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 not with me, but coming to us live and direct from the raisin capital of the world, Fresno, California, David Hedgecock.

[00:37] David Hedgecock: Yeah.

[00:38] John: Everybody gets a 50-year-old Carol Burnett reference, right?

[00:43] Jim McCann: That, or the California Raisins.

[00:45] John: Wait, who was that? That's Jim McCann.

[00:47] David: John, before we get into chatting with Jim, which I'm very anxious to do, I’ve got to tell you this dumb story that just happened to me. So, I am in Fresno, and part of the reason why I'm here, I'm helping my parents out. They're having to redo all the plumbing in their home, semi-unexpectedly. So, I'm up here, helping out, and there's four different plumbers working around the house right now. So, if you hear any noise, that's probably what it is. About 30 minutes ago, right before the podcast, I'm actually doing my homework, and checking up on what Jim's been doing, checking the socials, and all that, and I hear this sound, and I go into the kitchen, I'm standing up, and I squat down, and I'm looking underneath the kitchen sink, and I see there's a drip coming from the kitchen sink. Now, the water's supposed to be off. So, I’m like, “maybe they've turned it on, and they're testing, and that's clearly a problem. There shouldn't be dripping water underneath the sink.” So, I think, “I should just go ask one of the plumbers, point it out to them,” but then I think, “oh, no, I'll just get down on my knees and reach underneath the sink, and see if there's a faucet or a valve that I can just turn, and then I'll go tell them,” because it's not a ton of water, but it's dripping pretty well, and I don't want to get the bottom of the sink […]. So, I lean down, get on my hands and knees, and I'm reaching into the back wall of the sink, and just as my face and hand is as close as it could possibly be to this small nozzle, a geyser of water comes shooting out of it.

[02:30] John: Oh, my God.

[02:31] David: At a not insignificant force, and I am literally pushed back by the water that is now geysering out of this hole in the wall, and I am soaked, head-to-toe, and water is geysering out of this high-pressure tube. So, I go back in there, because I’m like, “oh, my God, the kitchen is being flooded rapidly.” So, I go get back in there, even more wet, to try to put my finger in the […], and hold this, try to stop the water. I'm getting soaking wet, and then started screaming and cussing as loud as I could, because the plumbers did not know what was happening. So, I did not prepare, Jim, as well as I probably should have or could have. I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to dry myself. All the water's off, and we have no access to the dryers. It's 40 degrees in Fresno, and I'm in shorts and a T-shirt, and my only pair of pants and my only hoodie sweatshirt are soaking wet. I was wringing them out, soaking wet. So, that's how my day is going, guys.

[03:51] John: I'm thinking of getting some of the plumbers. I think I can hear some of them. “It's me, Mario.” Yeah, redoing your plumbing is awesome, because you get to spend the amount of money you'd spend on a car to break even, and still have plumbing.

[04:05] David: Yeah. Here's the good news, bringing you back to comics--I've not lived in my home for at least 30-plus years. I still have a portion of my comic collection in my parents' closet. That's far away from the kitchen. So, we're okay, guys. The comic collection is still preserved pristinely, as it has been for well over 30 years now. So, we're okay.

[04:25] Jim: I was sweating bullets.

[04:26] David: It could have been worse. It really could have.

[04:28] Jim: Unlike you, my basement flooded in New Jersey, when I had my house there, and I lost all of my 30 long boxes, from when I was 10 until I was in my mid-30s.

[04:45] David: Oh, my God.

[04:46] Jim: Yeah, it was awful.

[04:48] David: Horrific. I'm not even kidding.

[04:50] Jim: I'm trying to get some stuff back. My Holy Grail is a near-mint copy of X-Men #210, the start of the Mutant Massacre. That's my favorite cover.

[05:01] John: That was right when I started subscribing to X-Men. So, I remember getting that in the mail.

[05:05] Jim: Did you get the map of the Mutant Massacre? You can find that on eBay. It's by itself, and it's so cool.

[05:11] David: Nice. So, because I'm here at the house, and these long boxes of comic books are here, I opened one up last night. I’m like, “man, what is even in here?” Because I really don't even remember. The first thing I pull out, Green Lantern: Mosaic. Do you guys remember Green Lantern: Mosaic?

[05:27] John: I know Ganthet's Tale was the Larry Niven one, but that wasn't another Larry Niven thing, right?

[05:32] David: No.

[05:33] John: Is this the one where there's a planet where the different Green Lanterns--it was like Warworld, but it was Green Lantern, and John Stewart was there?

[05:40] David: Yep. Damn, that's good, John. That's a good pull, but the defining part of it, for me, is Cully Hamner.

[05:47] John: Oh, right.

[05:48] David: Yeah, an early Cully Hamner, and it's fantastic. I was just thumbing through it. I think I'm going to sit down and read that. I'm going to have to now.

[05:56] Jim: Is it the Green Lantern, Secret Wars?

[05:58] John: Wasn’t it, John Stewart was stationed on this planet that somehow came into being?

