a family, because I don't know how he could do what he's doing and do anything else. Definitely highly recommend that one. It's super fun.

[25:47] John: Do we have time to throw in Narutobus, the Cerebus book that I picked up that I showed you before we hung up one day? So, I was a big Cerebus guy, the comic book, Cerebus, 300 issues by Dave Sim. He becomes very controversial halfway through--psychological breakdown level of things, according to some, a fight with Jeff Smith, who’s legendary, that was nearly a fist fight, I believe, and Cerebus ended many years ago, and there's an item that comes out called Cerebus in Hell. I see it in comic bookstores. Every once in a while, I would pick one up and look through it, and I'm like, “what the hell is this? I don't understand what this is.” Every once in a while, I think, I'd buy one. I definitely did this time. Here's the thing that blew me away about this. I don't know how familiar either of you guys are with Dave Sim, or how much […]

[26:41] Chase: I'm aware of Dave Sim. I've read some of his work, and I'm certainly aware of the controversy around Dave Sim.

[26:48] John: Yeah. He used to run a Guide to Self-Publishing in the front of Cerebus that was so influential, to me. It was so much about, “here's the pens that you used to draw comic books, and here's the paper you should be looking at.” All these nuts-and-bolts things, to these philosophical “how do you publish your own work, or how do you look at your own work?” In a world pre-Internet, there just wasn't a lot of that. It's like if you listen to somebody's podcast all the time, the way you probably think you know Marc Maron, and then if you actually meet Marc Maron, you're like, “wait a minute. I don't know Marc Maron at all. I just know the show,” but that thing where you just hear somebody in and out. Anyway, this is Cerebus in Hell Presents #83?

[27:32] David: What? Wow.

[27:35] John: So, I looked it up, and I guess there's just a bunch of these things. I don't know if some of those are just variants of other issues. I still don't really know what this is. This seems to be panels of Church and State pasted down with new drawings of cosplay women that he's redrawn from photos. The way that, in between this and Cerebus, he got really into some sort of fashion.

[28:05] David: Yeah. What was it? Was it Raymond Chandler?

[28:09] John: Then he did the Strange Death of Alex Raymond. I think parts of it were originally serialized in this other magazine that he was running, but it's all about photorealism in comic book art. So, that was a particular interest of his. So, he is using photo reference, to a point, or with a point there. Meanwhile, there's other panels of Cerebus drawn like Naruto trying to get to the scene in Church and State where Cerebus throws a baby off of a rooftop, which in the context of this--which I've never heard anybody talk about, in the context of this story, this is the thing that's going to get Cerebus canceled, or something, as opposed to all of the rest of Cerebus. So, Naruto Cerebus is super nervous about that happening. There's some a dialogue story with these cosplay women going on, and a couple of guys in there. I don't know what it is. I don't know what this thing is. I don't know who this is for. I don't know who's reading it. This is one of the most baffling things I've ever purchased.

[29:14] David: How much was it?

[29:15] John: It's a regular comic book. I don't know.

[29:17] David: Yeah, just $4.99?

[29:18] John: Yeah. This is copy #491 of 815. So, there's a collectible aspect to it.

[29:30] David: That is also wild.

[29:32] John: But that is so much not the audience of who would--I don't know, man. This ran on a Kickstarter. There’s a bunch of different $25 covers you could get.

[29:40] David: Oh, he ran it on a Kickstarter?

[29:41] John: It was run on a Kickstarter.

[29:43] David: I would think that Dave Sim would not be--He's pretty anti-technology, right?

[29:49] John: Yeah. At one point, he was going to do something at IDW, and Ted Adams was talking to him, and they had to communicate via fax.

[29:57] David: Yeah, that was a whole thing.

[29:59] Chase: Look, man, everybody's got to get paid. There's only so many bus stations you can set up at to sell your weird homemade comic books before the police throw you out. He's got to go on Kickstarter.

[30:11] David: Narutobus?

[30:12] John: Yeah, the previous one was at Akira riff.

[30:16] David: Is the art good? Has he still got it? […].

[30:22] John: Yeah, I heard he had some sort of physical injury or impairment, or something, but that’s certainly not in evidence.

