[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] John: Hello and welcome back to the Corner Box. I'm one host, John Barber, and with me as always, my good friend, David Hedgecock. David, good to see you!

[00:00:33] David: David, good to see you!

[00:00:34] John: David, good to see you, man!

[00:00:35] John: We took an extra couple of days before we got together this week.

[00:00:38] David: Won't affect the listeners, don't worry.

[00:00:40] John: We're like clockwork, John. We're in our third season of this, and we have never missed a single week. And in fact, we've averaged more than one podcast a week, and that's all we really promise. But Tuesdays at 5:00 AM Pacific Time, we're here for you.

[00:00:52] David: Yeah, it's like we're editors and we know what a deadline means.

[00:00:55] John: I guess so. I've been reading a lot of One Piece lately.

[00:00:58] John: Like, that comes out weekly. And I was sitting there and I was just like, "Man, even writing this much every week seems like that would be monumental." But, uh, now we can get the podcast out.

[00:01:08] David: It's incredible what that guy is capable of. Uh, what's the artist's name for One Piece? I forget the creator's name. He's still doing the majority of the work, as far as I know.

[00:01:15] John: Eiichiro Oda. I mean, obviously he's got a lot of assistants and stuff, but so does everybody and, like, there is literally no way you could do that without a lot of assistants.

[00:01:25] David: It's still impressive that, week in and week out, he's probably still doing some pretty heavy lifting.

[00:01:29] John: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm in no way do I mean to slight that. I'm just trying to figure that out because a lot of that is still kind of opaque, you know, of what people actually use. And there's a lot of reasons to make it opaque. But I feel like you'd just, you'd have to have somebody at some point coming in and helping you on some of that stuff, just in terms of, like, "Oh, this is going to be the story where they go to the sky islands, you write it, and then I'll come back and do layouts," or whatever, right? I mean, just totally out of the sense of, like, humanity, you know?

[00:01:58] David: I get the impression that Oda just—is like—he's like a machine. Like, he just doesn't rest. Like, he's just doing the thing. But I don't know how much of that is true or not. My son just came back from a trip to Japan for his high school, yeah, so he did, like, two weeks there. I was really jealous because I was like, "Man, I really—I've never been to Japan. I really want to go." But mostly I want to go to, like, a couple of manga studios just to see how all of that happens—like, how it all really works. Yeah, I think Oda would be like the best, probably, to start with. I'd love to see behind the curtains on how that particular meal gets prepped.

[00:02:35] David: I think it was David Harper I read recently—he does Sketched, he's the Sketched guy. Somebody asked him what comic books are still going to be being made 50 years from now. And his, like, answer was, "Well, One Piece, and it'll probably still be by the creator, Oda."

[00:02:48] David: So I thought that was kind of funny. He was saying, like, Batman, and I was like, "Man, I don't know. I don't know." 50 years from now, is Batman still going to be—I mean, there will be Batman comics probably in 50 years, but I don't know if it'll be the DC Batman. Because once Batman hits public domain, it's anybody's game. It's anybody—like, whoever makes the best Batman. It's going to be weird to see how that all sort of shakes out over the course of the next 15 years, 20 years.

[00:03:16] John: Yeah, maybe. But, like, I mean, trademarks don't go to public domain.

[00:03:19] David: Here's my plan, John. I'm just going to lay it out there and hopefully nobody steals this, all of our, you know, ones of listeners. I am going to create a title and it's going to be called whatever—going to be like a team title, right? So it'll be like World's Finest, as an example. But it won't be that, obviously, but it'll be something.

[00:03:36] David: And then it's going to start with Superman, because Superman's in public domain first. And then a year later, I'll introduce Batman into it. And then I'm just going to have that. And inside the comic book, you can call them Superman, Batman, you just can't put it on the cover. So you just have a team name for the cover and then you do whatever the heck you want on the interiors. I'm already writing that book. It's, like, seven or eight years away.

[00:03:58] John: All right, yeah. Well, you know, there's a bigger question there, too. Like, when I was a kid, there were these characters that were omnipresent and then they have, you know, faded from importance.

[00:04:07] David: Doc Savage, Phantom, Popeye, Tarzan.

[00:04:11] John: Yeah. I don't want to get into, like, a Timothy Chalamet type situation where I'm like, "Oh, nobody cares about Popeye" or whatever. I mean, I don't mean that. But there was a big-screen Robin Williams movie with Popeye, and I could turn on the TV and every day Popeye was on, right? And that's not the world we live in now when it comes to Popeye.

