[00:00:02] 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. With me, as always, my good friend, David Hedgecock.

[00:00:27] David: Good to be back.

[00:00:28] John: Good to be back.

[00:00:34] David: We've been gone for a worthy cause, though—your birthday.

[00:00:36] John: Well—oh, can we even talk about that, though? As a matter of fact, David, I'm having one right now. This is my actual birthday. Which you should probably know, because it's the most important birthday in comics. Born this day, as we're recording, May 8th: Steve Wacker, former Spider-Man editor, Jamie McKelvie, Phonogram and Young Avengers and all sorts of stuff, Moebius, and, of course, me, John Barber.

[00:01:03] David: Transformers Hall of Fame, John Barber.

[00:01:05] John: I was there at the Hall of Fame, and I was like, "Oh, where's the Moebius exhibit?" And they're like, "Oh, no, he doesn't have one." Like, "Oh." I'm just kidding.

[00:01:11] David: You're spoiled with your notoriety and fame. You're spoiled by it. The little people are far, far beneath you. You've lost all perspective, clearly.

[00:01:19] John: Yeah.

[00:01:20] David: But you know, truly with good reason. If I was you, I would have—my head would be so big, it would probably already have exploded with all the accomplishments that I would have accomplished if I had been you. But I'm not. John, you were gone last week, but we had a really fun time chatting with Mr. Kurt Busiek. Talked about the new Death of Power book. He's already finished with the next two issues, John. He's wrapped everything up, so going to be excited to see that on Kickstarter sometime soon. And, John, speaking of Kickstarter—

[00:01:45] John: Yeah?

[00:01:51] David: I want all of our listeners to know—subtle segue—that I have a Kickstarter coming out very, very soon, May 26th. My company, Fun Time Go, is going to be putting out our sixth Kickstarter, John. Kickstarter number six. John, you've done a Kickstarter for your books. How many of your books have you Kickstarted now? I can't remember.

[00:02:13] John: Roughly several.

[00:02:16] David: Anyway, we're doing our sixth Kickstarter, John. I'm very excited. We're doing—it's the third book of the Super Kaiju Rock and Roller Derby Fun Time Go series. This one's subtitled Fuji Tengu Flames. And you'll understand why it's called Fuji Tengu Flames when you read the book.

[00:02:30] John: All right.

[00:02:34] David: So, we're launching May 26th. But our listeners can go in and, for just $1, grab the VIP package right now at get.funtimego.com. That's get.funtimego.com. And the VIP package basically gets people like an extra discount when they pledge. And also, there's some exclusives that we're offering this time that only VIPs can get. So, we've got some really limited edition items that only VIPs will have access to. So, for a buck, you're going to save like 30% off the cover price of the book, plus access to a bunch of cool stuff. So, hopefully everybody checks out get.funtimego.com. Also, you can learn about the book if you go there, too. If you just want to go straight to Kickstarter, you want to skip the VIP, go to Kickstarter and just type in "Super Kaiju," and it'll come up. Hopefully everybody checks it out. Really, really happy and proud of our third book. I think it's the best written book I've done of the series so far. I think I'm improving.

[00:03:36] John: David, it would pretty much have to be.

[00:03:37] David: Brutal. We can't all just be writing hundreds of issues of Transformers, John. We don't—not everybody has that privilege, Mr.

[00:03:44] John: Ah, see, you should have gone back high on your issues of Signum. It should have been— Still coming, still coming, we're okay.

[00:03:49] David: Nice. I don't want to beat you while you're down. I already— I already gave one swift kick. I don't need to do another. Anyway, Rolo de la Hoya, who's the artist, who's been the artist for the whole series, and we've committed to each other to continue the series. We're actually halfway done with book four. Book three is completely done. It's completely drawn—all the main story, backup story, everything is done, done, done. We've even got letters. Anyway, we're already halfway done with book four, so— But book three is really great. Book four is going to wrap up the story arc. Excited for people to check it out. And Rolo is just—somehow that guy is getting better. I don't know how he's doing. He's been drawing for 15 years, interiors for 15 years, and somehow he's better now than he's ever been. So, so please go support if you like the show, or if you want to see what John and I do, go check it out. Get.funtimego.com. But, John, I was talking to Kurt, and thinking about Kickstarter, I've realized that we've been talking a lot about sort of like—I don't know what you would call it—like non-mainstream, like outside of the mainstream books lately, like more than the usual. Our bread and butter is Captain Carrot and Speedball—and New Universe—but we've really gone afield lately. And talking to Kurt last week really, I don't know, put a fine point to that. And I started telling him about the fact that I had purchased and read New York City Outlaws, which you turned me on to. And I loved that book, John. I don't want to talk about it too much because we kind of talked about it last week, but I don't know if you had anything you wanted to say about it. So, I want to give you that opportunity. And then I wanted to talk about the artist for New York City Outlaws was Ken Landgraf, who, for whatever reason, was sort of like the impetus for all of this weird stuff that I've been getting into.

[00:05:26] John: Yeah.

[00:05:30] David: Lately, the artist behind it. And so I want to talk about another book that I read recently, Ghoul Butcher. But did you have anything—like any big points for New York City Outlaws that you wanted to cover?

[00:05:38] John: I read that right after I read another series that he did that was reprinted by the same company. We talked to Dave Baker about this. If you were taking notes, this is the time to pull them out and fill in the gaps in my memory right now. I—it was something I bought like on a—on a whim thinking it was a new comic kind of in the—in that sort of like underground or outside or art kind of style—not underground in the comic sense, but like what New York City Outlaws is, right? Except I thought it was like a new one and I—I read it, but before I'd read it, Ghoul Butcher came out and I bought that as well, didn't re—not even knowing it was Ken Landgraf, got home, read both of them, you know, having realized it was the same guy, Ken Landgraf, but thinking Ken Landgraf was a like new guy who in the like two years between the copyright date and the other book and the Ghoul Butcher had like really changed his style a lot. And then figured out who he was by reading Comics: The Magazine, and Jim Rugg mentioning him and I'm like, "That's odd that Jim Rugg seems to be talking about this new guy like that." Huh. I've done this a couple times recently where it's like putting these like weird dot—these dots together and coming to a conclusion that many, many, many, many other people had long ago understood fully, has happened to me a couple times lately.

[00:06:59] David: Well, I'm falling down this rabbit hole right there with you. Now that I'm here, like, I want to talk about the next Ken Landgraf. But, John, New York City Outlaws, to—just to recap, is the weirdest, wildest thing I've read in a while because the first two issues are just like, you know, it's just like a group of toughs like battling bad guys in a city. Like it's very like street-crime oriented. And then the third issue, aliens implant stuff inside this dude and then he becomes this weird monster zombie thing that— And there's mutants in the underground sewers, and what happened in that book that like everything went sideways super fast? It was really hilarious. I loved it so much.

