[00:00:00] Intro: 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.

[00:00:24] David Hedgecock: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Corner Box. My name David, and with me as always, is my very good friend and co-host 

[00:00:30] John Barber: Ai Val Kilmer, uh, I mean John Barber. 

[00:00:32] David Hedgecock: It's good to see you again, Val, looking a lot better than the last time I saw you. 

[00:00:36] John Barber: It's not your flying, David, it's your attitude. 

[00:00:38] David Hedgecock: We can be playing a lot of nonsense.

[00:00:40] We've got a guest on today. We gotta, we gotta play straight 

[00:00:43] John Barber: still remote in, uh, Hawaii. 

[00:00:45] David Hedgecock: I left the 80 to 90 degree sunny weather of San Diego to come to Hawaii for a week. And, uh. It's been, uh, seven days and it has not stopped raining for one second of the seven days that I've been here. John, 

[00:00:57] John Barber: like The Crow soundtrack told us, it can't rain all the [00:01:00] time.

[00:01:00] And we've got our own ray of sunshine with us. 

[00:01:03] David Hedgecock: We got a guest on. Anyway, welcome back to the show, the one, the only, Dating Bakes. Dave Baker, welcome back, sir. 

[00:01:10] Dave Baker: Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Yeah, good 

[00:01:15] David Hedgecock: to see you, Dave. 

[00:01:16] Dave Baker: Thank you. Good to see you too. 

[00:01:17] David Hedgecock: Yeah, you must have fun to promote. We don't see you otherwise.

[00:01:20] Dave Baker: That's not true. The last time I was here, we just bullshitted for like an hour and a half. 

[00:01:24] John Barber: That was when David wasn't here though, wasn't it? Wasn't it? What were you? 

[00:01:26] Dave Baker: Oh, it might have been. I think it might have been. I 

[00:01:28] David Hedgecock: think so. What have you been up to, man? How's the tricks? 

[00:01:30] Dave Baker: They're good. I'm hanging out, I'm writing a bunch of new comics and also I have two graphic novels coming out, so yes, I am here to promote.

[00:01:39] John Barber: I actually didn't know that. 

[00:01:40] Dave Baker: Yeah. I have a graphic novel coming out from Top Shelf April 7th with Nicole Goux titled Pumpkin Heads, which is a coming of age romance comic about skater kids. Punk kids who play horror punk music dressed as anthropomorphized pumpkins. Kind of a coming of age comic, like I usually make with Nicole, about young [00:02:00] people trying to navigate the gap in between being a, you know, a teenager and being an adult.

[00:02:04] And in this case it's. Very kind of music-based and about these kids in his punk scene trying to sort shit out. And then the other book I have is, uh, ONI is putting out a collection of Halloween Boy comics in May. 

[00:02:19] David Hedgecock: Oh, that's right, the Halloween Boy. The first collection, 

[00:02:21] Dave Baker: the last of the Halloween Boys, the first arc.

[00:02:23] I'm very excited that the book is going to be. Seen by humans. It's very cool. 

[00:02:30] David Hedgecock: You talk about it. I own every, every single issue. I've seen it. I'm human. 

[00:02:33] Dave Baker: That's true. You are, you're one of the few, the proud, the people who are interested in cultural ephemera and, uh, underground things. 

[00:02:40] David Hedgecock: I think it's, uh, great that Knowing You Press is putting that together.

[00:02:43] I, I, yeah, it's been months. I feel is like. Since you were sharing some of the design elements for that book. My God, it takes a long time to make a book, doesn't it? 

[00:02:50] Dave Baker: Yeah, it takes fucking forever, man. 

[00:02:52] David Hedgecock: Did you build the design elements for that book or did you... 

[00:02:55] Dave Baker: I just did the covers. 

[00:02:56] John Barber: Designer. 

[00:02:57] David Hedgecock: But didn't you do a series of spot illustrations and [00:03:00] stuff for that, that book as well?

[00:03:01] I feel like there was some like design elements. 

[00:03:03] Dave Baker: Yeah, I did some new, I did some new little odds and ends and weird things here and there, but actually I did do some work on the pages. I changed some of his cowl designs, 'cause in the beginning. Howling Boys' ears aren't quite as triangular as they become as the series progresses.

[00:03:18] So I kind of went back and tweaked some of that stuff and changed some dialogue a little bit here and there. But it's, it's 92.1% the stuff, uh, that you have, the 

[00:03:29] David Hedgecock: original stuff. 

[00:03:30] Dave Baker: Yeah. 

[00:03:34] David Hedgecock: So, Dave, uh, I have a question for you. I wanna get your take on this thing that's happened recently. Comics, the firing of Michael Richardson over at Dark Horse.

[00:03:43] Have you heard about that, and how did you take that news? 

[00:03:46] Dave Baker: I think my thoughts are a little complicated because I did a book over there, and I know a lot of people over there, and I know there's a large, like, fan outcry of like, how could this have happened? And maybe I'm wrong, but my understanding is he was like on [00:04:00] a contract that there was an end date to, and then he stayed past that date.

[00:04:04] I don't know how much of this is public, but my understanding is he has like some health problems. Both of those aspects I think caused some friction maybe, or I, I don't know. Um, but I think it's hard to look at his legacy and think that he didn't contribute a lot to comics and made it better while he was here.

[00:04:22] Also, you know, I think as people age and they evolve and become different people, they have shifting priorities. He's not a dumb man. I think he knew some version of this was coming when he sold to Embracer. You don't sell to Embracer and then be like, ah, everything's gonna be exactly like it was. 

[00:04:37] David Hedgecock: There's always a clearing of the C-suite at some point.

[00:04:39] And certainly if you're the owner and you sell it, the expectations that you stay on for let's say two years. But the expectation is that you're not staying on long term. You've sold the company and you're just. Doing the transition, it wasn't that surprising. I just, I think the, the thing that got me in, I don't know, I don't wanna speak for John, but that got me, was just [00:05:00] the announcement that went with it.

[00:05:01] It was the most synergistic corporate speak that I've ever read. I was like, it was so bad. 