[00:04:28] John: Like, there was a regular syndicated Tarzan TV show and Disney made a Tarzan movie, and there were live-action Tarzan—there was Greystoke that made it like Tarzan wasn't like a pulp novel and was like some sort of legit literature thing. And all, you know, all this stuff. And there's not anymore. It's not that there's not Tarzan, like, Tarzan still exists. But a thing that especially in 1930 or something would have seemed like it was going to be there forever.

[00:04:55] John: It's an interesting question. Something crazy could happen that's utterly unrelated to the character. Whoever owns the DC characters at a certain time—like, that company could dissolve. That company could get bought by somebody else. 50 years, who knows, you know? That company could declare itself a nation and we go to war with them, and then nobody wants their characters.

[00:05:13] David: Don't put that into the world. Don't curse us like that right now. We've got to be careful. I can see a world where Batman becomes a much lower priority for DC Comics and Warner Brothers and whoever's owning them because of the fact that it's now public domain.

[00:05:30] David: Like, you see that with Mickey Mouse. You don't see Disney using the mouse the way Disney used the mouse, like, in the 60s, 70s, 80s. He's been sort of pushed to the side a little bit. Not that it's not still out there, but you see them putting less of an emphasis on the mouse. And that might just be because the zeitgeist has moved past that, right? But for whatever reason, like, I just don't see Mickey Mouse being the spokesperson for Disney the way he was when I was a kid.

[00:06:01] David: I wonder if that's going to happen, you know, with Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman as they get into the public domain. I wonder if DC/Warner Brothers' plans will sort of be the same thing. Like, they're going to just, for the next 10 years, they're going to milk the heck out of this cow and then sort of, you know, move on. I don't know, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

[00:06:17] John: Yeah. We talked about this already ad nauseam in our "Public Domain" podcast.

[00:06:21] David: If anybody is interested in listening more about our pontifications about this particular subject, they can go back a couple episodes. But it's still weighing on my mind, John, clearly.

[00:06:31] John: No, obviously. Yeah.

[00:06:35] David: Yeah. We're not here to talk about any of that. No. We're here to talk about modern comics, comics happening today.

[00:06:44] John: Yeah!

[00:06:45] David: John, I don't know if you know this, but we're starting to get popular. People are listening to the show now. And so I was thinking, like, I'm going to be one of the cool kids now, John. So I felt like I needed to be—like, act like a cool kid. So guess what I did this weekend?

[00:06:56] John: Uh, I'm not going to guess that out loud.

[00:06:57] David: I read comic books!

[00:06:58] John: Oh, oh yeah! That's better.

[00:06:59] David: Recently, the speculator market has sort of moved away from the multiple-cover concept, you know, the 1-in-100 cover thing for whatever they're pumping and dumping, and it seems to have moved into, like, the hot number ones from Image Comics largely, but other—other small publishers.

[00:07:19] David: Yeah. When the spotlight gets shined on some of these things, you're like, "Oh, well, what's that about?" A couple of these I had already pre-ordered, and a couple of them I, like, ordered it after the fact. So there's four in particular that I read this week.

[00:07:29] Intro: Here's what John and David read this week!

[00:07:33] David: The first one was Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre. Mad Cave is the publisher. And then the rest of these are Image Comics: White Sky, D'rok, and Tigris Island. I don't know if Tigris Island is actually in the "Hot Five" right now, but I read it. It's a new number one.

[00:07:50] John: It sold out right away. Yeah, it definitely did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:07:56] David: Okay. Like a—like tip-off at the comic book store, like somebody kind of whispered, like, it sold out kind of thing.

[00:08:00] David: How do you feel about that? I don't want to say "market manipulation," but it does kind of feel a little bit like market manipulation.

[00:08:06] John: I like that more than I like some other trends.

[00:08:09] John: I like indie number ones coming out. I think it's interesting that there's not, like, a unifying feature about them, you know, that there isn't, like, one thing you can point at and be like, "This is what's making all these books hot." Narco is, I think, another one that was like part of what I think of as that group. So I like the idea of eyes getting on to number ones, new creator-owned stuff, new concepts and stuff. I think that's terrific.

