[00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Corner Box with David Hedgecock and John Barber. With decades of experience in all aspects of comic book production, David, John, and their guests will give you an in-depth and insightful look at the past, present, and future of the most exciting medium on the planet, comics, and everything related to it.

[00:24] John: Hello, and welcome back to the Corner Box. I’m John Barber, one of your hosts, and with me, as always, David Hedgecock! We hope you all got to see us at San Diego Comic Con, maybe last week or so, on a panel that we were on together with probably some other people, and it probably went really well.

[00:40] David: I’m sure it went perfectly. It went off without a hitch, I know. Yeah, it was called “Pitching Your Vision and Developing IP.” Sounds very important, John.

[00:50] John: I thought it was developing “IP,” and I didn’t know what that was, but now I get it.

[00:54] David: That explains why you’re confused on the panel.

[00:56] John: Yeah, like wait, no, we’re explaining it now.

[00:59] David: So you won’t be confused on the panel.

[01:00] John: I’m no, I’m still going to be having just to make this like all fit into like continuity together with, with the real world. I’m going to act like I don’t know what it is on the panel.

[01:08] David: Oh, great. Perfect. I’m so confused.

[01:11] John: Yeah.

[01:12] David: This time travel stuff gets me all mixed up, but you know what didn’t, didn’t get me mixed up, John. No, I have been purchasing without reading side and scene, John, just like, I’m like, I’m pre-ordering this thing and I’m going to get it. “Thundar, The Barbarian” by Dynamite Entertainment or Dynamite Comics. What are they, Dynamite? I guess they’re just Dynamite now. Anyway, this thing is written by Jason Aaron. You know Jason Aaron. Have you ever been the editor for any of Jason’s books? Yeah.

[01:40] John: Wolverine Weapon X, which was his first Wolverine series. Oh, no, he actually did another. He did a limited series with me before that, but he’d done a couple issues that Axel edited. Jason Aaron, I remember other side number one coming out and we got our comps on Friday from DC and then on Monday, me, Nick Lowe and Axel were all carrying in our other side number ones.

[02:01] David: That’s fascinating. You guys are all three. We’re like, “Oh, here we go.” Can you put your finger on how you know when something’s good? Is there any way to quantify or qualify that in your mind?

[02:13] John: You know, it’s tricky because I had a pretty good hit ratio at that point. I had a string of getting some writers their first gigs at Marvel.

[02:23] David: Yeah, yeah. You like hit, you brought Hickman to Marvel, right?

[02:27] John: Yeah, Hickman, Fearing Gillen. I was, I didn’t bring her in, but I was Marjorie Lou’s first editor. There’s this guy, he had a TV show, Damon Lindelof.

[02:37] Speaker 4: I guess somebody else was like, “Oh, geez.”

[02:41] John: No, I didn’t bring in Damon Lindelof. That was a joke. We’re better than bringing Kelly Thompson later on. Thanks to Sarah Gatos for introducing us. To me, there were certain parameters that somebody had a distinct voice or a distinct approach to the material, but it was something that I could see applied to the Marvel characters. And this is sort of the joke I’d make and people would be like, “Oh, that sounds good.” It would, but it wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t fit on a regular series if you got Chris Ware to draw X and then. He’s great. Outside of doing something that’s like an oddball Chris Ware thing, There’s certain commercial realities, I guess, there are certain tonal realities. I kind of we were talking about last week, and this is actually a thing I’ve been thinking about at a completely different direction now that I’m saying this out loud and realizing how all this fits together, but sort of thinking about the artist-ness of the person coming on. It appeals to me more, the stuff that gets kind of farther out and weirder from people as they get older, as opposed to the stuff that’s going to get more conservative and more what the the the mainline stuff is. But Jason, he was a perfect example where there was a good voice structured a good issue, had interesting twists, but an interesting story points that got you to the end of it and it felt like something that was a distinct way of going about comics that you could see put on to Wolverine or that you could see put on to Character X or something.

[03:58] David: So when you were there at Marvel, it wasn’t just this guy’s got the chops, but it’s this guy has the chops and it applies to the Marvel sort of like universe.

[04:11] John: It’s harder if somebody’s coming in and they’re doing James Kachalka comics or something. I saw James Kachalka didn’t do Marvel Comics. He did. And that’s great. But he wasn’t drawing Hulk regularly. He was drawing that one Hulk story, you know?

[04:23] David: You brought James Kachalka in to be James Kachalka, not to be the next Hulk writer.

