[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.

[00:00:30] John: Hello and welcome to The Corner Box. I'm David Hedgecock. No, I'm just kidding. I'm John Barber. I'm just making fun of David Hedgecock's mic. I am your host John Barber. With me as always, my good friend...

[00:00:45] David: David Hedgecock. The weather in Hawaii is so bad that we had to stay a little longer just to get a day of sunshine. Here's the thing John, I don't want people to think that I'm complaining... because I'm not complaining, but I'm going to complain. We left San Diego to come to Hawaii to catch some sunshine, get out of the gloom. And when we arrived in Hawaii, there was a once-in-a-century tropical storm happening. The governor is asking to declare a national emergency or statewide emergency. Even bigger, that wrecked Jurassic Park. Did you see that news?

[00:01:25] John: Oh no, I didn't see that. Some of the sets from Jurassic Park got wrecked?

[00:01:31] David: I believe it. Watch out for Velociraptors. Okay, yeah, the fences are down.

[00:01:38] John: Okay, yeah, the fences are down.

[00:01:42] David: But in San Diego, while I've been gone, it's been like 80 degrees, sunny out, and everybody is at the beach. So I don't know... But anyway, enjoying my time, enjoying time off, we're coming back soon though. So I think the next time you hear me I'll be in my regular microphone setup.

[00:02:02] John: It sounds like you're on the front lines. Like you said, more distortion. We should add more distortion so you sound like an X-wing pilot.

[00:02:12] David: Reporting live from the Death Star! John, we have a lot to talk about today. We can't be just chitty chatting. We have so much, nobody cares about Hawaii, nobody cares about the weather.

[00:02:26] John: I thought this is the weather box. This is The Corner Box.

[00:02:30] David: No, no, no, John, no, we're not here to talk about corner boxes or weather. We're here to talk about comic books, John. So, before we talk about comic books, I want to talk about one of my comic books. John, we have a lot of people listening to us now... I wanted to mention very briefly that book three of Super Kaiju Rock and Roller Derby Funtime Go is going to be launching sometime in the next probably six to eight weeks. So I want people to go to https://www.google.com/search?q=get.funtimego.com and check out the new book.

[00:03:08] John: Okay, that part is over.

[00:03:11] David: And we're going to move on John, we're going to talk about what we're really here to talk about. Not here to do any of the things we've done so far. New segment, right?

[00:03:22] John: Yeah. What we're reading now? Is that what it's called?

[00:03:26] David: It's gonna play the music right now and then it'll be, that's what it's gonna be called. I think it's "What John and David are reading this week", I think is what we called it.

[00:03:38] Intro: Ah, you guys are so close, but neither one of you got it right. Here's what it's called. Here's what John and David read this week! Yeah!

[00:04:15] David: Our long-time listeners know I've been slowly but surely making my way through the entire original Avengers run. And I haven't made a lot of progress lately, but I read issue 32 the other day. Came out in 1966. Stan Lee wrote it, drawn by Don Heck.

[00:04:35] John: Friend of the show Don Heck.

[00:04:38] David: Yeah, we've mentioned Don Heck recently John. I believe it was Harlan Ellison and Gary Groth.

[00:04:45] John: Yeah. Don Heck is the guy who should have sued Harlan Ellison and Gary Groth.

[00:04:52] David: Right. Because they basically called him a hack in The Comics Journal. Ellison is not inaccurate in his claim... this particular issue, issue 32 of Avengers... it's not drawn well John. It's not drawn very well at all. And Don is handling all the art chores on this one. I don't know if this job was a rush job or what happened, but... Fascinating about this is that the story is essentially the Serpent Society is trying to bend the minds of susceptible people into becoming basic human racists. And I just thought what a strange like bit of relevancy to today's world. Even though it's not like the best written drawn story, it's pretty well written. Anybody ever says that, you know, Stan Lee and Marvel at that time wasn't sort of forward-thinking and really like pretty aggressively progressive. They're wrong. Because this is a very aggressive, liberal-minded viewpoint of things... I quite enjoyed it for that. I'm about to hit issue 40. Roy "the Boy" Thomas is in as the writer. Curiously Stan Lee is still getting headlining as the editor, but he's like top billing still, so that's interesting to see. But Roy Thomas is now handling plot and scripting. Hercules just entered the picture and looks like he's gonna be a new member of the team. So I'm excited to read some more of that. So that's my read of the week John, that's what I've been reading.

[00:07:05] John: Which issue was that again, it was number?

[00:07:09] David: I believe it was issue 32.