[00:08:40] John: Yeah. I mean, like, I think blind bags are like the other big thing that's really driving sales on things. For my own personal interest, I'm unquestionably more into new indie number ones than I am maybe Robert Downey Jr. drew Iron Man on my Daredevil comic or whatever. Yeah. But that's me. And, like, I don't—I don't even mean to, like, poop on that if that's your favorite thing, like, that's...

[00:08:55] David: Yeah, I'm certainly into it at some levels, at varying degrees with with varying books.

[00:08:59] David: Yeah. You know, John, I hadn't thought about it like that, but you're right. If the thing that's selling more units is the fact that it's a new book and people are trying it out, that's not a bad thing at all, right? Like, that's—you're right, that's much better than the blind bag. Uh, because the blind bag is not—it's not introducing anything new to us.

[00:09:16] John: Yeah. No, that's a good point. I hadn't really thought about it that way.

[00:09:18] John: Again, I'm not like—I don't have, like, some sort of moral repulsion to blind bags or something like that, either. Like, it's—you use that to launch a great new Daredevil number one, okay, cool, I get it. It's hard to do that.

[00:09:29] David: And by all accounts, it is a good take on Daredevil, the new Daredevil. People seem to be responding positively to it.

[00:09:35] John: Yeah. I didn't open mine because I didn't want to ruin the value. Uh, but no, I'm just kidding. Go ahead.

[00:09:42] David: Whatever gets good comics, I can live with a lot of the other stuff.

[00:09:44] John: At some point when there's a bubble economy and this stuff, the bubble's going to burst and somebody's going to be left holding the bag. But I can't conceive of, like, the bad version of number ones selling a lot. Like, it's just they don't sell as much. Okay, you know, the market can correct as it needs to.

[00:10:04] John: And we will—we will get to the point of—the things that, like, were driving the original Image number one huge sales. You didn't want to be caught not having the first appearance of Spawn the way you were caught not having the first appearance of Venom. But one of those was issue 298 or whatever of a comic that, you know, wasn't at its hottest moment right then. You know, there was a genuine scarcity compared to the number of people that got excited about Venom in the months after the first appearance came out and they got excited about Todd McFarlane in the months after that first came out. Whereas, like, Spawn or Youngblood or whatever, you're still—you can still get those at cover price. I mean, that's—even today.

[00:10:38] David: If these properties end up sticking around a little bit, I do think that that's a better version of—a first printing of D'rok, for example. You know, they probably—they probably printed 10,000 of those, right? Whereas, you know, the blind bag of Daredevil, God knows how many copies of that are out there, you know, of the various covers. You know, if you're speculating, it's probably better to speculate in this direction also, question mark? I don't know.

[00:11:01] John: Yeah. A lot of first print numbers are really high up already. Like, the market has corrected for that and there's a lot of number ones that are coming in with real high orders and—yeah, like I don't think that that interest is going to sustain everything on—across everything. But I might not have read some of these comics and, like, frankly, I'm glad I read all of them.

[00:11:19] John: Not to give away the plot.

[00:11:22] David: I'm with you! Overall, a rock-solid, like, for the whole group that we're going to talk about, I give it a rock-solid B. There's no real losers in the batch I read. I thought we would start with the one that sort of, like, seems to be leading the pack, which is D'rok. D-apostrophe-O-R-K, by Brett Bean. Colors by, um—oh God, what—I don't know how to pronounce his name. Is it Francois Beaulieu? Great colors. He's the I Hate Fairyland colorist, I think, largely. Fantastic colors. And Brett Bean, I think, has done some I Hate Fairyland.

[00:11:57] John: Yeah, that's kind of where he came from, I think.

[00:11:58] David: And he's very much of that, in that Skottie Young school of art. It's interesting to see a book that does look a lot and feel a lot like I Hate Fairyland in some ways, doing I Hate Fairyland numbers. So I read the first three issues. It's the story of a half-dwarf, half-orc. Which, by the way, he doesn't look anything like a dwarf.

[00:12:20] David: Is he small?

[00:12:21] David: I guess. I don't know. He doesn't look like the typical dwarf—you know, Tolkien dwarf is thick-bearded and very stout and short. He's got none of that. He doesn't look like anything like that. But anyway, there's a battle between good and evil that's been going on for so long that there's literally scars in the earth from the battle. And, um, D'rok is prophesied to come along and sort of put an end to all of it. And that's really as deep as it gets. Everything else is sort of played for sort of adventure, sort of laughs. The art's fantastic, and for me, I'm an art-first comic book reader, so I'm sticking around for the art. I really enjoy it. But the story was—it felt like it was still searching for a purpose to me.