[04:29] John: Right. I didn’t, but some of you. Yeah, exactly. As an example. as an example, exactly. You know, where I don’t know, like something that was like a Garth Innes, Neil Gaiman, somebody like that at that point, you know, you like you could see them doing a superhero thing and having and weaving more into it. I mean, Garth wouldn’t do a superhero thing because he just likes superheroes, but like you could see them doing Punisher or whatever. You see them doing a comic there where it still intersects enough with the main audience, but has a voice to it. Matt Fraction had like a metaphor about like you don’t want somebody putting on all the shoulder pads and helmet to go out and play baseball. You have to be suiting up the right sport. You don’t want somebody that’s just, “Yeah, this person is technically good and does everything fine.” You do want more of a spark to it than that. Other side definitely did, Jason definitely did. There’s an intangible quality to it. Another thing at the time, I don’t know, this is something I kind of look back on, is that I felt very much part of the comic book zeitgeist of that moment. I knew what was going on on. In retrospect, there was a bunch of stuff I wasn’t reading and that I missed. Like, I don’t feel that way today and it’s not out of lack of reading a bunch of freaking comics, you know? Maybe my own world was a little smaller and I felt like I filled that up more, you know, at that point. And I don’t feel that way anymore. But I definitely sort of had this sort of feeling like the vibe’s just right. I don’t know, it’s one of those things where there’s a bunch of little ineffable qualities that at the time made sense to me. Or maybe it’s just these were really good and everybody saw it and we just happened to be the one who saw it first or whatever.

[06:05] David: The reason I got me thinking is because three top level Marvel editors all came into work on the same day with the thing that had come out over the weekend and they all had drawn the same conclusion and I was just curious to know what that thing is because I know it when I see it. This is horrible to say. I know it when I see it. I know good writing when I see it, But I don’t think I can describe that to you what that is. Like, I know what works, I know what doesn’t work, but I don’t know it until I see it. I don’t have like a set of rules for like what to look for in good writing and what a good writer looks like, which is a weird thing to say. Like, there are some basic rules of writing that you can sort of identify, but I guess those things are just obvious? I don’t know.

[06:50] John: Yeah, I think that’s a good way to think about it. If you could just say, here’s the things you need to do to be a good writer, everybody that read Save the Cat would be a good writer or whatever. Like everybody, like there’s a bunch of screenwriting books that’ll tell you that. Here’s how you become a good writer. And there’s other ones that tell you, here’s some structure stuff. Like I’m not saying screenwriting books are no good. Like you can learn a lot from them. It is one of those things you can go back and pick things apart later on. And you can maybe even have like theories and stuff. but the reality of it is that if you could figure that stuff out, everybody would have.

[07:25] David: Rather than speak from it as an editor, what is it in your writing, are there certain things where you’re like, “I know I want to do this. I know this is what makes a good John Barber story.” Are there things that you’re looking to do or looking to accomplish in a general sense, not a specific sense, you know? Like that’s the thing I think about. I feel like I would be better.

[07:51] John: I want to be better. I want to try to figure, you know, the more I think about things, the more I live, the more I experience stuff, the less I think there are definable rules for that kind of thing. And the more I think the journey is sort of the interesting part. Like I’d rather you read something I haven’t read before that, you know, maybe 100% of it doesn’t all fit together. But it takes me on an interesting journey. I don’t know that I’ve always written like that. Maybe I tried. I don’t know. Man, we’re getting into that deep, deep well of the soul here. And I like, I don’t, I thought we were going to talk about “Thunder of the Barbarian.” This is a twist here on this. I don’t know. How about you? I don’t know. I’m not a writer. So I, well, I don’t consider myself a

[08:36] David: writer. So I’ve always considered myself an artist. So I’m just curious. But the little writing that I which is a few things here and there. And then the stuff that I’ve been doing for myself for the last year and a half. I’m always about the new hotness, the new fresh, interesting thing. Like I want to surprise and delight on every page. And I’m not talking about the reader. I’m talking about myself. Like I want to turn my own page and go, Oh, I didn’t think of that because suddenly I’m thinking about something that I hadn’t thought of before. And so that’s the stuff that’s super fun. And that’s what I’m constantly trying to strive for, like pushing my brain to think outside of its own box. There’s the obvious choices, you know, how a story might unfold, but it’s the interesting twists and turns of that story unfolding that make it fun for me to write. you know, it leads to cool things happening every time when I really push myself. So I think that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m just constantly trying to push my brain to think new thoughts. And I know a lot of that is just re a remix of things that I’ve been thinking for my whole life and stuff that I’ve been exposed to in other media and in comic books my whole life, I know it’s just sort of like the reconnecting of those things, but in new and interesting ways and therefore it is new and interesting. I think that’s what I’m doing. I’m just trying to keep myself entertained.

[10:13] John: Yeah, I mean that’s what you gotta do, right?

[10:15] David: I think so. I don’t think I can write for anybody else except for myself. So I’m just making the thing that I really am into and if I’m really into it, hopefully there’s enough of other people that are really into it. And if they’re not, that’s okay too because it’s not gonna stop me. Yeah. But anyway, back to Thundar the Barbarian.

[10:35] John: - All right, he has a laser sword, right?