[00:07:40] John: One of the things that's weird about it is that it's pretty well done. Like it isn't like—some of the execution falls down, it falls down in exactly the ways that like a Marvel comic from that era falls down. There's like a level of competency combined with the unhingedness. If you get into some of the other Powerhouse Comic stuff, there's— like it's really looking at like, oh, this person just like doesn't draw very well, or you know, like the writing's kind of—it's got a charm to it and it's interesting, but it isn't like, oh, this is— there are there are moments of like huge technical proficiency, you know, and there are in New York City Outlaws and that that even just adds to the weirdness of it. And and—

[00:08:16] David: Yeah, it really does. It's like this perfect like Gil Kane panel where I'm like, "Oh, maybe he just traced that." But it's like so good and then the very next panel is like not good at all. I said Powerhouse Comics, but I think it might be Floating World Comics.

[00:08:30] John: Floating World Comics is the is the the the publisher, and then Powerhouse was the like sub-imprint from a YouTube channel that—

[00:08:37] David: Okay, got you. So, this is what John and David read read this week. Hit it, Ed.

[00:08:42] Outro: Here's what John and David read this week! Yeah!

[00:08:46] David: For the next few weeks, John, I've decided that I'm going to sit down and sort of get into these outsider comic books in a in a very real and meaningful way. So, I want to start with Ghoul Butcher, that'll be this week's thing. But but this is—I don't know, there's something coalescing in my head in my mind in some ways about the Frank Millerness of it all, like the DK2 and what he did there and and what he did with the DK3's minicomic stuff and and his his recent artwork, you know, cover art that he's been doing recently.

[00:09:15] John: Yeah.

[00:09:17] David: There's something there for— I don't know what it is. Uh yeah, but hopefully it it materializes for the next few weeks. But I wanted to lay out for you, John, and lay out for our listeners, because I want people to follow along with me if they can. Here's the plan: Ghoul Butcher's going to be this week and then I did get Crowbar Nine.

[00:09:36] John: Okay.

[00:09:37] David: So, I'm reading that for next week. Also, Revenger, I got Revenger. That's the one with the—you already talked about it.

[00:09:44] John: Uh yeah, but you got to read that one first.

[00:09:46] David: Oh, I have to read Revenger before Crowbar Nine?

[00:09:48] John: You don't have to, but it takes place in—and—and originally came out before Crowbar Nine.

[00:09:52] David: Oh, I didn't realize they were connected.

[00:09:54] John: Yes, they are.

[00:09:56] David: Oh, fantastic. I am even more excited. I didn't know that. There's some other stuff in here that I that I thought would be fun. Do you remember a comic book called Seven Guys of Justice?

[00:10:06] John: No.

[00:10:06] David: There was like 13 or 14 issues of this thing called Seven Guys of Justice. I was thinking the other day about—I was listening to the Todd McFarlane interview on Comic Book Couples Counseling podcast, and Todd McFarlane was saying what I always say, he sounds like he's got of a similar mind to me where the art is sort of the king in a comic book, like he's— that you can have bad writing and good art and still sell a comic book, but good writing and bad art you're going to have more trouble selling that selling that comic book.

[00:10:35] John: Okay.

[00:10:36] David: He even put a finer point on it saying sort of like, "You know, when you have a a good cover and good art, that's the point of sales, you know, for these things." So, if you've got those things in place, somebody's more likely to buy, you know. So, it's like a—he's not dismissing the importance of good writing, but he's saying, you know, in the grand scheme it's it skews 51% to the art and 49% to the writing. You still need both to really go gangbusters. So, anyway, I I was thinking about that. I would take it even further, like I couldn't think of a single comic book that I enjoyed or bought for more than like one issue if the art was bad. And I was like, there's got to be books that I have purchased and enjoyed that where the art was really, really bad, like just not good, like not professional. And I couldn't think of any until I landed on Seven Guys of Justice. And the Seven Guys of Justice, it's a superhero comedy, satire, parody sort of comic book. The art is just charmingly bad. It is charmingly bad. But the writing is really funny and the characters are really fully realized and funny characters, and it—the thing went for like, I don't know, like I said, 13 or 14 issues back in the day. But I was like, "Oh, I have I do have that. I have a comic book that I bought when I did not like the art." And I continued to buy it and really enjoyed it, so I'm going to put Seven Guys of Justice on the list. And then I got a couple others: Night Hunters by Davey Bales and Alex Ziritt. We talked about it on the show the other day, but I just read it and and really enjoyed it. Might talk about it today. Have you heard of Amerikarate?

[00:12:13] John: No. I've got—for our listeners, I've got John like frantically doing searches for all these weird comic books that I'm pulling up.

[00:12:21] David: What's the movie by the South Park guys, America Police Force or—

[00:12:25] John: Yeah, Team America.

[00:12:27] David: Team America. Amerikarate is sort of like Team America, but a comic book. It's a lot of the same sort of fun, insane sensibilities around it. So, that one's on the list, too. So, for the next couple weeks, for those listening, if you want to go grab those books and read along with us, I think it might be fun. This week we're going to do Ghoul Butcher and and Night Hunters and next week we'll do Revenger and Crowbar Nine. Awesome. Talking about the all this outside art, Ghoul Butcher is definitely that. Another Ken Landgraf special, but this is different from New York City Outlaws in that New York City Outlaws was drawn and produced in like 1984. Ghoul Butcher is a recent comic book. It's a recent graphic novel. It was originally Kickstarted in 2023. It's only been around for a couple years.

[00:13:16] John: Yeah.

[00:13:17] David: And Ken Landgraf's art, he's sort of fully settled and fully realized who he wants to be and how he how he wants to be as an artist in 1984, because I don't feel like the art did not mature really all that much between 1984 and 2023. Did you have a different spin on that?

[00:13:33] John: I did. Yeah, because I—like reading it not knowing that it wasn't just a couple years from the previous comic that I read by him, like literally the previous comic, like I sat one down, picked up—

[00:13:44] David: Right, right.

[00:13:45] John: I mean it wasn't like so stunning that I thought—that it made me question whether this is what happened, you know what I mean? Like it it it did seem like, okay, he's like maybe a couple years, you know, progressed or something I guess, I don't know. Kind of going in a different style. The thing that really struck me, though, is that the other one, and I'm—I can't believe I'm completely blanking on the name, but it was—it's very similar to New York—New York City Outlaws in terms of what it's like. Thing that I found weird about it, because I was like, what it— is this commenting on anything today? Is this just—like is it just being nostalgic for this kind of old old style of stuff? And then finding out it actually was the thing I was thinking it was going to be nostalgic for, that problem is, you know, obviously went out of my head. But this one seemed more focused in today. New York City Outlaws has moments where you are, I think, aware that the writer is is having fun with this. The same way I felt like that that page from— from Nightmare that that I was talking about the other week, that like I feel like I'm on the same page as Robert Loren Fleming. I'm not making fun, I'm not laughing at Robert Loren Fleming's writing, he's writing the thing that I'm reading and we're having a good time with it together. And I I I feel like that happens in New York City Outlaws a few times, but it definitely is like the case in Ghoul Butcher. I think, it definitely it definitely feels like a here's a thing you're going to find on Joe Bob Briggs' channel and and, you know, here this is a like a post-world where you take B-movie tropes and and have a good time with them. I mean I really enjoyed it, but it uh I don't know, that was my take. You just read it.