[00:05:08] Dave Baker: It's interesting to me, the, the like fan outcry, quote unquote, for somebody who isn't a creator, really. I mean, yes, I know The Mask and 47 Ronin and a couple other things that he's made, but like he's a businessman who like.

[00:05:19] Is just creative enough to be able to like use some of his weight to be a writer or whatever. Every once in a while, I feel like I haven't seen that level of kind of outcry, even for like actual creators who've gotten screwed over. Maybe that's because the creators are being screwed over by the publishers, and people don't want to cry a place where they might work one day or something.

[00:05:39] I don't know. 

[00:05:40] John Barber: Yeah, I mean, I wasn't really thinking of it. Necessarily, even from the personal point of view of, of, of Mike Richardson, as much as the comic book person who founded a comic book company that published comic books for a lot of years, that person being moved out by the video game people coming in and, like, having been somewhere where, looking at Dark Horse's success they [00:06:00] had at the video game art books, that was like started when we did the Zelda book.

[00:06:03] American edition of his Zelda book was extremely, you know, popular and led to other stuff that, that was one of the things that I feel like I lost sight of at a certain point myself, just in the, uh, stuff that I was. Everything. I don't know every, everything was going on in my life or everywhere that I was.

[00:06:17] Does this company exist to make the thing you want to make, or does the company exist to make money? There would be people that would make, maybe come around at other publishers and be like, "Hey, look, I, I did book scan numbers and, and Ninja Turtles phonics books or what? Sell the most. So what we should be doing, Ninja Turtles phonics books and not doing Ninja Turtles comics.

[00:06:34] Look how much better the phonics books sell." That idea of like, is that what drives the company that you're like, well, okay, here's the IP we have and so we can, we can sell it. Or is it, you know, we came here to make comics or whatever. And, and, uh, it's not like my career was like some paragon of not doing the other thing.

[00:06:52] That's not really what I mean. And I have nothing against video games or people that make video games at all. Like, I like video games and stuff, but like, uh, [00:07:00] seeing the tech makeover of Hollywood and stuff. These are people that are getting into this to maximize the value of IP, not to make things, which is crazy as it is to think about.

[00:07:13] That is the reason why people used to own movie studios, like not, not, I don't even mean that in a positive way. You know what I mean? Like the megalomaniacal version of the studio head wanting to throw people around and push, you know, make movies and stuff like that was more important than just profit, 'cause it's a stupid idea to get into movies to make money.

[00:07:30] In terms of an investment, it's a stupid idea to invest in movies in the hopes that yours is gonna be the one that makes money because they usually don't. All of that was what was bubbling up in my head since David and I last talked about this. 

[00:07:40] David Hedgecock: I just recently started reading the art cover collections of Richard Corben's Den as published by Dark Horse, and you're never going to see that again.

[00:07:49] There's no publisher now that would take the time to meticulously scan every single piece of original art, make sure the color accuracy is all on [00:08:00] point, have it re-lettered in the manner, in the style that it was originally done in, but much more legible and clean, et cetera, and publish that as a high-end hardcover.

[00:08:08] Like, no one's gonna go into all that trouble. That's a thing that Mike Richardson wanted to do, right? Because he's probably into Richard Corben. That's not a thing that's gonna happen because the CEO of a publishing slash multimedia company is going to do. The accountants will never let that fly. And so that's the thing that I feel like is the potential sea change happening here, is that in a way, Mike's decision is one of the last of that group, and it does feel like the changing of a guard in a way.

[00:08:37] And, and maybe it will be for the better long term, but it feels like maybe not necessarily that for the better for comic book publishing. I don't know. We'll see. I feel like that's what Mike Richardson was still bringing to the table as the head of Dark Horse. And I could be completely wrong. It's just me making stuff up.

[00:08:54] But I feel like he, you know, he had an interest or some those things that he. Willing to green light those [00:09:00] things, and the next guy, that's probably not gonna fly. Right. 

[00:09:03] Dave Baker: I can see that. The thing that depresses me about that, this situation, is I feel like comics is always reliant on one guy doing the right thing.

[00:09:13] All these companies are always one fucking dude. It sucks because when that one guy gets pushed out, things go downhill. But the thing I have to remind myself is that because these companies are just like, sometimes a singular beacon of a specific moral compass, that means another company can gain that same traction and have either a similar or alternative perspective by being a single guy or a single woman.

[00:09:38] And right now there's lots of really cool, weird stuff happening in the indie sphere. 

[00:09:41] David Hedgecock: What would you say is cool and and interesting in the indie sphere right now for you? 

[00:09:45] Dave Baker: Just from a publishing standpoint, I think what PI is doing is very interesting. I think a lot of the book market publishers are doing really cool stuff.

[00:09:52] Even some of the like American manga branches like Viz and Yen Press and some other places, some of the. Things aren't [00:10:00] aimed at me necessarily, but some of them are very interesting. Webtoon allows people to access these gargantuan audiences of readers that are primed for a specific type of content. I think it's exciting that DC is reinventing things to the degree that they are and that they're like pushing into these, for lack of a better term, like comics that feel like they're made by people who care.

[00:10:21] You know, like some, so often that big two stuff just becomes a grind of like. Journeyman after journeyman, after journeyman, meeting deadlines and like, the absolute books. Like, even if they're not my thing always, some of them are a tinker, fantastic. And some of them I'm like, this isn't aimed at me, but god damn, who this is aimed at, this is perfect for that person.

[00:10:41] Even this new All In initiative with Lobo and Deathstroke and all that stuff. Again, they're not all aimed at me, but they don't need to be. They're aimed at different markets, trying to attract different readerships, and they're made by artists and writers who are bought in and are being given the creative oxygen to be able to fan those flames of whatever they may be.

[00:10:59] The stuff [00:11:00] IDW is doing right now, I think is very interesting. You know, even just the fact that like IDW, like that their flagship title is about a serial killer bear. That's the weird shit in comics that like, yeah, that's great. Let's do more of that. 

[00:11:11] David Hedgecock: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really happy with, uh, the DC line as well.

[00:11:14] I think it's great to see them rising to the occasion in a way that Marvel doesn't seem to be willing or interested in doing right now. I'm, I'm very gratified as a reader and fan of comic books. Even in 2026, we still have to have a healthy Marvel and or DC to make the wheels turn. So, uh, it's nice that DC is sort of stepping up and filling the gap where.