[10:38] David: - Yeah, it’s called the Sun Sword, John. But here’s the thing, back in the day, when you and I worked together at IDW, you used to come in and you’d be talking about Jason Aaron, every time you just want to talk about him, you’re like, I don’t like that guy. I don’t like his writing, I’m not into his stuff, his Thor leaves me cold, I’m like, but I have to say, since he’s basically left Marvel, I don’t think he like purposefully left Marvel, but I don’t think he’s clearly not an exclusive contract with Marvel anymore. And since he’s sort of like gone in this walkabout that he’s been on the last couple of years, I think that’s purposeful. I have really enjoyed a lot of the stuff that he’s been doing. And one of the things I’ve really enjoyed his, his new creator on project, uh, bug Wars at image comics, which I think is relaunching here pretty soon. But the first season, the first six issues, uh, was really fun and interesting. It plays on some pretty like common storytelling tropes. But it’s just enough new and interesting and intriguing that it’s the bugwurst thing is really interesting. So I was like, okay, I am of an age where Thunder of the Barbarian was a thing that I watched on the TV.

[11:39] John: Yeah, me too.

[11:40] David: And of course, for those who don’t know Thunder of the Barbarian famously, Jack Kirby did a lot of the design work at least. I don’t know how intimately involved he was in that cartoon, but at the very minimum, he was doing, I think, all of the main character designs for that series.

[11:56] John: I think it’s one of the ones he was like most involved in, you know what I mean? Like it isn’t like one of those weird things like Dave Crippler happened to draw like some backgrounds in real Ghostbusters or something.

[12:06] David: Yeah, I think he was heavily involved too. So we’re just gonna say that’s what it was. So, you know, I had some affinity for it, especially since I’ve sort of been diving back into the Jack Kirby, I’ve sort of done this, I don’t know, I’ve been on this Jack Kirby appreciation tour the last year or two, sort of marveling it, the length and breadth of that that man’s imagination is staggering. It really does need to be appreciated by everybody. So anyway, so Sundar the Barbarian, so I was like, okay, you know what, I’m gonna jump in, side unseen. Jason Aaron’s stuff recently has really been speaking to me and this is an old Jack Kirby property and I love Jack Kirby and I like the cartoon. I was a kid, I thought it was fun. And I have to say, the only thing that I was a little concerned about is that it’s coming from dynamite, right? I don’t mean this dispersion, but I’m just not a huge fan of the stuff that they put out. They seem to be really invested in putting out really cool, high quality, and this is historically speaking. They seem really invested in putting out really cool, high quality cover art, and then everything else is sort of just whatever. The rest was kind of just thrown in and it’s sort of done on a budget. I think the only thing I can think of that I was really taken with at Dynamite was, and I’m sure there’s probably some other stuff, but the only thing that comes to mind is the boys. started before Dynamite. That was the thing that was Garth Enos and Derek Robertson ran that show. So, but I am completely won over by Thunder of the Barbarian. So the writing by Jason Aaron, Jason Aaron is a top writer, top notch writer. He does a great job of this. He clearly knows the material and loves it. And they brought in an artist, Cooper. I’m going to destroy this name. Cooper Ball, B A A L is the artist on it. And the colorist is Jorge Sutil, S U T I L. And man, these guys knocked it out of the park. It is really nice. I thought for sure they would go for a Jack Kirby vibe, you know? Yeah. That’s what I thought too, actually.

[13:56] John: Yeah.

[13:57] David: And if you look at the covers, the main covers, it is very much a Jack Kirby vibe. And in fact, issue one is a hundred percent. It’s an homage to, I think it’s Captain America, early Captain America comic book.

[14:07] John: Oh.

[14:08] David: Uh, it might be a panel for a famous panel from an early Captain America, Jack Kirby comic book, but I think it might’ve be an actual cover. Anyway, it’s, it’s like an homage to that. So right down to the cover and Michael Cho is the cover artist and he’s great. His stuff is fantastic and perfect choice for these covers. So the entire goes away from that like completely, like it’s a very much more rendered realistic style, which is hard to do when you’re like. Got rats on motorcycles and all kinds of different mutants, animals and stuff, but does it very well. I was really pleased with it. So I got the first four issues basically sitting, waiting for me. I didn’t know, but I figured four issues is probably like a good story arc chunk, I was guessing. And I guess correctly, they actually, the first four issues are basically the first story arc. But it really takes you on a fun little spin. Like the first issue opens with the most familiar thing, you know, the year, 1994, where outer space comes a runaway planet hurtling between the Earth and moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. man civilization is cast in ruin 2000 years later. And it’s just, you know, it’s right, right from page one, they drop you into, you know, the nostalgia bucket and but then they go away from there and they really do explore some interesting and interesting story. They travel back to 1994 and various shenanigans happen. I don’t want to give away too much, but spoiler alert, the bad guys win, John. The bad guys win. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah, I was just as surprised as you are but I have a feeling because it’s At the end of issue four. I have a feeling that maybe the bad guys aren’t going to be the winners for long. Yeah This book was so good for me. It hit so many cool little buttons I was so appreciative of the level of craft and skill that I was like man. I need to reevaluate dynamite here I am not giving them a clearly I am not giving these guys a fair shake. This book is a very well put together book. And so it’s changed my tune. I I’ve sort of been, I’ve never been a huge fan of like thundercats or silver hawks and those things I’m aware of them. And I appreciate them on certain levels, but not to the level where I really wanted to read kind of mediocre comics about them.

