Welcome to The Corner Box with David Hedgecock and John Barber. With decades of experience in all aspects of comic book production, David, John, and their guests will give you an in-depth and insightful look at the past, present, and future of the most exciting medium on the planet—comics—and everything related to it.

[00:24] John Barber: Hello, and welcome back to The Corner Box. I'm one of your hosts, John Barber, and with me as always, my good friend—

[00:31] David Hedgecock: David Hedgecock.

[00:33] John: It's exciting to be back. It seems like 100 years have passed. I don't know why.

[00:36] David: We've both been very busy, John, but even though we're busy comic book making guys, we still have time to talk about it with all of our true hardcore podcast listeners—all five of them, John.

[00:47] John: That's right.

[00:49] David: Our listenership did go up again, by the way. I know that I joke about that, but we launched a New #1, and sure enough, our average listenership for the first four episodes of Season 3 is higher than where we were at, at the end of Season 2. So, I don't even know what we're doing, but I think it's funny that a New #1 actually does work, even in podcasting.

[01:15] John: It's funny to see the new Batman #1 really blowing up, in a way that other stuff--

[01:20] David: Yeah, it's crazy. It's shocking that, as much as everyone goes to that—well, especially in comic books—all the time, it still works. It's the only thing that still works.

[01:31] John: Well, this is a big digression, but I do think that it's really cool to have a really long run of something. It's really cool to have this thing that exists for a long time, but it's also knowingly confusing, and we sometimes forget that most of the fans that probably go into a comic bookstore are way more casual than everybody that we interact with on the internet about this stuff, or that you see talking about it on the internet. Those people that might casually interact on the internet, but not really get into all that stuff, and I think the people that just go into the comic bookstore and see a Batman #1, or hear about “there's a new Batman #1? Maybe I'll check that out. The last one was good.” There's something to it, but doing just #1s is just as confusing. So, it's one of those things, like acetate covers—DC K.O. aside—acetate covers didn't mean anything other than, in the 90s, “you like Marvels? Maybe you'll like this,” and then it turns into, “this is just them trying to get money out of me by putting a plastic cover on it,” but the first couple of ones, it does have that cachet to it.

[02:37] David: Yeah. Right. I do think that Marvel seems to be moving into a version of New #1s that I find more appealing than how they've done it in the past, and I saw it first, or I noticed it first, on the Moon Knight series. It's been the same writer for the last couple of years, but they've relaunched Moon Knight with a different subtitle every 12 to 18 issues, I believe. So, it was the same writer and artist for two or three of the series launches. Cappuccio, I think was his name, and then I think Cappuccio is the guy who moved over to Ultimate Wolverine, I think—I'm just doing this off the top of my head—and then a new artist has come on to the Moon Knight series, but it's still the same writer. I find that more acceptable than just Moon Knight #1 after Moon Knight #1. At least the subtitles are identifying, “hey, it's a new season. It's a new chance to get on. It's a new storyline starting,” and as long as they do that in a way that's not every four issues, I think they're settling into something that I find slightly more acceptable.

It appears, to me, like they're doing that with Incredible Hulk right now, with the new Infernal Hulk launch. That book is still Kennedy Johnson. Anyway, it's the same writer, and the same artist, Nic Klein, but they've got a New #1, and Incredible Hulk ran for 30 issues. So, Infernal Hulk, if they do another long run on that of a couple years, I like that. I'm totally okay with that. In today's day and age, getting something to 30 or 50 issues just doesn't seem feasible any longer—in the days where an entire TV series season is 8 episodes. I'm okay with them settling into this new norm. Still not my 100% preference, but I like it better than the New #1 with the same exact title, and just calling it Volume 6 of the thing. That's beaten to death.

[04:37] John: Yeah. I don't think that's dissimilar from Marvel's playbook, for a really long time, of giving jumping-on points to ongoing runs that they want to keep continuing, that the sales are starting to slip, but they don't think it's a catastrophic failure, but I do think the way we've gotten used to really short TV seasons, it still hasn't really been applied fully to comic books. It wouldn't be that weird to have an 8-issue run of a comic every year that can be the same creative team, not have a bunch of fill-in issues in it, or not have a bunch of guest artists where they're not appropriate to it. I don't know. I mean, there's no answer to this. This is a thing that everybody there is talking about the same way. It's not like they think they've stumbled upon the answer. You're just surviving to the future. I don't mean that they're in trouble. I just mean, how do you keep swimming forward?