[00:07:13] John: Oh, okay. I have like fond thoughts of Don Heck drawing like early Iron Man stuff. You were showing some of the, some of the images and yeah, it's not, they're not all home runs, David.

[00:07:27] David: No, they're not... I don't want to characterize it as being of a poor quality. Like there is a level of competence to it that I can appreciate and recognize. There's a reason why other books were selling more than Avengers at that time. Clearly part of the reason is that the art is just not up to the top tier of what I think people were expecting from Marvel in that moment.

[00:08:10] John: Yeah. No, I mean it's funny when you look at that era of Marvel you've got like Jack Kirby and Ditko who are two all-time all-stars just absolute greats... and then you've got like John Romita Senior, John Buscema, Gil Kane... Gil Kane, yeah, that's right... Kirby or Ditko in terms of singular voices within the medium...

[00:09:12] David: Don Heck winds up at the bottom of that deck no matter how you shuffle that deck.

[00:09:20] John: That segues actually right into what I'm going to talk about. So we were talking with Davey Baker recently about New York City Outlaws... I bought my copy, by the way, and it's waiting for me when I get home. I'm very excited to dig into New York City Outlaws. I think this just has a number of goofy pieces to it. So that got me buying a bunch of other books from Floating World Comics. Power Comics in specific. That led me to need to buy Crowbar 9. Is Power Comics the publisher? Is that the name of the publisher?

[00:10:45] David: Power Comics is a YouTube channel...

[00:10:52] John: Oh, okay.

[00:10:55] David: And they teamed with Floating World Comics to do a series of books and comics that reprinted a lot of that stuff. Vendetta: The Holy Vindicator by Stephen McArdle is the one that I checked out. I think I enjoyed it. It was very enjoyable. I enjoyed it. That book ends and it leads into another series that Stephen McArdle did called Crowbar 9. So, Floating World had already reprinted that as a comic book. It actually reprinted the first two issues that came out in 1991. And then the never-before-seen and never-completed third issue that they finally put out in 2022 when this came out. They had God-blessed nerds. That's amazing. For the synergy of it, they brought Ken Landgraf in to do a pinup... a new pinup in 2022 for Crowbar 9. Crowbar 9 stands for Civilian Reserves for Operations of War. Bar 9.

[00:13:05] John: The word "for" is in there?

[00:13:08] David: Yes, but it's not one of the letters that's used. I love all of that. That is fantastic.

[00:13:16] John: Anyway, as I'm ordering that... I spot a comic there's I think there's some you know there's like like a shared shipping thing some something like that. Something that was encouraging me to pick up cheap comics. And here's how it all ties in David. Original Avengers inker Dick Ayers... who inked Avengers number one over Jack Kirby... Like he was somebody that I had mentioned like that reminded me of his stuff very very tight kind of inking kind of kind of detailed... So I saw this an old Dick Ayers Marvel comic for pretty cheap and I'm like oh I've never read any Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders. So I'll pick up issue seven of Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders. And David, I'm glad I did.

[00:15:20] David: Yeah.

[00:15:22] John: There's some super things that are pretty amusing about it. So as soon as I got it, the back cover is this a picture of Norman Rockwell talking about the famous artist school. I'm like oh I know that ad because when I was a kid I'd buy like for in a quarter bin Amazing Spider-Man Special number five, which is the one where you find out Peter's parents are spies. I didn't know that was what it was. I just got this old 60s comic. This is the same month that that came out in 1968. Oh. There's an ad for that very comic in the in the back. Yeah, now I'm set up. Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:30] David: Oh, what issue of Silver Surfer is that?

[00:16:35] John: Two. Yeah, this is this is 1968 Marvel. So I bought the comic and it's Archie Goodwin writes it. Dick Ayers draws it. Syd Shores inks. Syd Shores I believe is Paul Shores' dad. It's a different Syd Shores. Anyway, on the cover here, which I didn't notice when I bought it, Captain Savage and the Leatherneck Raiders are attacking a bunch of soldiers. And but the the Raiders are coming in on surfboards. This happens in the comic. They invented the opening of Die Another Day in 1968. They are literally surfing on the cover into a hail of bullets coming from the bad guys.

[00:17:45] David: That is fantastic, John.

[00:17:50] John: It is. Here's what's even more fantastic is who they're going to go rescue. They're on their way to try to save Marvel's number one airplane flying hero of World War II... who has been downed. The story is them trying to rescue this guy. Who is a character that I know you know. You'll recognize it when I say it if you don't guess it. Do you know who was their their top ace pilot? Marvel's number one flying ace of World War II?