[00:15:16] David: It was an interesting read. So, it's a post-apocalyptic story where this guy who's basically a hard-drinking truck driver has to get from one side of town to the other side of town where his mobile home is, and he thinks once he gets to his mobile home he'll be able to sort of stay safe and be more mobile and stay free. And so he's crossing through this town which is, you know, it's got some like oddly heavy-handed religious overtones in it from time to time, which is just strange. But I don't know, it's kind of fun, the way it just randomly gets pulled in and then and then dropped back out. The big conceit is that it's, you know, it's a zombie apocalypse, right? So, there's zombies everywhere and there are ghouls everywhere and there are—and he's having to battle his way through all these ghouls, and not everybody around him surviving the zombie plague. Uh at one point, though, he's kind of uh back on his heels and these girls come out of this strip club, essentially they're angels, and they kind of save him and then they disappear again. It's just like, oh, it's I don't know, it's it's uh it was kind of fun. But the Ken Landgraf of it all is also kind of fun and interesting in that, much like in New York City Outlaws, there are you there are just panels and pages where he just takes the page off, like he's just like, "You know what? It's good enough. Like I'm not going to work on those things." And then there are other pages where he's just obsessively crosshatching every single square inch of the page. And then also dropping Zip-A-Tone everywhere on the page. It doesn't even like necessarily serve a great purpose when he's doing it from time to time. The overall effect is not a net positive, I don't think. It's odd, it's weird, it's but I definitely loved every moment of it and uh yeah, it was a weird weirdly written and weirdly produced book that is definitely worth like the five bucks that I paid for it. Oh, the back cover says it was $10, but I definitely did not pay that much for it. I got it off eBay for like five bucks. The other interesting thing about it is that it's only two panels per page, so it was like this it was almost like it was done written as a um a comic strip and then pasted together after the fact.

[00:17:27] John: I don't know. I was thinking that it was storyboard, basically took the storyboards and sort of punched them up into actual some more finished art.

[00:17:36] David: Um yeah, I could maybe see that too, but like those would be weird ass storyboards, I think.

[00:17:39] John: Well, that's why it didn't get made a movie.

[00:17:40] David: Yeah. You definitely get to the point where you got these storyboards and be like, "Oh, well, I guess we are not making a movie," you know, like it—

[00:17:45] John: Oh, good, I'm glad we have these so we know not to finance this. But actually I would totally—I would watch the heck out of this movie, though, to be honest. And Ghoul Butcher's a great title, too, like that's a great movie title. I don't know, I enjoyed it, I wish there was more of it because I would definitely read it. Oh, there you go, John. Apocalypse 5000, the one I I couldn't think of. That one's also on my list, uh but I haven't picked it up yet. But it is on my list of stuff to get. I think Dave Baker said this, and he was right, that it's very similar in tone and and feel to New York City Outlaws.

[00:18:16] David: I feel so behind, like that there's been this whole like little mini movement within the comic book space and I'm and I completely missed it. Like it's not even around anymore and I'm just now finding it.

[00:18:27] John: Yeah, I don't know, maybe maybe this is just us not that I'm like feeling my age particularly today, but old, now this stuff hits a certain saturation point and becomes mainstream enough. There are definitely parts where it's like, I don't know how I missed that, cuz like I do follow like Jim Rugg.

[00:18:41] David: Right.

[00:18:42] John: You know, there's all the stuff that I do like, that I'm like, how did I just not catch that they were saying that? It raises a lot of questions about myself. This stuff is particularly my jam.

[00:18:52] David: Yeah.

[00:18:53] John: How am I only just now finding it, but yeah, I'm glad I'm finding it, though, cuz I'm I'm having a ball uh getting into this outsider, for lack of a better term, the outsider art of it all. It's pretty fun. There's like threads that I'm pulling at right now and stuff that I'm reading, like like Nightmare, you know, like like that like that page from last time. I've been digging into re-reading and getting a hold of all of the Stephen Platt Prophet comics and I've been reading those lately, like—but that's not like that's not outsider art, that was super popular comics, right, but when you look at like Vendetta or Crowbar Nine or something, it's so similar to the thing that was coming out as a mainstream thing that it's interesting where that goes and where— somebody like Platt or like early Jae Lee, it's not a zillion miles away, and then it's also the with in that matrix is like just weird old comics. That's actually my transition into the thing that I read, which is like nothing like this. There's three things that I find interesting about this comic that I'm going to bring up, and this might just be weirdo comics episode of this show, but—

[00:19:55] David: How is that different from every other episode? You're right, it's the same as every one.

[00:20:00] John: I picked up a comic called Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders.

[00:20:09] David: Wait, you have to say that again. For the listener, they have to you have to enunciate all that, there's a lot of B's there.

[00:20:16] John: Yeah. Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders. Look, the title takes half the cover. I didn't know anything about this comic, it was just it was like a couple dollars. The the comic I have is from 1990, and reprints some old comics from uh the the mid-50s. The reason I got it is Bob Powell drew it. Do you know Bob Powell?

[00:20:39] David: No.

[00:20:40] John: No, but you're familiar with his work.

[00:20:42] David: Eric Powell's dad?

[00:20:43] John: That a great question, actually. I don't know. Bob Powell painted the original Mars Attacks cards.

[00:20:48] David: Ah, very good. Right, like I I really like those things, you know, like uh— Yeah, they're great.

[00:20:52] John: So, I just saw that and I'm like, "Oh, a couple bucks for a Bob Powell book." He actually—he drew the first 13 issues of this series when it originally came out in the 50s.

[00:21:00] David: Oh, wow.

[00:21:00] John: The next seven issues were by Dick Ayers, friend of the show, Dick Ayers, uh who drew uh Captain Savage's Leatherneck Raiders as well as, among many things that he's done, he inked Avengers number one, that was the pivot point of that.

[00:21:14] David: How—how is Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders? This is like the fourth episode that book has come up.

[00:21:22] John: Yeah, it's it's it's it's like my mind is incapable of moving on from things. Bobby Benson is a fictional character created in the 1930s for a radio show, and then that radio show was revived in the early 50s and was actually briefly a TV show in the early 50s. Um and that's when the comic book came out, and presumably when AC Comics editor Bill Black would have encountered it. So, here he is in 1990 reprinting this comic from 35 years ago, which would be like us talking about a comic from 1990, which isn't very hard to believe.

[00:21:55] David: We tend to do that quite a bit.

