[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Corner Box with David and John. 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: Hey everybody, welcome to the Corner Box. I'm one of your hosts David, and with me today, we have not one, but two very special guests. First up, Chase, regular to the show. Welcome to the show again, longtime editor-in-chief, Chase.

[00:00:37] Chase: It’s fun to be here! Thanks for having me back.

[00:00:39] David: Good to see you. John's not here this week, so you’re playing the role of John once again. Actually, you usually play the role of me.

[00:00:44] Chase: I take it both ways, actually.

[00:00:46] David: Oh, I don't know if that's how you want to say that! But anyway, welcome to the show. We’ve got a guest here, Chase, another recurring guest. Welcome to the show, Kirt Burdick!

[00:00:56] Kirt Burdick: Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me again.

[00:00:58] David: We make this a regular thing, you know? You put out a new issue of Death of Power and then we somehow manage to convince you to get back on the show and have you talk about it. We gush about how great it is and how awesome we think it is, and then you go away for four months and don’t talk to us at all, and then you come back when there’s another issue ready. I don't know how that works.

[00:01:16] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, well, it’s not just you I don't talk to. It’s like everyone. I'm just kind of like a Ted Kaczynski-like worker bee-type mindset normally.

[00:01:30] David: So Death of Power is more of a manifesto, you would say?

[00:01:32] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, no, it’s a manifesto.

[00:01:34] David: I think we should just jump right into it. For those longtime listeners, you guys know Kirt Burdick and you know Death of Power. Like I said, we've had Kirt Burdick on many times. Kirt Burdick's sort of current magnum opus is a comic book called Death of Power, which is a kiddenshi—Japanese term for bootleg comic where generally you take like trademarked characters and they have sex. You know, it’s kind of like a Tijuana Bible in Japan.

[00:02:01] Kirt Burdick: So what you did—there was a challenge many years ago now to take the Death of Superman storyline and sort of do your own version of it. On Cartoonist Kayfabe, Ed Piskor did a shout-out to do a Kayfabe version of Death of Superman because on the channel, him and Jim were looking at a lot of bootlegs. I mean, I knew about doujinshi and I saw a couple, but I really saw a couple episodes where I really saw they covered a bunch that Ed bought when he was in Japan. So I decided to just do my version and try to get it mailed to them as fast as I could. I was still furloughed from COVID—it was still the lockdown—so I just kind of said, "fuck it, I’ll do this." To be honest, you know, I did a quick thumb of the issue I wanted to do and the direction I wanted it to take, you know, kind of being a Mad Magazine version of Superman #75 with a lot of genitals. And I was like, "Do I really want to do this?" One of my friends was like, "Yeah, do it." And I was like, "Alright," and then I did it.

[00:03:06] David: That first thing, you got some notoriety from that, I think, because Death of Power wasn't the first thing that you had drawn. You had drawn a couple of graphic novel-length pieces of material.

[00:03:16] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, Fairer-Chaotic was the first one I completed and that was my Hal Foster Prince Valiant tribute about lizard fairies doing crimes. That took forever. That was a really rough drawing project, really challenging. And then I did do my version of a ‘70s monster comic called Galacto Pitfighter. With Galacto Pitfighter, that was the one where I really started to do ultra-violent comics.

[00:03:44] David: It went up to eleven with, I guess, Death of Power. You took a semi-truck to the guardrails, would be how I would describe Death of Power. So Death of Power, like you said, is a kiddenshi of the Death of Superman storyline. And this point, we’re up to issue eight of this thing! You're like cruising along, man, you're pumping out like at least three of these a year, right?

[00:04:06] Kirt Burdick: Three a year. I'd love to be at a place where I could do four a year so I’m like really on that quarterly model. Maybe with my next project. For right now, I'm really happy with being able to do three a year because like with Fairer-Chaotic, that whole project—and the book ended up being 68 pages—but it took me like almost seven years because I was doing it part-time for my job. This feels a little bit more feasible. If I could get to that quarterly production rate, I’d get closer to the point where I feel like, "Oh, maybe I could quit my day job" if I moved from the Bay Area. Because I live in SF in the Bay Area, so that's another challenge.

[00:04:46] David: Don't do it, man! Don't move? Don't give up the day job!

[00:04:52] Kirt Burdick: I wouldn’t be able to give up the day job here. Maybe I could like work in some type of honeypot situation and get some money that way. Seems to be the way to gain wealth now.

[00:05:06] David: True. I hear Belize is—well, I know, Belize is beautiful and very affordable. It’s becoming much more attractive. It’s an English-speaking country, you know? I’m not even kidding, man, Belize is fantastic. Costa Rica's lovely.

[00:05:25] Chase: I moved to Portland, Oregon like a year ago and it’s been great.

[00:05:31] Kirt Burdick: My brother lives up in Portland. It’s a little nice place. Every time I go up there I feel like, "Oh wow, it’s so lush." Because I go up in the summers, it feels like you're, you know, stepping into a fairy tale after coming from California, which has been in like a twenty-year drought.

[00:05:45] David: Thirty years at this point.

[00:05:49] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, it’s thirty years off and on drought. I feel like every year for the last thirty years everyone’s like, "Oh man, looks like we got an El Niño coming." When is the El Niño just weather?

[00:05:56] Chase: Now it’s Super El Niño. That's what they’re like, "Oh, it’s going to be a Super El Niño, better watch out." They should start calling it Godot at this point in California. It’s never going to happen.

[00:06:06] Kirt Burdick: You know, the cool thing with Portland is all the movie theaters. They got a lot of really good movie theaters, like the Hollywood Theatre is amazing. That's a really fun theater. And then the Movie Madness video store. And in Movie Madness they have that screening room that’s free, but you have to sign up I think. I think it has to be free because they’re just showing movies that they have in the store. One time I went up there they had a mini comic show. I forgot his name, but I talked to the Too Much Coffee Man guy, Shannon Wheeler.

[00:06:39] David: Shannon Wheeler.

[00:06:46] Kirt Burdick: I'm so bad with names. I can see his face, though. A lot of good comic shops up there in Portland too.

[00:06:50] Chase: A lot of good comic shops, a lot of good restaurants. I'm seeing actually at the Hollywood Theatre, I'm seeing the Nekromantik double feature there next month. They’re playing them both back to back.