[16:31] John: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[16:32] David: I’m thinking maybe I need to reevaluate it and give some of that stuff a shot. some of this other stuff that dynamite’s doing is shot because if Thunder of the Barbarian is an example of where dynamite’s at as a company right now, I’m starting to understand why they’re, you know, in the top four or five publishers now, because this is great. I loved it. I’m on board. I’m so glad that I was pre-ordering this book. I’m thrilled to have it. Definitely recommend it. It was fun.

[16:54] John: Uh, I was actually surprised, David. I had the Rob Liefeld variant for the cover.

[16:58] David: Yeah. I have the Rob Liefeld cover signed, but I, of course, I never, I never opened it. I put it, I put it away. in the vault. Oh my god. It’s in the vault. All right.

[17:07] John: Very good. I feel like Dynamite, at a certain point, was a bit like Roger Corman or something, where it was a bunch of people getting their start. You know, I mean, like, we got like Max Dunbar, right? Like, like, he was doing Pathfinder over there and some other stuff over there. And that was like the first stuff he did. You know, he’s super good. Then it seemed like they were investing in writers and cover artists. I mean, they’ve had some really big successes lately, with some of that stuff, with Thundercats and stuff. And I think that probably allows them to reinvest a little bit in the yard, or maybe you just got some good new talents and stuff. I respect them a lot. Of all the publishers that have been out for a while, they are still doing their dynamite stuff. They do a bunch of variant covers and stuff for themselves and for other publishers. That’s always been part of Nicky Barucci’s makeup as a human being, I think. I don’t know. It’s part of his business model. Definitely part of his business for sure. Yeah. Yeah, and that’s cool I think they do a good job of it because they’ve been doing that for like 20 something years Longer than that 25 years. I mean, you like it. Who else has been who else has been consistently putting out like collectible Covers for that long nobody, you know, nobody Marvel wasn’t doing that back then DC wasn’t really doing that How many publishers have come and gone in that time and they’re still? comic book making. Yeah, the success of a couple shows that come out of their comics, but no, that’s cool.

[18:32] Intro: Here’s what John and David read this week! Yeah!

[18:36] John: Yeah, yeah! Here’s the thing that I do, David, and I don’t know if you do it too, but I get really into like a certain type of comic, right? Where I’m just like, I just want to dive into European comics, and then you hear about it, you hear me talk about it, and then you hear me talk about something else after a while, and I get really into that thing. Well, what’s happened a lot of times is that like my interest has shifted. Not that I’m not interested in the other thing, but like, oh, here’s a shiny new thing I got to get into, even though I’ve like still bought a bunch of other stuff that I’m like, this now just going to sit there for like, God, who knows?

[19:10] David: Yeah, because you’re not into it anymore.

[19:12] John: Yeah, not that I’m not into it, but I’m just said, I’m like, even get more into this other thing. You know, so we’re getting those like oddball comics post Kinland graph us discovering it like old men, millions of years after everybody else, even though Dan Klaus is the guy who discovered it first, and he’s way older than either of us. Maybe either of us put together.

[19:30] David: You know what’s funny about that, though, John, just as a quick aside, the episode where we talk about Ken Landgraf is one of our most listened to episodes. People love talking about Ken Landgraf.

[19:39] John: Well, of course, he’s, yeah, super interesting. Super good. Yeah, I know.

[19:42] David: It’s amazing.

[19:43] John: It’s a magazine-sized comic called Star Rider and the Peace Machine. This cover is a painting. There’s a giant guy in a spacesuit helmet with a mushroom cloud reflected in the visor. These two kind of spacey looking guy and girl standing there. And then another guy in a Buck Rogers-y kind of outfit running in the background. And it says, “Premiere Collector’s Edition, a Richard Comley presentation. Number one, July 1982. Exciting illustrated fiction and startling fact.” So I’m pretty interested. dive into you open it up and there’s an ad for ElfQuest and Cerebus and that’s sort of the world

[20:24] David: you it’s a the Budplant catalog there. We know exactly where we’re at now. Yeah yeah uh the table

[20:30] John: of contents uh tells us it’s the only magazine of its kind and there’s clearly some embitorment towards Captain Canuck going on as you’re reading this and this is after the Captain Canuck stuff had gone bad. Like I don’t know a whole lot about this stuff other than like reading Cerebus and like that’s another Canadian comic from this era. I looked some of that up on Wikipedia, you know, and it was, I think there were some problems happened on the Captain Canuck front. So Richard Comley started his own magazine and he’s got some stories that he’s written and drawn and it’s sort of at the almost pro level, like if you, you know, ground level comics, if you call

[21:08] David: them that, like the stuff from like Star Age and stuff like that. Canadian professional. Jesus.