[06:02] David: I don't remember, John. I pulled out Issue #3, and I didn't read it. I was just looking at the Cully Hamner art, but I’ve got to get back in there and pull out the whole thing, because I know I’ve got it all. Thought that was a good pull.

[06:15] John: Speaking of preparing, Jim, you recommended we Google Jim McCann, likely refers to the late Irish folk singer, Jim McCann. First of all, sorry for your loss, Jim, that you passed away.

[06:26] Jim: We still have the founder of 1-800-Flowers as Jim McCann. So, if you Google me, you've got two famous Jim McCanns, and one me.

[06:37] John: Same thing with me. There's a British racecar driver with my name that usually comes up. Also, dead. This should be everybody's author photo, though. That guy looks pretty hardcore. Used to be in The Dubliners, known for his easy and slow ballad style, as you probably know.

[06:48] Jim: I do, and I too am known for that.

[06:53] John: We had you on for our best-rated ever show.

[06:56] David: Yeah, Jim. You probably haven't been listening to the show since last year this time you were on, but if you did, if you had been listening, you would know that we talk about you quite a bit these days. We actually have Jim McCann tidbits. What do we call them? McCanned bits.

[07:09] John: I was just trying to remember. There was a good bit, but it was so long ago, and I don't remember anything ever.

[07:13] David: Well, we actually bring you up at the end of each episode, and give people facts about what you've been up to.

[07:19] John: I think one of them was that you might have had a sandwich. It was things like that.

[07:23] David: And the reason for that is, unless you listen to yourself 30 times, your podcast, our interview with you was one of our best listened-to podcasts of the whole year.

[07:35] Jim: Wow, people must have been really bored.

[07:39] John: You're algorithm-optimized.

[07:41] Jim: Excellent. It's probably The Dubliners guy, and 1-800-Flowers. I'm going to hear all about their return to comics.

[07:49] David: What am I writing this week?

[07:50] Jim: Flowers and violins.

[07:53] David: Do you think Jim McCann, the 1-800-Flower Guy has conversations about Jim McCann, the comic book guy? Like, “Hey, Jim, I Googled you, but you come up second. There's this comic book guy with the same name as you that comes up first.”

[08:04] Jim: That would be nice.

[08:05] John: Nick Cave, the musician, has this anecdote about when he actually finally met, a couple years ago, Nick Cage, the actor, and they were both at a bar at the same time, and Nick Cave was just there with his son, and then Nick Cage had the back room all sealed up, and then his goons come out, and they're like, “he would to talk to you,” and he's like, “well, what's going on?” […] Nick Cave, but then it just turned out to be friendly, and Nick Cage just wanted to say hi.

[08:30] Jim: I'm looking at my keyboard right now, and G and V are right next to each other. So, I can see how some people might make a typo.

[08:36] John: There you go. What have you been up to since we last spoke?

[08:39] Jim: Personally, or professionally?

[08:41] John: Sum it all up. How about the world, too?

[08:43] Jim: The world, yeah. It's on fire.

[08:45] John: Oh, okay.

[08:47] Jim: It’s not good fire, but holy smoke. Just because I chose that I can, I too demolished part of my house.

[08:55] John: Nice.

[08:56] Jim: I didn't.

[08:56] John: Having a Jaws 3D themed Christmas party.

[08:59] Jim: And Temple of Dune, and Star Wars, and I got a Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga stand-up arcade machine.

[09:06] John: That used to be at the gallery at IDW. There used to be one of those. You didn't just buy it from the IDW gallery in San Diego, did you?

[09:12] Jim: Shipping would have been too expensive.

[09:13] John: That would have been wild. The Coke machine we had that Dirk Wood would fill with beer, until that was no longer allowed.

[09:21] David: That was longer than I would have ever imagined it was going to be allowed.

[09:25] Jim: I think I had a meeting at IDW, and I remember seeing that. Was it in the same room as I met with you, John? And there was a table of graphic novels that were yours for the taking. If anybody at IDW is listening, hi.

[09:44] David: I don't think anybody--maybe one person in editorial that was working there when John and I were there, is working there now. Maybe two. Not a lot of IDW’s editorial left from when we were there, at this point. John, I guess maybe there's still a few more people than--I should just speak for myself.

[10:03] John: Yeah, there are a couple that came in when I was.

[10:05] David: Yeah, because you're still.

[10:07] John: I was there for, if I recall correctly, about another 435 years.

[10:11] Jim: Right. Same with John and I at Marvel.

[10:15] David: You should consider retiring.

[10:16] John: That's what I was going to ask you. Were you still there when the pipe burst over Chris Allo?

[10:22] Jim: Was I working part-time then and writing New Avengers: The Reunion? I remember hearing about it, because I sat next to Chris. He was across from me on the cubicle things, and remember, he used to have tons of statues on his desk, and also, he never brought his comps home. So, there was a stack of that, and I remember him losing some stuff.

[10:45] John: Yeah, and I remember the day that Steve Gerber died, and I remember thinking that was Steve Gerber's final exit from Marvel, but Chris was like, “what did I do? I didn't do anything to Steve Gerber. I like Steve Gerber.”