[00:21:58] John: So, it's funny cuz it seems super old to me at every stage in my life because in 1990, that was a zillion years ago to me, and today it's still a zillion years ago to me. In reality it's much older now than it was then, if if that truism needs to be spoken. So, Bobby Benson, the character, he uh he's like a 12-year-old kid who runs a ranch because his parents died, and they just have like run—ranch-running adventures. It takes place in the present day, so this isn't like old old west stuff, in this case 1950s cattle-ranching things. But it's all rustlers doing absurd plans and and, you know, the the solving things and there's like an Irish guy and a a guy named Tex and, you know, it's it's it's all totally by the numbers. The art is fine. If this were a comic today, this would be exactly the sort of boring comic that we sometimes talk about how our lack of interest in, the story's fine, does the job, it's a kid's media tie-in comic from the 1950s. It's not like those Archie comics, you know, that I that I was like rambling on about too where it's like this is crazy and fun, it's just fine. There's one story that's not actually from this, it's called Red Hawk, and it was actually shot from original art according to the the the text piece in there. Um and it's from a—it's actually from a different contemporary with this comic uh from an issue of uh who knows what it was from. From some other comic. This one's a little more interesting in that it's about these teenage Native Americans in old-timey days. So, this one is set back in like old west time, unspecified exactly when. I do not propose that this is accurate towards its depiction, but it's very sympathetic. It's very much like teenagers are teenagers, you know, and it—like here's what these teenagers are doing. The the premise is that these two guys and this girl go off, they're walking in the—in the fields and they they see this guy who has a marionette, you know, like a puppet with strings. And they're like, "What is that?" And the guy's kind of creepy, but he kind of, you know, they they make him explain how it works, but they're like, "I've got an idea. Let's go play a prank on the village." So, they they get the the marionette, they go back to their village and they pretend it's like some sort of god or supernatural creature, and they've set up other things so that it seems like the marionette's able to have powers. And nobody else in the village has ever seen a marionette, so they don't know what to make of it. Saying that out loud, I can hear this seems like this is like, "Oh, those Native Americans being uh so superstitious." But it really came off to me like if Archie Andrews got a CB radio that he could tune into his dad's car and was like, "Oh, the aliens are here." And was like fooling his dad. It seemed like the young people putting one over on the old people. Then things escalate when the kids go off and they're like, "All right, well, we got to let everybody in on it," and they go back and they find a dude's throat has been cut, he's dead, and the marionette did it. The marionette committed the murder.

[00:24:46] David: What?

[00:24:46] John: And that is the moment that the village figures out the kids were behind the marionette thing, so now they're all wanted for murder. So, they run off, and then extremely quickly, like I mean like extremely quickly like a, "Oh, shit, we're on page seven," kind of quickly, they find the guy that gave them the marionette, find out he committed the murder, reveal him as the murderer, and everything's back, except that one guy is dead. It all gets sorted out, everything's fine.

[00:25:16] David: That's wild. That did not take the turn I thought it was going to take, John. That was not—that was an unexpected twist.

[00:25:22] John: The old west was a rough place, you know. It's hard to find that in today's comic books, that that level of gotcha.

[00:25:28] David: Yeah, I guess, yeah, I guess, yeah. It was like more of the Riverdale, I guess, Archie than the regular Archie is the problem.

[00:25:36] John: Right. The things that I thought were interesting about this comic, though, were that if you and I were to put on our our publisher hat and and put this out today, this would be a Kickstarter, right? Uh first of all, Bob Powell would be the number one name on this thing. Not that he's like a super famous artist, but his level of fame is is much higher than Bobby Benson's is right now.

[00:25:56] David: Right, yeah. It ain't 1930 anymore.

[00:26:00] John: Right, right. That was probably true in 1990. Like it was probably true in this thing comes out in a world where Rob Liefeld is drawing New Mutants, where Spider-Man number one by Todd McFarlane is out, where Aliens versus Predator is out, where Dave Sim is drawing Jaka's Story and and coming to the end of that. Bob Powell was probably more famous than Bobby Benson at that point.

[00:26:21] David: Yeah, I think you could definitively say that that's a true statement.

[00:26:24] John: Yeah. If you were to put this out, it would be like a Complete Bobby Benson's Barby Bar Riders featuring the art of Bob Powell and and Dick Ayers. You'd be hard-pressed to say this is important work by them.

[00:26:34] David: Right.

[00:26:34] John: The funny thing is, to me, this was perfect. This is exactly the amount of this that I wanted. Right? Like I'm glad I read it cuz I'm interested in this, cuz even though it'd be a boring comic today, like that's interesting to me from 70 years ago, but I don't want to read more of it. You know what I mean? Like I don't want to read uh a $70 book of this. I, you know, like the—

[00:26:54] David: Yeah, nobody wants that.

[00:26:57] John: 30 pages are cool. So, that's just kind of funny, you know what I mean? Like like like have we created these better formats that aren't better?

[00:27:02] David: I guess there's something to be said for like, you know, these things being built a certain way, right? These stories were crafted to be told in eight pages and not to see another one for four weeks. So, there could be something to that. That level of of absurdity, how often do you really want to stomach that?

[00:27:19] John: Yeah. And AC Comics was doing a lot of that kind of stuff. They were publishing a lot of like Roy Rogers comics, Durango Kid, you know, a lot of Bob Powell and and and stuff like that. Here's the other part that's super weird for me is there's a couple ads for other AC comics in there, makes sense. And then there's one additional ad on the back cover. The ad on the back cover is for Hardee's, the hamburger restaurant. But it's not for eating there. It's for becoming a franchise owner for Hardee's. The headline in the ad says, "Is the American Entrepreneur Running Out of Frontier?" And there's a picture of a guy wearing like suspenders and like a a business suit and an expensive watch and a tie uh riding a horse. Then it says, what you ought to do is be you should own a franchise in the third largest hamburger restaurant in America in 1990, Hardee's. If you are a domestic or international investor with a net worth of approximately $500,000, excluding primary personal residence, with a minimum of $150,000 in liquid assets, uh you are encouraged to request further information. On the back of a— on the back of Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders number one, a 2.75 comic book. Now the two things that I that I wonder about on that are did that month's like Entrepreneur Magazine come back and there's all these guys reading it being like, "Oh, I guess I got to invest in these Roy Rogers comics that they put on this ad in the back cover of Entrepreneur," because they just got the printing plates switched at the printer?

[00:28:48] David: Yeah, what's the story? Here's the even funnier thing: in 1990, a competitor to Hardee's was Roy Rogers, the chain of restaurants. So, he's publishing a bunch of like Roy Rogers comics, and what if his boss is like, "What you do on your time is your time, but you can't be just advertising the competitor." He's like, "Well, what if I put an ad for us in the on the back?" "All right, that sounds great." There's no explanation that makes sense for this, other than him working for Hardee's and being like, you know the two things I like are selling Hardee's franchises and uh uh 1950s western comics tied into media, what if I combine these? That is absurd, but it's the only thing that makes remotely makes sense. I understand. Right. Right, right. Or they part of some sort of like ad, you know how sometimes companies will just bulk buy like an ad ad space lot and then, you know, the sub-distributor would would break up those ad space, you know, and sell it out to the individuals? Maybe that's what happened, like— Oh, maybe, yeah. I don't know, man. That's weird. That's like when you get an ad for nail polish on your Instagram, you're like, "What do I need— why— how is this on my feed? I don't have— I'm not a nail polish person." Like it reminds me of reading like old Tekno Comics, and there's like all of these ads for phone cards, and you're like, "Why are there all—" you know, and then and then it's like, "Oh, wait. Is this the phone card company that's publishing comic books?" And for anybody under the age of under my age today, phone cards used to be a thing, just Google it. I'm not going to write that. I don't even understand it. So, okay, that's what John and David read this week. Once again, John, I feel like you crushed me. Yeah, your reading is like blew mine out of the water. That's That's an amazing find. That is an amazing find. Okay, yeah, but let me let me add read both of them alone. The ad alone, but that title is takes K. I still don't even know what it was and you've said it like seven times.