[21:15] John: know. You know, it’s not so weird that it’s mainstream. You got some, I got another one here that a young Tom Grumit illustrates. Nice. It’s a little elf questy. It isn’t as tight as it is later. It’s definitely in a different style than you’re going to see in when he’s doing like whatever X-Men stuff that Tom Grumit goes on to do. A Rick Astrata story, classic comic book artist, a wandering button, year 2000. About computer keen, about in there, you’re starting to hear this stuff like freedom freak? What’s going on with this? What are we getting to here? Meanwhile, on the other page here is an ad for a milestone in the comic publishing industry, the comic seller with Captain Kanek and Epitaph, with the character of Captain Kanek looking over his grave. So I guess this is going into the untold story of how Captain Kanek was canceled the second time. What events led up to Richard Comley’s dismissal from CKR Productions. Uh, this is where you can find that out. Remember, this is a Richard Comley presentation.

[22:19] David: It won’t be biased at all.

[22:20] John: No, no, no.

[22:22] David: He’s just reporting the facts. Hey, can you imagine the level of like into this Richard Comley is in its captain Canuck?

[22:29] John: I mean, I guess it was really big.

[22:31] David: Wasn’t really big.

[22:32] John: I don’t know.

[22:34] David: If any of, I challenge, if any of our listeners have heard of captain Canuck before, before you heard us talking about on this podcast, Please say something in the comments that you like know anything about it.

[22:44] John: This is 44 years later. This is like me. This is like if you were in 1982, if you’re talking about 1938 and talking about a popular Canadian character from, from like three issues of that thing.

[22:57] David: When it originally was published, there’s like, how could it possibly have hit the zeitgeist in any meaningful way? I love it that he loves it. That I’m fully in on.

[23:05] John: He’s clearly got unfinished business with it. Yeah. Then we have a Steel Chameleon, the greatest disguise artist that ever lived. Jumps off of jet planes and stuff. Royston Evans, drawing it. It’s all right. Complete sets of Captain Canuck, signed by Richard Comley, available. Let me read the start of the paragraph long description of what this is. Because I can use the storage space and the money, I’m selling a limited number of my complete sets of Captain Canuck. And then, and then you get to the startling fact promised by the cover, the Great Conspiracy, the Communist Super Capitalist Alliance. Here’s the one, two, three, four pages plus a bibliography of text about the Communist Super Capitalist Conspiracy,

[23:53] David: part one of two for the article. Hold on, it’s not a story, it’s a real like…

[23:58] John: Correct, yeah. And it gets into some of the Adam Weiss of Hot stuff. Like he’s a This illuminatus guy who, like according to some theories, replaced George Washington in the 1780s, I think. That guy shows up in the illuminatus trilogy, right? Like the books by Robert Anton Wilson and the other guy, right, who wrote the illuminatus trilogy. But also, I know that from Dave Sim talking about that in some of his Swords of Cerebus introductions. So apparently this is like a thing going around Canadian comics in the early 80s. Or like this is just like, if you’re a Canadian comics artist, like this is who you’re talking to is Dave Sim and Richard Combs. Like it would have to be right? Like it’s not like, I mean, Canada is a huge country, but comics industry just wasn’t that big back then. So that you definitely have all these people knowing each other. So it’s funny on that level. It’s just for a minute, imagine yourself say 10 or 15 years in the future, that’d be 1992 Seven, speaking of “Thunder the Barbarian.” Imagine the worst has happened, global nuclear war. Then no one knows which of the two great powers is winning. Then suddenly the fighting stops. Few days later, after hearing rumor upon rumor, you receive a copy of the official news. It reads, colon, “United Nations Headquarters, New York. Today a ceasefire was ordered by the newly established global government.” So this is about how the communists and the super capitalists are working together.

[25:30] David: It’s not a story. This is like a thing that they’re like, they’re saying this is what could happen, like in

[25:36] John: a real way, not like a conspiracy theory.

[25:42] David: It’s not a mental Washington goes to war sort of thing.

[25:46] John: No, no, no, no, no, no, this isn’t the rest of it. So I’ll brings you back from that supposition of the future into the present where this conspiracy is going. Honestly, in retrospect, not super far off from things, but also pretty wild in its own way.

[26:05] David: That sounds wildly entertaining. So it’s a mix of articles like magazine articles and comic books.

[26:12] John: It’s just that one article and the rest of it’s comic books.