[00:06:58] Kirt Burdick: I’ve never actually seen Nekromantik. I should look it up.

[00:07:03] Chase: I haven't either. It’s going to be my first time. I had a friend who said I’m the only person he knows who might possibly be into that, so he invited me.

[00:07:08] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, you know, like right now, you know, I'm single right now, so maybe I’ll save myself for after I die for that special someone. There you go. So I’m just holding out for someone who will rape me when I am dead. That's what I call love.

[00:07:31] Chase: Did you ever read that story about this I think he was like a psychiatrist who fell in love with a patient and then when he died, when she died, he like stole her body and encased it in plaster and like married it for twenty years? This is like a real thing that happened.

[00:07:44] Kirt Burdick: What? Did he keep his license?

[00:07:48] Chase: I fucking hope not! They might not have known. What is that in the corner? He only lived with the corpse for seven years. I overshot it. Oh, he was a radiologist. He was a German radiologist.

[00:08:00] Kirt Burdick: Okay, that makes more sense. Yeah, he's totally fine.

[00:08:06] Intro Music: Here’s what John and David read this week!

[00:08:09] David: Kirt Burdick, I was excited for you to come on because we always talk about the weirdest stuff. We have this thing that we’re doing every week now that we’re trying to do, and I want you to participate. I’m glad you're here, Kirt Burdick, because I wanted to talk about what I read last week, and I bet you know what it is. Have you read New York City Outlaws by Ken Landgraf?

[00:08:31] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, that’s awesome. So fun. I knew you had read it.

[00:08:35] David: Oh my god. It’s been a while since I read it, so I just remember like the third issue was crazy, like there were robots and—we’ve been talking a lot about sort of like outsider art in the last couple weeks. And John, he said that he got it and he was super excited to read it. Full circle here, I think he heard about it on an old episode of Cartoonist Kayfabe. I think they did some stuff about that. So anyway, he was super into it and loved it, and so as he was describing it I was like, "Oh, I have to get that and read it." And so I did. I got the trade paperback republished by a company called Power Comics, I think. Dude, this thing is bonkers! It's New York City Outlaws and it’s basically—if you've ever seen, oh what’s that late ‘70s, early ‘80s movie... The Warriors.

[00:09:15] Kirt Burdick: The Warriors! Fucking The Warriors.

[00:09:18] David: This is the comic book version of The Warriors. It’s just a gang of toughs like that are just in New York City just who have decided to like beat up bad guys, like that’s what they’re going to do, right? And that’s what the first two issues really are. Like they’re wearing like leather jackets with like spikes and stuff and there's the hot girl who poses and doesn't really do anything else, but she's part of the gang. And one of the guys is like essentially Mr. T, like that got the mohawk and everything and is Black, but at no point is he drawn to be looking like he's Black in any issue whatsoever.

[00:09:52] Kirt Burdick: Very Germanic features on that Black man. He’s the one with the mohawk, right?

[00:10:01] David: He’s Mr. T! Because he looks like that, like I think when I was reading I was like, "Is he Native American?" It's not clear, but it’s clear through the dialogue but it’s not clear through the art. It’s this weird outsider art, but Ken Landgraf also studied under like Neal Adams and Gil Kane.

[00:10:18] Kirt Burdick: There are fundamentals there, for sure.

[00:10:20] David: Yeah, there's weirdly like these rock-solid fundamentals underneath this like weirdly inked, like sort of like haphazard anatomy. It shifts from panel to panel. Like there will be literally a panel where it’s like it looks like a Gil Kane drawing to the point where I’m like, "I wonder if he just traced a Gil Kane drawing here," right? Then the next panel is like just this weird oddball like outsider art like thing that doesn't look like no form of anatomy, a human anatomy has ever looked the way it looks in this panel.

[00:10:49] Kirt Burdick: There’s also—it’s really into like hair metal. Like it’s of that—like there’s a lot of ads for the band Thor, the band Thor. He even did a comic of that guy.

[00:11:02] David: It’s something, it’s rad, it’s really inspiring. So the first two issues are kind of just like this gang of toughs who like go around beating up bad guys basically. There’s so much to talk about about this thing. In the first issue, Chase, the lettering is—what are those guns, you know that you have the tape and you put the letter that you want in there?

[00:11:18] Kirt Burdick: A Dymo labeler?

[00:11:19] David: Yeah! I don't know what they’re called. That's how the lettering is done on the first issue. The whole thing is done with a lettering tape gun. The whole thing was done that way, and it’s clear that it’s that. Like there’s no question that it’s a lettering tape gun that they used to letter it, right?

[00:11:34] Chase: I want to start doing lettering on my books that way!

[00:11:36] David: Right off the bat you're like, "Wow, the level of dedication to get this thing done is through the roof." And then in the next issue they're like, "You know what? We’re going to go even better. We're going to throw a spot color in this thing." And so just every single page has just a red ink wash. Just like, "Hey, you know what? We’ve got an extra color and we’re going to use it on every page." Like it doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to like be in an appropriate spot, it doesn't even have to be blood, it just could be anything. There’s red all over the place. It's fantastic. And that's just though in the second issue, right, Kirt Burdick?

[00:12:11] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, it’s only in the second issue, which was really of a bummer for me because that’s what actually got me into it. I looked up some of the imagery and saw issue two. I might have the same collection you have because I have a trade. It’s just that issue. Reminded me a lot of those old when they did the three-tone colors in the Bat-Manga from the ‘70s. They would do that too where they would add a red instead of going full color, they would just do that.

[00:12:37] David: It’s not the addition of the extra color, it’s the application of it. Like it’s just everywhere and random and it really is just like—like the publisher was like, "Hey, we're using an extra color, you got to use it!" and Ken’s just like, "Okay, man," like just slapping it on anywhere. That’s the second issue, and then by the third issue they scrap the extra colors—way too cost-prohibitive. So we go back to just black and white. But then the story goes from like this kind of like gang of toughs like handling like, you know, street crime, and issue three just randomly opens with this guy who we’ve not been introduced to before, and he gets grabbed by these mutants living in the sewer. And they pull him down into the sewer, they’re messing with him and they’re like going to kill him or going to eat him or something, I don't remember.