[05:24] David: There's no one solution that's going to last forever. It's just not true, with the exception of, apparently, just giving it a New #1, because that still is the thing that works. Anyway, John, this is not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about other stuff today. We've got some exciting things to talk about—stuff we actually somewhat prepared for. You're going to talk about some cool stuff that you've discovered, and then we're going to do this month's--or I don't know how often we're doing that. I think it's been about two months since I did this--but we're going to do our Top 10, John, according to The Corner Box. Top Hottest Artists in the Entire Comic Industry--according to The Corner Box.

[06:05] John: Just to acknowledge, real quick, Humanoids filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy yesterday.

[06:09] David: Really?

[06:10] John: Yeah.

[06:11] David: Oh, I didn't know that. Why would they be filing for Chapter 7? Aren't they a foreign company?

[06:16] John: No, I mean, I think the US.

[06:17] David: The American arm?

[06:18] John: Yeah.

[06:20] David: Oh, okay. I don't even know what Humanoids is publishing these days.

[06:23] John: Well, they're publishing that Metal Hurlant Magazine that I ramble on about at length so much.

[06:28] David: Wow. So, they pulled in $500,000 on that Metal Hurlant, and that couldn't keep them going more than a couple months. That's crazy.

[06:36] John: It looks expensive.

[06:38] David: Looks can be deceiving, John.

[06:39] John: Not this time, I guess.

[06:42] David: So, did they get more than that one book out?

[06:45] John: There's 2 volumes that are out, or delivered to subscribers. I don't know what happens. Chapter 7 bankruptcy, I believe, is liquidation. I think that's the bad one. That isn't Chapter 11 reorganization, where you can continue going afterwards. So, I'm not sure what happens, at this point.

[07:03] David: Yeah, you're not getting your money back on that subscription, probably.

[07:08] John: No, I think that's the reason you go bankrupt. I think so.

[07:14] David: I mean, even after they sell all the assets, there's not enough there to—they’ve got to pay off, probably, big-time creditors before the regular Joe with his subscription money gets his back.

[07:26] John: We'll see. This is all hypothetical. I don't really know, but that's my understanding.

[07:30] David: I'm never happy when a comic book publisher goes out of business, John. It's not good for anybody.

[07:36] John: No, but what we do have, even if they stop making comics now, is comics they used to make, and that we can read again. Good transition, huh?

[07:44] David: That was awesome.

[07:45] John: That was super slick. So, this is actually one of--it's been hanging around in my head for a while, back, I think, even when Chase was on.

[07:52] David: All the way back in Season 2?

[07:54] John: Season 3: The Early Years. It was the .1 episodes that we did, if you remember the Marvel .1 issues that they used to do. So, there are a couple of old comics that I had reread, that I haven't read in a long time. One of them has turned into a longer project. Maybe this is something worth bringing up later. Dan Brereton has a new Nocturnal series out. I really like Dan's art. I started digging through and reading the first time I ever encountered him, which was a comic he did called The Black Terror, but then that's led me into the other projects that he's done. So, by coincidence, I'd had some of these that I owned and had never read, and I'm like, “I could actually see some of this stuff in sequence, and see how he evolved, or what the world did with him.” So, I've been doing that. That's probably another time, though.

[08:41] David: That's a fun dive, Dan Brereton. I've actually thought about doing a Dan Brereton dive in the last year or two. I just haven't gotten to it, yet, but I bet that's a good dive. There's a new Nocturnals out? Who's publishing that? Is that Image?

[08:54] John: I believe it's Dark Horse.

[08:55] David: Oh, okay, but it's new material?

[08:57] John: Yeah, unless something I missed with the reprinting, but it seems like it's new.

[09:01] David: That's awesome. I can't remember the last time Dan Brereton did interiors, or even covers. I haven't seen him around for a while. Maybe it's because he's been doing this.

[09:09] John: Yeah, that could be. I don't know. Anyway, though, the other one that I dug into was an early manga—excuse me. I don't mean early manga. I mean early American releases of manga—1988 publication date in the US, from post-Eclipse VIZ. VIZ was originally working with Eclipse for a while for publishing. So, this is when they were publishing these big 64-page full-size comic books, flops that reads left-to-right, American format. Basically, a thicker Dark Knight, but in black and white.

[09:41] David: Is that a square-bound? John's holding up the cover. So, yeah. I really like that cover. That's really bold colors on it. Some nice choices on that.

[09:49] John: Yeah, it's a comic called Grey. That spawned a direct-to-video anime, I believe it was called Grey: Digital Target.

[09:57] David: What an exciting name for an anime, Grey: Digital Target. That was the name? I'm shocked that that's not a household name.