[10:57] David: Oh, apparently Steve Gerber didn't like you.

[10:59] John: This pipe burst. So, this is to make you feel better, David.

[11:03] David: Thanks.

[11:04] John: Black water came running out of the ceiling.

[11:06] David: Oh, God.

[11:07] Jim: Do you remember when we moved from 10E 40th, and I ended up having to go home, because there was so much dust, because no one had ever dusted before? There was black mold, and all sorts of just gross stuff, and that was the one with the prisoner men's room. It always looked like a prison, because it was dark, and the light would flicker, and it was—oh, God.

[11:33] John: There were some locations.

[11:37] David: If we're talking about comic book publishing locations, this is what all the future pros have to look forward to, by the way. This level of excellence and quality in the places you work in. When I started work at IDW, they were still in a warehouse area. So, we had offices, and they were fine, but they were clearly warehouse spaces that have been converted. So, I'm sitting there, I'm probably, maybe, six months into the job, and I'm sitting there, I'm typing away on the keyboard, looking at my screen, and from somewhere above me, drops down, right in front of me, a 3-inch long--what I thought was a centipede--except the centipede had whiskers and fur, and I jumped back so hard and so fast that I fell out of my chair onto the ground, and smacked my head against the bookshelf that was behind me. It was all the way across the room. I screamed like a little girl, because it scared the crap out of me, and I didn't know what the hell it was. I had never seen anything like that in my life. Come to find out, it's just these giant mutated silverfish that lived in that building. It was a silverfish, but oh, my God, I was freaked out. I did not come to work the next day. I was like, “I think I need a day off. That was more than I needed to deal with this week.”

[13:02] Jim: So, the moral is, David should not make any sudden movements.

[13:06] John: The funny thing is, IDW hired them back a couple of years later. They came back, or alternately, you getting sprayed in the face is what happens in the last few seconds before you wake up from when you got knocked out when you hit your head in the back and hallucinated the past 15 years.

[13:23] Jim: That was the bunker. That was when it was an old military base.

[13:28] David: We moved to the military base. The military base was the upgrade.

[13:32] John: My second day there is when I came to work, and the window behind my desk was smashed open. A rock, like the Kennedy bullet, had hit my runner for my chair, my plastic runner, somehow also hit two surfaces that were parallel to each other, and then they'd gone through and stolen all the computers, but they didn't steal mine, because clearly they'd mapped this out before, and mine just got placed there the day before. So, everybody else's computers got stolen. Sorry, Jim. This is going to be the “just complaining about stuff” episode. So, there's this big broken window. So, they call somebody in, they put a new window in, and the guys outside who'd broken in are like, “oh, all right.” So, the next night, they break in again, in the same way, and steal all the computers again. From there, they put up bars, but then that led to the escalation. All the guys breaking in could figure out that you could smash the computers, grab the power cords of the iMacs, and then pull them through the bars. So, all of our computers had to move a certain distance from all the windows. Then they started cutting through those with--I don't know--acetylene or laser torches, or something. I mean, it was just ramping up, like the Oceans movies.

[14:44] David: They were reinvesting in their equipment. The profits they were taking from stealing the computers, they were reinvesting into their business. They were clearly upping their game each time.

[14:54] John: But the funniest one—so, there's this place called Kid Venture that was in the same parking lot as us, and it's this place where you can take your kids, and they've got a pirate ship and all the dress-up stuff. The funny part about that is that when IDW finally moved, they actually moved to the same place that we moved to, just coincidentally. So, we were still […] Kid Venture, but they got broken into, and I’m like, “what did they steal? The pirate ship?” but no, apparently, they stole the security system.

[15:21] David: Fantastic.

[15:22] Jim: Wow, and then I threw a rock through your window with a note saying, “hire me.”

[15:28] John: The rock got passed on to Sarah Gaydos when I left, and then she passed it on to Tom Waltz, who I think either still has it, or it got lost.

[15:38] Jim: Well, it may have gone to Denton or Chase, because they hired me for Star Trek: Year Five.

[15:43] John: That's right.

[15:46] Jim: It eventually worked.

[15:48] John: Yeah.

[15:49] Jim: Moral of that story is, sometimes rocks are bad. Sometimes, they're good.

[15:54] David: I remember going into John's office the first time, like, “why do you have this big ugly rock in your office, John?” They'd be getting the office rock. It followed us to the next location, and the editors. That's hilarious. I forgot about the rock.

[16:11] Jim: Disclaimer, I did not do that. In case anybody listening is like, “is that how he broke into comics? Through a window?” Lockpick set, like Storm has in her headdress.

[16:23] David: Oh, that's right. That was a good deus ex machina, actually.

[16:28] John: That'd be a good book, or something. The most unexpected things that Marvel characters have on them. Iron Man's roller-skates, all those things of the, “whoa, I didn't know they had that.” Bishop's sense of always knowing what time of day and what direction he's facing. Not a mutant power. Just a skill.

[16:44] Jim: Dazzler can tell you when any commercials is about to come on the radio, so you can change channels.