[00:13:28] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, they’re going to eat him.

[00:13:29] David: And you're like, "Whoa, this is getting weird." But then that’s not the weird part, Chase. Because the weird part is then they cut to space and there are space aliens who are like, "We have to prep the world to get ready to be taken over." So they identify the guy who’s about to die by the sewer mutants as the guy that they want to imbue with alien powers. And they then imbue him with alien powers, and that’s the story that gets told. It has nothing to do, for another second has nothing to do with sewer mutants, there’s nothing else about sewer mutants for the rest of the time. And this guy comes up with alien powers and then just goes ape shit on New York City.

[00:14:14] Kirt Burdick: I think the New York City Outlaws needed to take them out, right?

[00:14:21] David: Yeah, the New York City Outlaws need to take them out. It is the wildest, craziest thing I’ve ever read. I've never had a better time of laughing so hard I couldn’t even stop. The art’s crazy in it too. It’s like really, really weird. Well done, you know, but just yeah, it’s an inspired book. I found a couple other like Power Comics like that. I think that's like the trend they call it. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole with this because now coming to me from eBay over the course of the next few weeks is The Vendetta: Holy Vindicator. John got that one, so I’ve got that one coming. Also Crowbar #9 is coming. I also picked up some other stuff that’s not by them but—really has sent me down this rabbit hole of—I don’t even know how to like classify these covers. It's like an ‘80s VHS B-movie in comic book form.

[00:15:11] Kirt Burdick: It kind of reminds me of—there's a video label called Bleeding Skull, it’s part of Vinegar Syndrome, and they just release movies people made on VHS. You know, people like in the ‘80s when they tried to make a low-budget movie but they just shot everything on VHS tape so it looks like shit. There are some that are like legitimate like art films. A lot of them are just terrible versions of Friday the 13th. It’s almost like a mind-altering experience to watch them. So it’s not so much you’re watching a film, you're imbibing a drug. And that’s kind of what these books are like too.

[00:15:53] Chase: Now you have my attention!

[00:15:58] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, no, I recommend it. It is odd. It’s called Bleeding Skulls, yeah. There's some tough movies though, make it through.

[00:16:05] David: So that’s what I read last week, I read New York City Outlaws trade paperback. Chase, did you manage to read any comic books this week? Last time we talked you were reading...

[00:16:14] Chase: I read Dark Spaces: Dungeon by Scott Snyder and Hayden Sherman. It’s like a crime comic that Scott Snyder did through IDW was like...

[00:16:22] Kirt Burdick: Man, I love Hayden Sherman.

[00:16:24] Chase: I love Hayden Sherman’s art, that’s the only thing I liked about that book.

[00:16:28] David: What do you think of Absolute Wonder Woman?

[00:16:30] Chase: It looks good.

[00:16:31] David: Yeah, it’s really pretty. Not only is it pretty, I think that the story is—Absolute Wonder Woman's one of my favorite Big Two comic books right now, by far. That’s the best written and the best drawn book that DC is putting out right now, for sure, easily.

[00:16:44] Kirt Burdick: Oh, you think it’s the best drawn book, too?

[00:16:46] David: I think Hayden Sherman’s art is—it’s unique, it’s interesting, the page layouts that he’s doing are really super cool and fun and interesting and he’s doing it on a very commercial book, which makes it that much cooler to me. Like the fact that he’s kind of getting away with that. So I think Hayden Sherman's really great. Is it Kelly Sue DeConnick, is she the writer?

[00:17:07] Chase: I don't remember who’s the writer.

[00:17:10] David: I hate to not give everybody their flowers. It’s definitely well-deserved. The writing on it...

[00:17:15] Chase: Kelly Thompson.

[00:17:15] David: Kelly Thompson. She's crushing it. And I just think it’s like the best Big Two book around. But so Chase, you didn’t—you didn’t like the book so much, huh?

[00:17:24] Chase: I really like Hayden’s art. I’m frequently left pretty cold by Scott Snyder’s writing. I thought it was like a great high concept, but it like—I wanted it to be like smarter and more clever and more interesting than it was. But I feel like I kind of called who the killer was almost like almost immediately, even with like all of the plot holes that introduces to the start and like—the ending was not to my taste. It felt like it wanted to do a thing but then it just like didn’t quite get there. Like it felt like a mid-episode of Criminal Minds, but the concept was pretty interesting. The art was good.

[00:17:54] David: There’s a reason why Scott Snyder came back to Batman, I think. Not to speak disparagingly...

[00:17:58] Chase: People really like Scott Snyder, and I think that’s great. I like all sorts of things that people don’t like. Just ask my wife, she can enumerate a lot of the music and books and movies that I’ve subjected her to that she doesn’t understand at all.

[00:18:12] David: I feel like I've got some of that—I've got a taste of that myself. Scott Snyder and Batman, that formula does still obviously clearly really, really work. But when Scott Snyder went away from Big Two and—because he did a lot of creator-owned stuff in the last couple years and I don’t think any of it did anything. So it’s interesting that he’s so big when he’s on Batman and he was so wildly ignored when he wasn't on Batman. It’s weird.

[00:18:38] Chase: Yeah, it’s a little strange. I wonder if part of that because I was at IDW when they were launching all the creator-owned stuff and I wonder if part of that is he was a victim of his own success in a way. Like I remember the Comic-Con when we launched that IDW creator line with the Scott Snyder book, but there was also like three other Scott Snyder comics being launched at that Comic-Con. I wonder if he had like kind of focused on one and really pushing like the one instead of like a bunch of them if it would have like struck better, but it just felt like I don't know, like there was so much stuff he was doing it was hard to center your attention on any one specific one.

[00:19:06] Kirt Burdick: It seems like that’s the formula for writers. Like writers get so much material out there. James Tynion, he has like a whole industry behind him now and he’s coming out with like twenty books.

[00:19:20] David: Not twenty. But for Tynion it seems to be working, you know? Like he does seem to be putting out a lot of material but it’s all kind of landing for him. Something Is Killing the Children's huge, it’s before Absolute Batman that was the biggest book.

