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] David Hedgecock: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to The Corner Box. My name is David Hedgecock, and with me, once again - the return of the king, the one, the only--

[00:32] John Barber: John Barber. That's me. I thought I had the playback at the wrong speed. I was just going all over. I was like, “wow.”

[00:37] David: John, you're back.

[00:38] John: Did you guys record without me? Did that happen?

[00:40] David: It did happen.

[00:41] John: I must have the audio for that. I haven't listened to it, yet. I genuinely will. Hope it was good.

[00:45] David: Chase was charming, as always, but there's no substitute for the real deal, John. You are that real deal. We haven't really talked about this, because I know you don't pay any attention to anything we do outside of just this hour and a half that you spend talking to me. You should know that our listenership is going up. We are getting more popular. We joke about having 5 listeners, but I think we might have to stop making that joke, because we're starting to get more and more people listening. It's starting to make me a little nervous that people are actually paying attention, John.

[01:13] John: There is a middle ground between right now and when we become Mr. Beast, where that joke is just going to wear. Once we become really big, like Mr. Beast, I think we can make that joke again. So, maybe don't retire it. We just put it on the shelf for a little bit.

[01:27] David: We'll shelve that joke until we get to Mr. Beast level.

[01:30] John: 9-figure each is what I'm looking for. Single-digit billions. I'm not being nuts here.

[01:36] David: Right. For those who are just tuning in for the first time, John and I are very experienced veterans of the comic book industry. John has been an Editor for Marvel and Editor-in-Chief for IDW Publishing. I was the former owner of Ape Entertainment. For those of you missing your Strawberry Shortcake comic books, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to continue those, as well as all the DreamWorks Animation, and a bunch of other stuff, and then I was the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Publisher at IDW Publishing. I skipped the whole Marvel/DC route entirely. John, you also have made a bunch of comic books. You've written 10,000 Transformer comic books--something like that--amongst the other stuff you've written, and I've drawn a bunch of comic books--not that many--and written a few myself. So, we know what we're talking about, John.

[02:21] John: Yeah, sort of.

[02:22] David: Good to let people know of our credentials before we spout all the nonsense we’re about to spout.

[02:29] John: Two episodes ago, you were very complimentary and surprised me with this big biography of me. Is this a feature now? Do we do this every episode? Did you and Chase do that?

[02:38] David: I think we did do it with Chase. I don't know. I just feel like people need to know the credentials. They need to know who they're listening to, John. We don't only speak from a position of love. We both genuinely love comic books, but we also speak from a position of experience. We do know the ins and outs of this stuff a little bit.

[02:56] John: I'm reading this book about World War I, and I’ve got to say, so far, I think, as bad as some things can get in comics, World War I was worse.

[03:06] David: Well, there you go. That is a considered opinion that most people should take seriously, because you were in comic books for quite some time. Still are. You're making comic books right now. You're making tons of comic books right now, actually, and so am I. We're still working actively in the industry. I am responsible for the entire Conan the Barbarian archive. 50 years’ worth of Conan the Barbarian is on my back right now, and I'm trying to get it all together, and get it cleaned up, and it is a Herculean task--a Conanian task. Anyway, that's probably enough about us.

[03:37] John: Okay.

[03:38] David: Can we dive in?

[03:40] John: All right.

[03:44] David: I was thinking we would do a little smorgasbord, hit a bunch of little highlights and see where it goes. So, strap in, dear listener. It's about to become a rollercoaster of a ride. The first thing I want to start with is, I think I might have to make a semi-apology. What is it when you apologize, but it's a snarky backhand comment at the same time?

[04:03] John: That's just you, man. That's you all over. No, I don't know. Sorry, I was trying to think of a funny answer, and I just had to default to that.

[04:13] David: It is a backhanded compliment, is what I'm going for here. I told you and everybody the other day that I was starting to dive into Jim Starlin's Breed Omnibus, which I picked up off of Kickstarter, at some point in the last 12 months. It finally arrived on my doorstep. I didn't wait too long before I dove into it. Man, I was super excited to read it, because I'm a pretty big Jim Starlin fan. He rarely disappoints. The Omnibus was a packaging of a comic book called Breed that came out in the mid-90s, from an imprint called Bravura, which was an imprint of Malibu Comics, before they got bought by Marvel Comics. It was a creator-owned imprint. So, Starlin was basically doing his own thing, and the thing about Breed was that Starlin was writing, penciling, inking, and lettering, and I think maybe he was coloring some of it, too. So, the whole thing was entirely him. When I sat down with it, I was super excited to read. I got two issues in, and I had to put it aside, because, dear God, it was not good.

[05:08] John: I definitely want to hear you go into it, because I have not read this in a long time. The two things that are funny about that, to me--I've been on a weird semi-Jim Starlin kick. I bought a bunch of comics from this place. It was a legendary, cool set of comics that I got. From my point of view, a bunch of stuff that was really neat. So, I was about to have Cosmic Odyssey in there, and I'm like, “that's too much money. I'm going to hold off on it,” and then I went back a couple of weeks later, and I'm like, “I'm finally going to buy The Cult again,” because Batman: The Cult’s also by Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson and Bill Wray. I bought it when it came out, but I don't have a collection. I don't have anything. Some of the collections were on bad paper for a long time. It was a weird one where I would occasionally pick it up, and I'd be like, “this looks terrible.” Anyway, about to pull the trigger on Cosmic Odyssey when I remember, “wait. No, I have that in my garage.” So, I have that in my garage.