[00:13:06] John: Yeah. Like, I feel like this is going to be the theme with all of these. All the ones that you're talking about here are really different genres. Like, even more than you would usually have said about comics coming from, like, Mad Cave or Image. Like, D'rok isn't—it isn't drawn like the other comics here. You know what I mean? Like, all these things.

[00:13:22] John: It's a fantasy comedy. Like, if you're looking for a fantasy comedy, I think this is a good one. I think this is—something that you'll really—probably really like. If you're not particularly looking for it, maybe it doesn't have that extra thing that is, like, makes this essential no matter what, the way that—I don't know, what's a good comic? The—the way that regardless of whether or not you care about fascism in Britain, V for Vendetta is a good comic. Right. One of those things that puts it over the edge of, like, you got to read this because it's super important. But I think it's a—a fun fantasy comedy.

[00:13:53] David: For a freshman effort, like, I don't know what else Brett Bean's done in terms of writing, for a probably freshman effort for writing, and I thought it was solid. I've jumped on the Dungeon Crawler Carl bandwagon.

[00:14:05] John: Okay, I've read the first one.

[00:14:05] David: Um, I think there's seven novels out. A novel, John, is a comic book but there's no pictures.

[00:14:11] David: It's very strange.

[00:14:12] John: Yeah. It's taken me a while to get used to it.

[00:14:14] David: It's like if you just had, like, the bottom 20% of, uh, Jim Steranko's Chandler book.

[00:14:20] John: Yeah. Exactly. Everyone's going to completely understand that—that reference, John.

[00:14:24] David: So this thing is called prose, uh, sometimes, or novels. But it's not graphic novels. There's no—no pictures. It's weird. But Dungeon Crawler Carl, like, I can—there is a manga collection of Dungeon Crawler Carl that's coming out soon. I think that's going to drive a lot of people to the comic book stores. I think retailers aren't ready for how hot Dungeon Crawler Carl is going to be in their stores. But they're going to be there. And if there's a trade paperback of the first four or five issues of D'rok there as well, that audience will feed into D'rok, I think, quite well. Like, if the retailers want to try to give these new customers the next thing to read, I can see D'rok being that. Because it's got some of the similarities where the character is sort of disregarded but also overpowered, and you get that sense in Dungeon Crawler Carl.

[00:15:16] David: I don't want to give away too much of the story, but D'rok has a shield that is sort of seemingly legendary in its abilities and purpose, which, you know, again, is sort of like a Dungeon Crawler Carl sort of—sort of take. So RPG-lit, basically, is what—what the comic book feels like. But without all the words and a lot more pictures, which I'm 100% behind.

[00:15:39] John: D'rok's a great example of this, is that one of the things that I think a lot of these, like, hot comics in—in general, not just these number ones, but looking at the Absolute line or the Energon Universe line or whatever, that they're comics first, you know? Like, they're coming from somebody that is a—a comics person doing comics. And I—I like the idea that the guy that was, you know, working on I Hate Fairyland graduates and gets his own comic and makes that. Like, it's funny that it's all happening on these indie creator-owned books instead of that being the—the method that you—you know, you write Fantastic Four for a while and then you go out and make East of West or whatever. You do the same kind of thing of—of Zoe Thorogood doing—doing comics then doing, like, Hack/Slash.

[00:16:18] John: Another thing. Here's—this is a total aside. I don't think Skottie knows this. I don't think I've ever talked to Skottie about this. Years and years and years ago, Skottie Young was a great artist who was very hard to find the right comic to put him on at Marvel. And he'd sort of bounced around from, like, weird little side thing to side thing, you know, he did some, like, Human Torch stuff. And everybody there knew his stuff was really good. He seemed like a cool guy. But it was, like, what do you do with this guy? So we were doing a—a Spider-Man, like, reprint book that was going to have, like, a new story. It was like an 80-pager, and then the rest of it was all, like, old Spider-Man stuff. There was going to be, like, an issue of Spider-Man 2099 and an issue of—and I think it might have been Spider-Clan was maybe the main one. I can't remember if he was doing the comic or if he somehow—Skottie was going to do the cover.