[30:28] David: Oh, yeah. It's just more of his photo realistic stuff married with old panels of--I don't know what that is. If I was Dave Sim, it makes sense to try to find ways to keep Cerebus in the conversation, somehow, because he's got a bunch of massive phone books that I'm assuming are his retirement plan--selling that stuff until he's dead is what he's going to be doing, right? So, trying to keep Cerebus in the public eye, in some ways, seems like a good way to conduct business. So, he's semi-retired, but he's still got to do something to keep income coming in, in some way, shape, or form, and the best way to do that is to keep pointing to Cerebus. So, I guess that's what it is. He's just having fun, doing stuff he wants to do. He’s like the John Byrne of independent comics, maybe.

[31:23] John: If you're doing it for the money play, there should be some part of it that is saleable.

[31:30] David: Well, you bought it.

[31:31] John: Yeah, I know, and I guess 800 other. That's all you need.

[31:36] Chase: But you're saying it's no Star Trek: New Visions, is what you're saying.

[31:42] David: It's no lost X-Men. What's the new book? What's that thing going to be called? I can't believe they're going to publish that. That's fantastic. The lost John Byrne weird stuff.

[31:51] John: I'm aware.

[31:53] David: I know you are.

[31:55] John: We both know the people working on that, but you get that book, and maybe you're going to be like, “man, John Byrne used to be better,” or “man, my memories of John Byrne are better than what this is,” or maybe you'll be like, “man, this is great. Some more John Byrne X-Men,” or “well, that's what an older John Byrne thinks of X-Men,” not “what the f*ck is this?”

[32:22] David: No?

[32:25] John: It's not old pictures of the old X-Men stuck together with strawman commentary about […] shots from WonderCon, or whatever.

[32:37] Chase: I would buy that book, […].Actually, I did find a copy of a Superman Batman Generations 2 at San Diego ComiCon that I picked up at a discount. So, I have my TPB of Generations 1, and I'm reading them in year order. So, I keep switching between stories. I have them on my nightstands.

[33:00] David: Fantastic. John's reaching behind him to pull out his […] The full omnibus of Generations by John Byrne. Incredible.

[33:11] Chase: Jealous.

[33:13] John: Yeah, no, actually, I got that at ComiCon last year. I'm going to be honest, that's how much I read. A lot more to go. I don't even mean that as a negative. I just drifted off to something else and never came back.

[33:22] Chase: No, he makes some interesting choices in that book, certainly.

[33:25] John: I don't know. What happens to people when they get older, and you have the Frank Millers of it, maybe you have the Alan Moores of it. I mean, I will express my admiration to Alan Moore, as a writer, that I don't think he ever fell into any of those traps some of the other people did.

[33:41] David: But Alan Moore has gone crazy he did. He did go crazy.

[33:44] John: Most of the other stuff he talks about. The part that people get up in arms about that, “they're just doing my Green Lantern stories, and they're really dark,” or “superheroes have the potential to push America towards fascism” aren't that bad criticisms. Those are reasonable thoughts to have. 

[34:03] Chase: I think you're just jealous that he's put in the work to be a wizard, David.

[34:07] David: Oh, 100%. Yeah, no, I definitely want to go crazy in the way that Alan Moore's going crazy.

[34:13] John: Yeah, I mean Kirby’s stuff got wackier as it went on, but it was still coherent Kirby. It still was […]. Steve Ditko was one of those guys that went off the rails, […] same way as this Dave Sim stuff, but man, maybe that's the end state you should hope to get to. I don't know.

[34:32] David: I was going to say, we're going to find out in about 10 years, I think, what it's all about. People are going to be going, “what happened to those two? So, thanks, Chase, for coming on the show today. It was a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much. Some wonderful choices. Put you on the spot there a little bit. Glad to have you on, and talking about what you’ve been into. John, another great series of choices from you, as well. I'm proud of you both. I couldn't be more proud to feel like you're not going down the rabbit hole of weird, bad taste, the way I am, in some of my choices, lately. Thanks, everybody, for coming to the show today, for listening to us. We really appreciate you--All four of you--and subscribe and tell a friend. We'd love to have another listener or two. We're barreling headlong, John, into Season 3. We have to start actually getting ready to how we're going to launch season 3. We’ve got to start thinking about that. So, I hope everyone's enjoying their summer. Hope everyone's having a good reading experience, and you're not getting stuck on the Narutobus. We'll see you all next week on The Corner Box.

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.