Part B is that I actually started reading Dreadstar, a classic Jim Starlin thing. So, we can get to that, but that was after I found out about you reading Breed. Okay, now I'm really thinking about this. At the late dearly departed SoCal Comics, they had a bunch of Breed issues in their cheap comic book section. They had some packaged in there, but they actually had all of the issues in there for cheaper, if you just went and pulled them out yourself, instead of getting them together. That's how far I went down the road of nearly getting this. I know what I just said. These are facts that I determined, and I nearly bought it, and then I'm like, “man, I bought this when it came out, and the coloring production was so bad that I remembered it somewhere between 30 and 35 years later.” I still could think about that, and I didn't pull the trigger on it. It was honestly a regret. When the store went away, I'm like, “man, it was $5. Why didn't I do that? So what?” Anyway, I want to hear your thoughts, David.

[06:55] David: I think you were smart to save your money on this one. So, anyway, I read those first two issues. I had to put it down. I had to reframe my mindset for the book, because it went from being “I'm excited to read this quality thing by a quality creator” to “this is going to be a car wreck. I need to prepare my mind for what I'm about to get into,” because I can enjoy things on different levels. I can enjoy something for the quality of the craft and just how great it is, and I can also enjoy things because they just go off rails and they're just horrible, and I like that, too. I can go any direction, but I have to be approaching it with the right mindset. If I'm going into it thinking, “I'm excited for this good thing,” and it's not that, then I'm not going to enjoy it, but if I go into it thinking, “this is going to be a car wreck,” I can fully enjoy it. So, I had to put it away for a couple days and come back to it with the mindset of, “okay, I'm about to look at a car wreck,” and oh, boy.

So, Breed is broken down into two six-issue miniseries, and then a seven-issue miniseries at the end. So, Breed #1, John, it is some of the worst coloring I think I've ever seen. It is not good, and Jim Starlin is lettering, I think, for the first time ever in his life, and he's chosen to letter this book by himself, and it is not good. In the most amateurish way possible, it's not good. It's like reading mini-comics from zines, back in the late 80s, when people were making a comic book for the very first time, the first page of their comic book. Just bad, all around, and the story was okay, and it was coherent, and the art was competent, and at times, some really nice Jim Starlin work. It wasn't even mediocre, at best. So, that was the first volume.

The story is about a half-man/half-demon. It's revealed to himself that he is a half-demon. He is being hunted by other half-demons and/or demons that are trying to take him down, because he was raised by humans. Something happened at his birth, and instead of the demons taking him away as a baby and raising him as a demon, he fell off the map, essentially, and was raised as a human, and the demon hordes are worried that he is this prodigal son that is going to take the demon hordes out, basically. So, that's the premise. In the very first series, not a whole lot happens. He realizes that he's a half-demon, and he goes into this alternate reality that's a pocket dimension called Everyplace or Everywhere. I think it's called Everywhere, and he is tutored by another rebellious half-demon, and she tutors him to train him up to be aware of his powers and how to use them, and stuff like that, and that's the whole series. At the end, it just falls flat, doesn't really go anywhere.

So, then you get into the second miniseries. It's like, “wow, I don't even understand how this got a second miniseries,” because it was so underwhelming as a six-issue miniseries. A few years later, in real-time, they launched the second miniseries. I think it's one or two years later, and you would think, after all of this time lettering his own work--they did six full issues, and then he's had some time to maybe practice--you'd think that the lettering would have improved. Not one lesson was learned. I am confident in that. The coloring does not really improve at all, and there's this weird thing, and I don't know if this is in the original. I'd be curious to know if this is the original, but I think it's because he might have been lettering on the boards, but I don't know if he's lettering on the boards, or if he's lettering in a lettering program. I think it might have been lettering in a program in the second series. Anyway, there is a strange pixelation to the art and the story in the first two miniseries, as if he scanned it weirdly, and then lettered it, and then when he saved the files, he didn't know how to save the files properly. So, it printed with this odd pixelation to it. The files weren't high enough resolution, or something.

[11:04] John: Yes.

[11:05] David: And it's very poor quality. It's very frustrating. I think it's noticeable by people who are just regular fans of comic books, not by me, because I've been doing this for 20 years, but I have been doing this for 20 years. So, it was extra annoying, for me.

[11:20] John: Teenage John, when there had only been digital comics for a few years, noticed that. Yes, if I remember it, and you showed me a picture, the lettering was a font, but he was probably printing it out and pasting it on the boards.

[11:34] David: I think so, because there are instances where you can see the shadow was reproduced in the balloon, underneath where the lettering is, as if he had pasted a piece of paper with the lettering onto the board itself, which also was just like, “oh, man, jeez.”