[00:30:35] John: Yeah, it's B and then like a a line and a B. That's the brand that he puts on his cattle. It did change at different times uh when a different sponsor was sponsoring the radio show in the 1930s. It was a different It like he was Bobby Benson's, you know, whatever, circle square circle or something. I don't know, it said something entirely different. You know, like circle K or something. You know what I mean? It was like some sort of that wasn't what it was, but but something like that.

[00:31:09] David: Amazing. All right, well, uh I wanted to talk about a couple more comic books. Like like I said earlier, uh Davey Bakes was on the show recently, and I didn't realize that, you know, Davey was already well in this uh outsider art uh genre, this this movement. Of course, Dave's got his finger on the pulse of it. And he actually did a project back in 2020 called Night Hunters, was a four-issue miniseries.

[00:31:36] John: Okay.

[00:31:40] David: So, I guess Alexis is from South America, so, I guess it makes sense that he sort of brought in somebody to help him work up the story and and the language. And Dave's a very accomplished uh writer, even in 2020 I think Dave had some meaningful credits under his belt. So, I read the four-issue series. Alexis Ziritt's art, it's an acquired taste. He colors his own work as well, and he's got these really garish neon color palettes that takes a little bit of getting used to, and it's married with an art style that is, you know, it's outsider art. It's it feels a little ugly, it's a little unrefined uh art style. But once you sort of acquire the taste for it, I really enjoyed it. The story, it's kind of like if you compared it to like maybe RoboCop, it's sort of like this neon-soaked like fever dream. And we're in a future Venezuela. This version of Venezuela's completely gone off the rails. It's definitely a dystopian-type future with within this city, you either join this cyborg cop force or you're going to probably just die at some point. So, it's this nightmare, you know, sort of scenario of a city. The poor are extremely poor, the elite are controlling everything, and they're using this sort of police force to help control everything, and the police are sort of the privileged poor, for lack of a better term, you know, who are keeping the rest of the populence sort of subdued. There's a lot of like swapping of body parts for like mechanical stuff to just to stay alive within the police force and also to just to constantly upgrade your system so that you can continue to be in the police force and continue to stay in the good graces of the elite and powerful. The general story, the general conceits is these two brothers, one joins the police force mostly to, seemingly, to help keep his dad alive, and the other brother joins the rebellion. And so, it's it's it's how these two characters sort of interact with their environments and the people around them, and then, you know, of course, the story comes together, you know, they they meet one another again uh they cross paths a couple of times, and just the way they interact with one another and— It's a good story, it's interesting, I really enjoyed it. So, Night Hunters, another Floating World Comics, another one of the outsider art pieces, and they wrote a good book. This book came out in the in the 2020s and if you remember, John, I know it's probably it's pretty far along ago, but if you remember there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic around that time um that was—

[00:34:04] John: This is the one during during World War I, right?

[00:34:06] David: No, no, no, no. This one's like six years ago. You alive, John?

[00:34:10] John: Not everybody does.

[00:34:11] David: But there was a global pandemic and so Dave uh writes these semi-manifestos in the back of each issue uh talking about just like, you know, the state of the world and his state of mind within the state of the world. And reading his screed, it really put me back in the frame of mind of how I was feeling during that time and I sympathized greatly with just the— God, what a weird—it was such a weird time to be alive during that pandemic, you know, where we're in this weird space where we're sort of isolated and nothing's functioning correctly and everyone's living in this weird like if you talk to people you might die. And just all the weirdness that was surrounding all of that, just the whole thing was just it was a weird, weird time to be just existing as a human being, like and and it really comes through in these little two-page essays that Dave writes. So, it's an interesting time capsule almost of that period. You know, it's from a certain point of view, of course, but still made me reflect on that time, not that I want to dwell on it too much, but it did make me reflect on that time and just some of the feelings that I was dealing with at that time. So, I liked it for that, too. I liked it I liked that Dave sort of was wearing his heart on his sleeve in these little essays in the back. And it felt like this manifesto that I'm working out in my head, this this outsider art comic movement, it felt like a piece of that. These little essays feel like a piece of that in a way, so it's a fun read. Dave's a smart cat, you know, like I said, while it's certainly told from a a certain point of view from somebody living in a very specific place at a very specific time, it I don't think it was his intention when he wrote it at the time because he was writing it in the moment, but looking back at it with six years of perspective, it's it's an interesting thing to read and it brought up a lot of memories for me, not necessarily good memories, but also just, you know, just like, "Well, what was that about? What was that about?" Like trying to still trying to process what the heck we all went through.

[00:36:10] John: Yeah, I actually just re-read uh his and Nicole's Fuck Off Squad. I think he had just finished or maybe he was still working on Fuck Off Squad when Night Hunters was coming out.

[00:36:20] David: Oh, okay.

[00:36:20] John: It was around— I thought it was a little bit earlier, but yeah, now it had the same kind of essay in the back and it was—and it was definitely like a or maybe not the same kind of thing, but like a a similar essay.

[00:36:29] David: I guess he still does that in in Halloween Boy, too, you're right.

[00:36:32] John: That is a But Halloween Boy doesn't have the same—I don't know, it's a different energy.

[00:36:36] David: There's still a type of passion there, but it's just a different energy. But I think it's also he's writing for the book that he's writing. The pieces that are in the back of Night Hunters, they match the energy of the book itself. And I think that's true of his pieces in Halloween Boy as well. It matches sort of matches the energy of the book. He's he's no dummy, he's choosing an audience and speaking to that audience fairly fairly effectively. That was another one that I've read, those are the two outsider art pieces that I wanted to sort of talk about a little bit this week. John, I I asked you this question earlier and then I kind of skipped over it, but I am interested in hearing your answer, so I'm going to ask it again. Can you think of a book that you enjoyed that you picked up, you know, month in and month out or whatever that what that looked like for you, where the art was not good, where you're like, "I don't like this art," but you still continue to read it and enjoyed it because of the writing? When did the writing overpower everything else and keep you reading? Where did that happen?