[16:47] John: Is that true?

[16:48] Jim: No.

[16:53] John: Anyway, back to you, Jim. What have you been up to since the last time we talked, and how's the book coming, and what can you tell us about where things are on that?

[17:01] Jim: The book got announced at New York ComiCon. It's called The Other/Half, with a slash separating Other and Half, because--I can't tell you why that happened, but it's a good reason, and it is my take. The original title was The Thinman, and that was too close to The Thin Men, which I was doing a send up to 30s and 40s screwball mysteries. Although, there's a mystery at the core of this, but there's also a romantic comedy aspect to it, and it's a gay lead book. So, you see this couple solving a crime. So, I think that's all I can say. I think that's good.

[17:43] David: They really got you handcuffed on this one.

[17:44] Jim: Yeah, well, I mean, everything will be announced sooner, rather than later.

[17:49] David: What if you just broke it here? No, I'm kidding.

[17:52] John: You should reveal it on an episode you're not on, because then nobody will be listening to it. Problem with you being here is that we probably have listeners.

[18:00] Jim: Just before jumping on this podcast, I did just receive the trade dress on the covers.

[18:06] John: Oh, cool.

[18:06] Jim: And it looks great. So, I'm really excited. Joe Eisma is on art. His artwork is phenomenal. I gave him a really difficult--well, I put in spreads. One was really difficult, because it went all the way across the page in 5 widescreen panels, and the main characters are walking through this thing, and then he put in all sorts of stuff, like a couple breaking up in the background. So, yeah, he's amazing, and great detail. Oh, and there's a blind cat named Skippy, which we've all fallen in love with, and yeah, he can draw a great cat, too.

[18:52] John: Obviously, licensing opportunities for the cat blinding kits are going to be huge.

[18:56] Jim: Oh, absolutely. I did that because I've owned two blind cats in my life.

[19:01] John: You should make a song about that.

[19:02] Jim: I should, or send flowers to wherever their ashes are.

[19:06] John: How did they get? Are they okay? Wow, okay.

[19:10] Jim: No, I now own a dog. I'm not blind, and she's not blind. She sees everything. Willie Scott from Temple of Dune is her name.

[19:21] David: Nice.

[19:22] Jim: I never realized how quickly she could become like a child.

[19:30] David: What is the thinking, for you, when you set up a double-page spread like that? Did you walk Joe through the whole thing?

[19:36] Jim: For that one, I did, and also, for another really cool spread. That one, instead of being widescreen panels, it's a series of panels. So, I just had to write panel descriptions for all 17 panels. So, not managed to, but knocked out of the park.

[19:59] David: John and I were talking about single-page and double-page splashes the other day, and I contend that there's nothing that drives me more crazy than when a writer burns an entire page on a background. If you're going to do a single-page or a double-page spread, for me as a fan, and as an editor, I want there to be action. I want big, bold things happening on the page--something big, a big moment--and burning it on an establishing shot drives me crazy. So, that said, do you have any philosophy behind that?

[20:38] Jim: I save my spreads for something really important, or if I want a really cool layout, and I think those are becoming a lot more popular. I've seen a lot of them in Something's Killing the Children, and in a lot of other books, I've seen, but splash pages, I save for the end with maybe an insert, or--and that's not me trying to just get paid for an extra page--it's necessary for page count, or somewhere in the middle, I'll do one if there's a big reveal, and also, people may notice--because I've noticed, I do this--I'll do a splash page on page 5 sometimes, because I'll build up a scene, and then be like, “boom! This is the big payoff for where we've been going, and the setup for where we're going to go,” and usually, I put the title and credits on that page, or ask for that to be on that page.

[21:32] David: Yeah, that makes sense.

[21:34] John: I'm fascinated by 70s Jack Kirby. It seemed like he had a formula for when the stuff would break down, where, as much innovation and cool stuff as he did, a lot of the 70s stuff was “Page 1 is a splash. Page 2 pulls back and reveals that as a 2-page spread. There's another splash around page 8, or so, and then probably a final splash on page 20.” I'm fascinated by that, and the idea of trying to structure stuff around that, have those built in before you start building the story. I think post-Bendis, there's multiple-panel spreads.

[22:06] Jim: House of M #2 was all spreads. I remember that. I'll never forget that one, because I did the readout for that, which--people who don't know what a readout is, that's when lettering comes in, and an editor asks another editor to read the book and make sure that it makes sense for people who may be jumping on at that point, or people who have been reading. So, that's just your little comic book 101.

[22:30] David: Yeah, that's cool.

[22:31] Jim: Comic book business 101, I should say.

[22:33] David: Yeah. You said you have a build-up to a page 5. I've been thinking a lot, in the last year and a half, as I've been writing more and more for books that I'm working on. I'm writing more than, really, ever. I've been thinking a lot about the page turn. I'm constantly thinking about the page turn.

[22:49] Jim: Yes.

[22:50] David: Do you do that, too?