[11:52] John: This happened a lot in the early computer lettering. I mean, I've done that, actually. I remember, I just showed somebody something. I'm pretty sure--well, maybe I didn't. I don't know. Byrne used to do that a lot. I think all of X-Men was like that, and Jeff Smith did that in Bone. The lettering is on the originals, but it's all a font he made. It's a crazy workaround, by today's standards, but the rest of the poor quality of it is just the thing. It's baffling that this is the guy that created Shang-Chi. He created Thanos. He created, not as big, but Mongol. He created Drax. He did an amazing run on Captain Marvel, and turned him into Adam Warlock. It was one of the epic-est 1970s Marvel, and trippiest and weirdest things, and then goes off and does weird European-style stuff, and then comes back to Marvel, where he makes the first Marvel graphic novel, and then he makes the third Marvel graphic novel. There was a time where two-thirds of Marvel graphic novels were Jim Starlin. He wrote Batman. He created the KGBeast. Cult and Cosmic Odyssey, these amazing comics. Later, creates the Infinity Gauntlet, and writes the Infinity Gauntlet. There's never a time where he's not pretty big doing this stuff.

[13:11] David: A-game guy.

[13:12] John: Yeah, if you've never read any of those, some of them are weird and some of them, you get into 70s “I don't know where to read this next balloon” stuff, but it's not incompetent. It's just this weird acid trip stuff. It's weirdly baffling that you would look at that and be like, “yeah, that's right.”

[13:30] David: “Good. This is great.” At a certain point, I was like, “man, is he just experimenting?” Over the course of the 12 issues, there's no real refinement. So, it's odd. It's just a very odd work. It's very odd work, and then the second miniseries, he goes on a super trippy existential head trip. The main character, Breed, gets bit by a rattlesnake and poisoned, and goes on a pages-long head trip of just repeating the same thing over and over, and not really having anything to do with anything. I don't even know what I'm reading right now. It wasn't even a diatribe on anything, that he was just trying to get something off his chest. It's just a weird existential rant that didn't really make a lot of sense, and it just goes on and on, and on.

So, the second series, while the quality of the coloring did improve a little bit, nothing else did, and the quality of the story actually took a downturn, as far as I was concerned. I was like, “man, what is going on here?” and then at this point, after reading 12 issues, I was like, “Man, I just want to get this done. I'm just going to get this done.” So, I get into the third miniseries. So, this one's a seven-issue miniseries. The publisher switched over to Image Comics, at this point, and I think the last series came out much later, too. I want to say it's 2010. Don't quote me on that, but some time has passed. So, a few things are different in this last miniseries. A, the coloring is now of a good quality. No colorist is credited. So, if it's Starlin that colored the material, he has learned a few things, and he's definitely applied them, which was nice. The coloring problems are fixed. The quality of the images is fixed. It's standard printing quality now, and he brought in a letterer, Ed Dukeshire, to letter it. It might be early Ed Dukeshire. There are some questionable choices, and I know that Ed's done this a long time. It's of a competent quality, and it's what you would normally expect in comic book lettering, and it doesn't get in the way, the way the lettering did in the previous miniseries, and then the story actually picks up and improves quite a bit, as well.

So, it ends up, actually--and this is where I have to pay that backhand compliment--the last seven issues actually feel like a professional work. The story's there. It makes sense. It's got a couple of little twists to it. One of them, I didn't see coming. So, that was nice. It has a satisfying ending, and it ends in a way that I think is appropriate to the character, and appropriate to the story, and it's well drawn. It's probably the best-drawn of the three miniseries, as well, which is saying something, because at this point, Starlin's 10 years older, at least. Maybe more. So, while the first 12 issues are rough, the last seven do a lot of heavy lifting to make up for things. Finally, it feels like lessons were learned and reason was applied. I don't know. It was a mixed bag, but the last seven issues really did make up for a lot of the first 12. If you can find it cheap somewhere, I think it's worth picking up. It might be best just to find those last seven issues in a quarter bin somewhere. That's the way to do it. If you can get it, then go for those last seven issues, and you don't need anything else. You don't need the first two miniseries. He recaps everything in the first issue of the last miniseries. He takes some time to recap everything that you need to know, and then we're off to the races. So, it finished well, John.

[17:05] John: That's good. If I remember right, he hadn't been drawing a lot of stuff right then. Although, Gilgamesh II had to have come out somewhere around there. I don't know. Yeah, I just remember young me being more familiar with Jim Starlin, writer, and not realizing there really hadn't been that much of a gap between him drawing all this stuff. The distance between 1985 and 1990 seemed really like a long time, when you're young, and then realizing, “that's not very long.” He could’ve been working on this one project for that long, and it's not that unreasonable.

[17:34] David: Gilgamesh II is 1989. So, it definitely came out before.

[17:38] John: Yeah, it’s not an epoch difference. I mean, I guess it is, because all the Image stuff has happened, at that point.

[17:43] David: But still, time-wise, it's five years.

[17:45] John: That's wild. I started digging into Dreadstar, his classic. I mean, I know I'd read a little of it. I mean, I was vaguely familiar with it. It reminds me of what you said about Breed, not in the competency sense, but in the sense that you get to the end, and you're like, “that's the end?” Got some cool ideas and stuff. Doesn't have that dramatic punch at the end, when you get to it. It's just like, “oh, okay. Well, I guess he’s going to keep doing stuff. Hope it works out for him,” and then there's a comic series. Let's all find out.

[18:12] David: Breed has a more definitive ending than any of the Dreadstar material I've read, which by the way, I've picked up two of the Dreadstar new books that he's put out on Kickstarter, Dreadstar VS The Inevitable and Dreadstar VS Dreadstar, which are both fine. I like them, and I was never a big fan of Dreadstar before that, and I enjoyed both of them. One thing, I'm glad you brought up Dreadstar, because Breed, the last miniseries, he brings in Dreadstar and a bunch of his other characters. Do you remember the cosmic kid that he did?