[00:17:11] John: And I remember talking to him and—and suggesting that you one with it's got Spider-Man in front and then behind him are panels showing the different other Spider-Men that are going to be in there. And, like, color them each like kind of different colors. I don't mean to say, like, I—how he had to draw the cover, but I—I had this particular suggestion for what that cover was. It came in and then I put it up on the wall, and I left it up on the wall. And everybody that walked into the office was like, "Oh, what—that's a nice cover! Who did that?" And I'm like, "That's Skottie." And I'm like, "Whoa, I didn't know Skottie—okay." I don't mean to say that that, like, made him, like, at Marvel or anything, but that was definitely, like, a—thing that, like, made people realize, "Oh, this guy doesn't have to just be doing weird side projects. There's other stuff." Eventually, when Oz came in, that was way after me, I had nothing to do with that at all.

[00:17:53] John: But, like, that nailed it and then he started doing those variant covers, blah blah blah. But it's funny now that there's, like, three books right now that are really popular that are all people that draw like Skottie, that worked with Skottie.

[00:18:05] David: He's becoming a tree. There are branches coming off of that tree now. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm assuming Jorge Corona is the other one you're talking about?

[00:18:14] John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Jorge Corona doesn't draw like—D'rok. Like, I don't mean that it's all, like, early days of a Lodge Studios or something. Like, it's not like that.

[00:18:21] David: No, but they're clearly influenced by Skottie Young. Like, that's not a debate. That's clear and obvious to anybody looking. In the best possible ways. In fact, I think Jorge Corona's sort of taken it to the next level. I—we've talked about this, but his sort of, like, work with Daniel Warren Johnson on Transformers has really, sort of, changed his style, man. It's—it's still got that Skottie Young but there's this interesting Daniel Warren Johnson layer added to the top of it, and it's really cool.

[00:18:44] David: I read Lobo number one, speaking of Skottie Young and Jorge Corona and completely digressing from what we're talking about. I loved the art in Lobo number one. Was I supposed to understand the story, John?

[00:18:59] John: I don't know, it's just goofy Lobo shit. I don't know.

[00:19:02] David: Man, I was a little disappointed. I feel like the jokes were kind of, uh, stale. Like, they were a little rehashed and, like, I—there's a certain amount of nostalgia, I guess, that I—I'm sure I should expect, but not all of it. I don't know. Didn't love the story. I have faith in Skottie Young, I do like his writing, so I think—I'm sure it's going to pick up. But if I didn't love the art so much, I don't know that I would be picking up another issue. The jokes felt a little flat on me.

[00:19:29] John: All right. Hot takes episode.

[00:19:32] David: Of the Corner Box! So back to D'rok. So that's D'rok, John. That—that—I had a nice time reading the first three issues.

[00:19:36] David: I'm looking forward to more. And, uh, I think the story's just getting started, just learning about the character. There's enough there for me to definitely keep going. I'm—I got the fourth printing of the first issue.

[00:19:47] John: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember when I got it. I was, like, "Oh, wow."

[00:19:51] David: That's good, though. Like, I don't know how many printings there are, but if you're in the fourth printing, you're doing good business. So I'm happy for Image and for Brett Bean. The next one I kind of want to talk about is Tigris Island.

[00:20:08] John: Ah, okay.

[00:20:08] David: Yeah. So Tigris Island is written by Patrick Kindlon. I hope I got his name right. And then it's drawn by, I think it's EpHk, but it's E-P-H-K. And I'm just going to say EpHk and I hope that I didn't butcher that. It's all in capital letters as well, so E-P-H-K all caps. So I'm assuming he's doing a music artist vibe there with with his name. Again, like, fantastic art in this story.

[00:20:34] David: I love EpHk's style. Just really, really nicely done. Patrick feels like he's kind of coming on. He did another project recently called Gehenna. Which has a sort of a similar vibe. He seems to be sort of mining the same veins of nostalgia and pop culture that I mine, this kind of, like, 70s B-movie sort of vibe that he's got going in. Tigris Island's definitely that. It's definitely, like, a "women in prison" vibe, a throwback to all those movies of the 70s, most of them starring Pam Grier, so I'm going to watch them over and over and over again. Yeah, I like the first issue. I really loved the art. EpHk is definitely my jam, love what he's doing. The story's good. I—I read Gehenna, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, the last book that I think Patrick did at Image, and found it to be fun, entertaining, but this first issue of Tigris Island feels like a level up for him. I enjoyed it quite a bit more. He's really leaning into just the tropes of—of this particular subgenre, and it's 100% my jam. So I don't know. It's particularly the kind of thing that I—I always—I'm always entertained by, like, just bad B-movies in general, but the "women in prison" bad B-movie thing is, like, I—I'm always entertained by that.