[22:52] Jim: Oh, absolutely. I'm very cognizant of, a page turn surprise is what I usually do. I'll set something up on, say, page 9, and then you turn the page, because the even numbers are on the left-hand side, and do a big reveal there, or I'll end something on, say, page 9, and a new place, establishing, I cut to that, usually there, and I never change scenes in the middle of a page, which--I've seen that done, and that's one of my pet peeves, somebody changing scenes in the middle of just a normal page, not even a splash, but what I do when I'm writing is, I'll do the outline, just bullet points, and stuff, and then I will draw out, in just my notebook, 22, 24--however many pages it is--squares. Number one being its own rectangle, then 2-3 being together, and I'll draw a line down that, and I number it all the way down, and that helps me look and see where a big beat should go, or if I'm too long on a scene, maybe I should revisit that, and see if I could put something there, or if I know there's going to be a lot of dialogue, it helps me know where to put stuff, and then I'll write on those.

I can't draw to save my life. I'll either do a stick figure or I'll write on it, “what happens here? Panel one, blah, blah, blah has to happen, or the last panel, something like that happens,” and that also keeps me from breaking spreads, because when I was first starting out, I would accidentally put a spread on an odd page, and then an even page, which again is comic book 101, don't do that. So, yeah, it helped that a lot. So, that's my process and my thinking on that. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does it, but people who are listening, if you care, that's what it is.

[25:02] David: I care. I'm interested in hearing your process.

[25:05] John: Do you remember when that occurred to you? When you're reading comics that you're like, “wait a minute.” I don't know if I remember the exact moment that happened, but I remember a time where that was an overwhelming bit, where I’m like, “oh, it's all about this, isn't it?”

[25:22] Jim: I feel like George Perez did it in New Teen Titans.

[25:26] John: That makes a lot of sense.

[25:28] Jim: And then we talked about Bendis. Brian would do it quite often, and so would Jonathan Hickman, and also, Y: The Last Man with Brian K. Vaughan, they all did it, and I'm sure there's other people who did it before them, but those were some of the big people that I looked to when I started writing comics, back in 2008.

[25:55] John: Yeah. I think, with Bendis--I assume this is what he was doing. I don't think I ever talked about it--but he would write these 2-page spreads to make sure that nobody was going to mess up, that he was breaking a scene in half, because at Marvel Comics, you have ads put in there. That's maybe Marvel/DC. I don't know if anybody else even does that, but that's usually at the hands of the editor who figures out exactly where the pages go, was a guideline, provided by the […], but the ad sale--I mean, I guess there was a lot of ad sales the whole time we were there.

[26:27] Jim: And sponsors, and stuff like that.

[26:29] John: He would do those 2-page spreads. Sometimes it would drive me nuts when people would do those Bendis-style 2-page spreads, but just do them in a way that was incomprehensible and impossible to figure out where you're supposed to read. God bless him, but some of the comics that Bendis worked on had that. The panel borders would fall right in the middle of the gutter, or something. There's very little way to know that you shouldn't do that.

[26:52] Jim: But it's also up to the artist to pay attention to that, too.

[26:54] John: Oh, definitely. Exactly. Yes, sorry, Bendis isn't like, “and also make this really hard to read.” I didn't mean to place the blame on Bendis on that part, but people would do literal Bendis page spreads, or pseudo-Bendis page spreads, and make them hard to read, but that part where he makes sure that you're not getting the page turns in the wrong place, or that once it's collected, it's always collected with a certain page on the left, and a certain page on the right.

[27:21] Jim: I think about the collections a lot.

[27:23] John: Yeah, that was one of the first things I told Hickman when he was coming to Marvel was, “add a 2-page spread, so you can control the page turns.” I'm pretty sure you care about that.

[27:31] Jim: Bendis, actually--because I would love to teach a comic book class. One of my goals is to teach a sequential storytelling comic book class, because also I came from soaps, and that's sequential storytelling, but Brian has taught a number of universities, and has his own textbook, basically--Well, not basically. It is--I’ve got a copy of that, and learned a little bit, even more of what I--It's [Words for Pictures]. I've got to look that up, or you can put it in the show notes.

[28:11] John: Tell them to kick us some money, and we'll put it in the show notes all over the place. We've got nearly six readers, viewers--whatever.

[28:18] Jim: We'll plug Avengers #800.

[28:17] John: Oh, yeah.

[28:26] Jim: Speaking of plugging, and going back to The Other/Half, I did want to mention that you'll get the first preview look in February--I believe it's February 4th--An Ignition book that's an anthology of crazy, weird romance stories called Love Ignited is coming out, and the creative teams are fantastic, and then I was lucky enough to get a 3-page preview in that.

[28:59] John: Yeah, take that to the theater for when you're standing in line for Wuthering Heights the following week, right?

[29:04] David: Are you counting down the days to a Wuthering Heights movie, John?

[29:07] John: One, I am, no irony, a huge Wuthering Heights fan. Great book, but yeah, I'm looking forward to the movie. The movie looks pretty cool. John Cale and Charlie XCX on the lead single from it. That's bonkers. John Cale from the Velvet Underground.