[00:19:36] Chase: I wonder if that’s because for the most part his stuff is kind of continuing series too, so you have like the room to like grow with these characters and the plot to take interesting ways. Like I wonder if the fact that this was like a six-issue miniseries that kind of introduced characters and then quickly wrapped them, like you didn’t really have a chance to like live with anyone and have them like grow on you.

[00:19:52] Kirt Burdick: That's an interesting question. Like do you think the era of the miniseries, like especially the four-to-six issue miniseries—unless it’s something that’s prestige, you know—is that over? Four-issue-to-six-issue miniseries aren’t conclusive, they’re not complete. The writer wants it to be an ongoing story they’re just testing it out and the publisher’s testing it out. So I wonder if the readers really want that Walking Dead model where it’s a—you know there’s going to be a conclusion but it’s going to happen after 200 issues or 150 issues.

[00:20:28] Chase: I think as a reader like I kind of want that model. I feel like there’s a lot of miniseries I like but also they’re kind of exhausting in a way because you’re just getting like these kind of shorter and more contained things. Originally when I was a kid is these are like big expansive narratives and like characters come, characters go, like things happen and people have to deal with the consequences of them. Like that’s what I really fell in love with about comics. On the one hand I totally get the financial reason for doing them because as a publisher like it’s very expensive, like the market's very hard and you want to see what hits, but as a reader it feels like there’s a lot of stuff I skip because it is just going to be six issues and that’s not necessarily what I’m looking for.

[00:21:02] David: Interesting. Clearly there is a market for longer-form works because if you look at any manga, which is the most popular form of comic books being sold right now—like manga is selling 10x, 20x what the rest of the comic book industry North American comic book industry is doing. So clearly there’s a hunger there for that. And so yes, Kirt Burdick, I think you're right, I think people aren’t really clamoring for the quick hit four-six issue thing because I’ve got that everywhere in my life. Everything is like a two-minute video. If I'm looking for something different, I want something that’s going to maybe be a little more long-form.

[00:21:38] Kirt Burdick: I hope that that is just a symptom of people clamoring for stuff that has more substance.

[00:21:45] David: Conversely, the reason why it makes it hard is for the exact same reason, you know? Who’s going to invest the time and energy into something that’s more than three or four issues right now, you know? You don't think it’s going to make it 20 or 30 issues until it does and then you’re like, "Oh, well I guess maybe I’ll pay attention now," right? But who can get to 20 or 30 issues if no one’s paying attention? The other piece of that, the beauty of the long-form is that there's tons of testing and market testing that you're doing while you're making it, right? Like the first iteration of Galactus, he was green and red with a giant G on his chest. And that is not the Galactus we see in the movies, right? Like it’s very different. There was iterations of Galactus that came out because, you know, they were putting that thing out and they were getting reactions and feedback from fans or just from their peers, you know, and sitting down and thinking about like next time we bring him out, what are we going to do? That's the beauty of the long-form is you get to kind of refine and hone the story and the characters in a way that you can't do when you're doing four issues. Like you just got those four issues, man, and if you don’t get it right, it ain't right. You don't have another chance to fix it.

[00:22:47] Chase: Just from a, you know, another side of the table perspective because I did creative affairs at IDW Entertainment for a long time and I think that especially comic companies that hold the media rights to certain things, like they want a six-issue miniseries as a proof of concept that they can then try and shop around on the strength of the logline to hopefully get TV money and then if they do that they’ll make more. But if it doesn’t sell to movies or television there’s not a lot of appetite to try and make comics money with it. Like there’s it seems to be there's this eye on the ball of like Hollywood’s where the real money's at, so how do we like how do we get our hand in the into that into that piggy bank?

[00:23:18] Kirt Burdick: I'm so—I'm so exhausted with that.

[00:23:24] Chase: Yeah, it’s exhausting. Especially because comics are now like so many publishers are owned by these, you know, larger corporate structures that need to extract money for the shareholders that don’t actually make any comics that they have to like it’s very it’s a very bizarre like business to be in. When Mike Richardson stepped down from Dark Horse recently, the corporate speak that was attached to his leaving the company was so heavy...

[00:23:41] Kirt Burdick: What do you think that portends for Dark Horse with him stepping down?

[00:23:49] David: I'll be surprised if you get anything that's not crassly commercial from Dark Horse for a while. But I say that with a caveat of Mike was there for several years with the new ownership, and that’s a fairly stable company at least currently. And so I can see a version of Dark Horse existing the way it sort of exists now with a different head at the top, but I’ll be a little surprised if the Dark Horse that we know now is the one that we see in five years. The potential for that to become crassly commercial for Dark Horse Comics to be a vehicle for whatever IP development they’re doing for the rest of the big conglomerate company is probably pretty high. The chances of it staying a independent comic book publishing company the way Mike ran it for, you know, 40 years, I don't see the likelihood of it doing that. While there is a chance of that, I don't think it’s very high.

[00:24:42] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, it’s such a legendary comic company. It was like the first of the indie imprints to really compete against Marvel and DC.

[00:24:54] David: Mike Richardson reinvented that company a couple times. They got on the map because they did a Predator comic book that was not a retelling of the existing movie. It was actually new stories based in that universe, which at the time was wildly revolutionary. Like the only people that had ever done anything remotely like that before was when Marvel did it with Star Wars and that also was like this massive hit seller, right? But you know, that was not where Dark Horse ended. Within five years Dark Horse was the home of Sin City and Paul Chadwick's Concrete and John Byrne's Next Men, you know? So I think Richardson had a good eye, a good vision, he was a smart business man, it’s clearly he loved comics. I don't think you can take that away from the guy.

[00:25:37] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, it was also one of the first ones to bring manga into the Western market.

[00:25:45] David: Yeah, those little Lone Wolf and Cub manga, those giant books that he put together, you know, as the—there’s 25 volumes of that thing, I own every single one, man. Such a great read. Chase and I are the keepers of the Conan the Barbarian archives now for Heroic Signatures and have been for about a year and a half...

[00:26:02] Kirt Burdick: What is that?