[00:18:40] David: Yes. I'm gonna go with Nick Fury.

[00:18:45] John: Ben Grimm. Oh, of course. Of course it's Ben Grimm. Because in 1968, he was a World War II pilot before he was the Thing. That's right. So the story is you know as it reminds you "need we tell you our air ace went on to become the Thing of Fantastic Four fame? No, we didn't think so, tiger." Superfluous Stan. A lovely choreographed fight there you get Captain Savage you get some mildly racist Japanese characters here not quite as bad as he might be concerned for... just some tone-deaf racism. Yeah. Anyway. This actually does tie into what I just said here. You got Stan Lee's soapbox in that issue and this ties directly into what you were talking about... like you're gonna know what this is. I know what this is. It's still funny to read this. You go to the very bottom of Stan's soapbox, "Next ish, what is a bigot?" And you know it's a famous one where he writes about exactly what you're talking about. But there is that part of like, oh, I can't wait... like that's the hype that you're getting for this is like 30 days, how am I gonna wait? Clearly Stan Lee took a firm stance on these things and I'm glad that he did and I agree with his stance.

[00:20:50] David: Yes.

[00:20:52] John: And then finally, the very end of the issue, you get to "Sound Off to Savage," the letters column. Two pages of letters. And there's some tiny print on that thing too. Man, that's some heavy heavy writing. The last letter here, by Tony Isabella. There you go, letter writing hack Tony Isabella. That guy wrote a lot of fan letters I think. I've seen his name pop up in a bunch of different comic books. Yeah. No it is funny when you see like a bunch of people that like when you read old comics that have the letters columns and you start seeing some of these these names and you start seeing them over and over again like oh that's actually it's not like super surprising that Paul Levitz wrote in or something or whatever. Yeah that he made it a career.

[00:22:15] David: Nice. That's a good one John. Man, these definitely better than mine.

[00:22:25] John: We were talking with Steve Ditko, Shade the Changing Man. I grew up with the Vertigo versions of that, right? I'm somebody that I've always I'll go and I'll dig into the background of stuff and I'll try to find the earlier issues of things or the influences or whatever. But I've realized I had a weird blind spot that I never dug into any of the Vertigo stuff no matter how much I liked it. You know like I didn't really go back and read like old Sandman... For me it was the Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo Shade the Changing Man. I didn't have any interest in the Ditko one until, you know, leaving on the podcast what, whatever I read that, you know, that's that's really recent. And one of the biggest, weirdest holes that I realize I have is the original Swamp Thing. I've read all of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. A bunch of other Swamp Things. There's other, you know, holes in Swamp Thing I don't know. Like I remember the Rick Veitch run on it. I was kind of getting into stuff right when Rick Veitch was getting fired. So then it's like, well, I'm not gonna read starting in there, you know. I read a reprint of the first couple Swamp Thing issues. The original Len Wein, Bernie Wrightson one. It's amazing. It's really, really good.

[00:25:30] David: Did you hear that CBCS is shutting down?

[00:25:35] John: The what? The grading service CBCS.

[00:25:40] David: Yeah, but I wasn't clear what was happening. I guess there's a parent company that bought all the Beckett stuff. And Beckett owns the CBCS grading service... But I thought that was interesting because the thing that CBCS did that CGC did not is that they would verify signatures without having to have a verified person watching the creator sign the book... So essentially you could go out and get a signature from Rob Liefeld at a convention and then later send that book to CBCS and they would verify the signature, say that it's real, and also grade the comic book... And CGC doesn't have that.

[00:27:10] John: That's interesting. Yeah. It seems like a big enough business...

[00:28:00] David: We haven't done this in a while. I think the last time was the end of 2025... we are going to now dive in John, this is what we're actually here for. We're going to do our newest, greatest and latest top 10 hottest artists of the moment. Here on The Corner Box. Our top 10 hottest artists of April 2026 John. Now last time we did this, it was I believe in November. And we had a really cool list... So Ivan Coello is off the list. Still worthy of your time and attention... Another person off the list even though man, he's on my personal like Mount Rushmore right now is Nic Klein. Incredible Hulk, as good as that book is, the sales on that book are not going the way I think people had hoped. And no one's talking about Nic Klein for some reason. I don't understand this one. I just saw the announcement that he's coming off the Hulk to draw the Hulk event that's coming out. Gary Frank. Geiger fan. Geiger remains one of the best selling Ghost Machine comics coming out of Image. But nobody's talking about Ghost Machine books. So Gary Frank was sort of already moving the wrong direction on that list and he's off the list this time around... And then finally the last artist who is no longer on the list, which is very sad to me, but Ludo Lullabi. Ludo's work on Ghost Pepper I think is really great, but that book is just not doesn't seem to be catching the world on fire in any meaningful way. So that's the sad news. The good news is that leaves four spots open for new artists to come in. And boy do we have some good ones.