[00:11:37] Marvel seems so sort of left in opening even to the same degree. Image is doing that as well, especially the Skybound stuff that just have hit after hit after hits. 

[00:11:45] John Barber: One of the things that it's really interesting to me about the DC stuff, this never really occurred to me, but like all the people working on those books are like comic book people.

[00:11:54] There isn't like the movie guy that they brought in to do something, or even like the novelist or something guy. [00:12:00] In no way we need to slam people. That are that, that, that, that come in from other mediums. That's awesome. And like, there's great comic book people that have come in, they take comics very seriously, and these comics don't read like movie pitches, you know what I mean?

[00:12:13] They don't read like they're trying to be a movie, or they don't read like they're trying to lean into the movie-ness of the DC properties or whatever. Have you guys read Batwoman? 

[00:12:24] Dave Baker: I have it. I have not read it yet. 

[00:12:26] David Hedgecock: I haven't read it yet. Fun time. Go editor. And she, Chase Morts turned me onto Danny's art a couple months ago.

[00:12:31] She's gonna be a, a fun person to watch over the course of the next couple years, I think. I really like her voice as an artist. Really interesting. So I'm excited to see where that book goes. I'm definitely gonna pick that up for the art. Greg Rukus, 

[00:12:44] John Barber: it's an ambitious story. It is not clear what's going on by the end of it in a way that it was kind of neat.

[00:12:49] I feel like that's another thing with a lot of those, uh, those comics is you get hammered into this like, clarity is the number one thing. You, the reader, shouldn't feel lost at all, but it's fun to go in there and not know [00:13:00] what order these scenes are taking place in, but under the impression that you're probably gonna find out at some point, you know?

[00:13:05] I read, uh, World Heist, the piano stuff. Uh, 

[00:13:08] David Hedgecock: yeah, I'm not familiar with the work at all. I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. 

[00:13:11] Dave Baker: It's a smaller publisher, uh, run by this guy named Patrick Crotty. It's like two guys from New Jersey and two guys from Sweden, I think. And all the stuff they publish is very like manga influenced.

[00:13:23] It feels kinda like eighties manga specifically. I would say their, the like root of their stylistic interest is like nineties bison and eighties manga. So everything kind of has that, like European meets Japanese aesthetic to it. Yeah, it's really cool. I like a lot of the books they publish. Is 

[00:13:41] David Hedgecock: they publishing new material?

[00:13:43] Dave Baker: Yeah, like Ren McDonald does a lot of stuff with them. Loko Winky does a lot of stuff with them. I fucking love that guy. Dude, I'll read anything that guy draws. They have like an anthology, and then they put out multiple graphic novels. They won an Eisner for the Linnea Sterte book Stages of Rot, [00:14:00] which I thought was a pretty auspicious effort.

[00:14:03] David Hedgecock: What would you recommend as a good starting point from that publisher? 

[00:14:06] Dave Baker: Probably Stages of Rot. 

[00:14:07] John Barber: Stages of Rot restocks in May. It's like a million dollars if you're trying to buy it right 

[00:14:11] Dave Baker: now. Oh, okay. Nevermind. She's very kind of like Moebius influenced. I think she's from the Netherlands maybe. I really like her work as well.

[00:14:20] John Barber: This is kind of funny 'cause it's my current Comics Journal obsession. She was just interviewed in the Comics Journal and she was talking about how it's cliche to talk about how she's influenced by Moebius. I think that's hilarious. When you live in a world where the last time Airtight Garage was in print wasn't, I don't know what, like 10 years before you were born, it looks like a lot of cross between Moebius and uh, uh, Taiyo Matsumoto.

[00:14:39] Dave Baker: Yeah, Taiyo Matsumoto. Yeah. I would say she's probably the biggest name that has like come out of them in terms of like, there's a lot of people that they work with that have kinda like risen through the ranks. I wouldn't say that they like discovered them necessarily. Like, what's that guy's name? He did that Fight Manga Anthology.

[00:14:59] David Hedgecock: Al Gofer, 

[00:14:59] Dave Baker: [00:15:00] yes, Al Gofer. Like he's, he's very talented as well. He's very skilled. Yeah, he's doing that new book Orc Gym. It's like a powerlifting comic. 

[00:15:10] David Hedgecock: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that out? 

[00:15:12] Dave Baker: I don't know where he's at in the process, but I know the first issue is out. 

[00:15:15] David Hedgecock: Who's publishing that one? I remember seeing that, thinking.

[00:15:17] Dave Baker: Yeah, it's the Canadian. The Canadian Collective that Andy, is it Bellinger? Or Bellinger? I don't, I think Bellinger. Oh, I dunno. Andy B. And Carl Kersch, their, their little collective is publish it. Yeah, 

[00:15:30] David Hedgecock: I do like that guy's work though. His, yeah, his art is pretty fun. There's another Kickstarter right now that's sort of a similar vein called Space Writers.

[00:15:38] I'm Kickstarter right now as of this recording. The artist, I, I'm sure when I say their, the name, you'll, you'll recognize it. 

[00:15:44] Dave Baker: Alexis Ziritt. Yeah, I made a book with him called Night Hunters. Yeah. 

[00:15:48] David Hedgecock: Oh, you did? Did I read that? 

[00:15:50] Dave Baker: I don't know. 

[00:15:51] David Hedgecock: Anyway, Alexis has got a very unique and interesting and distinct style.

[00:15:56] He's getting better and better too. Like, the level of improvement in [00:16:00] the specific style that he's working in, it's gonna be hard not to notice that, uh, over the course of the next few years. Like, it's gonna be hard to ignore him. He has got a really distinct voice and it's really coming, and he really seems to be like.

[00:16:13] Coming into full maturity with that voice. Space Writers looks phenomenal, and every page that I've seen, samples of stuff, each issue of Space Writer is better than the last one. I feel like he's really. Founding and that's a Black Mask project, I'm just noticing. Mm-hmm. Now I didn't even know that. 

[00:16:30] Dave Baker: Yeah. 