[00:37:35] John: Yes, I think that has happened. I think there's some runs of Grant Morrison comics that I was reading where the art was either not my favorite or not aligned I thought with with with how the comic was going. That sticks to my mind. I'm not picking that just randomly, it really is like something that I've kind of thought about and like there was enough stuff in there that I liked. I was able to kind of separate the art from it, which is weird cuz that's not a thing I preach about doing in comics, that's not a thing I think you should do in comics, you know. But but I still wanted to read uh not just like following the character, but seeing where the what Morrison's story was. I mean probably anybody that that does follow a follows a comic series or character from a big company goes through those periods. That hasn't been the thing I've done in a really long time, so aside from like the I don't know, like a issue of X-Men'll have an artist that isn't very good on on it, but that's like the fill-in artist, it's not like the regular artist or something, you know.

[00:38:31] David: As usual I put you on the spot. I always have these questions for you and I never prep you. I'm not talking about like, "Oh, it's not art that I personally like." It's like art that is objectively not good. I'm not talking subjectively, I'm talking objectively. Like there are clearly times where an artist will be on a book and it's like, "Oh, I don't like that at all." But I also can be objective in that I understand why other people might like it, right? Like it is of a professional quality, like there are the basics of storytelling and the basics of anatomy and the basics of, you know, drawing in perspective are all all on the page and prevalent are present, you know, in a way that makes sense and there's a consistency, too, the art. And so, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about like oh this guy doesn't know how to draw, but it doesn't matter, I'm still going to buy this book cuz I just love it, like I love the story. Maybe that's just a too hard of an too narrow of an of a line there like—

[00:39:27] John: But I know it happens, I know it's happened to me other than outside of Seven Guys of Justice.

[00:39:34] David: But I can think of some like minicomics where that happens. Like uh there was a old minicomic called Miracle Force. And I can't remember who the name of the artist was, the writer-artist was, but I actually did covers for it because I just loved it so much but it was not well, it was outside art, it was like not not well really that well drawn but it was just charming in its just like poor quality, and the writing was just fantastic. So, I'm interested to hear what other people think about that, too. I have read plenty of bad comic books and continue to buy them month in and month out, because I'm just want to look at the pretty pictures. The flip of that is is hard for me to think of examples. Speaking of bad writing and bad art, what what's going on with Marvel? You think uh Jesus. I feel like they've burned through all of their good will and they're being judged on their merits right now, and it's really fascinating to watch that happen. Uh there are some good books coming out of Marvel. I said this recently but I'll say it again. Nic Klein on that Infernal Hulk stuff, man, I can't get enough of that, so good. And we don't talk about him very much but we should, Netho Diaz, who's drawing Uncanny X-Men for the most part. I think Ryan Stegman fills in every once in a while, but Netho for the most part is the main artist on that book. And Netho, as you and I both know, he's always been really good, but he's like leveled up a couple of times in the last two years. His most recent work on Uncanny X-Men is really, really, really top-notch. He's becoming better and better with every uh issue that he draws. Speaking of uh Comics: The Magazine, he was in their top 10 artists.

[00:41:05] John: Oh, he was? this week. What issue was that? What issue was that, three?

[00:41:09] David: Three, yeah. Finally got number one on on the table to read, but I haven't read it yet. I've been hearing mixed reviews about it. I I think people want it to be Wizard: The Magazine, but it's 2026, everybody, like it's not—

[00:41:19] John: Not being a big Wizard reader, it strikes me as being very Wizard-like. It's infomercially almost, with a little bit of self-awareness of that. The same sort of joking self-reference that I think was probably there in Wizard, at least at certain points, but like it's pleasant. It's it's not the place you're going to get Comics Journal hard-hitting journalism and and stuff that hasn't been gone over by a PR person before it goes out. I think there's a print version of that that can exist and do a good business in 2026.

[00:41:46] David: Maybe it's just my old head, but you know, going through old copies of Back Issue and, you know, these these interviews with Frank Miller and all these print things that I've been reading lately from old magazines, that stuff is tangible, you can't—like it's on the page and it can't be altered. And I think there's something to that specifically in 2026 where stuff is printed on a page and you have a physical—own a physical copy of it and no one can come in and delete it or change the wording or the phrasing or or make it say something different than what it was. People that are quoted, they can't redact those quotes and have, you know, pay somebody to scrub, you know, the internet of whatever they said. You know, it's there in print and it exists. I think that's a really valuable thing to have for comic books in 2026, and and we're a print medium still for a large part. So, I like the idea of having a Wizard-like magazine. My question to you, though, John, not having read the first issue yet and although I'm I'm subscribed to it, so I'll be I'm supporting it. Regardless, I'm supporting it for now. Does it have like independent publisher coverage? Is it doing stuff outside of Marvel and DC?

[00:42:56] John: Oh yeah, it actually is really fun that way. To the point that in the back of it they have a section that you could take this sheet into your retailer and hand it to them and say, "These are the books I want to order that I read about in in this comic." Probably 10 or 20 percent of them in this issue were out of print. You know, like they were just talking about something that just that was interesting. Talking about The Maxx, right, because—

[00:43:15] David: Oh, because Keith Sam— Sam Keith's passing, you know.

[00:43:19] John: Friend of the show, Tim Seeley, uh has a column in there where it's it's them going through back issue bins and talking about comics that they like. It's very similar to Nice. With With Tony Fleecs, I think. Is it Is it him and Fleecs? Oh, man. I think it's Tony. I thought I saw something like that.

[00:43:33] David: I'm glad to hear that uh because I was thinking the other day because I'm doing this Kickstarter, Kickstarters to do them right, you have to, you know, you have to spend money on advertising. And in the last couple of campaigns, I've made real and serious attempts to spend money with comic book sites to promote my work. Each campaign, you know, I spend literally thousands and thousands of dollars on every campaign on marketing and advertising.

[00:43:54] John: Mhm.

[00:43:56] David: Maybe 5% of that I've spent on comic book-specific advertising, like through web websites and print.

[00:44:03] John: Point layout.

[00:44:04] David: And the reason for that is because I can't even get somebody to respond to me about buying ad space. And then when I do, and I say, "Hey, can I get some coverage?" Either I'm told, "No," I'm ignored, or it's a quid pro quo. And then sites like Newsarama go away because somebody says, "Oh, well, they weren't getting any advertisers." Well, because all you do is talk about Marvel and DC. And and, so, why would Marvel and DC pay for ads? They're getting the stuff for free, and you won't talk about anybody else. So, I'm sitting here with a wad of cash for advertising and marketing, and I can't spend it with you because you you refuse to talk to me. Right. It's maddening, it's frustrating, and I've had that experience multiple times now. And it's like, how are you staying in business? And the answer is you don't, because you're not you're not savvy. And and hopefully, the Comic Magazine, it sounds like they're a little more savvy than that. So, that's great to hear.

[00:45:07] John: There's definitely a lot of ads, like that's a uh a Vault comics. There's like a classified section in it.

[00:45:13] David: Oh, interesting. There are That's cool.