[26:15] David: Oh, John, once again, if we’re keeping score, once again, you’ve crushed me. You’ve crushed me with your pick for the week. That’s amazing. All right. So John, an excellent choice. So my pick is a straight comic book, also from a long ago age, but not quite as long as yours. My pick is from the year of 1984, the year of Ghostbusters and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, I think was 1984. And this little gem of book, Swords of the Swashbucklers. Nice. John, this thing is Marvel Graphic Novel number 14, and it is written by Bill Mantlow and drawn by Jackson Butch Geiss. I’m not 100%, but I feel fairly certain that this is the project they did after they finished Micronauts. So Bill Mantlow famously was the creator of the Micronauts comic book. I think he wrote all the Micronauts comic books. And a couple years ago, Marvel finally got the rights to republish that stuff. And they published the Micronauts books in these really nice oversized omnibus. And so I picked one of those up a while back and read it, really enjoyed it. And I was never a Micronauts fan, you know, back in the day. So it was actually the first time I had read it. That Michael Golden art is just really choice. But Butch Geist comes in right at the end, I think, of that first omnibus. Or maybe I picked up some stuff afterwards and read it. I really liked them together. Bill Mantleau and Jackson Geist seemed like a good pairing. And so this Swords of Swashborough, I found out about Swords of Swashborough originally. I was like, okay, I’m all in. I was not disappointed. Once again, I had a really enjoyable afternoon reading this graphic novel. It’s about, it’s probably about 80 pages or so, maybe 96. It’s a fun story. It basically takes, if we have any fans of pirating out there, they take an actual real historical figure, Anne Bonny, who was a pirate in the 1730s, 7020s, 7030s. She is one of the main characters or the sort of everything spins out of in this book. And the story is very much like a sci-fi swords and guns sort of feel to it. But the opening page is just this gorgeous splash of an ocean beach setting with seagulls and clouds and it’s beautifully rendered and painted. In fact, I do want to give credit to the colorist because I was just like blown away and I’ve never heard of this guy. The coloring in this book is by Alfred Ramirez. I’m not familiar with his work, but man, he just colors the heck out of this graphic novel. Jackson Geist inks himself in this. So anyway, let me get back to the story. So there’s this young girl, she’s on the beach and she’s hanging out with a cat. She’s like 13 years old. this alien tech is activated and this alien tech alerts aliens out in space that there’s a beacon here and aliens need to come and check it out for reasons that we learn through the story. And so of course this young girl walks up to this alien tech that has become activated and it’s like all bright and shining and looks lights all over it and the first thing she does is touches the lights and of course gets zapped real bad and knocks her out puts her in a coma and that’s how the story starts and then we cut to space where presumably these aliens who have been alerted by this beacon are being made aware we’re dropped right in the middle of a giant space battle and the ships are in space are like sailing ships like um like pirate ships basically But with extra sails, because they’re like solar sails. John, I’m telling you, man, these ships are so lovingly rendered. There is so much detail in these ships. It’s a stunning amount of detail that Jackson guys put into these ships. You can tell he designed every inch of these things. But it’s really interesting and clever how there’s all this future tech on the inside of these ships, but on the outside. It’s techie, but it’s also like wooden planks. It’s a charming mix of old time piratey and new age space. We get introduced to the lead character now. She’s a descendant of Anne Bonny. Oh, and by the way, the little girl is also a descendant of Anne Bonny. The pirate in space, yeah, I know, I can start to get weird. The pirate in space is not a descendant of Anne Bonny. She is the daughter of Anne Bonny. And Anne Bonny is still alive because some alien tech has given her long, practically eternal life. She hasn’t aged at all in the 300 years since we last saw Anne Bonny on Earth. She hasn’t aged at all. She’s had all these adventures in space. So anyway, there’s some good guys, some bad guys. They fighty-fight with swords and blasters. Oh, and there’s a fun little bar fight scene where

[31:16] John: Serbus, the hardbark, and Grimjack show up. You didn’t mention it, but also

[31:20] David: Batman’s in that scene. I didn’t even notice that. Batman’s in silhouette back there. Yeah. So more than one appearance. Anyway, this was an epic comic book. So it made sense for Grim Jack to show up at least maybe not so much the others. Yeah. The detail in the art on this thing, like I don’t know how much time they gave Jackson Gates to draw this, but he really put his heart and soul into this thing. It’s some of the best drawing of his that I think I’ve ever seen. And this is early in his career, but he just drew the heck out of this It’s a gorgeous book. The coloring is just perfect for it. Beautiful. And the story is fun. The young girl gets out of the coma and gets swept up with the space pirates. You know, she gets swept up into space with the space pirates and they end up having to defend the earth and also defend planets that are being attacked that the pirates end up being flipping the script and becoming the good guys for a moment to save the day. Highly recommended. The art is worth the price of admission alone. I don’t even know what I paid for this, but it couldn’t have been much. Original price was $5.95 for an 80 page original graphic. It’s like magazine size. It’s not comic book size. It’s like a magazine sized book. Jackson Geiss took full advantage of the oversized space. It’s a, it really is gorgeous. The thing that was interesting about it is, you know, reading a book from 1984 and Bill Mantlow in particular, every character, they’re all on the same side and they all Haiti other like everybody hates there was so much tension and so much like caddy bickering going on like across all the characters the entire time like everybody hates everybody else even when they’re on the same side it really creates a lot of tension and drama in the in the book where there wouldn’t be really any at all if that wasn’t going on like it would be a much duller experience if it wasn’t for all and I was really Enamored with that because you don’t get that as much, you know, we talked about civil war recently And yeah, you know, you know Tony Stark and Captain America are like kind of you know, there’s tension There’s a little bit of fight fighting going on there But back in the day like every single issue of Avengers somebody is mad at somebody like Hawkeye is either fighting with iron You know giant man or yeah giant I think with Captain America or Captain America’s, you know slapping around Scarlet Witch. Like, there’s always this tension within the group itself. And you don’t see that as much. I don’t recognize that in current iterations of the superhero comic books at all. Team Tension 101, this book is.