[00:16:30] David Hedgecock: I didn't even know those guys were still around.

[00:16:32] Dave Baker: Yeah. I guess. Are they? I don't know. 

[00:16:33] David Hedgecock: Well, I mean, they've got a new Kickstarter out 

[00:16:35] Dave Baker: that book's like three years old though. Right. It's for Vortex of Darkness. Right. And that that was coming out. 

[00:16:40] David Hedgecock: It's the last issue of Vortex of Darkness. 

[00:16:42] Dave Baker: Yeah. 

[00:16:42] David Hedgecock: Promoting, 

[00:16:43] Dave Baker: yeah. His like weird, effortless, like. Jack Kirby by way of a Tijuana Bible style is just so rad.

[00:16:50] Incredible. 

[00:16:51] David Hedgecock: I like that description. That's a very fitting description. Jack Kirby by way of Tijuana Bible. Yeah, he's in that Oli King up a little bit. 

[00:16:59] Dave Baker: Yeah, [00:17:00] 

[00:17:00] David Hedgecock: but certainly, definitely was on his own thing.

[00:17:08] John Barber: This will be good because I think Dave will be able to shame me by my not knowing this before. Dave had come on, when we weren't sure what we were gonna talk about, I was like, here's what I thought was an embarrassing comic discovery. But Dave was like, oh, I don't know who that is. I'm like, oh, okay, well, I'm not gonna be as embarrassed then.

[00:17:23] But Dave Baker, I think you will. This is the week I, uh, discovered Ken Landgraf. 

[00:17:27] Dave Baker: Oh yeah, I've got all but the last issue of Bronx Warriors. I need that last one. That thing is so expensive though. I don't know if it's cheaper now that they've collected it. I still don't have the collection. I love that guy's art.

[00:17:39] John Barber: Well, here's what happened. So I'm buying some comics on eBay and there's like free shipping when you get five or something. So you know, like, I'm like, all right, here's oh $3. Here's something called Apocalypse 5,000. Uh, yeah, that name sounds familiar. I'll check that out. It's got like a cool orange black cover.

[00:17:55] Reminds me actually, you know, like the, uh, the interiors of Halloween Boy in that sense that it's orange and black. That [00:18:00] looks like a, a comic I'd enjoy. The last few episodes of this podcast have been dedicated to the Gary Groth, Harlan Ellison lawsuit, all stuff that that came out around that. That's got me digging into, like, stuff from that era of, of comics, and I'm like, oh, this looks like this is gonna be, uh, gonna, gonna be reminiscent of that.

[00:18:15] But clearly this is in a style of all stuff. We were just talking about the Ben Marra, Tom Scioli, you know, the guys we were just talking about, you know, sphere of things. So the comic comes in, I'm flipping through it, I'm like, oh, this is cool. It sits on my, my chair for a couple days. Then, uh, last week, uh, I at the comic bookstore and Ghoul Hunter is, is on the shelf.

[00:18:34] I buy it and I'm like, hey, wait a minute, this is that Kinlan graph fella that I have waiting for me on the, on, on, on the chair. Okay, like, here's the sequence of stuff I read is I, I read some Commanding Apocalypse 5,000, this weird issue that they threw in of, I think this might be something that David, you talked about, it was like a.

[00:18:50] It's a, a Spider-Man parody where it's like Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man number 1046 or something. But Spider-Man, you can't see the A in the name. And it's like [00:19:00] the just kind of this goofy parody comic Pham killing people. And then Aunt May on the phone trying to change from, uh. 

[00:19:06] Dave Baker: CVS to 

[00:19:07] John Barber: Walgreens. And then I read, uh, a book that I've been just, uh, on the edge of reading for about seven years, which is the James Romberger book, True Stories or something.

[00:19:14] It's like a story about Jack Kirby and, uh, Jim Romberger, who's the guy that drew Seven Miles a Second. He's taking two true stories about Jack Kirby, him, him and Roz going to the doctor. Kirby getting his diagnosis of throat cancer with this, uh, anecdote of him being in World War II and, and hiding out and almost getting discovered by Nazis and almost getting killed.

[00:19:34] There's like this essay by Romberger in the back about Kirby, and I started thinking about like the authenticity of it. Like, I feel like Kirby at that point in his career is making the comics he has to make, like there isn't like a lot of variation in what, he's not variation, but like, he's not intellectually figuring out these puzzle pieces to put together.

[00:19:49] He is just drawing these crazy comics. Was it Apocalypse or Armageddon? 5,000. 

[00:19:53] Dave Baker: I think it's Armageddon. 500. Yeah. And I'm also realizing I said it wrong, it's New York City Outlaws Brock's Warriors is the shitty movie. 

[00:19:59] John Barber: [00:20:00] Anyway, so all this is like kind of going through my head and I'm like, uh, Armageddon, 5,000.

[00:20:03] It's like dead on. Like if it was like a comic from the late seventies or early, uh, early eighties, not from 2023, like it clearly is from the copyright that, is there anything that's really added to the conversation by that? By being, being that dead on? You know, is that like, is that something or is it just that, is it just cool that like.

[00:20:19] Sometimes the stuff looks like it's inked by like Jack Abel or, uh, Gene Day. And then sometimes it looks really sketchy and weirdly, weirdly laid out, just like they would've been in the late seventies or early eighties. And I'm even this other one that you did, this Ghoul Hunter. There's a little more to that.

[00:20:33] Like that seems like it's really, really playing on some pop culture tropes from the present day. And then I'm reading, um, I'm about to read the Dave Baker article in, uh, the new issue of Comics. The magazine right before that is a, uh, a history of fanzines. By Jim Rug and I'm going through that. I'm like, oh, this is kind of interesting.

[00:20:52] But I realized something from the Harlan Ellison transcripts of what Comics Reader is. I did know what that was, but that was like one of the early fanzines. I can't [00:21:00] remember if that was one that Paul Levitz edited or the one that Roy Thomas edited, but there were like two sort of sister publications for a while.

[00:21:06] Dave Baker: Roy Thomas', Alter Ego, Paul Levitz, who was a Comics Reader. 