[00:45:15] John: Yeah, Clover Press, our friends at Clover Press, have a have an ad in there for a Dick Tracy. A Dick Tracy Kickstarter? Uh no, I think it's uh I actually think it's stuff they have in stock. Oh, okay. It's not the current Kickstarter, cuz I—and I know that cuz I literally just checked to see their current Dick Tracy Kickstarter and it's not the Dick Tracy comics in this one. But uh yeah, there's some Image comics and Mad Cave's got an ad in there, you know, like it's it's it's good, and I one of the things I do like about this, this is the thing I used to talk about when we were at, you know, working at IDW or even working at Marvel is the best advertisement you have is your comic book that somebody's already bought and you know that they're the sort of people that buy a comic book and that go to a comic book store to buy them. So, let them know what else is out there, you know, and that's why, you know, I made sure we had a checklist page or a, you know, and I know that like that seems old-fashioned, but there's a disconnect between having to go online and being at the comic book store. Because everything just gets served to you so easily online and and journalistically because it becomes so easy to get served to you online, you think that the active online audience is the audience for the comics, and it's not. And it doesn't match up.

[00:46:26] David: Not at all. Yeah. That understanding or that belief has become eroded over time, and a lot of it is because you can quantify the clicks in a way that you can't quantify maybe somebody bought this because they saw an ad somewhere, or maybe somebody bought this because of the back of the comic had an ad or whatever. But I think it's really smart having this $3 magazine shaped like a comic book, at a comic book store, racked with comic books, and it's not going through a distributor catalog, it's not homework, it's not having to go online and find out about this stuff. I can, you know, just with the stack as I'm going through my comics, if I'm there buying comics, it's it's there it is, and I can then I find out about something that maybe I haven't bought.

[00:47:09] John: Yeah, that's cool. Like there's an article there's an article here about Seth Fisher. That's exactly what we should have more of because Seth Fisher's super important, he's a super important artist, really good, died really young. Yeah. Really stupidly and tragically, and nobody's going to talk about Seth Fisher unless people talk about Seth Fisher. I'm sure that you like go on YouTube, and I'm sure there's people that talk about Seth Fisher, but like it's nice to have that sitting up there in the comic book store. And then you go to the back and find out oh no, all these things are out of print right now. But maybe that'll change.

[00:47:42] David: Yeah. The entire Seth Fisher catalog as listed in here is out of print. But here's a print thing talking about Seth Fisher, that's nice. Like I said, I I love that idea, I love that concept, and if they can be more than just shills for Marvel DC, and again, this is not to say don't talk about Marvel DC, I want you to talk about that, too, cuz I'm a fan of that stuff, too, right? But also talk about the cool Kaiju Number 8 manga.

[00:48:12] John: Yeah. Talk about the cool stuff that's coming from Vault or the cool stuff that's coming from Mad Cave or, you know, talk about what the latest IDW thing or interview up-and-coming artists that are interesting, do a dive with Tim Seeley and and Tony Fleecs talking about, you know, back issues, bin stuff and let them talk about their passions. That sounds it sounds like it's uh headed in the right direction, I'm eager to dive in. I just I just haven't been able to find somewhere.

[00:48:34] David: But I'm reading comic books, John. I don't have time to to read about comic book read comic book magazines, then reading comic books. But I'm excited to dive in. Anyway, I'm glad to hear that they uh seem to be trying to serve more than just the two masters.

[00:48:46] John: Totally are, and I mean like Ninja Turtles IDW's on the on the on the front of this issue.

[00:48:50] David: Nice.

[00:48:51] John: Yeah, a lot of yeah, no, they they definitely do not only cater to Marvel DC. Also I just want to throw this out there, it was also Free Comic Book Day this past weekend.

[00:48:58] David: Oh, that's right. Did you go?

[00:48:59] John: No, I totally forgot about it. I actually went to the comic book store and I thought it was next weekend, and they're like, "No, it's the first Saturday of May." And I'm like, "Well, that's, oh, yeah, it was last weekend." But uh they saved a bunch of comics for me, they were kind of—

[00:49:14] David: Did they really?

[00:49:14] John: At Kamikaze, they they saved a bunch of comics, so I—

[00:49:17] David: Wow! Look at you, Mr. Big Shot.

[00:49:20] John: But I do want to highlight the Marvel Free Comic Book Day, uh like I actually haven't read them yet but it completely kicks the ass of all the DC stuff. The DC stuff was all reprints, and Marvel just had some cool-looking new stuff. It has a preview of The Queen in Black. Nic Klein, Hulk, really looks like a cool package, I am looking forward to reading it.

[00:49:40] David: Nice.

[00:49:40] John: I haven't had a chance uh because I—

[00:49:43] David: Yeah, I I Chip Zdarsky's doing like some Armageddon thing uh I think, that I'm kind of interested in. I'm getting all my Marvel and DC stuff on the app, though. So, I am reading a ton of Marvel stuff still. It's just Well, that's not true, I am reading a ton of Marvel stuff that's like from 1973 right now, I'm not really reading much that's out right now, but I am reading the Chip Zdarsky Captain America, I am reading Infernal Hulk, I am looking at the pretty pictures in Uncanny X-Men, but I'm not really reading it. So, I am on a Frank Miller kick, you know, it started out with a Dark Knight stuff and then I was like, "Well, you know, heck, might as well do some Frank Miller." And also because of the sort of outsider-esque nature of Frank Miller's more recent works. I don't know, in my head it's all sort of coalescing together somehow. I wish I could figure out what it is I'm trying to talk about, but uh hopefully at some point it'll come together, whatever manifesto is boiling to the top. So, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, it was a two-issue like extra-length two-issue uh comic book series uh by Frank Miller and drawn by Geof Darrow. I don't know when it came out, it's probably like the mid early 2000s, maybe.

[00:50:55] John: No, it was a 90s. Was it before that? Yeah. It was 90s?

[00:50:59] David: Oh, okay. I I should have done a modicum of research on on the project. I I picked up the trade paperback off of eBay, and it was fairly reasonably priced. You can You can get a decent copy for not too bad. I think I paid like 15, 16 bucks and I'm looking at the back cover, and this is a good copy, like it's pretty much mint. It was 15 bucks when it was originally sold, so I basically paid cover price. So, you can still get it, it's out there. At least the trade paperback that I'm looking at. It was a fun read. But you know, it's a weird read because the first half of the story is about this giant monster that sort of starts terrorizing Japan and starts breaking it up, and Japan throws its entire arsenal at this monster to try to stop it, and nothing's working. And then they finally resort to using this experimental robot, Rusty the Boy Robot, Atomic Powered Rusty the Boy Robot, to try to take down this giant monster, and the monster just immediately and severely obliterates Rusty the Boy Robot, like it's not even a fight, and he's just taken out. And Rusty as a robot is questioning his existence and questioning uh his abilities, you know, to—

[00:52:10] John: Very sentient uh little robot uh with lots of uh concerns.