[10:06] John: Digital Target sounds exactly like the sort of thing you'd find in a 1988/1990 anime title. It's an English word, like Akira. Akira is not an English word, but Akira was written in English on the logo.

[10:18] David: It sounds like a 13-year-old read William Gibson's Necromancer and then started coming up with titles. That's what it sounds like, to me.

[10:24] John: Neuromancer, but funny you would mention that.

[10:27] David: I meant Neuromancer. What did I say?

[10:29] John: Necromancer.

[10:31] David: Same thing.

[10:33] John: The funny thing about this is, it is by Yoshihisa Tagami, who had, I think, 3 manga come out in English. This is the first of them. It has a foreword by Harlan Ellison.

[10:44] David: Nice.

[10:45] John: Right. The premise of this book is, AIs take over the world and have these cities competing to kill each other. People don't realize that they're just being manipulated by these machines—Spoiler alert, sort of—and one of these guys fighting these endless wars against random cities is named Grey, and that's our protagonist. Obviously, that bears some resemblance to I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, at least in a real broad way--not in a Harlan Ellison suing James Cameron and the producers of Terminator for being too similar to his story kind of way--but enough that Harlan Ellison would happily go in and talk about this. Harlan Ellison's foreword is delightful, really fun, and very positive, and you get into it for a little bit before you realize that there's nothing that he's actually talking about. He's talking about, “maybe someday, I'll get to go to Japan, meet this guy, or see the country.” Obviously, somebody was just like, “machines. Harlan Ellison does that, and he's game. It'll do this.” It's very charming. It's not bad. It's just funny, as you start to realize, “this isn't—"

[11:54] David: He hasn't read the material.

[11:56] John: Right, exactly.

[11:57] David: That's where we're going. Somebody said, “hey, Harlan, can you write 500 words?”

[12:04] John: I think he has read the manga, but I think somebody sent it to him, he read it, and he's like, “it sure seems like this Tagami guy read some of my work. It's flattering, if he read some of my work." There's no actual connection between the two.

[12:24] David: Got it. That was pretty good.

[12:26] John: The thing that I always remembered about Tagami's art is, he drew noses really funny. He drew these really long Pinocchio-like noses on all of his characters, except head-on, and then he just barely draws noses, but the art's super stylized, really pretty cool, very techy, a lot of mecha and vehicles going around. Exactly the sort of thing that, looking at the manga market, and trying to figure out, “what's an American superhero reader going to get?” I have no idea how popular this was in Japan. I mean, it was popular enough to get a OVA, Original Video Animation, but that was at the time when the Japanese economy was exploding so much, they were making these $40/50 video tapes, because they could, because everybody in Japan just had a lot of money, because the economy was so huge in the late 80s, before the 90s crash of the Japanese economy. The thing that really struck me about it, because I remembered this book, but I didn't remember--one, this is just a bleak-ass story.

The main character, we're introduced to him, he vaguely betrays the guys he's with, so that a bunch of other people get killed, so he can survive in this mission, and it's just like, “well, that's what it takes to survive,” and he goes off and meets up with people. This girl goes off with him. He joined the military, because his girlfriend had joined, and then she got killed. So, he wanted to go out. He meets this other girl, and they go off on this bleak, war-torn, desolate desert of a planet, fighting other people, figure out what's going on. She gets killed. He makes his way to the final computer thing, and destroys it, and maybe walks away at the end, but everything's just destroyed. There was just no real victory to it. Reading it, I'm like, “this isn't just stuff that every 12-year-old has imprinted on them as they're reading stuff.” I think this affected some of the ways I think about storytelling, and mecha stuff, and the unrelenting bleakness of it, and the machines, as things tricking humans into doing bad things, or whatever. I hadn't realized the impact it had on me.

[14:37] David: That is saying something, given that you've written a lot of AI mech material in your life. So, wait. So, I'm not sure you said this, but you encountered this at an early age, you're saying?

[14:50] John: I think I might have bought a set of it, right after it came out. It might have been one of those.

[14:54] David: Late 80s/early 90s.

[14:56] John: Probably bought this before the Batman movie came out. It's somewhere in that range of stuff, but even just some of the mecha designs—there's a two-legged, inhuman-looking mecha that really imprinted on me. There's some of that you see in other toys, at the time. It wasn't like this was totally unique. That really impacted me. One of the things that is really hilarious about this comic, though—I mentioned this when I was talking to Chase—where I'd just finally read Ranma ½. I don't know if you've ever read it, or you're familiar with it.