[29:21] David: I have literally not heard about this, at all. I found out about an entire online TV channel with years of programming that is out there for a subscription for $5 a month that I have literally never--not only have I not heard of the channel. I've never heard of any of the shows on it.

[29:39] John: Orange is the New Black.

[29:42] David: Yeah, right.

[29:43] Jim: No, it would be Black is the New Orange, so you could get away with it.

[29:47] David: Have you guys heard of a game show called Game Changer?

[29:49] Jim: Nope, can't say that--

[29:51] David: I don't even know. I went down a rabbit hole last night. I don't even know. We can't get into it.

[29:566] John: We’ve reached […], everyone.

[29:58] Jim: Traitors New Zealand or Traitors Ethiopia is also on that streaming platform, I bet. I don't know. Have you ever watched Traitors?

[30:08] David: No, I don't know what you're talking about.

[30:09] Jim: My God. It's one of my favorite shows, speaking of game shows. It's not really a game show. Alan Cumming hosts the US version of it, and he just get this big group of 17 people, and three people are traitors. The rest are faithful, and they're trying to guess who the traitors are. The traitors will kill somebody at night--meaning kick them off the show--and then there's a round table where they're trying to guess who a traitor is, and they'll vote to see if that person is a traitor, and usually, they end up voting off one of their own, who's like, “no, I'm sorry, I looked sus, but no.” It's on Peacock. There's another sponsor that you could get.

[30:50] David: There's a card game, it's called Werewolf, that sounds very similar.

[30:54] John: Isn’t Mafia--

[30:56] Jim: Mafia, yeah.

[30:57] David: Couple variations on the theme of that style of game. That's cool.

[31:02] John: So, you're working with Joe Eisma on this. You've been working with Joe forever, right?

[31:08] Jim: That was a common misconception, because Joe did the interiors of Morning Glories, and Rodin Escuejo, he did the covers for Morning Glories, but then when I had launched Mind the Gap, which was my first ongoing creator-owned, Rodin did the covers, and he also did the interiors, and they both use an open art style with great rendering. So, yeah. Pete Pantazis is our colorist, and he's doing an amazing job.

[31:43] John: I completely forgot about Morning Glories. When you started saying Morning Glories, I was like, “yeah, the Jim McCann comic, Morning Glories.” I was completely off. Yeah, okay. I'm sorry.

[31:52] Jim: I'd love to work with Joe more.

[31:54] John: Yeah, no, he's great. We did some G.I. Joe stuff, back in the day.

[32:01] David: I have a question about process, working with Ignition Press. It sounds like it's going well over there. I think, last time we talked to you, you were saying that you've got a real good collaboration going, between maybe you and some of the other creators, as well as the Ignition Press staff.

[32:17] Jim: It's really cool, because if you look on a lot of the writers’ and artists' Instagram stories or posts--mostly in the Instagram stories--we all repost each other's stuff to build awareness, and Ignition will also--if we happen to put something out there about one of our books--they're really good about putting it in their stories. It's really nice to see that, and also to see people, like Jamie Rich, Jeremy Haun, and Filip Sablik re-sharing your stuff, because they're the big honchos there, and you're like, “oh, God, you have a lot of time. I don't know if you'll even see this,” but they do. I mean, the Ignition books, I'm so happy with the way they turned out. I've been reading all of them, and they're just top-tier quality, and then to work with them on putting everything together, it's just so great. Let's see. We’ve got 10 or 12 different logo fonts and styles, and examples, and Maggie Howell and Joe, myself, and Nora Ornstein, who is the assistant editor--Maggie Howell is the senior editor--we all gave our notes about which ones we like, and it was really cool, because editorial, myself, and Joe all had the one that ended up going on there as, at least, our #1 or #2. So, I was very happy with that, and to see it now on the cover--I can't wait for y'all to see it. It's really cool and really fun.

[33:55] David: You mentioned AndWorld Design. AndWorld Design is owned and operated by Deron Bennett, and I couldn't agree more. I use Deron and his team for a bunch of the stuff that I work on, too. I think his team is--they're a great group of letterers, and Deron in particular is just really top-notch, in my opinion. There was a time where, when I was publishing Ape Entertainment comic books, back in the day, I only let Deron letter my books, because he was the only guy that completely understood the aesthetic that I was looking for with the lettering. He just got it, 100%. The book design his team puts together is always really good, too. We're using him now actually for the Conan the Barbarian omnibi that's coming out from Titan. We're using AndWorld Design for some of the design work on that. The template’s already set, because Marvel was doing it, and we're just trying to follow the Marvel footprint. So, the people that are collecting those, it'll be the same for them, because we want them to have to go back and re-buy the first 5 volumes of omnibi. We want to try to package it, so it looks good on their shelves, and they don't have to go back and re-buy anything, but he's still definitely got a lot to do in those books, and always doing a great job. So, glad you mentioned them. I think that's a great group over there. Deron's a stand-up quality guy.