[00:26:03] David: Well let me finish my point and then I’ll tell you. Dark Horse did a really good job of not only creating new content for Conan, you know, using interesting creators and interesting artists, but you know they did a pretty decent job of curating that backlist in a couple different formats, couple interesting formats to the point where Chase and I have to get a little creative sometimes, you know, when we’re like, "How are we going to how are we going to mine this catalog?" You know, what are the things that we’re going to do? There’s plenty of room for there’s so much material there’s plenty of ways you can go that are interesting and fun and cool, but Dark Horse did a good job of it. So you know, they just it’s a good company was well-run. They did a great job when they they relaunched Conan in the early odds. Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord, I think is when it relaunched and that was a great combination. There was also one of those weird things where they those early issues didnt have any inking. It’s all pencil with the digital colors and it had a nice raw feel to it. To answer your other question, Chase and I we are the archival editors for all things Conan the Barbarian basically for all for the reprint program. So we’re doing Reforged, which is colored Savage Sword stories, we do like the Omnibi.

[00:27:17] Kirt Burdick: Oh nice, that’s awesome! Who’s publishing Conan now?

[00:27:21] David: Titan, yeah.

[00:27:23] Kirt Burdick: So are you working with them?

[00:27:24] Chase: We’re technically contracted with Heroic Signatures, which is the license holder for Conan. So they basically assemble all the Conan comics in-house like the new ones and like the reprint stuff and then Titan is like the publisher. We work with Titan’s production department but editorially it’s all Heroic Signatures people.

[00:27:43] Kirt Burdick: Oh, interesting. Yeah, they’ve been doing a good job. I’ve had some new Savage Sword is pretty fucking rad.

[00:27:50] Chase: It rules, right? It’s really good.

[00:27:52] David: It’s awesome, right? They’ve been doing a good job with that stuff. What’s awesome is like they seem to really love Conan and working on them, so they put in like so much effort and so much thought and it’s just really, yeah, it’s nice to see editors so passionate about the book they’re working on because sometimes that has not been the case.

[00:28:08] Kirt Burdick: It's a fun world and you know I saw they were doing some Solomon Kane stuff. I actually recently on the socials I saw J.H. Williams posted this beautiful Solomon Kane painting he did. I don't know if it was for cover or variant cover or just for fun, but it looked awesome.

[00:28:35] Chase: Who has time for fucking reading, dude? Moved on, life moved on! Next image please, next image!

[00:28:44] David: We are doing a few covers here and there. Savage Sword of Conan: Reforged is the reprint package that they do every other month sort of highlighting like some of the best stories and we get them colored. So we do new covers for those for Reforged. So we’re also getting a little bit of new content created too, Chase and I are and we got a painting from Tony Harris recently that—holy moly man, so good, so gorgeous! That guy can sling the paint, man, he is so good. That’s what Chase and I read. What about you? Did you read any comic books in the last week too?

[00:29:23] Kirt Burdick: Oh, well, I read some of the three trades of the Batman, like Absolute Batman, the Batman and Robin Year One, and then Dark Patterns, which had Hayden Sherman’s art.

[00:29:38] David: Really want to pick that up.

[00:29:39] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, yeah, it’s good. I mean the narrative wasn’t 100%, like the story itself had good elements in it, but it was really Hayden Sherman’s art that really just held it for me. Like it was just I loved the way he drew Batman and his subtle tweaks on the design were really inventive and fun. And just reading those three books it makes it kind of clear the impact that one Frank Miller had on the character of Batman and also what Bruce Timm and Batman: The Animated Series had on Batman. Because at least with Dark Patterns and also Batman and Robin Year One there is a lot of Batman: The Animated Series in both those books. Much more so with Batman and Robin Year One. Batman and Robin Year One is set within the Batman: Year One universe, so it’s basically like the follow-up, which I found kind of funny because, you know, okay so this is Dick Grayson. I always thought Batman: Year One, that’s a Frank Miller verse, that’s the Millerverse. So that’s the same Batman that’s in Dark Knight Returns, which means that this Dick Grayson’s the same Dick Grayson that ends up in Dark Knight Strikes Again at the end who’s just a mutant looks-maxing peptide-taking weirdo who gets thrown into a volcano that’s I guess underneath the Batcave or something.

[00:31:13] David: Yeah, exactly! It’s kind of weird how much Frank Miller seemed to hate Dick Grayson Robin. Is that DK3—no, that’s after DK3. When is—

[00:31:22] Chase: It’s before, it’s DK2.

[00:31:26] David: Okay, yeah, I just read all three of those recently so I’m confusing them. How do they work as a series? We just talked about recently so I’ll go quick on this but Dark Knight Returns feels like Frank Miller set out to tell a single story and when he was done with that story like that was the story he wanted to tell and he told that story. Dark Knight 2 feels in the first issue feels like he was set out to tell a certain story and then something happened and then by the time you get to issue two, it’s a completely different story.

[00:31:56] Chase: Something did happen. You don't know?

[00:32:01] David: And I didn't—yes I do, but I only found out after-the-fact because Barber told me. And what happened between issue one and issue two and I didn't know this when I was—I just because I was telling John like, "It’s weird, like it was like two different things," and what happened was 9/11. 9/11 happened between issues one and two. Me not knowing anything about 9/11, not remembering that, right, because it was a million years ago, looking at it, it is clear like Frank Miller literally put the story that he was telling from issue one he put it aside, scrapped it completely, and he started over with issue two of that book. That is the book that carries on into Volume 3, I think his intentions on DK2 were to tell a complete story, but when he comes back with issue two it goes from "I think I’m going to tell a complete story here" to "I am now telling a series of stories for a good long time and my version of Batman is changed." And then that’s what DK3 is, it’s just a continuation of DK2 and Golden Child beyond that is also just it’s a continuation it’s like he created the Batman Frank Millerverse and then he just starts telling stories in that universe. And so it loses some of its power I think because of it, but it’s still interesting. And DK2 was a lot better than I remember it. I will give it that.

[00:33:15] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, no it is. I mean it’s kind of—I remember people shitting on it so—I mean it’s just not what people expected at all. You have to remember the digital coloring was already a thing when Dark Knight 2 comes out, but it felt like Lynn Varley was discovering computer coloring for the first time. So she was super excited about playing around and making garish things because she had never done it before, but as comic book fans we did that in 1998, man, we were looking at early Image comic books and all those garish crazy colors seven years earlier and it was like she was discovering it for the first time like, "Oh look how edgy and cool I am," it’s like this is so dated now and it’s not good.