[18:41] John: No, I just ran into it when I was looking up on Wikipedia trying to find the timing on some of this stuff.

[18:46] David: He created a character, a superhero teenager character who's got cosmic powers, but anyway, that character's in there. So, they help Breed out in the big climax. He brings in a bunch of his creator-owned characters, and he just waves his hand for how they show up, which is fine. So, you get some fun little character bits, with Dreadstar and some of the other creator-owned characters, and then they pop off and leave when they've done their fighty fights. That was fun. I felt like it was a bit of an indulgence, but I was cool with that. So, Jim Starlin, John.

[19:17] John: Reading that, I was really thinking about the number of places he was and how instrumental he was in a lot of stuff happening in comics. The Thanos story pioneered the “you have to follow this story across multiple comic books, in order to follow what the story that the creator is taking.” It happens sometimes at Marvel, where you have to. Hickman's got a story. So, you have to follow all the Hickman stories, and you need to have read the Ultimates stuff that he did 15 years ago. What struck me as really funny was how much Dreadstar also did that. Dreadstar is volume three of the Metamorphosis Odyssey. So, you should have read the first Metamorphosis story, which was nine issues of Epic Illustrated, serialized. Then there's an Eclipse comic that is billed as being part of it, but you don't really know what it's doing until Dreadstar shows up in the end, like in Tokyo Drift when Vin Diesel shows up. So, then there's this graphic novel. It's the third Marvel graphic novel. The comic comes out right after it. The graphic novel says the comic's coming, and it's the first Epic comic book, the first line in the Epic comics line.

So, the first issue introduces a new character who was in the graphic novel. You just didn't see him. He recounts the story of the graphic novel with himself, in these scenes that he wasn't in, in the graphic novel that he didn't really change, but you just have to imagine, he must have just been off to the side of the panel when that panel was taking place, and then additionally, there was another story. They were going to serialize it in some bizarre adventures, a black and white magazine. So, they started that, stopped it, made it into its own comic, but the black and white magazine-size story still was in continuity, and was printed in Epic Illustrated #15. So, you have to have gone back to Epic Illustrated #15 to have got the story that took place between the graphic novel and Issue #1.

[21:09] David: I think you're explaining exactly why I never got into Dreadstar until just recently.

[21:15] John: It was definitely a, “I’ve got five issues and a graphic novel. I think I can read this,” and then it's like, “whoa, there's still stuff,” and like you said, he explains everything. I mean, he explains a hell of a lot really. You really get it.

[21:27] David: Interesting stuff.

[21:28] John: Pretty wild.

[21:32] David: That's not what we're here to talk about today, John.

[21:33] John: Oh, I thought it was.

[21:34] David: No, we're not talking about Breed. We're talking about other stuff. I have a question for you. Did you pick up the Treasury Edition of Superman/Spider-Man, the reprint?

[21:43] John: Funny, I actually picked it up. I wound up not buying it. I lifted it up off the stand. I was about to buy it, and I was like, “I'm spending too much right now. I'm not going to be able to have a chance to read this stuff for a while.” So, no, but you did.

[21:53] David: So, I got the Superman VS the Amazing Spider-Man reprint Treasury Edition of the book from 1976, written by Gerry Conway, who at the time was writing, I think, Amazing Spider-Man, and pencils by Ross Andru with Dick Giordano doing the inks, and Dick Giordano, I think, was part of Neal Adams' studio, at the time. It's a fun little romp. The story is good. It sets up a fine little way for Spider-Man and Superman to team up, and for Lex Luthor and Doc Ock to team up. Although, Doc Octopus is really sidelined in the story, in a weird way. He's dismissed as not being that smart, by Lex Luthor, and Doc Ock never really defends himself, just lets it slide. Ross Andru’s pencils are really good in this book, and the inking is top-notch, and the story that's interesting about this is, Dick Giordano was part of Neal Adams’ studio.

So, he would have the pages laying on his table, and famously, in a late interview, back in the 2000s, at some point--and Dick Giordano confirmed this--Neal Adams was sneaking into the studio and inking faces, and fixing anatomy, Ross Andru’s pencils, and I'm telling you, man, you can tell where Neal Adams stepped in, 100%. You're just going along. It's really good Ross Andru, Dick Giordano, and then there's a double-page splash of Superman in a pose that you've never seen Ross Andru draw before. 100% of it is Neal Adams. I know you're saying he didn't do that much, but there are a couple moments where it's like, “1000% Neal Adams did that.” It was a fun piece. It really got me excited for this upcoming crossover that Marvel and DC are doing. We're going to get a new Amazing Spider-Man and Superman crossover, John.

[23:45] John: Oh, yeah?

[23:46] David: It seems to be the thing that everyone was talking about. I'm excited for it. I wasn't really that excited for it, but after reading this reprint from 1976, I'm excited for it, and I wish that I was getting it in this oversized Treasury Edition again, because my eyes are getting old, John. I really love this oversized Treasury Edition-sized books they've been feeding me, like Skinbreaker and this, and it's really nice. Are you going to pick up the new one?

[24:11] John: Yeah, I'll check that out. It's unusual enough to have a crossover between the Big 2 like that. That was a DC comic.