[00:21:49] David: So this one's going to be fun. It shows a lot of promise. I—I didn't know this one was a hot issue.

[00:21:56] John: I think so, yeah. It definitely sold out, definitely—uh, like I—I got a second printing of the first issue. I wasn't familiar with EpHk and, like, I missed the—like, there's a whole graphic novel they talk about, I think, in the back of it or there's, like, ads for it and I definitely want to check that out. Yeah. And I feel like the—like, the art's the immediate star on that one. Like, you see that and you're like, "Wow, this art is—is really good. Really want to see what this person did." I started reading the comic and I was—enjoying it and then I had to sit it down for a minute and do something. There was, like, some—you know, I had to, like, some household chore that I had to do or something. It just came up right—right there.

[00:22:28] John: So then I went back to it and I picked it up, and I knew who the characters were, you know, I had a feel for what was going on with them, and I realized I was on page three. And I was like, "Oh my God, that's amazing." And I was, like, really paying attention to that at that point. The writing on that, like, walks you into who these characters are in such a fun and entertaining way. And I feel like that first issue is like a masterclass in putting together seven characters and you getting to the end of this thing and knowing a thing about them. Like, having a little bit of a feel for who they were, what their deal is. The way they're introduced is that and then also these, like, little flashes of backstory that are, like, really memorable and also add into the character. That's something that gets so overlooked in this kind of thing. Even in the source material that he's kind of—like you're saying, those 70s movies—like, you wind up with seven hot women stuck on an island, you know, like, maybe you're remembering them because of the hair color or something.

[00:23:31] John: But these are characters that are there for different reasons and have different reactions to things and, you know, immediately, like, play off of each other in amusing ways. I mean, I don't know how deep any of it's going to get into any of those characters, but just that—the fact that, like, a few pages into issue one, I—I already had that feel, I was—really impressed. Like, Tigris Island is my favorite of this lot. Like, I thought that was just fantastic.

[00:23:54] David: Mine, too. Of the four that we're going to talk about, Tigris Island was my favorite, too. It's the best art, and it's the best writing of the bunch, for sure. You're right, I—you know, he leans into the tropes just enough to sort of shorthand it in a way that gives you all the information you need, but he still adds enough of his own touch in there to make it feel unique and interesting and—and a new spin on it. Yeah, yeah. Good stuff.

[00:24:20] David: Definitely recommend Tigris Island. That's definitely, like, my strongest recommendation of the bunch. Next up, John, I read the first two issues of White Sky. Yeah. Did you read that one, John?

[00:24:36] John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've read that.

[00:24:37] David: Written by William Harms, and the art credits are for Jean-Paul Mavinga and Lee Loughridge. I don't know how the breakdown for that goes, but they're credited as the art team.

[00:24:51] John: Well, Lee Loughridge is the colorist.

[00:24:54] David: That's what I thought, but the way it's credited wasn't 100% clear. And, again, like, this felt like another sort of spin on an old tried-and-true subgenre, the I Am Legend sort of story of, you know, you're in a post-apocalyptic world and you've got the hard-nosed sort of surviving dad trying to get his—in this case, daughter—keep them both alive. And the sort of twist is that you're not real clear on what caused this apocalypse to happen, but it's already happened, whatever it was.

[00:25:30] David: And it involves monsters of some sort, and they're still around. So it's got a little bit of that—what's the Sandra Bullock where she can't speak? That movie where she's got to be quiet the whole time.

[00:25:43] John: Miss Congeniality.

[00:25:45] David: Right! It's just like that one, Miss Congeniality. It's got a little bit of that vibe going for it. So I really liked this one, too. I—I think it suffered a little bit from the art side of things. It—the art was a little inconsistent for me. It felt more like a sort of freshman or sophomore effort on the art side—certainly competent. It was inconsistent, and the inconsistency sort of threw me out a little bit. This kind of story is not typically my jam, but I read a big, giant chunk of The Walking Dead and enjoyed it quite a bit. And I can see myself sort of hanging around, and it feels like that—like, this is a big story and we're at the very tip of the iceberg here. So I'm going to hang around for this one.