[00:33:56] Chase: Yeah, people should really treat like learning digital painting or digital techniques as like learning another painting medium. Like if you were like really good with oils you just don’t pick up watercolor and are able to like paint to the equivalent skill level you can in oils. It’s two different mediums. Wasn't that around the same time Frank Miller became like a movie movie person? Was that before or after the Sin City movies?

[00:34:24] David: Dark Knight Strikes Again came out in 2001 to 2002. Yeah, because 9/11, right. And when did Sin City the Sin City movie come out? 2005? The Sin City movie, yeah, came out in 2005. I’d really like to see Frank Miller do an auto-bio book.

[00:34:50] Chase: Doesn't he have something coming out? He should do a autobiography. So I'd like to read it. It would be awesome.

[00:34:54] David: I've been reading the Comics Journal Library interviews with Frank Miller between like 1981 and 2003, and that’s a fascinating read. Very fascinating read, yeah, they’re fantastic interviews. The interview that I just read was the one right before the first Dark Knight Returns was published. So he’s talking about—no one knows that Dark Knight Returns is going to be Dark Knight Returns in this interview. But it’s a fascinating read because he’s learning all the tools of the medium, not just the drawing part of it but the publishing, you know, the business and the publishing and like all of it, you know, the whole thing is like on his mind in a way that his earlier interviews, you know, he’s just concerned with the story and how to draw things, you know? So it’s a really fascinating interview to read. He's fully stepping into his power for the first time with Dark Knight Returns and it’s fascinating to see him stepping into his power in really meaningful ways for the first time. Batman and Robin Year One, Chris Samnee’s art, by the way. Amazing stuff, yeah. Samnee’s so good.

[00:35:50] Kirt Burdick: And also the coloring is really done well and it matches Batman: Year One very well. Chris Samnee does a great job in visually connecting those two books. And there’s even a couple Easter eggs where you see Selina Kyle from Batman: Year One in a window and—it’s really fun. And it’s also a really good story. It’s a Two-Face and Clayface story, so I think I was most satisfied with that one out of the three.

[00:36:24] David: Mark Waid seems to be on a bit of a tear last couple years at DC. He’s just been pumping out really fun superhero stories. Like he’s steeped in the DC universe and really pulling out like the long-form versions of the DC universe stuff in a way that some of the other writers for both companies aren’t doing. It’s pretty impressive that Mark Waid is still like writing really good superhero comics, you know, thirty years in or whatever it is for him, like he’s been around. Mateus Lopes is the colorist on Batman and Robin Year One. I might be like one of five people in the world that wants this, but I’m still hanging on for the conclusion of the second arc of Empire that he did with Barry Kitson.

[00:37:03] David: Yeah, you are the one fan that still wants it!

[00:37:09] Chase: It ended on such a cliffhanger, dude, like I'm obsessed, like it’s weighing on me. There were plans to do that at IDW at a certain point. IDW published like three issues of it and then stopped. Yeah, it was a hard sell at that time. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why we had to stop it.

[00:37:24] David: I'm going to find Mark Waid and just ask him what the end is.

[00:37:27] Kirt Burdick: Come on, Mark, just tell me what you were going to do. Just tell me, man. Don't make me live like this.

[00:37:36] David: What's your hot take on Abs Bat?

[00:37:38] Chase: I preferred Zoo. Before I read it I felt kind of like it’s kind of a cop-out. Felt like you're avoiding dealing with like a challenging issue that we're dealing with in our society by doing that. But then again, like what do you just turn Batman into a villain? The two biggest differences between Earth One Batman and Absolute Earth Batman is that he’s—not poor, but working-class, he’s a working-class kid, and then also his mom survives so he does have family. Initially I wasn't too into that, but then after reading it, the two things it provides like narratively is that Batman’s powers in general are one, being wealthy, like extremely wealthy to the point where he can use all those resources to be a crimefighter, and then two, his level of determination and ingenuity. So by like removing the wealth component of the character it just solely focuses his power is his, you know, determination and ingenuity, which makes the character more appealing. Also like his rogue gallery being actual friends follows more of a manga model where there are personal relations between the characters. So it could end up being like when they become villains or whatever, there is more a sense of loss in that case. And with his mom being alive and his friends being close to him, there are legitimate risks in his life of people legitimately getting hurt. Because I was thinking like, yeah, you know, I guess in the original Batman, you know, it’s Alfred. But if a butler dies or gets killed by the Penguin, you just hire a new butler.

[00:39:41] Chase: Oh man, brutal! Isn't Alfred like still dead in the main universe?

[00:39:44] David: I have no idea. I don't know.

[00:39:46] Chase: He should be. No one’s perpetual that old. Everyone’s skip-aged in all these books. I think he’s an AI in the current version of the regular Batman.

[00:39:58] Kirt Burdick: This is making Scott Snyder’s Absolute Batman look way better.

[00:40:03] David: The Matt Fraction/Jorge Jimenez Batman is pretty fun. I'm not a huge Batman guy, I just kind of dip in and out every once in a while but I heard good things about the Matt Fraction/Jorge Jimenez and I love Jorge Jimenez art, like I think he's really talented artist. So I’m on board for it. But I’m only reading in the app, I’m not going out and buying. The other book I was reading was Blood of a Virgin and that’s amazing.

[00:40:30] Chase: I’ve heard bad things about that. You liked it?

[00:40:35] Kirt Burdick: I love it, I think it’s great. I love the art. It’s a dramatic story, so it’s about a—an Iraqi immigrant working in the movie industry in the early ‘70s in LA and, you know, he’s working for like a Roger Corman-style movie studio making schlock films.

[00:40:54] Chase: Looks pretty good, mmm.

[00:40:56] Kirt Burdick: I recommend it. I think it’s good. I’d be interested to see what people aren’t liking about it.

[00:41:03] Chase: I heard about it and I said, "Oh that sounds interesting," and then I heard I think I read two different reviews and both of them were fairly negative. One of them was kind of panning the art, the other one didn't think the story made a ton of sense, but I’m glad to hear you liked it. Is that an Image book?