[00:21:10] John Barber: That's right. So anyway, then he mentions in there something about Dan Clowes's studio and like he's like, that's where I first learned about Ken Landgraf. I'm like, that's weird. I just read these Ken Landgraf comment. Wait, how long has this guy been around?

[00:21:23] And that's when I found out who Ken Landgraf is. It wasn't like in the style of late seventies, early eighties comics. It's a hundred percent was. If you go to his Wikipedia page, the thing he is best known for is drawing the first solo Wolverine story. The one that Joe Duffy wrote where, where they fight, uh, uh, the bar with Hercules.

[00:21:42] He did in fact study with Dan Atkins or worked with, like, assisted Dan Atkins or something. And I was like, man, that is absolutely wild. I, I've read, obviously I've read that story because I edited Wolverine, but like, I stumbling into that in this, like, completely clean way of like, I really do enjoy this.

[00:21:59] [00:22:00] Even the full-on embarrassment of, like, me trying to puzzle through the quality of it and see if it's, you know, I don't know. I'm looking forward to reading New York City Outlaws is the end of that story. 

[00:22:08] Dave Baker: Yeah. New York City Outlaws is great. I think the thing that's interesting to me about Landgraf is that he's an artist's artist, but he's also like.

[00:22:15] Hackiest of journeymen. 

[00:22:17] John Barber: Yeah. 

[00:22:17] Dave Baker: And it's the, it's this really weird tension where like a bunch of people that are like in my era of kind of like, we like indie comics, but we also like things where people get punched in the face. 

[00:22:29] John Barber: Right. 

[00:22:30] Dave Baker: That type of dude loves Ken Landgraf, and then also. Ken Lamb GR was making that stuff in the seventies, but with no irony.

[00:22:39] There's a weird kind of like, host irony love for him. 

[00:22:42] John Barber: Yeah, 

[00:22:43] Dave Baker: but also he's not really in on the joke. And once people like get to know him or see the work enough, the irony stops and it's just, oh, actually I just genuinely like how this guy draws. 

[00:22:54] John Barber: Like that's the exact tension that he manages to have in the 1970s.

[00:22:58] That is like, [00:23:00] exactly, at the heart of so much of this stuff. All this has been rolling around in my head, the idea of like the actual quality comics that are like actually undeniably good and amazing. Part of this is even brought to a head in this whole thing with this Ellison lawsuit that begins in 1979, and then it goes up through 1986.

[00:23:18] You know, where Anything Goes comes out, like we talked about on the show, Dave, at the beginning of this, The Comics Journal was out there complaining that there weren't comics that were like intellectual and and artistic. The Comics Journal kind of had the same attitude the whole time, except at a certain point they were about a sort of comics that didn't exist.

[00:23:34] If they were wanting this thing to exist, then eight years, seven, eight years later, Gary Groth has brought that into existing. He's publishing Hernandez Brothers and like all this stuff and Undergrounds goes. But also like, I don't know if there's any medium in the world where you could look at like seven years between 1979 and 1986 and have as much massive change as comics had.

[00:23:52] These are like, you know, masterworks of the medium where maybe there weren't any before then, or there weren't any that didn't have an asterisk next to [00:24:00] it before then or something. Thinking about that, but you've got like the Jim Rugs of the world or whatever, just 'cause you wrote that article about it and wrote like the introduction and, and the Outlaws book or whatever.

[00:24:09] Yeah, they, they look at the great stuff that's like Dark Knight Returns or the, the great stuff of the genre of, of superhero stuff. But they're also, you know, super into like Al Mild or something, you know what I mean? Or you'll be that like bit of it, like that it's all like sort of, it seems to be encompassed from kin land graft.

[00:24:24] It's fascinating that, that, that happened for real in a natural or whatever way. 

[00:24:29] Dave Baker: And also that he's been so thoroughly reclaimed too, because like, most cartoonists are doomed to a life of anonymity and crushing poverty. And he did that, but then for whatever reason. The Pachinko chain of events led his weird self-published comics from the seventies to find the right people to connect them with micro publishers in order to build a cult following to eventually, like, completely like reclaim his legacy, like.

[00:24:59] You're [00:25:00] right. The thing he should be most known for is drawing that first Wolverine thing. I think he inked some George Tuska for a while and like, but now when he dies, it's gonna be, "Can Land Graft, cartoonist behind New York City Outlaws" and whatever. 

[00:25:13] John Barber: Yeah, you're right. That is a rare thing for comics.

[00:25:15] It's the thing that like Vinegar Syndrome does, you know, four times a month, uh, with movies, but 

[00:25:20] Dave Baker: mm-hmm, 

[00:25:21] John Barber: it doesn't happen very often with comics. Absolutely. Ghoul Hunters knew that really did come out last year. 

[00:25:26] Dave Baker: Yeah, that was heck, the thing he'd been working on for a while, right? 

[00:25:29] John Barber: Yeah. And I was like, man, it's funny, this guy's style changed a lot between 2023 and 2025, 

[00:25:34] Dave Baker: right?

[00:25:34] Yeah, it's, he did like 50 years worth of drawing in three years. 

[00:25:40] David Hedgecock: It's like he's inking over Ben Marra now. Like, I'm looking at a Comics Journal interview with him from a little while back, and I've never heard of his gun before. And now suddenly I own the New York City Outlaws trade paperback that's coming to my house in about a week.

[00:25:53] Thanks, guys. 

[00:25:54] Dave Baker: Sorry. 

[00:25:55] John Barber: You know why it's taking a week is because the, apparently the one that was within 48 hours in San [00:26:00] Diego, it should be arriving by, uh, by five, uh, over here. 

[00:26:05] David Hedgecock: Fascinating. It's interesting how. Things come around. Right. I think you put a fine point on it, Dave, with your, you know, sort of journeyman, but suddenly that style just comes back into favor, for lack of a better term.

[00:26:19] Dave Baker: Yeah. 

[00:26:19] John Barber: Like movies have no problem with there being cult movies. Less so with, with, well, I don't know. Now everything's so fragmented. What am I saying? I don't know.