[35:22] Jim: This first issue, because it's like The Thin Man or My Man Godfrey, or even a little bit of Rear Window has really influenced me, and then some modern-day rom-coms, and also Gilmore Girls, the banter, and fast-paced type of that, and Buffy--I'm going for that tone, and to do that, I tend to have, sometimes more than I should, dialogue per panel, but AndWorld is really making it come to life and easy to read, because I was so worried about flow.

[36:08] John: Does Ignition Press have a specific aesthetic that they're going for with the types of books they have, or I guess, do you have that as well, as opposed to some publishers might be more indie-looking?

[36:19] Jim: Ignition books, I love the paper stock, the cover stock, which especially if you're collecting the weekly or the monthly comics, that tactile feeling, I think, factors a lot into it, because then your brain is like, “okay, this feels like a good comic that I'm reading.” What was the part with me?

[36:46] John: Oh, I just meant, in general, the look of the art, is there a defining aesthetic for the art style that they use?

[36:52] Jim: I don't know that I would say there's a house style.

[36:55] John: I guess, I don't even mean that, as much as you broadly cast all the Marvel stuff into some bucket, and there's a lot of variation on that, but you've got Skottie Young on one side of things, and you've got Bryan Hitch on the other.

[37:05] Jim: Yeah, no, there is definitely a difference, and also, if you look on an Ignition Press book, there's the logo and the issue number, and then above that, it says--I'm looking at Deluge right now by Cullen Bunn—Oh, my God, that is so weird. You just held up the same book that I'm holding.

[37:27] John: Actually, this is the little miniature preview. I'm not that […].

[37:31] Jim: You might be able to see it on that, but Cullen says, “Unlock horror. Unlock your story,” and we each get to pick what the first unlock is, and also work with editorial to massage it, if it's too vague, or if they already have something like that. So, it really tells you, “this is the genre you're going to get with this book.” So, I guess, that answers your question.

[38:00] John: Yeah, okay. Yeah. That actually leads to another one. You were talking about the Instagram stories. Murder Podcast was one of their first books, and that's--

[38:07] Jim: Yes.

[38:08] John: That’s about a podcast about murders, and […]. Not that that's Instagrammable, but that's the sort of thing that might attract an audience on those platforms, maybe, or is that just Instagram? Because of course, Instagram, half of America's on it.

[38:24] Jim: They do a really good job of getting the word out there. The marketing director, Bre Sarpy, and her assistant, Steph Hocutt--I get tongue-tied with that. Sorry, Steph--They're really good at doing different viral things also, and they really pay attention to the right tone of the book when they're doing a reel. Some of the stuff that Bre does is hysterical and really out there. They're on Facebook. They're on Instagram. I don't do TikTok really, but I'm sure they're on TikTok. They're really trying to reach a broader audience, but also one of the mission statements of Ignition is, instead of “an Ignition Press book by,” it's more “a Jim McCann book published by Ignition Press.” So, they put the creator first. It's really helped my brand, in a way, especially for stuff that I will hopefully be working on in the future.

[39:25] John: Are they owned by you, or Cullen’s by Cullen, that stuff?

[39:30] Jim: It's creator-owned, and we get--I don't know that I can talk about the deal that much, but it's a very fair and really good deal. I was really happy to go with that.

[39:42] John: Looking at Deluge, I hadn't thought about it, but it looks like it's a Copyright and Trademark Cullen Bunn.

[39:47] Jim: Yes, we do have that.

[39:49] John: Not Cullen and Marika, the co-creator.

[39:52] Jim: Yeah, no. Joe and I are credited as co-creators.

[39:55] John: Okay.

[39:56] Jim: There's the words on the script, but then the artist turning in all of the character sketches and roughs, and everything--I mean, I really believe that they're also part of that creation process. So, why not credit them?

[40:12] John: Right. The idea originated with you. You came to them with pitches.

[40:15] Jim: I gave them four pitches, and I thought there was one that they were going to totally go for. So, they threw a little bit of a curveball at me, and picked up The Other/Half, and I’m like, “oh, my,” because it's not a book that is similar to anything else in their catalog. So, with an LGBT lead, a rom-com feel, and then all of that mixed in with a mystery.

[40:46] John: That's cool. Is it set in the present day?

[40:47] Jim: It is set in the present day.

[40:49] John: Okay.

[40:50] Jim: There's maybe two or three scenes where a cellphone is used, but other than that, I've heard it looks pretty timeless.

[40:57] John: Oh, that's cool.

[40:58] Jim: It's in Manhattan. I really wanted it to have that feel of timelessness--That genre feel. It has a tone. It has a look. It has an architecture, things like that. So, that's what I was really looking for.

[41:15] David: What do you mean when you say that kind? Are you speaking specifically to rom-com or murder mystery?

[41:20] Jim: No. The Other/Half has that timeless quality. It can be a throwback feeling to the 30s and 40s films that I mentioned, or a comic book today that you can see. So, not to toot my own horn, but I really think that it's a unique book that's not really on the stands, and I don't think a lot of people are doing a rom-com mystery gay lead comic. So, it deserves a special place on their shelves.

[41:53] David: Absolutely.

[41:54] Jim: And in their hearts.