[15:25] David: I haven't read it, but I'm definitely familiar with it.

[15:28] John: Loved it. Thought it was hilarious. Really funny. Really good, but one of the things that really shocked me, but made me wonder, is this still in the volumes when you buy it today? There's a lot of underage topless girls in that. Not […], but that's the joke. The joke is, this boy turns into a girl when he gets a certain temperature water poured on him. So, there's a lot of—and it's by a woman, writing and drawing it. So, it isn't like you're necessarily supposed to be like “ooh,” but it's like, “oh, that's funny. He's so embarrassed what's going on,” or whatever. So, Japan was way more fluid with that kind of thing in the late 80s than American comics were. Except, Japan, then and now, has this thing where you can't show pubic hair. So, there'd usually be some smoke, or something, in there. What's happened with these is that, in certain scenes, they've gone back in, and added that, added pubic hair to two characters who didn't have it in the original. This is actually not only not cleaned up from the Japanese one--it's the dirtier version.

[16:34] David: I wonder what the decision-making process was behind that. Why would you go do that?

[16:39] John: I don't know. Unrelated in any way, like Ranma ½, the original translator was comics’ Gary Glitter, Gerard Jones, who would, of course, later go to jail for child pornography charges.

[16:52] David: Right. Oh, wow.

[16:54] John: So, I don't know what connections you can draw, David.

[16:57] David: Don't know that I want to think about this anymore, John. It's getting into some weird territory. It's wild.

[17:04] John: It's probably not even worth talking about, in the context of this, other than, I was 12 when I was reading this.

[17:10] David: Sure. Right. It's all very innocent. I don't get the impression that Ranma ½, or this project—it's just androgynous. There's no sexuality.

[17:22] John: No, not with Ranma ½. With this, yes. This is--I mean this in the best way--trashy.

[17:31] David: And you're reading it at 12.

[17:33] John: Yeah, exactly.

[17:35] David: Okay. Fantastic.

[17:37] John: I don't know. It's like the dirty dozen, but everybody dies in Issue #2, and it's just the last remnants of the people gasping toward their inevitable death as they lose in defeating the thing that they need to defeat, because there is no victory.

[17:50] David: […], man. This has imprinted on your psyche. It does explain some things, John.

[17:58] John: No, it probably does. That's the thing. I actually bought this at the same time. I haven't read this one, yet. So, the follow-up was a series called Horobi. That's a horror series. I'm like, “I'll read that around Halloween,” but I remember that being even more gross and sexual than this was. Gross, in the sense of there being monsters in it. I mean, gross biological.

[18:20] David: There was no way for me to have access to that stuff when I was at that age. There was no comic bookshop, or anything. We've talked about this before, but I had a 7-Eleven. That was literally it. The most out-of-bounds thing that 7-Eleven carried was Savage Sword of Conan. That was as bad as it was going to get, which at times, it was pretty […], but it was never crazy the way you're describing some of the stuff in Grey.

[18:48] John: It's not a million miles away from reading Savage Sword of Conan. It is that same sort of grimy. This goes a little further, maybe, but there's a grimy--I've been reading some Conan issues recently, and I'm sure you've seen them all, and there's just that 70s grindhouse-ness to it that's in there.

[19:06] David: I think that's a good way to put it—grindhouse. Yeah, it's macho comics.

[19:11] John: Yeah, the macho tech comics. This probably isn't hitting the same quadrants that Ranma was hitting.

[19:19] David: Well, there you go. Grey. So, this was influential on you as a creator later on, and you're just now realizing that, it sounds like.

[19:29] John: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's definitely one that I remembered, and knew I'd read it. I could remember some pieces of it when I was reading it all, but it was funny reading it, just piecing together some of these little bits, little phrases, little backstory stuff, and I'm like, “that's just the thing that I automatically assume sometimes.” That probably came from this. This probably wasn't a thing floating around, generally, in culture, the way if I put a laser sword in something, you know what it's from. It's from Star Wars, but it's also that was just around. I think it's a good comic. I don't think Harlan Ellison's wrong about it. It's interesting to see how it goes.

[20:03] David: I think there's something to those kinds of entertainment experiences, reading experiences. I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so enamored with old, bad movies, and things like that, because, yeah, I mean, 95% of that stuff is really bad, but there's that certain 5% of something, a je ne sais quoi of it, that not a lot of people are getting exposed to, but I'm getting exposed to it, and then it, in turn, informs a little bit of what I'm doing, as a creative type of person, in my writing and my drawing. So, I think it's important, maybe, to expose yourself to that stuff, as a creator, to get as broad and wide, and diverse a background in your entertainment as you possibly can, not just because it's fun, but because there's something to that, I think. Even the bad stuff, you can learn from.