[00:26:31] David Hedgecock: Here's another one to stumble into. There's a Kickstarter right now that I wanted to mention where we realized David Bakes was gonna be on the Stephen Erb Bassett's Tyrant. The historic deluxe editions are on Kickstarter right now. Everybody listening needs to go get on Kickstarter and pick one of these book stuff.

[00:26:47] If you're not familiar with Tyrant, it's, it's Steven Erb Bassett's, a very, very ambitious concept of chronicling the life. Uh, a T-Rex from birth all the way to death. I don't think we ever get [00:27:00] much further past it being an infant. Uh, the 

[00:27:03] John Barber: noon of day one by the time this... 

[00:27:05] David Hedgecock: Yeah, I think we get into the first week of this T-Rex's life.

[00:27:08] Uh, before Steven shuts it down, 

[00:27:10] Dave Baker: five issues, I believe it's 'cause the distributor wars like fucked him. 

[00:27:14] David Hedgecock: Exactly. That's that, that was the thing at the time. He was publishing it independently and that was the time when Marvel sort of threw a wrench into the works and Capital went down and Diamond sort of ascended.

[00:27:26] And I think he didn't want to go to one of the larger publishing houses or. Of the larger publishing houses wanted to take a chance on Tyrant for whatever reason. But yeah, he wasn't able to continue. But good news, the campaign's running now and the hardcover collection's already made. Almost $200,000 in the first four days of the campaign.

[00:27:47] So maybe we'll get some more Tyrant in the future. Who knows? 

[00:27:50] Dave Baker: He just physically couldn't do it. Now, I'm sure you could do a version of Tyrant and continue it, like, a hundred percent, and if he wants to do that, I'll buy it. I love it. But like, you look at those pages [00:28:00] and they are the monastic, obsessive, maniacal renderings of like a crazy person.

[00:28:05] Like, they're so. Great. They are outsider art with an academic understanding of illustration. They're so impressive on a sheer craft level. It's mesmerizing to look at those pages. He just physically couldn't do that now, you know, as a man of a certain age. 

[00:28:21] David Hedgecock: Yeah. Uh, this was done at a time and it was an artist who was.

[00:28:27] Very, very, very good at the height of his powers, and this is what he chose to do with that time. Yeah, I agree. Dave, you couldn't pull this off now. Not that he couldn't do a version of it, like you say, but this is, this is somebody of a certain age at the height of their powers. Uh, to be able to pull something like this off now would probably not be, well, and he hasn't been practicing.

[00:28:49] Yeah, for a good long time. Right. He's been, 

[00:28:51] Dave Baker: I think he recently retired, so he's 

[00:28:52] David Hedgecock: a professor. 

[00:28:53] Dave Baker: Yeah, he was. He was teaching up at that school in Vermont, the comics school in Vermont. 

[00:28:58] David Hedgecock: Yeah. So, but I'm [00:29:00] really excited to have this in the collection. Jim Rugg, actually, speaking of a guy who's sort of been dabbling in this particular style that we've been discussing with.

[00:29:09] Some of these are other artists, land graphs and some of these other guys. Jim Rug is the, uh, book designer for this one, so that's very cool to see. I'm excited to see what he can do with this package. I think his design sense is pretty good. 

[00:29:21] Dave Baker: Yeah, I agree. 

[00:29:22] David Hedgecock: I'm excited for this one. Uh, everyone needs to pick this one up.

[00:29:25] The only problem with this project on Kickstarter is that they have a collected version that's sort of like the standard comic book size and it's a hardback and what, what have you? It looks very nice, and you can get the whole thing for like, plus like a slipcase with it, for like 70 bucks, right? So that's reasonable for like a high-end 200 pages worth of material.

[00:29:46] But this is where they got me, John. They've got an artist edition version of it as well, and so of course I have to get the artist edition, but then I want the regular edition too, so darn it, it's a very expensive. I want them both and I don't wanna [00:30:00] say no. So 

[00:30:01] John Barber: this is one where I feel like usually there's like a, a clear choice to make.

[00:30:04] I honestly, I'm like, I had it in my phone, I was about to buy it and I'm like, I gotta think about this some more. I think I might just go with the puzzle. 

[00:30:11] David Hedgecock: They've got a thousand piece puzzle, you're just gonna do puzzle. This 

[00:30:13] John Barber: is the puzzle. 

[00:30:14] David Hedgecock: There's some black light puzzles. Maybe just settle on one of those.

[00:30:17] John Barber: There's almost the argument of like, well, if I don't buy three $50 posters, you know, buying $150 book is reasonable. 

[00:30:26] David Hedgecock: Yeah. Yeah. So the map starts mapping when you, yeah, 

[00:30:30] John Barber: it starts working out 

[00:30:31] David Hedgecock: when you sort of horse it. Anyway, I, uh, I think I'm probably gonna get both. I've already pledged for both, so I'll probably stick with that.

[00:30:37] I got 20 more days to like decide. So 

[00:30:39] John Barber: my aunt and uncle, they were like my great aunt and great uncle actually. Right? Like, so they were like, uh, uh. He fought in World War II, right? Like that era, but they used to live in the same town that I lived in, and you'd go to their house. It's Elmhurst, Illinois, the suburbs of, of Chicago, you know, very, uh, Aunt Mabel.

[00:30:54] Literally Aunt Mabel, her mom, my great-grandmother, lived with [00:31:00] them. But they had a basement and the basement had like a, a bar and it was all like tiled. It was like, you know, like 1920s style phone just to be like a kooky decoration that you'd have, you know, it's like whenever they made that like 30 or 40 year out of date phone.

[00:31:13] But they also had a black light painting on the way down into the basement. So you'd open the door and it was two figures dancing and it said Herzog's Hideaway. That was her last name, Herzog. I've got a similar space in my walking upstairs and downstairs thing here. Having a big bloody Tyrannosaurus poster, like, stuck right there with a black light attached to the ceiling might be what this house calls for.

[00:31:38] Also, next week I'll be single, everyone. 

[00:31:43] David Hedgecock: You got 25 days to warm up to the idea. John, you can make this happen. You just gotta play it right. It 

[00:31:48] John Barber: sucks that we don't have a dinosaur on that staircase. 