[41:56] David: That's right. There you go, Jim. Now you're selling it, buddy.

[42:03] Jim: Yeah, my marketing hat came back on.

[42:11] John: Do you have other projects?

[42:12] Jim: I do, but I can't talk about it yet, but I do have a book that was greenlit from another company. It's just a one-shot, but it's the first time I'll be really working with this company, and then, I'm hoping to do more Ignition stuff, and I'm hoping that--Return of the Dapper Men was a really big calling card for me and for Janet, and it led to a lot of other work at other publishers, and stuff like that. So, I'd love to try my hand at some of the properties that are out there, the licensed properties, because I think there's some really fun and exciting ones, and also just the corporate IP. I got to write Dazzler. I got to write Hawkeye & Mockingbird. So, those are my favorite characters, and I'd love to do a take on some of my other favorite characters.

[43:02] John: Are there any of the favorite characters you can say, or do you want to keep that secret?

[43:06] Jim: I really love the whole Gotham World at DC, and then I would really like to do a Spider-Man, since I'm doing this quippy book.

[43:17] John: Yeah, I was realizing, you never did Spider-Man.

[43:21] Jim: No, I don't even think I--

[43:22] John: Yeah, you’d be good.

[43:24] Jim: Thanks, and then I'd love to do a G.I. Joe mini, or anything. I think we talked about that a lot when you were at IDW. I was like, “can I pitch for G.I. Joe?” You're like, “not yet.” No, actually, we did get one, and I came in second on the bake-off.

[43:42] John: Yeah, that was the relaunched one, right? Well, sorry. They all were. As we mentioned before, I'm responsible for more failed relaunches of G.I. Joe than any other human being. We kept missing on G.I. Joe, if I remember, because I remember I reached out to try to get you to pitch on it one time, and you couldn't, at that point, or whatever, or you had other stuff you were working on, and then the timing didn't line up, and then it did line up, but they went a different way. I don't know.

[44:07] Jim: And I might want to do a spin-off of one of the other Ignition books. I'm just kidding. That's theirs, and they do a really good job.

[44:16] David: I think what you were trying to remember is your deep-rooted love and need to write Speedball comic books.

[44:24] Jim: A New Warriors book would be awesome. Also, one thing that I've always wanted to do, and I think it'd be funny and really fun, because I came from soaps, would be a soap opera comic, where each issue was a day, because you know how they have three storylines going on, and just pick that up, and then maybe one day, draw a character completely different, because they recast people so often, and just put a little bitty thing, “this character is now being portrayed by this person,” with a little arrow as a caption.

[44:58] John: That'd be a fun thing to build in there. Release it daily.

[45:02] Jim: I did do an Avengers/Guiding Light crossover at Marvel, which was fun. It was a crossover with them, because on Halloween, the characters that I wrote, one of the characters had superpowers, and in the episode, she got superpowers for the day for Halloween, and it was just so crazy. It was fun.

[45:27] David: It’s bonkers. I don't remember that, at all.

[45:29] Jim: It was in a Civil War anthology book. So, people were reading all these short stories about Civil War, and then they got to this Avengers/Guiding Light crossover, and a lot of people were like, “huh?”

[45:45] John: I don't know if I'm remembering this right. You were mad when Civil War first came out, because of the new beginning with New Warriors, right? You actually were a New Warriors guy, weren't you?

[45:56] Jim: Oh, yeah. I'm a total New Warrior.

[45:58] John: Yeah, so is David.

[45:59] Jim: Yeah, and also my first day at Marvel, I would traffic the scripts as they came in, from one editor to the other, and they would give notes, and usually it was on the title page right there, and it was from Avengers Disassembled, and Ralph Macchio had written to Tom Brevoort, “Hawkeye deserves better than this,” because it was the issue when he dies, and being one of my favorite characters, that was a gut punch, to see that, and that be on my first day. It's like, “oh, God, how's this going to go?” But it went wonderfully.

[46:34] John: He eventually got a TV show out of the deal.

[46:37] Jim: Exactly, and I got an epic collection out of it.

[46:40] John: That's awesome.

[46:40] Jim: That was incredible to see my 3-year run with Hawkeye collected in one 400-page volume, and I was like, “I wrote 400 pages of this character?”

[46:53] David: That's not insignificant. Not a lot of people get to write that many pages of anything.

[46:57] Jim: And get it collected in one volume, that was just such a great thing that I feel Marvel did.

[47:02] John: That's cool. That might be a good place to drop off.

[47:05] David: Thanks, Jim. That was fun.

[47:07] Jim: Thanks, y'all. It was a lot of fun. I love being on this.

[47:10] John: Literally, anytime.

[47:11] Jim: Maybe after the book has started to come out.

[47:14] David: Yeah, it'd be great to actually talk about the book without the handcuffs on. That would be nice.

[47:18] John: All right. Thank you all for joining us on The Corner Box. We'll be back next week. Be sure to like and subscribe, and tell your friends, and all that stuff. Thanks, again, for joining us here on The Corner Box.

[47:30] 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.