[00:41:16] Kirt Burdick: Pantheon, publisher of it. And it looks like it was a series that was compiled into the graphic novel, but I don’t know who printed up the series. You know, I don’t think Pantheon does single issues. I think they’re just kind of like a book publisher. Oh yeah, and it was—this was a while back, but a couple months ago I read Asterios Polyp.

[00:41:32] Chase: Oh nice! David Mazzucchelli and that was amazing. That was also by Pantheon, I think.

[00:41:43] David: Mazzucchelli just shows up like every, you know, generation pumps out another amazing piece of work and then just goes away again.

[00:41:52] Kirt Burdick: I don’t know, man, but I feel like we’re due for another one because that was his last work, right? We’re probably due for another Mazzucchelli’s probably going to pop up at some point soon. I know for a long time he was teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He’s probably still just teaching there, I imagine. That’s a good job to have. Let’s talk about Death of Power #8. So Death of Power #8 is the new issue. First off, David, once again I bow to your brilliance. This is another fantastic issue. This was also I think your highest-earning Kickstarter, right? You’re starting to like do a real business on the Kickstarter, the money’s starting to get real, right?

[00:42:37] Kirt Burdick: Getting close. There’s definitely a profit, but like I said earlier like if I could get to a quarterly production schedule and if I could get it up a little bit more, like my goal is to hopefully eventually hit 20k, 20k.

[00:42:51] David: You're heading that direction for sure now. Issue 8's fantastic, the opening cover which is you can find online, the way you do the covers is great because it’s the next panel of the story. Issue 7 concludes and then the cover of Issue 8 is essentially the next page or next panel of the story. So the die you see word, I don't know, feels like it’s controversial and also hilarious and really great all at once. But "ya you said it" asterisk cracked me up. The little "not for kids" in the corner is fantastic, like there's a lot of really fun little touches on this thing. Why did you put March 2000—is that because that would have been like whatever issue of Death of Superman it would have been? I couldn't figure that out.

[00:43:32] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, basically going in that direction. Death of Superman's ten years before.

[00:43:37] David: I'm always struggle like breaking down the story with you because I want to talk about every single page, but then I feel like I don't know maybe we’re giving it away and no one’s going to buy it, but I think talking about it would make people want to buy it more. You turn the cover, you go to page one, and your version of Lex Luthor, what’s his name, Luter?

[00:43:54] Kirt Burdick: Lud Luster.

[00:43:54] David: Lud Luster. He’s doing some power stuff shooting out of his eyes. It’s all very dramatic and you know, he’s screaming "die," but you’ve chosen to have his wing break the panel border and hang over into another panel and I’m just like, "Why are you doing that, Kirt Burdick?"

[00:44:13] Kirt Burdick: I don't know, I’m not sure, I can’t really answer that. I have a guess.

[00:44:18] David: Yeah?

[00:44:22] Chase: I think that there’s very few things that are more fun to draw than penises, which are both hilarious and all sorts of different shapes and very just fun to draw.

[00:44:31] Kirt Burdick: When I started drawing Death of Power, I don’t know where I came to this idea but I was thinking like, "To make a true independent comic, you have to draw a penis." Genitalia in general, I mean, it’s very serious, but it’s also fucking ridiculous. The human experience is silly, you know? For a bunch of goofs. Obviously I’m semi-joking. I think like all life is semi-tongue-in-cheek, right? Genitalia in general, I mean, it’s very serious, but it’s also fucking ridiculous. The human experience is silly. For a bunch of goofs.

[00:45:01] David: The inventiveness you made into place too. Like, yeah, well, like, Hades beard is all penises. Like, it's just, there's so many, like, wonderfully placed, like, unexpected penises throughout this book, and I just adore it.

[00:45:12] Kirt Burdick: There's been a couple scenes where I had more complex ideas that, you know, I just didn't have the time to, like, pull off for that sequence, for the Hades sequence. So I wanted the afterlife to be very gigerous, where if you look at the ground that she's walking on, my original idea was it would be a bunch of petrified naked dead bodies of different superheroes or gods or beings, all having a orgy that's stuck in stone. And that would have been so complex to draw because I would have to redesign the different pantheon of DC characters and then figure out my take on the different gods and stuff, then figure out like how do you draw the intercourse.

[00:46:12] Chase: It's a challenge.

[00:46:13] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, but it's only like four pages or two pages, and if I really wanted to do that, it would have taken me like at least a month to figure all that shit out. There's a scene where I showed Lud Luster's castle when he's like God of the earth or something. And initially I wanted his pillars to be equivalent, not identical, but equivalent to Shazam's virtues and bices statues. And I had to cut that too. That was another thing I had to cut. And I did go through all like writing out what would be my take on those archetypes of vices of virtues and which ones would I choose for this world and how would I design the characters for that world and then which of those would I choose to be in the pillars and then it was just like fuck I'm just putting a fucking square for the background fucker.

[00:47:12] David: Well that's fair.

[00:47:13] Kirt Burdick: It's a square box. Then I just got into like, okay, you know, all these new luxury condos are just glorified iMac designs. Like it looks like just square, bark, gray, board tubes, wealth consolidation just plopped over a burned down rent controlled apartment building that got demolished. So I was a Barry Windsor Smith's simplification of electronics and weapon acts and stuff like that. And I pissed off and I was just using those motifs like square, square, square, square, triangle, color, color, color, color, color. Good enough.

[00:48:00] David: I mean, I think it really works. Yeah. It's all works for me. I love the villain hideaway. It's great. This issue is very interesting issue. It is interesting because it's the first time you've done a romance comic.

[00:48:11] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, yeah.

[00:48:12] David: romance comic issue, right?.

[00:48:13] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, I was looking at a lot of the Don Armada senior books by Marvel. Also looking at a lot of the romance comics from the 50s and stuff.