[00:31:50] David Hedgecock: They can start with the black light side of things. I feel like that might be an easier, easier lift.[00:32:00] 

[00:32:00] Well, you're not gonna talk about any of that. We're gonna talk about Davey Bakes, uh, new book. Let's, let's talk about Pumpkin Head. Pumpkin Head. 

[00:32:06] Dave Baker: Pumpkin Heads. Yeah, 

[00:32:07] David Hedgecock: Pumpkin Heads. So Dave blessed us with an early edition of the, that's not the final lettering, right? 

[00:32:12] Dave Baker: I don't know if it is. I can't remember which PDF I sent you.

[00:32:15] There's been 5,000 of them. 

[00:32:17] David Hedgecock: Anyway, I think that having read a big chunk of it, I'm not finished with it, but I am really enjoying it and I have to say it really does feel like. Nicole and Dave Bakes' book—you guys really have more and more honed your voice, the collective voice, and it's really starting to get really strong.

[00:32:36] I'm really enjoying it. The tension in all the relationships is so immediate and so. Interesting. There's tension everywhere right from the jump, and it really is pulling me forward in the narrative. Just the way the characters are interacting, like everything that they do, like they're clearly friends.

[00:32:54] They clearly, some of them clearly love one another, you know, as friends or as more than friends. [00:33:00] Nobody really likes each other. It's the, it's a very interesting tension that you're creating with, with, with it in, you know, in the first half of the book. And I'm very interested to see where it all play, how it all plays out.

[00:33:08] And then Nicole's work is just, she keeps getting better, man. She keeps, like, keeps getting every new project. Nicole is better than the last project. In Pumpkin Heads, it's almost like every new page she's getting better. Did she do this one between other projects? Was she working on this between other projects?

[00:33:26] Dave Baker: She was working on this, basically. Oh, okay. She, she started it before the book she did with Marico. And did probably about half of it before she started that book, and then that book turned on. And so that was her main gig, and then she would do this on like nights and weekends, and so she basically drew this while drawing that other book.

[00:33:44] David Hedgecock: That makes a lot of sense to me because the amount of leveling up doesn't match the amount of work on the page. There's so much leveling up. It's so, that makes sense to me. And, and she's just really, uh, impressive. I'm really enjoying it. I really, really, really want to read [00:34:00] more. Books by Nicole that are full color, and rather than the duo tone stuff that she's doing.

[00:34:07] Um, 'cause I just, I feel like, man, we're losing so much of her work in that duo tone. I, I, I love it. I, I really enjoy what she's doing with it, but I. I would just love it to see it even more vibrant and more come to life, even more than, than those seem to do. Anyway, the coloring is totally appropriate for the story as far as I can tell, and I'm, I'm really enjoying it.

[00:34:28] I'm really glad you guys were able to get this one, uh, out. And, um, it's Top Shelf, right? 

[00:34:32] Dave Baker: Top Shelf? Yeah. 

[00:34:33] David Hedgecock: When is it coming out? 

[00:34:34] Dave Baker: Comes out April 7th in bookstores and April 8th in. Direct market stores. 

[00:34:40] David Hedgecock: That's good timing. Then I think this will, it'll be out around the time that this, uh, episode airs, so. 

[00:34:46] Dave Baker: Oh, perfect.

[00:34:47] Yeah. 

[00:34:47] David Hedgecock: Yeah. It's like we planned it. 

[00:34:49] Dave Baker: Yeah, we planned it. All plans within plans, you know. 

[00:34:52] David Hedgecock: How was it, uh, working on this one with the call? 

[00:34:54] Dave Baker: Fucking long. This one, it was so long. This was one of the harder ones to get across the finish line for [00:35:00] whatever reason. But I will say that I think it's probably one of the better ones.

[00:35:04] Like, it's hard to know which one is the best, quote unquote, but I do feel like there's a stylistic apotheosis of the things that Nicole and I are interested in, both separately as creators and jointly as a hive mind, that I think this book explores. And this is also the one we rewrote the most. I think we did like seven, eight drafts of this thing to try and make it the best that it could be before she started drawing.

[00:35:30] I think that shows in the finished product. I think it's also. Formalistically, not as loud as some of our other books. Like, Forest Hills has that narrative mechanic where, like, there's like pop-up captions that, like, describe everything in, like, every inane detail and laborious effort, you know? And I like that.

[00:35:48] And I think a certain type of reader likes that. But I think it's also kind of a, it's a showy formalism where it's like, look, it's formalist. Whereas the formalism here, [00:36:00] and I, I'm, I am actually curious to revisit that stylistic experimentation and see if we can do it in a different way. But the version of that stuff that appears in.

[00:36:10] Pumpkins. It's not as direct. It's more like, so that was then, this is now, a convention where there's like a, each chapter starts with like, almost like a "previously on" segment, but where the "previously on" stuff is stuff we've never seen. So like, it's like a little mini exposition dump about whoever the main character of that chapter is.

[00:36:32] I think that works pretty well, and 

[00:36:34] David Hedgecock: yeah, I think it works very well and I liked, that's just like an, uh, an appetizer for each chapter rather than going back and forth into that. I thought that was a smart choice and I'm, I'm, I'm liking it. 

[00:36:45] Dave Baker: I think it comes from like romance comics. Like Nicole and I were both reading a bunch of like Young Romance and Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane and like stuff from the sixties.

[00:36:54] There's a lot of that where each comic is three short stories, each that are eight pages long, and the first page of every short story is [00:37:00] like a half splash. That's almost kind of like a, a trailer moment for like. In this issue, Lois Lane is gonna smooch a fish. And you're like, no, you need to kiss Superman.

[00:37:10] Don't kiss a fish. So like, we tried to do that, but we tried to take that retro convention and recontextualize it while hopefully also still keeping some of that sincerity that existed in the original stuff. Because like so many times, I feel like when people pull from comics history, it's like with a sense of irony.

[00:37:26] Like, isn't it so fucking stupid that they used to tell stories with words and pictures? And you're like, not really. It's kind of like the whole thing we're doing. I don't know why we think we're better than the people that were doing it before us. Like, what the fuck? 

[00:37:39] John Barber: Yeah. It also doesn't feel retro here in the way you're doing it.