[00:26:28] David: I'm definitely going to—I'm definitely going to stick around for, like, the first—what would be the first trade collection—see how I like it. I think this one would move to trades after that, though. I think I'll, you know, pick up the first four or five issues, see if I like it, if I do like it I'll probably move over to trades, though. I'm hoping the art gets a little bit more consistent. What'd you think, John?

[00:26:46] John: This one seemed like the most, sort of, mainstream, by-the-book kind of version of—of a comic of any of these. It reminded me a lot of, yeah, The Walking Dead, but also, like, The Road and—especially—The Last of Us. And William Harms is a video game writer as well as a comic book writer.

[00:27:04] David: Oh, really?

[00:27:04] John: I think he worked on the Mafia games and on the first Infamous. The art is—is also the one that I feel like you could most see being put on an issue of X-Men.

[00:27:15] John: Just try to kind of transpose it there with no changes or anything, you know what I mean? Like, like, it was very much in the detailed, realistic kind of style—realistic backgrounds. I thought it was well done, and this is, like, another one that I think, like, if you really like that genre, I think this is a good example of it. This is the one where I kind of felt maybe that it didn't show what was unique about it enough for me on the first one to get there. Maybe there is something kind of coming in—in a future issue that put things on a twist. What's the Vertigo series? DMZ? No, a current one, one when—one of the—the new Vertigo series. Bleeding Hearts.

[00:27:51] David: The zombie apocalypse Bleeding Hearts. Dennis Camp, right?

[00:27:54] John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that one, like, definitely has the same sort of Last of Us, you know, Walking Dead kind of vibes to it, but the twist is right there in the beginning that you're following the—the zombie instead of the—you know, whatever.

[00:28:05] John: And your mileage may vary. Bleeding Hearts is a guy that draws like Sam Kieth drawing a comic that is a twist on Walking Dead in that the zombies have feelings or whatever. This team could have done The Last of Us comic book adaptation and it would have looked just right.

[00:28:22] David: Yeah. And there's something to be said for that, right? Like, you play your strengths and know what you're doing. But I agree that it didn't give enough of the why this is different. But, I think I'm in. I read the first two issues. I'm glad I got the second issue as well because it does, you know, sort of carry the story forward enough where it gives you a few interests to hang your hat on. So I'm in for a little bit. Like I said, it feels like this one might turn into—you know, wait for the trade sort of—sort of type of book, but I'm going to stick around for it. This one's getting some attention. I think it's well-deserved, and I—I hope it—it continues for a good long time.

[00:28:58] David: All right, last one, John: Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre. Did you read that one, John?

[00:29:02] John: Oh, yeah! Absolutely.

[00:29:03] David: This is the only one that's not an Image comic book. This one came from Mad Cave.

[00:29:06] John: This is actually one that I cold picked up from the stand. You know, I—I only heard about it selling out later. I wouldn't have had my—my money on this is the one that was going to be the most "ripped from the headlines" as—uh, Mexican authorities euthanize Pablo Escobar's cocaine hippos. I thought the cocaine hippo thing was kind of a joke, but no, I guess it's a real thing. This sort of fits in in the general gestalt of the stuff we'd been talking about—New York City Outlaws—where White Sky feels like it was deliberately a very mainstream comic, this is, like, deliberately a cult classic or something, you know? Like, this—this definitely feels like it's trying to be like the weird movies you find on Tubi.

[00:29:49] David: Yeah! 100%. Like, the title is exactly what it is.

[00:29:54] David: You hear that title, you think, "This is ridiculous," and that's pretty much what you get. I found it quite enjoyable. I thought the humor—where the humor in Lobo fell flat, like, this is the sort of irreverent humor that's a little political but not, you know, not in any particular direction, right? Well, maybe it's going in a particular direction, but not in an offensive way, but just fun, interesting and common—social commentary without, like, trying to hit you over the head with anything. Just the sheer ridiculousness of all of it, which I think anybody can sort of relate to. I thought it was really good. I pre-ordered this one because the artist, James Edward Clark—by the way, this one's written by Fred Kennedy. Who, I don't know—has Fred Kennedy done anything else before?