[20:56] John: Yeah. I felt like I was getting away with something, reading comics, or reading something I wasn't getting on TV.

[21:02] David: Yeah, for sure. I definitely felt like I was getting away with something.

[21:05] John: Yeah. Speaking of getting away with something.

[21:12] David: Yeah, we're going to get into, John, not get away from. All right, John. Thanks for sharing that. We're going to call that the appetizer for this week's episode, and this is the meal. A month or two ago, we did our first Top 10 Hottest Artists in the Comic Book Industry, according to us, and what this is, it's a throwback to the old Wizard Magazine's Top 10 Hottest Artists. I'm trying to use what I think--I'm just making it up in my head--but what I think would have been similar criteria to whoever was building those lists back in the day. I could probably actually reach out to the people that built those lists, back in the day, and find out exactly what they were thinking, but that sounds like work. So, I'm just going to make it up in my head, and go from there. So, this list is based on a couple of different things. I'm using ICv2.com for my sales data, and I'm using a couple of different news sites for what is being well received, and what isn't, in terms of what's hot, and what's not. So, here we go.

We're going to do our Top 10. We're going to start from the bottom at #10, and then we'll work our way up to #1, but before we start, we have some shocking and surprising changes in our Top 10 list from last time. For those listeners who might recall from last time, our Top 10 list included a few people, like Lewis Larosa, Chris Samnee, and Peach Momoko, and guess what, John? They did not make the list, John. Peach Momoko came in at #5 last time, and she dropped all the way down off the list. The entire team creating the Top 10 list was shocked when we learned and discovered that Peach Momoko is no longer in the Top 10 list. If we had a Top 10 list before last time, she probably would have been on it for ages, and now she's off, John. No longer on it.

Our #10 artist was on the list last month, but in another shocking turn of events, John, this artist went from #2, and has dropped all the way down to #10, in just two short months.

[23:09] John: Oh, my God.

[23:10] David: And that is Iban Coello. Iban Coello is working on Imperial. He's co-drawing the series, and John, I'm here to tell you that Imperial is not being very well received, despite having Jonathan Hickman on the book, and despite using heavy hitters, like Black Bolt and She-Hulk. The book is not doing as well as I think most had hoped. I think people are not really accepting of the mixed artists team on the book, in addition to a few other minor complaints that I'm seeing, but Iban Coello has dropped like a stone, John, to #10.

[23:49] John: Like a Skrull stone.

[23:50] David: Like a Skrull stone. Any response to the shocking turn of events with Iban Coello dropping 8 positions, from #2 all the way down to #10?

[24:00] John: I like Iban. I'm a huge Hickman fan, of course, but every issue of Imperial is half of it me trying to remember what the premise of Imperial is. I thought Alien vs Avengers was great. It's not anything about Hickman, or anything like that, that I think he's not as good now. He's full cylinders on several books, but yeah, this one is leaving me cold. So, I can see that happening, and I can see the art getting wrapped up in the mix of, what you said, two artists on it, not really breaking new ground, in terms of Marvel Cosmic.

[24:33] David: It's too bad, because Iban has been showing tons of promise, and I think this is just falling flat for him. I don't know how much—I don't want to lay it all at his feet, because there's other artists involved, but it's just not working out. So, hopefully he'll be able to come back stronger on the next project. In general, his arrow has been pointing up for quite some time. All right. #9, John.

[24:51] John: Yes.

[24:52] David: We have a new artist added to the list. First time ever on The Corner Box Top 10 Hottest Artists of the Moment, Nic Klein.

[25:01] John: Oh, wow.

[25:02] David: Nic Klein of The Incredible Hulk fame. Now, Nic Klein has been doing some fantastic cover work, but his interior work on Incredible Hulk has also been just top-notch. Not only is he doing some incredible interior work, but he's been fairly consistent, John, over the course of this 30-issue run that he's been doing with Phillip Johnson Kennedy. So, Nic Klein at #9 is popping in. The relaunch of Incredible Hulk as Infernal Hulk, and the Infernal Hulk storyline, with Incredible Hulk now separated from Bruce Banner completely, and being possessed by an entirely different entity, with Bruce Banner trying to somehow navigate all this, and bring Incredible Hulk under control. The storyline's really heating up, and New #1 has just skyrocketed Nic Klein into our Top 10 list.