[24:17] David: DC published the one I'm talking about. Apparently, there was another one that Marvel did, as well. I didn't see a reprint offering of that, and I missed it, somehow. I think it might have been reprinted as well, but I don't know.

[24:28] John: I'm pretty sure it was, but I'm not 100% positive. It's weird, because Gerry Conway and Ross Andru are hardcore Marvel guys. That was literally the Spider-Man team coming over.

[24:37] David: Oh, was Ross Andru on Amazing Spider-Man, at that time?

[24:40] John: Around then, wasn't he?

[24:41] David: For some reason, I've always associated Ross Andru with Superman.

[24:44] John: Live fact-checking myself, he was back at DC, at the time that this book came out. So, he was working as an editor there. You're right, but he had drawn. They just made him the perfect choice for it. It seems like a very Marvel-specific team, but this time, the Marvel one, Brad Meltzer's writing it, and that seems like a real DC move.

[25:03] David: Yeah, but when was the last time Brad Meltzer wrote for DC? It's been at least 10 years.

[25:07] John: No, I guess you're right.

[25:08] David: But I do think that's fun. I do think that's interesting. I like that.

[25:11] John: Yeah, no complaint. It was just funny seeing that weirdness.

[25:15] David: Maybe that's why they did it, because there was a little bit of that happening in the older versions.

[25:18] John: Whenever somebody links in with one publisher--that just doesn't happen that much anymore. There's so many people you have re-splits around, and everywhere. There's only a handful of people that I really think of as really locked down to one publisher.

[25:29] David: Some artists are still locked into some publishers. You still have exclusive contracts. You know who hasn't been over at DC, though? This is so far off topic, but has Chris Bachalo ever been over at DC? Did a Death miniseries for Vertigo back in the day.

[25:42] John: He got his start doing Shade the Changing Man. He drew 50 issues of Shade the Changing Man.

[25:47] David: He did? I think I read one issue of that, at some point, and I was like, “this is not for me.”

[25:52] John: You could see him evolving, from being a generic Vertigo artist into being the guy that drew the Death series, but I think when that took off, then he was over at Marvel and doing X-Men, and stuff.

[26:03] David: I don't think he's gone back, and at this point, it seems like he's semi-retired. I don't know what interiors he's doing these days. I'm not seeing his work around very much.

[26:11] John: Yeah.

[26:11] David: Anyway.

[26:12] John: He did The Witching Hour with Jeph Loeb later on as well, in the late 90s.

[26:17] David: Okay. Chris Bachalo not being on Flash or Justice League, or Batman, it's a little weird that he hasn't done that round, and he's clearly never had to. I'm sure Marvel keeps that man as busy as he wants to be. Anyway, I wonder if he's under an exclusive contract, or something, and that's part of the reason why. You know who is under an exclusive contract now?

[26:36] John: No, David, I do not.

[26:37] David: Netho Diaz. I reached out to him the other day. I needed him to do the fourth cover for Super Kaiju Rock ‘n Roll Derby Fun Time Go for book #4, because he did covers for us for the first three, and he's like, “I can't, man. I'm sorry. I'm exclusive.” I'm like, “you didn't carve out Super Kaiju covers in that contract? Come on. I made you, damn it.” No, I'm just kidding. I didn't say any of that. I was happy for him. I'm glad he's got a steady employee for a good, long time. So, that's nice.

[27:05] John: I feel like he could have probably asked permission, and possibly gotten that.

[27:09] David: Yeah, he probably just didn't want to. He probably doesn't even have an exclusive contract. It's just “I don't want to draw that stuff.” John, did you know that Captain Underpants is going to be in manga?

[27:27] John: I honestly did not know that.

[27:29] David: I just saw a pre-order solicitation for Captain Underpants manga. I don't know how I feel about that, John. Is that something the world wants? I feel like that's not a thing that I'm going to be interested in. I like manga a lot, and I love Captain Underpants. That's not the chocolate and peanut butter that people think it's going to be, I think. That's more like pickles and peanut butter.

[27:49] John: Yeah. Sorry, I'm looking at some art on there.

[27:52] David: It doesn't look good. It looks bad. I don't like it.

[27:57] John: I mean, I like Dav Pilkey a lot.

[28:00] David: I love Pilkey, but I don't need a non-Dav Pilkey Captain Underpants. That's what I'm saying. It's a whole thing. The whole point of Captain Underpants is that it’s drawn by 10-year-olds that are making the book. So, when you manga-ize it--I don't know. Anyway, I should probably reserve judgment. I'm sure smarter heads than me have worked this all out, but I was perplexed by that. The thing is, John, how do comic book readers, like the Wednesday Warriors out there, how do you find out about what's coming? The Diamond Previews catalog was the way that I found out about comic books for the last 25 years, and it's gone, John. Is anybody aggregating a monthly previews catalog of all the major publishers? Because the publishers are exclusive to different distributors.

[28:53] John: Yeah.

[28:54] David: Are you pre-ordering anything?

[28:55] John: I'm realizing I really should. It's funny. I haven't had a pull list, as long as I've worked in comics. The last time I had a pull list set up somewhere was, I think, the previous time I lived in San Diego.

[29:08] David: When you were still in college?

[29:10] John: Yeah, I would have ended my pull list in December of 2001, and I don't think I've had a new one since then.

[29:18] David: Really?

[29:19] John: Yeah.