[00:37:42] Like, it's taking it. Tool that existed and, and recalibrating it for your, your style and what you guys are doing. 

[00:37:50] Dave Baker: Yeah. That's the goal. That's the goal for sure.

[00:37:57] David Hedgecock: How did you, how 

[00:37:57] John Barber: did you put it together, 

[00:37:58] Dave Baker: Nicole and I, [00:38:00] our style? In terms of collaboration, kind of changes from book to book. So sometimes I come up with an idea, we workshop the idea, then I go away and write a script. Sometimes she comes up with an idea, and then we workshop the idea and I go away and write a script.

[00:38:14] It kind of depends. This one, she was the one who came up with the idea for the book. She was like, I wanna do a book about a punk band. They play horror punk, and they wear pumpkin masks, and it's called Pumpkin Heads. And I was like, oh, that's a fucking book. All right, 

[00:38:28] John Barber: you weren't working on this for four years and being like, what are we gonna call this?

[00:38:33] Dave Baker: Honestly, you joke, but because they're in the, in the interim of us working on this book, there is another graphic novel called Pumpkin Heads, all one word. 

[00:38:43] John Barber: Oh man. 

[00:38:44] Dave Baker: And so the whole time we were like, is this too close? It's spelled differently and it's two words. And is it wrong to do? I don't know. Are we gonna get fucked with SEO?

[00:38:53] I don't know. But ultimately, we ended up just being like, all right, fuck it. It's this. It's pumpkin heads. She came up with [00:39:00] the idea. We kind of workshopped it a little bit. I went away and wrote a script that was a first draft, and then we massaged that first draft extensively where we would do like live readings.

[00:39:09] We would sit around a table and I would read the scene direction, and she would read the characters, and we would basically be like, "Oh, this whole scene sucks ass. We gotta get this outta here." Or, you know, actually the thing that would make this scene better is insert whatever. In fact, the original cast was the, it was the existing cast that's in the.

[00:39:28] Plus one additional character, and we just couldn't make that character work with the thing that we were doing, and we just had to rewrite the whole book, taking that character out and giving their narrative real estate to one of 

[00:39:41] John Barber: the 

[00:39:47] David Hedgecock: other kids. Huh, that's interesting. Anything else you want to share with us?

[00:39:50] I definitely think that, you know, April 7th or 8th, everyone needs to go out and get Pumpkin Heads. I'm really enjoying it. I'll definitely be buying myself a hard copy, uh, when it comes out. 

[00:39:58] John Barber: Yeah. 

[00:39:59] David Hedgecock: Thanks for coming on. Anything [00:40:00] else you wanna cover, Dave, before we jump off for the day? 

[00:40:02] Dave Baker: Uh, my only real question is, do you have any recommendations of where I can get some finger wave tattoos?

[00:40:08] That's my next leveling up. 

[00:40:09] David Hedgecock: I've got a guy, I've got a guy that can do some wave stuff for you. 

[00:40:12] Dave Baker: Let's do it, man. Let's start with my, we'll start with finger waves on my neck and do a koi, like right about here. And 

[00:40:17] David Hedgecock: my full sleeve, uh, arm tattoo was COVID. I had nothing else to do. So I just snuck into a tattoo parlor.

[00:40:24] Uh, they weren't supposed to be open. I would sneak in with the tattoo artist like three or four hours and every few days until it was done. 

[00:40:31] Dave Baker: How many like sessions? How 

[00:40:33] David Hedgecock: the full finished tattoo was about 28 hours. It was my first tattoo ever and I did 28 hours in the chair. 

[00:40:38] Dave Baker: Dang. You didn't wanna, you didn't wanna start with a little like mom, a heart with a little arrow through it?

[00:40:44] David Hedgecock: Nah, I didn't know what I was getting into, but I, I really, it, it actually, I'm definitely like, would. Get more tattoos if I ever get around to it. I, I really enjoyed it actually. Like, the pain is a thing and it's real, but after an hour into it, you [00:41:00] kind of go into a zen-like state. You are like in a trance and it is very peaceful.

[00:41:05] It was exactly what I needed during COVID to like keep my head straight. So it actually worked out. 

[00:41:10] Dave Baker: I've actually heard people say that a lot, except for rib tattoos. I know those are supposed to be like. Just sheer hell. 

[00:41:16] David Hedgecock: There were points where it was like, oh yeah, that, that hurts real bad. But most of it, it's like a really, really, somebody's scratching a really bad sunburn.

[00:41:24] Your mind, you have to force your mind into a different state of existence in order to allow that pain to be happening without it driving you crazy. And so it sort of forces you, like I said, into a meditative state almost. Which I found quite enjoyable. 

[00:41:40] Dave Baker: I especially, during that time period, I can see that being a huge, 

[00:41:43] David Hedgecock: yes, 

[00:41:43] Dave Baker: boon.

[00:41:44] David Hedgecock: Yeah, I was doing a lot of meditation outside of that as well, outside of the tattoo harlo as well. 

[00:41:51] John Barber: Yeah. 

[00:41:52] David Hedgecock: Anyway, thanks Dave for coming on the show today. 

[00:41:54] Dave Baker: I appreciate both of you being my friends and also, uh, being willing to talk to me about these dumb things [00:42:00] and, uh. You're both solid dudes in my book.

[00:42:02] David Hedgecock: Thanks, Dave. Right back at you, buddy. Alright, so well, thanks everybody for listening. I think we accomplished quite a bit today. We will be back next week. In the meantime, go out in and get yourself a, a copy of Punk Heads by Dave Baker and Nicole. Goo 

[00:42:15] Dave Baker: goo 

[00:42:15] David Hedgecock: dude. You 

[00:42:16] Dave Baker: got 

[00:42:16] announcer: it. 

[00:42:16] Dave Baker: He's been on the show. 

[00:42:17] David Hedgecock: Look man, I'm doing my best over here.

[00:42:19] Anyway, that's killing everybody. And uh, we'll see you next week. Uh, right here on the Quarter Box coming by 

[00:42:25] Outro: this. Has Been the Corner Box with David and John. Please take a moment and give us a five-star rating. It really helps, and join us again next week for another dive into the wonderful world of comics.