[34:02] John: Man, there’s a lot to think about in that. You said in that last point, growing up in about the same time, maybe you had the same reaction, you know, where eventually you go back and you read some of the old Avengers comics and you find out, oh, that’s what Hawkeye is. That’s the deal with Hawkeye because by the time like I was a kid and reading the stuff they’d solved that like you know I mean like somebody had fixed the part where like Hawkeye is the asshole who doesn’t trust Captain America and is always getting hot At it and he’s still a hero and he regrets what he does, you know be like, ah, I shouldn’t have said that to cap You know that kind of stuff Yeah There’s always this tendency to want to fix those characters or or just the fact that like how long can he have this guy who? Shoots arrows getting mad at Captain America. Look at something right? Come on, right? You have to fix that.

[34:47] David: When you’re hanging out with greatness, you can’t, like how long can you… At some point, you’re the asshole.

[34:51] John: Yeah, and it’s like, I mean, it’s issue one. But like, if you don’t figure that out like 40 years later, that’s a serious problem. Captain America hasn’t proved himself to you yet. Like he, you know, what about all the times you saved the universe? Let alone the world. There’s a lot more of those. There’s just such a hallmark of those, of that kind of writing. You’re right. Of that era where Wolverine would just get like super mad at Cyclops.

[35:15] David: Yeah, yeah for like no reason there’s just like there’s fight in fighting all the time in those books Then they resolve it eventually like over time they do resolve that but you I just don’t feel like that is a that is not a common Story trope, you know anymore. I think there’s something to that I don’t know if it’s because people are afraid to talk about their emotions. I don’t know I don’t know what it is

[35:36] John: Like if you go back all sort of that time like the characters would make mistakes You know like they like that was okay for them to like screw up like Batman would go to the wrong place place or he’d get hit in the back of the head and get knocked unconscious. Like nowadays people would be like, “Whoa, some guy hit Batman on the back of the head. You can’t do that. He’s the greatest crime fighter that ever lived.” There’s a creep in like sort of powers where like Wolverine at that era, if he got shot and he didn’t die immediately, he would heal faster than if a normal person got shot. And then by 2005, he’s regrowing from a single cell on adamantium within a day. You know? Yeah. And then that’s kind of the same thing, you know, like, like the characters can’t have flaws, you know, like you have to the, the characters in the first act have to be the same as the characters in the third act. You can see why, you know what I mean? Like you’ve seen Batman fight 100 guys in the alley this year. And you know, none of them is going to be the one that takes him down because you know he’s in six other books. why even pretend like that’s he’s in any danger. I get it, you know, like he’s not in danger, you know, the character is gonna be fine. But like, yeah, there’s something kind of missing. It’s interesting. I don’t know. I’m not saying it should be like Bill Matlow characters yelling at each other all the time or whatever. But there’s something to that that I think is missing in American comics, you know, in American superhero comics. I mean, that tension, that conflict,

[36:52] David: that infighting creates drama, which is, you know, who doesn’t want to have a good drama, Who doesn’t want to, you know, which creates excitement and then seeing how that gets resolved in whatever ways it gets resolved is, is even more story, right? And more story even comes out of that. So it certainly does that with Swords of the Swashbuckers. Like there’s tons of taking, everybody’s fighting. And after the graphic novel, if you really enjoy it, there is a 12 issue series that follows the graphic novel and it’s issue one is basically the next day after the graphic novel. read that 12 issue series, Jackson Geiss is on the book for the first four issues. He’s not quite as good. You can tell he’s being pulled in other directions. I don’t know exactly what’s going on. But after issue four in the editorial column, it says he’s gotten pulled over to X factor off the book because now he’s moved over to X factor. And Jeff Isherwood, who is a relative newcomer at that time, he draws about six of the last eight issues. Colleen Duran comes in and does two issues as well like she fills in like once or twice towards the end But overall it was a fun and enjoyable the minute the 12 issue series is also sort of fun and enjoyable But it’s it’s slower. It’s more dense than the graphic novel The art isn’t there to sort of carry you through the same way And so it’s not quite as good as the graphic novel was but the graphic novel the art especially is acceptable So that’s why I read John

[38:24] John: There used to be a lot of flying boat pirate space comics. Like, that used to be a thing. Were they, like, just biting this off of, like, “Star Slayer” that debuted a couple years earlier? You know, it was like Mike Grell mad at them. Then I was like, “Oh, wait, no, when did Iron Wolf start? Like, “Tower Shaken’s Iron Wolf”? I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that. But that was much earlier. But then I was like, “Wait a minute, like, even the X-Men, by the time “Swashbucklers” came out, or Star Slayer, the Corsair and the the Star Jammers were there. And that’s not, it’s not quite that, like it’s not, they’re not literally in wooden boats like the way they are in like

[39:04] David: all these other series. But they look like they should be. When did the movie Ice Pirates come out? Feel like it was around that time too, but maybe it was maybe a little bit after. There’s there’s a couple of sci-fi movies. I think it kind of all spins out of like Star Wars, right?