[00:30:40] John: I don't know, that's a good question.

[00:30:41] David: I'm familiar with James Edward Clark, the artist, because he's done a couple of Kickstarters that I've—that I've supported. And his art's great. And his writing's actually pretty good, too.

[00:30:49] David: He's done a couple, and he's fairly prolific. Like, he's put out a couple of graphic novel-length, uh, pieces on his own through Kickstarter. So I was kind of excited to see him do a more traditional comic book, you know, the comic book format, 20 pages and out sort of thing. And I thought he did a great job. I really liked it. I thought if anything he was a little—a little noodly with some of his close-ups, faces. But outside of that, like, minor criticism, I thought it was some really fun art. And I think his style matches the story quite nicely. So it feels a little amateurish, but in the best way. Like, the amateurishness of it does not hurt the piece at all in any way, shape, or form. And I'm—I'm definitely on board for the rest of this one. I don't know where they go with this thing. Feels like four issues and then they—they're purposefully done. But, um, I'm definitely on board for whatever they're going to do with it.

[00:31:37] John: I really enjoy the art. I really like the—I mean, yeah, again, I thought it was funny. Like, as much as I like this kind of genre, I do think there's sort of dangers that it can fall into or traps it can fall into. And I didn't feel like it did. I felt like it was pretty exciting, pretty fun, and exciting in the sense of, like—I don't know, I'm enjoying reading this book.

[00:31:54] David: In less skilled hands, this could definitely turn into a big mess real fast. They managed to skirt that—thread that needle quite nicely, I thought. You know, there—there were just a few—there were a few moments where I was groaning, not because I was supposed to, but because I just was, but it was real brief. Not every joke's going to land, right? And it's interesting, I can see why a company like Mad Cave would pick this up where an Image Comics would not. Not that Image even had the opportunity to pick this up, but I can see why it was coming from, for lack of a better term, a more indie company.

[00:32:29] David: It doesn't quite fit the Image Comics aesthetic, if—if that is a thing that actually exists. Whereas some—a place like Mad Cave doesn't have a 30-year history and aesthetic behind it. And so I can see them taking a—a flyer on something like this a—a little bit more easily.

[00:32:46] John: I think I picked it up at around the same time I picked up Deathfist Forever... that is an Image book that—that Andrew MacLean's writing. It definitely felt like in that—in that world.

[00:33:01] David: That world. I could see that fitting in there in—in a sense. But I do also see how you get the—well, this is like Head Lopper to Deathfist Forever to, you know, or whatever. Like—like there's a—a slightly different feel for—for that or something.

[00:33:08] David: I'm really happy about this sort of, like, sub-movement that seems to be happening, now that you bring that up. You've got, like, Robowolf, which is—God, I love that book. And then, you know, you've got this Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre, you've got Deathfist Forever, which I bought the Kickstarter version of that. I've already read it.

[00:33:27] John: Oh, which one? Deathfist Forever? Oh, that came out—I didn't—I didn't know—

[00:33:29] David: Yeah, he Kickstarted it, so I already got the whole trade paperback or graphic novel or whatever he called it. I loved it. It was—it was super fun. I'm into this sort of leaning into these sort of things. I think that's why I'm so fascinated by that New York City Outlaws. I got my copy, by the way, John. I got my copy in the mail, so I'm going to do some reading this week, learn the heck out of that—that Ken Landgraf.

[00:33:50] John: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah, Cocaine Hippo Massacre, Florida.

[00:33:56] David: Those words in a different order. Probably, I don't know. Yeah. So anyway, John, look at us. We're—we're like the cool hip kids talking about the hot comics.

[00:34:06] John: Nice.

[00:34:07] David: Yeah, we're popular now.

[00:34:08] David: We've got to be like—talk like the popular kids talk.

[00:34:11] John: Uh-oh.

[00:34:12] David: All right.

[00:34:13] David: That's what we did this week, John. We talked about hot comics.

[00:34:15] John: Cool!

[00:34:16] John: That's us. The hot comics guys. And if you need more arbitration of whether your comic is hot or not, come back next week for more The Corner Box. "Wired or Tired?"

[00:34:28] David: Heck yeah! That's what we'll call this feature: "Wired or Tired." I love it!

[00:34:33] John: All right. Well, be back next week for more Corner Box.

[00:34:36] David: Thank you! Bye.

[00:34:38] 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.