[00:33:45] David: Before we start our top 10 though, I wanted to—I'm adding a new feature, "The One to Watch," John. I think the artist to watch right now that everyone's going to be paying attention to soon is Pye Parr. Skybound's M.A.S.K. comic book is going to be launching pretty soon. And Pye Parr is the interior artist for it.

[00:35:10] David: Moving into our top 10. At number 10, a new entry into our top 10 list: Brett Booth, John. Brett Booth of D'ORC fame. I think that's how you say it. D-apostrophe-O-R-C. Brett Booth has been a surprise hit from Image Comics that came out recently. Brett Booth has been around for a while. And so I think he's a proven commodity that just hasn't got as much attention as maybe others have.

[00:37:05] David: At number nine, dropping an insane amount. From number one all the way down to number nine: Marco Checchetto. Ultimate Spider-Man lead artist Marco Checchetto. How the mighty have fallen, John. Marco was our number one artist... The Ultimate Universe is coming to an end. And Ultimate Spider-Man, while still the best-selling Ultimate title, the Ultimate brand, the bloom is off the rose. And we've seen just recently, and we've even talked about it on the show, other Spider-Man titles not published by Marvel doing 10x the amount of sales that Ultimate Spider-Man is doing.

[00:38:20] David: We have another new entry into our top 10 hot stars list of the moment. Coming in at number eight, Tom Reilly. Now since the last time we did this list, Tom Reilly came in and did amazing work on G.I. Joe, John. Another Skybound book. Not G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, that is still penned by Larry Hama... This is the Skybound G.I. Joe adjective-less. And I think we're in around issue 20 of that series. Tom Reilly took a little bit of time off from G.I. Joe, he was the artist who launched the new series. He took that time to do the "Dreadnok War" storyline.

[00:39:50] David: At number seven John, number seven we have another new artist on the rise John, from off the list all the way to number seven in one fell swoop: Jorge Corona. I thought Jorge Corona was going to be on this list... Yes, he's undeniable right now John. Not only is he coming off of a much lauded Transformers run, following up, by the way, like he had to follow Daniel Warren Johnson on Transformers... He's also just was the artist responsible for a SWAT Kats Kickstarter. And the Kickstarter did over a half a million dollars, John. His new thing though, he's on Lobo, the Lobo comic with Skottie Young... Jorge Corona's art style now is this really unique blend of a little Skottie Young, a little Daniel Warren Johnson. And Jorge Corona seems to be melding those two things together into this new interesting style. And I think Lobo is a perfect fit for him. I think Skottie Young is a perfect fit for Lobo as well.

[00:41:30] David: Coming in at number six John, we have the exact same person who came in at number six last time: Jason Fabok. Now Rook: Exodus, I don't think anybody's reading this book. But I am leaving Jason Fabok at number six because everyone should be reading that book. Rook is an amazingly drawn...

[00:42:15] David: Coming in at number five John is our last new entry of the top 10 list for this month. Coming in at number five, Jorge Jimenez. Ah, yeah. Jorge Jimenez... just in the last few months his star has risen greatly. His Batman relaunch with Matt Fraction is being incredibly well received.

[00:43:00] David: Number four, previously coming in at number eight in our last list, coming in at number four now: Dan Mora... Dan Mora seems to be doing it all right now. And everything that he seems to be touching is gold. Batman: Nightfight, which is a four-issue miniseries that was kind of attached to the DC KO event, came in at stellar numbers. He's on Transformers, which is also one of the best-selling titles... He did the Batman/Deadpool book...

[00:44:10] John: And he's back on World's Finest as of this week. Oh he is? Yeah.

[00:44:20] David: Coming in at number one. Drum roll please. All right. He was number two in our last list. Number one now: Nick Dragotta. Nick Dragotta on Absolute Batman continues to dominate, John. This book is dominating and Nick Dragotta is the key element of that domination. Question asked and answered... what you do is you just keep drawing the book.

[00:44:50] John: Like and subscribe, thank you for joining us here on The Corner Box. Thanks everybody. Bye!

[00:45:00] 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.