[25:51] John: Yeah, he's great. Did a lot of cool stuff with Ivan Brandon, and I think he started off doing some painting over Esad Ribić, at one point.

[25:58] David: Oh, I didn't know that.

[25:59] John: Might be misremembering. I think so, but yeah, no, he's terrific. It's good to see him taking off. I need to catch up on Hulk, to be honest.

[26:05] David: It's very good.

[26:06] John: Yeah, that's what I hear.

[26:07] David: I'm not a big horror guy, and the storyline's definitely been leading into the horror, and I'm enjoying it, and I think that says a lot.

[26:13] John: Cool.

[26:14] David: All right. Next up on our list, #8 in The Corner Box Top 10 Hottest Artists of the Moment. Another new addition to the Top 10 list. Shocking that this artist wasn't on the list before, but rocketing into the Top 10, and I'll be shocked if he doesn't go higher, over the course of the next few months—Dan Mora.

[26:38] John: Oh, let me check my notes here. He's currently drawing everything.

[26:43] David: Yeah. The only risk of Dan Mora is that he's doing so many things that he might burn out. Like a shooting star, he might burn very bright, and then burn out, but he's been doing this for quite some time now—several years—and he seems to only be going in one direction, and that is up, and that's certainly the case here, as he logs in for the first time at #8 on our Top 10 list. His new launch of Transformers at Issue #25, in addition to Batman/Deadpool #1 coming out in just a few short weeks from when this podcast airs, and working with two of the top talents in all of writing history of comics, working with fantastic writers, like Robert Kirkman on Transformers, and Grant Morrison. Grant Morrison is back for the Batman/Deadpool One-Shot.

[27:29] John: Plus, he's still doing some Batman stuff with Mark Waid, right?

[27:33] David: Yeah, he is, and he just also did some of the work for the Batman futuristic comic book, which I think maybe he was just doing covers and designs for. I don't think he did interiors, but anyway. The man is everywhere, and he's on some of the hottest books coming. So, that's why he's #8 on our list, John. #7, another surprise entry in our Top 10 list, another new artist, Ludo Lullabi. Now, Ludo Lullabi is now working on a book called Ghost Pepper over at Image Comic Books. Prior to his time on his creator-owned book, Ghost Pepper, though, he was the artist who finished Battle Chasers with Joe Maduriera, wrapping up that series. Lullabi’s been around for a couple of years now. He's worked on two very hot projects. Ghost Pepper is burning up the charts. The first issue sold out, and it's gone back to print, at least twice. He's part of the Skybound Group. His book, while it is at Image, it's part of the Skybound part of Image, and Skybound seemingly can do no wrong these days. So, Ghost Pepper is just another proof of that, and Ludo Lullabi is our #7 Top 10 Artist, and I'm not adding Ludo Lullabi to this list because he did covers for me for Miss Mina and the Midnight Guardians, John. It's only because his Ghost Pepper book is doing very well, and it sold out.

All right. #6 on our Top 10 list. These next two artists are hanging on by a thread, John. I'm very worried about how they're going to do, over the course of the next few months, but right now, they're still right in the mix. In fact, we've seen one of them climb the charts, but at #6, we are seeing another surprise drop, John. Jason Fabok came in at #3 last time. This month, Jason's dropped all the way to #6, despite the fact that he just came out with a new issue, Issue #7, of his creator-owned book, Rook, which looks amazing. The fans are just not gravitating to this title right now, John. It's very concerning, because the sales on this book is not as good as one would hope, especially given the level of detail and talent that Jason is bringing to the book. So, unfortunately, Jason took a hit. So, from #3 all the way down to #6, but I maintain that, for my own personal superhero artist, nobody's doing it better than Jason Fabok right now. He's absolutely amazing. All right, John. You ready to keep going?

[29:54] John: Yeah, sure.

[29:55] David: We're moving into the Top 5 now. At #5, this is I believe our first artist who was on the list last time, who has moved up in the rankings by 1 notch, moving from #6 up to #5--Gary Frank of Geiger. This is the second of the two Ghost Machine books artists that have made it on the list. The other one being Jason Fabok, who we just talked about. Geiger is around Issue #14, or maybe it's Issue #17, and is still maintaining a Top 150 books, which is no small feat for an independent Image comic book these days. Seems to be holding steady, rock solid. One of the leading Ghost Machine books. I believe, Hyde Street is the only one that comes in higher, and Hyde Street's at a much lower number, coming in at Issue #8. Ivan Reis is on that book, by the way. Also, incredible artist. Ghost Machine artists are all just so top-notch. Anyway, Gary Frank, probably on a Wizard Top 10 list, at some point, back in the day, and still making Top 10 lists today.