[29:19] David: I am shocked to hear that.

[29:21] John: No, it is funny.

[29:22] David: Do you know that whole 15 minutes at the beginning of the podcast where we talk about our credentials and our credibility? You've just blown it all, for me. I don't know that I can even talk to you anymore. I don't know how I feel about this. You haven't had a pull list since 2001?

[29:34] John: Yeah, I think that's right.

[29:35] David: What kind of comic book fan are you?

[29:37] John: I was a poor one when I was a student. In 2001, I went to grad school. No joke, my monthly pulls, at that point, were New X-Men, the Grant Morrison run, Cerebus, which was heading up to Issue #300, and I wasn't going to stop then.

[29:53] David: You were just gritting it out.

[29:55] John: And 2000 AD, because I was living in England, and you could just pick that up off the stands anywhere. You'd walk into Borders and pick that up, and everything.

[30:02] David: I had a pull list, even during college, John, and I'm not joking when I tell you that there was more than one week where I chose comic books over eating. I definitely made comics a priority.

[30:15] John: After that, I lived in New York, and there, you were so well served in Manhattan, in terms of being able to find all the comics you want, I just got used to walking into the store on Wednesday after work, or during work, and also, I was working at Marvel Comics, and if I didn't have something, I usually could find it, or something. I mean, I don't know. I was around comics all the time.

[30:36] David: For the listener, when John said “find,” he threw up air quotes.

[30:39] John: Grab an assistant editor, one of the smaller ones, push them around until they give you the […]. That's a lot of […].

[30:48] David: Just send them over to the DC offices to get what you want.

[30:51] John: In a box, in pieces. You send them over there. This is a warning.

[30:56] David: This is not a true crime confession podcast, John. This is comic books. You're confusing.

[31:02] John: There's a statute of limitations on all that. The length of this podcast, I was rebuilding myself, in terms of going and buying comics. When I started, I was just starting to go back into a comic bookstore regularly. When we started this podcast, I mean. Now, I'm definitely there all the time, and I'm realizing I should just lock in, now that I pretty much just go to the one store on the regular, and then that would help them ordering. It's more considerate for me to do that. I also wouldn't wind up in situations where I missed Issue #4 of something.

[31:32] David: Right. That's the main reason I subscribe to things.

[31:36] John: That was my answer to that question that you had, which is, I would just go in and see what was out, and see what looked cool. It's a great question, because I saw a list of the next wave of three DC comics that are coming out, or something like that.

[31:53] David: The Wave 1, or whatever they're calling it.

[31:54] John: Yeah.

[31:55] David: The Lobo, Wonder Woman--

[31:57] John: Yeah, and I was like, “pretty good picks,” and then realizing I don't usually think that. I usually wind up just running into something. I don't know, I just saw a headline in Bleeding Cool. I'm looking up here. What was it? That it was a Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre #1 is now a $50 comic. I had never heard of that until I walked into the comic bookstore on Wednesday and saw that, and I'm like, “this art looks pretty nice. I'll buy that.” I enjoy doing that, just walking in there and being like, “this sounds fun,” but then there's definitely stuff I've missed because I didn't know that it was going to be something good.

[32:26] David: In life, I have a mindset of abundance. There's enough for everybody to go around. The world and the universe provides, and you'll get what you need, but when it comes to comic books, I have a very scarcity mindset. I am very much like, “man, I’ve got to order this, because that's not going to be on the shelves when I get to the comic bookshop.” I don't even go to the comic book shop anymore because now I just use Challengers Comics, and pre-order everything.

[32:49] John: Oh, there you go.

[32:50] David: And they have everything, basically, on a giant pull list, which is not the best way to do comic books, because, man, I'm ordering way more. I've spent a lot more money than I normally would, or should, but here's the thing. Here's why I bring this up. I really think there's an opportunity for, I don't know, Bleeding Cool, or somebody, to aggregate this stuff in one giant spot. They've got the catalog. The PDF catalog is everybody's thing. Once a month, you throw it out on a certain day, and then everybody knows to go download that thing, and get it, because man, it is frustrating that the whole wave of Vertigo books, there was two or three Vertigo books that I was really interested in picking up, and somehow I missed it completely, and I'm using a comic shop subscription management system, and I didn't see it, and there was no way for me to know that the stuff was coming out, in a way that I was used to. So, I'm just like, “what are people doing right now?” Is everyone just doing what you're doing, just showing up to the shop and being like, “that looks cool?”

[33:54] John: I feel that visibility is a problem with every medium right now. I don't even know that comics are at the worst of it, because it's always been like that with comics. There's still always a lot of people that were just walking into the store and seeing what was there. Those people don't give feedback. So, all the feedback any publisher gets is from the people that don't do that, that are looking at the stuff online. So, that creates the idea that that's how things work. There really are people that don't know, that aren't keyed in on this stuff. Right before this podcast started, David, I found out that there was a TV show, a couple years ago, called Clarice, that was based on Clarice Starling, the main character from Silence of the Lambs, on CBS, on an actual network, and I'd never heard of this show.

[34:39] David: I had no idea. You're a big Silence of the Lambs fan.

[34:43] John: No, I don't know.

[34:45] David: It was a huge movie. How did that go under the radar?