[00:48:23] David: You're really wearing your influences on your sleeve. I think it might be one of my favorite issues for a couple reasons. First of all, you bring some humanity to the villains in this issue that I think is really cool and needed to ground the whole thing a little bit. Because Death of Power is a comic of extremes, right?. That's my view of it, but this particular issue really grounds the whole piece in a way that gives it gravitas in a way that I don't want to say that was missing from other issues, but it really brings it all together, giving the villains some time to understand where they're coming from, essentially. It gives it some weight in a way that I was not expecting, first of all. Now having seen it, really appreciate it and really like it. I think it's really well done. And then of course, when we get to the ending, what a punctuation mark at the end of that particular little starry. Really love it. Really well done.

[00:49:20] Kirt Burdick: Thank you. Yeah. I was really excited about doing it. You ate like it. It was one of the reasons I kept me going through this series to deal with these type of conflicts of desire and expectation that people of all walks of life have to deal with. Yeah. to show some of the humanity in it, but also one of the themes. We all have these desires and these aspirations and ambitions, but if we are able to achieve all of our ambitions without any type of pushback from reality, you will become a warped person. And I think that's what we see with people who have extreme wealth. I think extreme wealth will warp anyone who experiences it. So that's like a underlying pain.

[00:50:20] David: Generally not for the better.

[00:50:22] Kirt Burdick: I'm not talking about the Uber mensch being evolved through capital. That doesn't happen. I don't think so. I don't.

[00:50:32] David: You mean letting like five guys have all the money and the rest of us just being employees is a bad way to run society?. Let's see how it turns out. We already rolled the dice. Let's get another 10 20 years. I would have to say that's a bad idea. Like it's not good.

[00:50:48] Kirt Burdick: It's not good. Oh man.

[00:50:50] David: The Corner Box is officially canceled! We'll never make it up the algorithms ever again. It’s okay, we only had five people anyway. Oh man. So yeah, hats off, Kirt Burdick. Last time we talked, book ten was going to be the wrap-up. You still on track?

[00:51:13] Kirt Burdick: And I recently finished drawing the last page. So Issues 9 and 10 I'm going to launch together in the last Kickstarter.

[00:51:20] David: Whoa, that's exciting!

[00:51:28] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, so July should be the final Kickstarter to end it. And it’ll probably be towards the end of July. I think you can follow people on Kickstarter, that’d probably be the best place to follow me. I have a Patreon and then also on Instagram, it’s all under my name.

[00:51:38] David: We'll definitely pump it on the show when it when it comes time. We'll let people know when it’s when it’s live. That's fantastic news, congratulations! You climbed the hill, man! Basically well, almost, maybe I shouldn't say that yet because you're not—

[00:51:51] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, I still have to color it. I mean, the coloring's going to be much more complex with these last two issues just because it a lot of effects and stuff.

[00:52:00] David: Do you have plans for the next thing? Do you know what you're doing next?

[00:52:05] Kirt Burdick: Next project is going to be a true crime comic about Santa Cruz in the early ‘70s. And I'm really excited about doing that. One, getting away from superpowered characters and dealing with human beings like normal and also dealing with a story where violence has consequences. Dealing with more almost like the sense of loss and tragedy as opposed to the spectacle of the Looney Tunes Three Stooges violence that actually I prefer.

[00:52:45] David: As do we all. Is your process for this one this new piece is it going to be similar to I’m assuming there’s going to be more words in the new one.

[00:52:51] Kirt Burdick: It's going to be more of a standard comic, but I kind of want to keep it as silent as I can. One of the things I really loved doing Death of Power was just doing the visual storytelling, not relying too much on exposition. And the other thing I really fell in love with was drawing the onomatopoeias, the sound effects. That’s my favorite part of the book, so... hopefully I’m able to get it done. It’s going to be a pretty challenging process though because it is going to be based on a true story so I’m going to have to do a little bit more research.

[00:53:25] David: Are you going to write that one out in a script before you go into it or you think you’ll just lay it out?

[00:53:30] Kirt Burdick: I think so. I mean, I always do pretty extensive outlines even for this. Definitely for the dialogue I’m going to really try to work pretty heavily before I letter it.

[00:53:42] David: Do you have a name for it yet?

[00:53:52] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, it’s going to be Herbie’s Song. That’s going to be the working title at least. That might change, but I did a short test of it a long time ago right before I did Death of Power that I really...

[00:54:04] David: Yeah, I thought that sounded familiar.

[00:54:06] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, it’s going to be that, just expanded. So that's what I'm planning. I have some other ideas that I could either put into another run on Death of Power. But the way Death of Power's going to end, it’s pretty conclusive, so I might not want to do that. I might want to pull those concepts either into a new story or possibly a Fairer-Chaotic story which I’ve, you know, been playing around with. So those are basically the ideas that I'm playing around with right now.

[00:54:38] David: Do you think you’ll ever come back to the superhero stuff?

[00:54:41] Kirt Burdick: If Death of Power when I collect it if it sells really well or gets a large enough fan base, I’d probably come back to it with those other stories I'm thinking of. But that’s the only way I’d come back to I think superheroes. I'm sure I'm blacklisted from DC.

[00:54:58] Chase: Nah!

[00:54:59] David: Anything else, Kirt Burdick? You got to get off chest before we sign off here? I think we’ve done a pretty good business.

[00:55:02] Kirt Burdick: I think I'm good. That shirt is fantastic though, I got to call out the shirt very early—the cat Godzilla, that’s fantastic. I need that as a tattoo.

[00:55:19] Chase: Yeah, really fun talking.

[00:55:20] Kirt Burdick: Yeah, it was really fun talking.

[00:55:23] David: Yeah, Kirt Burdick, we love having you on. I always enjoy talking to you. Love what you do. So thanks for coming on and hopefully we get to go do it again. Thanks everybody for listening! Hope you got something out of that one. Definitely check out Kirt Burdick’s work. You can Google Death of Power and check out some of the like past Kickstarters. Is there a website or is it just a Patreon?

[00:55:36] Kirt Burdick: Patreon and then I have some YouTube stuff that I've been putting up.

[00:55:42] David: Some really fun interesting YouTube stuff too. You're really doing some interesting stuff, enjoying it. So Kirt Burdick K-R-T Burdick B-U-R-D-I-C-K, check him out on the socials and on the on the Googles. Thanks everybody for listening and we’ll be back next week. Bye!

[00:55:59] Chase: Yeah, thanks!

[00:56:00] 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.