[00:52:15] David: And then he's just buried in the in the ground and that's kind of the end of Rusty the Boy Robot. And so then that's the story turns to the Americans show up to essentially help out, and they've got Big Guy. And Big Guy comes in and eventually is able to save the day, and Rusty never comes back. Like, I forgot that that's the story, like Big Guy basically comes in and saves the day after he's saved the day, Rusty the Boy Robot is essentially dug out of the ground and they're like and Japan's like, "Well, as a thank you, you can have the the broken robot to be your new sidekick." And that's the end of the story, that's it! There's nothing really else to it. It's a very weird and simple story. It's just one fight and one of the characters that's on the cover and has his name in the title basically is completely defeated and wiped out and never learns a single thing from it. Like, there's no no lessons learned, no like hero turn of any sort, he just gets his butt kicked and another dude shows up to save the day, end of story. It was wild. They turned this into a cartoon, John.

[00:53:29] John: Yeah, no, they they turned it into a cartoon and I don't know if you remember this, but there used to be a balloon in the Sail Pavilion of the San Diego Comic-Con every year of Big Guy floating above, floating up—

[00:54:24] David: Right, yeah. But it's not, it doesn't come up. But it's weirdly, yeah. I mean, this is in that era, though, when Geof Darrow, who's an amazing artist, would always have those those pin-ups in the back of comics. Do you remember where it would be like the street scene and the heroes would be fighting in the middle of the street, and then older people would be looking out of the windows and it was like that same pin-up a million times. For me, it never got old. Like I I I enjoyed it every time.

[00:54:53] John: Yeah, same. I was always there for it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's sort of what Shaolin Cowboy is, that's why—

[00:54:58] David: The thing that gets me about um Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, the the question that comes up for me is that how much involvement did Frank Miller actually even have in this? Because it feels like a series of drawings that Geof Darrow was just doing. And then Frank came in after the fact and threw a story on top of it and like added some stuff to make the back half of it be more of something he wanted to do. It's hard to figure out what was going on, but the—but it's a very uneven piece. It's a very uneven story, and it feels like Geof Darrow's just kind of going off the reservation a little bit or was just doing it anyway, and then after the fact, somebody tried to turn it into a story.

[00:55:40] John: I just always get the impression that like between Electra Assassin and Hard Boiled, the first one that these guys did, Miller would would be pretty loose on some of the the plots or like pretty loose on the way on the interpretation of the plot.

[00:55:58] David: But Hard Boiled doesn't feel that way. Hard Boiled feels like a Frank Miller comic book. Doesn't look right? Like it is—

[00:56:02] John: I think so, but it also feels like a— it also feels like a Frank Miller one-shot over the course of three issues.

[00:56:07] David: Okay.

[00:56:07] John: The other part was like, Hard Boiled was incredibly violent, incredibly bloody, especially for the time. You didn't see as much of that then. And Big Guy was kind of the kids—it's like oh here's one that's going to be kind of for all ages. Like I remember that being part of it.

[00:56:22] David: It's not really. It's not as violent, but there's still Thousands of people are killed.

[00:56:30] John: Yeah, yeah. and you don't literally—if I remember right, you don't literally see them dying the way you literally see people dying in Hard Boiled.

[00:56:34] David: No, but they're clearly they're they're not going to survive what's happening to them. Like, they're detritus within, you know, a cloud of dirt and building, you know, that this monster is stomping around in. So, they're not going to survive that. But, yeah, there's not like uh it's not certainly not like Hard Boiled where you see, you know, people's arms getting ripped off and, you know, you're see looking through the hole in the head of a of a guy who's been shot. Right, it's not it's nothing like that. It is it is certainly a more sanitized version of of violence. But, but it is for all of these reasons, though, like just the weirdest thing to pick to turn into a cartoon. Like, like you look at it and you get, "Oh, that would be a fun cartoon." That looks like an adaptation of a cartoon, and then you read it and you're like—and that'd be the farthest thing from your mind.

[00:57:17] John: It's like they sold the cartoon on just the cover. Like, the name and the cover, cuz the name and the cover does sound like a fun Saturday morning cartoon, for sure. Like, you look at that image and you're like, "Oh, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, like oh, that's what a great title and what a great shot." But, yeah, the story is not something that I would ever seeing made as a Saturday morning cartoon of an ongoing nature, of a commercial nature. But I've never heard anybody talk about it. I've never seen it. I haven't thought about it until right now, and I've never heard anybody talk about it. Like, that's weird. Yeah, it's weird, it's weird one. It's a weird one.

[00:57:53] David: There you go, John. Another thing for us to to try to figure out. I will say I enjoyed it, it's definitely worth reading for the art alone, like Geof Darrow's just like—and especially the oversized format, this it's like this oversized, large sort of like magazine format, it's beautiful, definitely worth people picking up, especially if you can find it for cover price the way I did, like this worth every penny of the 15 bucks I spent. And I think that, you know, Geof Darrow with his Shaolin Cowboy, I think when Geof Darrow started Shaolin Cowboy, it felt a lot like the uneven storytelling that that I'm seeing in Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, but that's not where he end is ends up, though, that Shaolin Cowboy now is like a really interesting, somewhat intricate narrative, and I think he's got he's dealing with real issues in that book and telling interesting and compelling stories that make sense in a variety of different ways. I love Shaolin Cowboy, it's I think his more recent work in Shaolin Cowboy is worth everybody's time and attention. Uh it's always worth it for the art, but the storytelling is now, I think, is on a different level, he's really leveled up in that regard over the course of the last 10 years or so.

[00:59:01] John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is a weird one, I mean, there is a there is a four-issue limited series that's nothing but him chainsawing guys as he walks through.

[00:59:09] David: Yes, but that's the greatest series of sequential panels that's ever been put to paper, John.

[00:59:16] John: Yeah.

[00:59:16] David: There's no debate. He fully realized and drew a 360-degree camera action sequence in a comic book. No one has ever been crazy enough to try that, and no one has ever been skilled enough to do it the way he did it. That is one of the most incredible pieces of art that has ever been accomplished in my opinion.

[00:59:38] John: Which series was that? I I know exactly what you're talking about, I don't just don't remember the name of the particular miniseries. I've looked at that thing 100 times, it blows my mind.

[00:59:49] David: If you follow from page to page, like I just want to cut the whole book up, like get two copies of the book and put everything, cut it all up and just put it all together because it will all just be one shot. Yeah. Oh, I love that book so much. Yeah, Geof Darrow. Anything else, John?

[01:00:06] John: No. Thanks everybody for coming. It's uh great to be back, John, great to have you back. Yeah, great to be another year older.

[01:00:12] David: Yeah, congratulations, happy birthday, the big B. Did you finally 21, legal drinking age, that's great, proud of you. Happy for you. Happy for you. It's interesting how you can have a young teenager and only be 21.

[01:00:24] John: Got to work early.

[01:00:26] David: Yeah, there's nothing to say to that, you know. There's no answer to that one.

[01:00:32] John: Right.

[01:00:32] David: Like and subscribe, tell a friend, our listenership continues to grow week by week, uh so we're very thankful and and appreciative of that, so uh keep fighting the good fight out there, letting people know about our fun little comic book podcast. Thanks for coming, everybody, and we'll see you next week. Bye.

[01:00:46] David: Bye.

[01:00:48] 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.