[34:49] John: Huge movies, a huge TV show, and then another one that I’d never heard of. I feel like that's a struggle with mediums right now. As the stuff gets more and more siloed, everybody digs into their own distributor. Everybody digs into their own platforms for releasing stuff. You just wind up with this thing where you're only circulating to the same audience. There's no way for a new audience to find out about the stuff. I don't mean the things we used to complain about, about superhero comics. They were too complicated, and people didn't know where to jump on. All that's still true. I don't even mean the Dreadstar of it, where you're like, “Dreadstar #1. This must be the beginning of something.” No. This is the […] you need to read. I don’t even mean that, just literally not being able to discover the stuff. Is the CBS app the Paramount app? That's the logic I have to go through in my head. Who owns CBS? Which app is that probably on?

[35:52] David: John, ComicsPro just wrapped up, and that should have been the first question that was answered in ComicsPro, “how the heck are our customers going to get previews catalog?” I don't think it was, John, but what was announced at ComicsPro, that I want to talk about very briefly? In fact, I might have to apologize again about something. Skybound been thrown heater after heater. Skybound announced another comic book series, M.A.S.K., the Mobile Assault Strategic Company, whatever the MASK stands for.

[36:19] John: Mobile Armored Strike Kommand.

[36:22] David: The Mobile Armored Strike Kommand. M.A.S.K. is near and dear to my heart. We did launch that book at IDW. Had some gorgeous Tommy Lee Edwards covers on that book. Brandon Easton wrote the hell out of it. We had a couple of different artists. Started out with Tony Vargas, who drew the heck out of it, too. Anyway, gorgeous looking book, super fun, and the Matt Trakker in our M.A.S.K. was African-American--black. That was a decision that was made by Hasbro. That was something that I think they called for.

[36:53] John: If I remember it right--correct me if I'm wrong, because obviously you were there, too--I remember that decision being made multiple times by different people, and it just came together. I remember Brandon pitching that, but pitching that after we'd already decided we were going to ask him to do that, that still being a thing that we hadn't asked. We hadn't talked to him about that, and he came back to it, and I remember it being a Michael Kelly thing. I don't remember if it was an actual Hasbro thing, or if it was just me and Michael and you talking about it, or something.

[37:22] David: I think, as you said, it was an idea that multiple people came to, but it was certainly something that, at the end of the day, was Hasbro-driven. Michael Kelly, who was in charge of the licensing program at Hasbro, did push that as a thing that he thought was appropriate, and us at IDW also felt that was appropriate. So, that was something that was coming from the editorial and licensor, not from Brandon himself. So, it sounds like people are maybe giving him a little grief, for some reason, about the fact that Matt Tracker is black in this new iteration, which is just bizarre to me, but whatever, people, but just to clarify, not to take anything away from Brandon, I thought he did quality work, and very happy to have worked with him on that project, but that was not something that people--if you're going to lay blame--you shouldn't be laying it at his door. There's lots of other people involved in that decision, and at the end of the day, it was just a more interesting story, with that version of Matt, in my opinion. So, I'm glad that they stuck with it. I'm glad that they're keeping that as part of the mythos of the property. I'm happy to see that and hear that. It's nice to see a little bit of what we did at IDW, with that property, being carried on. So, I'm excited for it.

I'm telling you, I am super excited for Pye Parr's artwork on that book. Holy moly, that's going to be fantastic. That guy, Pye Parr, is no joke, man. He's so good. I've been trying to get him to do a cover for me, for a while, and he keeps telling me no, and now I know why. So, Pye Parr did a book called Petrol Head. Yeah, man. I mean, gorgeous. Rob Williams wrote it. Pye Parr drew it. I think he did everything. I think he did pencils, inks, and colors on it. It is just a gorgeous book. Pye Parr is outstanding, and M.A.S.K. is a hard sell in 2026, but Pye Parr is going to go a long way. I think it's going to be one of those situations where Pye Parr's brand is going to get elevated along with the M.A.S.K. brand because of his abilities. He's incredible, and it's fun to see that Skybound's really going all-in on some of these lesser-known properties, like M.A.S.K., in the Hasbro Universe. I'm glad they're giving it a try. I wish him all the success, and I hope it works out for him, because that was still within my sweet spot of when I was a kid and really consuming a lot of cartoons and toys, and stuff. So, I'm glad to see it coming back.

I'm not part of the Mummies Alive! generation, John. It got 42 episodes in, I think, 1997. Mummies Alive! It actually looks cool. I'm actually going to do a deep dive on this TV show, at some point soon, but there was an action figure toy line attached to it as well. I was definitely aged out by then, but I just found out about this just the other day, John, and I might have to dive into it and see what's going on.

[40:13] John: Not to take away from Mummies Alive! I want to ask you a question about that in a second, but with the M.A.S.K. series, I'm curious to see how this turns out for them. I think I've said that before about some of the Skybound stuff. I think you're right. They're definitely doing a good job. Dan Watters is coming over. I think he's having some heat off of the Batman book he worked on. I felt like that comic went under a lot of people's radar, maybe, but maybe it didn't, but also I think people are going to see this, like you said. It's going to elevate everything. One of the things that I learned, whether correctly or not, was that the window for M.A.S.K.'s fandom was a lot smaller than the window for G.I. Joe or Transformers fandom, and didn't necessarily overlap with some of the other stuff that we were putting out. A ROM fan was not also going to be a M.A.S.K. fan, and vice versa. They're not doing that. They've definitely been setting up M.A.S.K.