[30:59] John: All right. Yeah.

[31:01] David: All right. We have one of our biggest movers of the entire month, John. This time, coming in at #4, this artist is already well known and well associated with a wildly popular property right now. Ryan Ottley on Battle Beast.

[31:20] John: Sure. Okay.

[31:21] David: We know Ryan from Invincible fame.

[31:23] John: Haunt, of course.

[31:24] David: Haunt. Right. I want to know the story behind Haunt sometime. There's got to be some story behind that, because that did not work. Ryan Ottley of Battle Beasts fame and Invincible fame. Invincible remains one of the most lauded animated television series of the last few years. Ryan Ottley has a lot to say and do about that success. With the launch of Battle Beasts, they've gone back to the Invincible world, but in a whole new and different way. Ryan Ottley’s art has never been more brutal or vicious, and never been more entertaining. He's really cut loose on these wild sci-fi planets and alien technology, and aliens themselves. He's really been let loose, and his imagination is bigger and bolder than ever before, and people are flocking to this book, John. Just flocking to it. Issue #5 is the latest issue that's come out. It remains a Top 25 title in all of comic books, and I think a large part of that has to do with Ryan Ottley himself, and the brutal, visceral art that he's bringing to Battle Beasts.

Okay, we're moving into our Top 3 now. Another big mover here, John. Maybe the biggest mover of the month. We are now watching Hayden Sherman's march to #1.

[32:44] John: I see what you did there.

[32:47] David: John, Absolute Wonder Woman—I don't know if I can remember the last time a Wonder Woman book was in the Top 20 of sales consistently, for more than one or two issues. Probably when George Perez was drawing it was the last time that happened, but Absolute Wonder Woman, it has remained a Top 20 book throughout the entire series, and here's something that's really telling, I think, about Hayden Sherman's artwork, as well as the other people on the team, but Hayden, in particular. In August, there were two issues of Absolute Wonder Woman in the Top 75 comic books. One, the current issue of August, which I believe was Issue #11, came in at #13, and then Issue #10, the previous month, John—so, the July issue of Absolute Wonder Woman—came in at #66. The regular Wonder Woman title that wasn't Absolute, the August issue of Wonder Woman, Issue #24, came in at #85, John. Not only did the current issue of Absolute Wonder Woman in August beat the pants off of Wonder Woman, but the previous month also outsold the current issue of Wonder Woman. So, Absolute Wonder Woman is on fire, and Hayden Sherman, as we've discussed, is a large part of that. His artwork is fantastic.

[34:15] John: He is amazing. This is as excited as I've been about Wonder Woman since George Perez, as well. That was one of my favorite comics when that was coming out. It's one of my favorite comics now. I've enjoyed other Wonder Woman runs in there, but this has the same newness to it. Well, a very different visual take on it. George Perez's version of it was very classical and precise, and detailed, and this is very visceral and exciting designs on the pages.

[34:39] David: Yeah. Hayden Sherman in #3. Thank you for that, John. I completely agree with you, 100%. All right. Now moving up two spots, from #4 all the way up to #2, Nick Dragotta is crushing it on Absolute Batman. The primary reason why we see Nick Dragotta jumping up two whole spots, even though he's already in the Top 5, John, is because we have seen something that we don't see very often. Now, Clay Mann came in as a filler artist on Issue #11. Red Hot. Absolute Batman was red hot, and with Issue #11, I believe we got the introduction of the new Absolute version of Bane. At least, it’s the very first cover appearance of Bane, but I believe Absolute Batman #11 was the first appearance of Bane. So, you would think, Clay Mann, with the first appearance of Bane, would really be a hot commodity, and we would see some great sales from that, but what we saw was a drop, John, a significant drop in sales, just for that one issue that Clay Mann came on, and then Nick Dragotta came back with Issue #12, and sure enough, sales shot right back up. So, we're seeing the Nick Dragotta effect. It is not a drag on sales, John.

[35:52] John: I see what you did there, too.

[35:54] David: Thank you.

[35:56] John: He and David Brothers just had a comic called Good Devils come out from Image, as well.

[36:00] David: That's right. That is also part of what has brought his star up, John. I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you. His other creator-owned series is out at Image right now, and that too is being well received, and then the other thing that's really catapulted Nick up into the spotlight is his controversial design of Catwoman in Absolute Batman. You love it or hate it, you're still going to buy it, situation, the new Catwoman. So, Nick Dragotta at #2.