[39:18] John: The Shaken stuff predates Star Wars. Well, there you go. I think it was on a list of things that George Lucas is probably looking at, you know, like, just knowing that stuff he was picking up and the fact that Shaken drew the Star Wars adaptation. Ice Pirates was ’84. I was a writer on the same time. Gee, I forgot about that. Brawl writer Stanford Sherman co-wrote Ice Pirates.

[39:40] David: Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I didn’t know that. I love Ice Pirates. That movie’s hilarious. Anyway, we’re not here for that, John. We’re here for the comic books. couple of other things I wanted to talk about. I think we’re running a little low on time, but actually I’m just going to mention them real quick. I’m really excited about the state of the comic book industry right now. I think maybe this is something we can talk about a little bit more, but you were saying last week or the way before how you were like, you read like 40 comic books and you were like, man, the good ones were really good and the bad ones were just fine. We’re in a golden age of comic books for the moment. There’s so much good stuff out there. And I 100% agree with you. And a couple of the announcements that came out this past week, Daniel Warren Johnson is do a new comic book called chain kata, which I am 1000% here for. Yeah. And trad more also announced a new book that he’s doing. And it’s not at Marvel, DC or image. He’s doing it with only press. I think chain kata is going to be Dan one Johnson’s is going to be image but I think it’s pretty cool and interesting and meaningful that two guys as good as those two guys are. Dan Orm Johnson for sure and trad more is sort of getting there. They are writer artists that are really at the top of the getting at the top of the game, if not at the top of their game. And I think it’s interesting that they’re choosing to do creator own stuff, stuff outside of Marvel DC and license books. And I think that’s a sign of health for the industry, right? Like I think when things are tough, you go to the big two and you sort of hunker down and get your paycheck and you produce cool stuff and you try to find ways to get the industry back on its feet. But having these guys sort of taking leaps of faith with their own projects and their own works speaks to the health of the industry a little bit, I think, in some ways. So I’m really excited for that. I love that those guys are out, getting out, going out on a limb, doing their own thing. Not that it’s a big gamble because both those guys are going to crush it sales wise. But I find that interesting, an interesting point of sort of the state of the industry.

[41:36] John: Yeah, there was like a kind of a healthy time, a healthiest time a few years ago where you We had the people that would do these hit books at Marvel or DC and then go off and do their image series. And that sort of turned into like an exodus away from Marvel or DC, which I think weirdly is less healthy, even though I fully respect everybody going out and doing that stuff. To me, that’s the goal, is going out and doing your own stuff. That’s the cool thing to do. But without that sort of pipeline to get people back into your stuff, it’s harder to get over there. But I feel like there’s been less of that sort of hit making going that direction. been more image books lately, they’ve been kind of blowing up of people kind of coming in the other way and then doing the image books. First getting picked up by Marvel, which is like sort of the traditional direction before that. Hickman and Kieran Gillan got hired at Marvel because of their image books. And then they both were at Marvel did hit books and then went back to image and did hit books there. I mean, that’s exactly what Daniel Warren Johnson’s doing, right? I mean, he did a bunch of one, you know, his own stuff. He did this huge Transformers run. The book with, how do you do a book with? - Right? - Right? - We’re at the Rossy Monster. - Yeah, super excited about all of it. - Looks great. - Definitely going in that absolute-ish, manga-ish influence, even more than, maybe not more than Daniel Warren Johnson usually does, but you know, I mean, “Shainsaw Man” is a very popular manga.

[42:53] David: - Yeah, yeah. You think? Do you think he’s–

[42:57] John: - I think there’s anything more than the connection between “Space Pirates” from 1972 to the mid-80s. I don’t mean that.

[43:03] David: - The connection’s still there. - Yeah! - And it doesn’t necessarily have to be at a cross commercial way. - Yeah. - It could just– Exactly. These are the things that are influencer-ingians, that this is what I’m talking about.

[43:11] John: That was a little bit even in my head when you were talking about the fighting, is the relationships and arguments in one piece, as I’m reading this with my son, are more reminiscent of like old X-Men issues than like the foolness that you see in a lot of, I mean like emotional coolness, like the emotional coldness. I just mean like not the hot-blooded anger that you see in a lot of

[43:31] David: superhero stuff now. I think that’s a thing to pick up on. I do too, there’s something there.

[43:35] John: And also the fact that I think for a long time there’d be editors that would say, “You can’t just put a chainsaw on a chain and whip it around and fight somebody with it. That wouldn’t work.” You know, but who cares? Of course it wouldn’t work. You can’t cosplay with a moving chainsaw on a in-vote rope. I mean…

[43:53] David: That is correct. You cannot do that. Nobody do that. You’re not advocating chainsaws on chains to anyone. All right, we got to get out of here, John.

[44:02] John: Thank you for joining us. We’ll be back next week, right here. Like and subscribe! Bye!