[41:02] David: They've been setting it up in G.I. Joe.

[41:04] John: Yeah, he definitely is a logical stage to have in a world with G.I. Joe and Transformers. Having the thing that's the cross between the two of them makes sense, narratively.

[41:15] David: Yeah, I thought that was smart. They've set things up in a really interesting and smart way, and given M.A.S.K. a reason to exist within the Transformers/G.I. Joe shared universe. So, I thought they set it up smartly. I'm rooting for them. I'm excited to see it, and I was sad to see that anybody was upset about the announcement, in any way, shape, or form. It's too bad. Hopefully, everybody gives it a shot. I'm definitely going to give it a shot. I'm super excited, like I said, about the Pye Parr artwork.

Another of our bold predictions--I think this might have been mine--came to fruition around this time last year, maybe a little bit later, maybe closer to the summer. We were mourning the loss of DSTLRY, as a publisher. It seemed like the major players within DSTLRY were moving on to other things. It did not seem to bode well for DSTLRY, as a publisher. Combine that with the fact that I think they were Diamond exclusive, at one point. They were going through the hassles and troubles of losing their distributor, through no fault of their own, but they probably weren't long for this world, and they did just recently, in the last couple of weeks, announced that they have suspended publication. So, hopefully they'll be able to rejigger and get back, but it's not looking good, John. So, I hate to bring bad news and dance on the grave, but we did call that one. I just don't understand how that version of things works in today's day and age. I just don't know how you make a company using other people's owned IP. I don't know how a publisher builds anything with that. That model is tough. I was super excited about the Robot White House Romance book. I can't remember what the exact name of it is.

[43:02] John: Literally called White House Robot Romance.

[43:04] David: Oh, okay. I got it right. I got the first book of that, and that was the first DSTLRY book I'd ever purchased, and really loved it, but the writer is great.

[43:14] John: Chip Zdarsky.

[43:15] David: Chip Zdarsky, and the artist is really good too, for that book, but it doesn't look like I'm going to get a second issue of that anytime soon. So, that's okay. Wishing them well, and we called another one, John. Did we already make our bold predictions for 2026?

[43:28] John: No, we never did. We should, and they should all cover the first two months. We’re doing really well.

[43:33] David: Yeah, we'll do 100%. I'll do 80% and you'll probably do 100%.

[43:36] John: Well, it'll be interesting to see where DSTLRY keeps going, if at all, and how they sort out all of everything. I don't have any inside knowledge on it. It seems like the exact question you asked, of how do companies like that survive? I don't know their business model. I don't know what they were going for. I imagine there was a lot of venture capital behind it, and sometimes that stuff can come back, looking for its profits.

[44:03] David: Looking for some return on investment. That's not all you invest in comic books, John.

[44:08] John: No. So, we'll see. We'll see how things go. A while back, I talked about Métal Hurlant declaring bankruptcy, but they've still been continuing, as a publisher. They continue to do stuff. So, Métal Hurlant, the magazine, continues to come out. They just launched another Kickstarter with some erotic books, European stuff, Moebius, and stuff. So, yeah, you never know, and DSTLRY was very tied in.

[44:32] David: The new digital comic book distributor.

[44:35] John: Yeah, the one that's all the NFTs, but they don't call them NFTs.

[44:38] David: It's the same owners.

[44:42] John: I was curious how that was going to roll out, how that relationship between DSTRLY and that company was coming out. That was the one I kept making jokes about going away. I genuinely enjoy a lot of DSTLRY comics. They had some super high production values, super good creators, and some really good comics. I think Blood Brothers Mother was great.

[45:01] David: I think when they launched, they had an interesting model, where they were doing these oversized magazine-size--European graphic novels, basically, was what they were doing. A slower release, a higher price point, a little more attention to the printing package, all things that I'm totally on board for, but I think after COVID, and over the course of the last year or two, I think people have moved back into wanting their monthly floppy comic book again. So, I think they maybe were also hurt by that. They had the zeitgeist for a moment, but what the customer was looking for moved back to a more traditional format, and they were stuck in this treasure, this magazine-sized. It's a slower release, higher quality format, and people were looking to save a buck in 2025. I doubt they come back, but I wish them all the best. There's already three other comic book publishers who've sprung up in the last eight months to take their place. So, onward and forward.

[46:01] John: I was going to say, who's next? I was going to put you on the spot. Who's next?

[46:04] David: The one that's got me concerned now, John, is Ignition Press. I just don't know. I'm worried, John. I'm worried. We’ve got some friends of the show […] comic books over there. So, I want them to succeed, but I'm a little worried, John. I get a little itchy.

[46:17] John: All right.

[46:18] David: That's all I’ve got for you, John.

[46:19] John: All right. Here's how we should have tied this in a bow. DSTLRY, putting the stuff in the format pioneered by Jim Starlin with the Death of Captain Marvel. That was the format that it was.

[46:31] David: There you go, and with that, dear listener, we have subjected you to another edition of The Corner Box. Thanks for coming. Thanks for listening. Please take some time to like and subscribe to our humble little podcast. We'd love to have that. People tell me it helps with things, like algorithms, whatever that is. So, yeah, that's it. We'll be back next week, like we always are. We'll see you next time on The Corner Box. Thanks for coming, everybody. Bye.

[46:58] John: 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.