[36:29] John: All right. Love it.

[36:30] David: And our #1 for the second time in a row, John, retaining his title at #1, Marco Checchetto on Ultimate Spider-Man.

[36:42] John: Wow.

[36:44] David: Now, John, the reason why Marco has retained his #1 status is because Ultimate Spider-Man is the only book in the Top 20 that is above Issue #20 itself. So, Issue #21 of Ultimate Spider-Man is still a Top 20 selling title. No other title is even close. The next closest, I believe, is Issue #13, and I think it might be Absolute Batman. Ultimate Spider-Man, featuring the art of Marco Checchetto, is certainly burning up the charts, still holding a very coveted Top 20 position in sales, and as we've seen, Jonathan Hickman doesn't always mean that we're going to have great sales. We already talked about the fact that Imperial is going in the wrong direction. So, we're leaning into Marco as the difference-maker here, and for that, and his continued excellence, he retains the #1 spot, John, on The Corner Box Top 10 Hottest Artists of the Moment, and that's what I’ve got for you.

[37:49] John: Wow. All right. Good stuff out there.

[37:58] David: Any surprises for you, John, there?

[37:59] John: Surprising to see Peach Momoko drop off.

[38:01] David: Shocking turn of events on that one. I agree.

[38:04] John: It's interesting to see where some of the Ghost Machine stuff is falling. There are so many new companies putting out a lot of high-quality books, it's almost hard to keep track of all of them.

[38:15] David: It's shocking. I'm actually looking at the sales charts, in a way that I haven't in a while. I was shocked to see just how low the Ghost Machine stuff is coming in. By example, you and I know, historically, exactly what a G.I. Joe A Real American Hero book sells. You and I know what those numbers are, and they're coming in well below that. Now, Skybound, I'm sure, has increased sales on that book, in a meaningful way, but still, to have something like Rook and Geiger coming in below a comic book that's been around for 300-plus issues is a little shocking to see, especially given the level of talent on those books. Guys like Gary Frank and Jason Fabok--I mean, they're on people's Top 10 lists of Best Artists of the Moment.

[39:03] John: Yeah, not that their time has passed, but they were--I don't know--the vanguards of where things were at, in previous decades. I mean, Gary Frank's been around forever, or it seems like--not really--but I mean, going back to Peter David Hulk, and stuff. It seems like there've been three or four Gary Frank reinventions over the years, in a totally cool way. It's interesting to see where the differences are now, because I do feel like Nick Dragotta, Hayden Sherman, those guys, some of the controversy you're talking about comes from this different approach to some of the stuff, some of the designs, and storytelling, and stuff. It's interesting. I don't know.

[39:40] David: Yeah. Might be speaking to what we talked about on the podcast a few weeks ago, which is this changing of the guard, in terms of what the customer base is looking for and familiar with, and comfortable with, in terms of their art, and their art styles. So, something interesting to keep an eye on. I will say one more thing about Peach Momoko. I think part of the reason why we saw such a shocking change there is, Ultimate X-Men is not necessarily getting long on the tooth, but she's been on that book. It's a regular thing. I think people are taking that book for granted right now. There's not some big heat on it, and then the other big thing that she's done recently, where she really stepped out, was on Big Rig, which is an indie comic book by Post Malone, of all people. So, you would have expected a little bit of heat around that, and we didn't really see much of anything. So, I think that, and through no fault of her--I mean, the cover she did for Big Rig are gorgeous. They're fantastic, and maybe some of the best work I've seen from her, and yet, it still didn't really move the needle. So, I think those were some of the things that contributed to her shocking fall from our Top 10. All right, John. I think that's it. That's all I’ve got for you.

[40:48] John: That sounds good to me. We did it. So, yeah, join us next week. We'll do something a little different, but just as good, and it won't be a New #1 yet. We're continuing our legacy number of #6, or whatever.

[41:05] David: Our legacy numbering would be closer to #125.

[41:10] John: We missed #100, didn't we?

[41:12] David: We did. Dang it, but you know what? I think #125 might be coming up. We might have to switch to legacy numbering for #125, and then we'll go back to a New #1, John.

[41:24] John: Oh, nice. Yeah, all right. Thanks a lot for joining us. We'll be back next week. See you here at The Corner Box. Like and subscribe please. Thanks a lot. Goodbye.

[41:35] David: Bye.

This has been The Corner Box with David and John. Please take a moment and give us a five-star rating. It really helps. Join us again next week for another dive into the wonderful world of comics.