[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.

[00:23] John: Hello, and welcome back to the Corner Box. I'm one of your hosts, John Barber, and with me, as always, my good friend, David Hedgecock. You know, it's funny because we literally talked like 72 hours ago.

[00:36] John: I felt like I hadn't done that in a million years. I was like, what do I do? It's not like we took a big break, but like, I was just like, I don't know, Comic Con always feels like it's an extra 10 days built into things.

[00:47] John: And anyway, here we are.

[00:48] David: It's like a mini COVID year. So much happens in such a small amount of time. Feels like should be have been longer than it actually is.

[00:56] John: And you wind up getting sick. So it is a lot like COVID.

[00:59] David: Yeah, exactly. You do catch the plague at the end of standard of comment types. So, so there's similarities all around. Even though we have spoken recently, we have quite the program today. Once about every quarter, uh, John and I, I put together a little list for our listeners and then you comment on it and tell me why I'm wrong, but we're going to do this quarter's, uh, top 10 hottest artists of the moment, John top 10 hottest artists of the moment.

[01:27] John: Or the top 10 artists that love comics more than you.

[01:30] David: That's right. Right. That's a nice call back, the last episode.

[01:36] David: You're not going to let me live Alan down. So here's what we do, folks. Every quarter we comb the interwebs and look through a lot of data.

[01:43] David: We look at sales data, taking the general pulse on the social medias of who is hot and who is not in the comic book industry, specifically targeting and talking about direct market, comic book interior artists. So we get pretty specific here. There's tons of other artists doing work out there that I think are incredible and deserve to be on top 10 lists.

[02:07] David: This is just the list for interior artists in the direct market right now. So we're excluding a lot of stuff. Manga as one of the big examples, original graphic novels that go straight to the book market, things like that.

[02:19] John: Just to throw us out there, credit where credit is due. This is not me like being, making a joke. When you say we, this is all your work. I'm not trying to distance myself from it, far from it, but like credit where credit is due, you are the one powering this stuff and figuring it out.

[02:32] David: Yeah, I know.

[02:33] John: Well done.

[02:33] David: Put in a few hours on this one for sure every time, but it's a labor of love. So we've added a few features as we roll along. So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about who is up and coming, John.

[02:44] David: They haven't made the list yet, but they're ones to watch. This time we have a couple of people who have never been mentioned. I don't think we've mentioned them on the show at all.

[02:51] David: brand new people to the top 10 artists list and potentially to the podcast in general. Number one, one to watch. John is citing newcomer, Eric Larson.

[03:06] John: Hey, he's the far side guy, right?

[03:09] David: Close. He's the Savage Dragon artist, John. There's this book called Savage Dragon. It's been running for a little while. People seem to be noticing and paying attention to that book again.

[03:18] David: And there's lots of comments about the fact that it's very pervy, but the other comments are about how great the art remains after all these years. So Eric Larson, One to Watch with Savage Dragon number 281, I believe, is in the aftermarket is going for like over $100 in some places in the aftermarket, just based on one page at the end of the book. So people still seem to care about Savage Dragon one way or the other.

[03:41] David: And so Eric Larson has gotten a little bit of the spotlight. So one to watch we're gonna keep an eye on this and see if the sales on Savage Dragon Trained upward and people start jumping back onto that book. By the way I jumped back on that book around issue out 250 245 ish somewhere in there It's a roller coaster ride minutes. It is absolutely nothing like the original Savage Dragon like when it launched You know in in the original series, you know 30 years ago, but I think that's great I don't want that book to be the same thing 30 years later It should have grown and changed and I think that's sort of like Eric Larson's thing He has the book kind of operating in real time quote unquote and so characters age things change stories change new characters come in I think he's done a really great job of growing that story and keeping that story sort of fresh for

[04:27] John: Incredibly long run. Here's a funny thing. I have Periodically jumped back on Savage Dragon That was the best image comic when it came out Eric Larson had already done a really nice run on Adjective list spider-man. I hadn't read that because I I didn't really like Eric Larson that much I feel like his amazing spider-man issues like even more than McFarland's you could feel it being like I'm just gonna suck it to David Mickelene and he's gonna have to script this, you know, I don't know if that's right at all I don't know if that's in all accurate. I don't know. I didn't I didn't care for it very much But Savage Dragon just out of the gate was like wow, this is really nicely written incredibly well drawn, you know crazy stuff So I periodically stop reading it and start reading it again more lately though I've jumped back on a bunch of things in the last like well in the time of the podcast fully on board on grew and And all these things I used to really love and I'm like why why wasn't I still loving this?

[05:19] John: I should I still love it 281 was exactly the most recent time. I've jumped back on Randomly, I was just like well. Hey, there's Savage Dragon man. I should be reading Savage Dragon

[05:30] David: So I think randomly picked that up. Yeah, completely randomly the week it came out

[05:35] John: It was the exact same thing as every time which is the dragon's son is the main character But there's somebody else that looks exactly like dragon, but isn't really dragon I don't know if they're in the same reality that they were in in the beginning of the series because I I think stuff happened along the road, but I'm not sure and Everybody that I remember from that series is dead and then I saw a savage dragon action figure at target the other day along with a Shadowhawk action figure, and that blew my mind.

[06:03] David: Yeah, they're badass. I like them both. I ordered the Savage Dragon.

[06:07] David: I didn't get the Shadowhawk picked it up off Amazon. You're even making jokes about that Savage Dragon. Your Savage Dragon action figure reenact the last page of Savage Dragon issue 281 with Halloween boy action figure.

[06:20] John: The action figure's got the mustache from that one issue. I guess it's got two heads, but you put on that mustache from that one issue or you look like a biker, so it's not weird.

[06:27] David: No, it's not. Very much village people YMCA ish. All right.

[06:32] David: So anyway, we got to get out of this. So anyway, uh, Larson is a one to watch. Okay.

[06:37] David: Can't believe you picked up two 81 randomly as the thing that you're going to the issue to jump back on it. I don't know that that's like the best jumping on. Well, it's exactly the same as every other time.

[06:48] David: Yeah. No, I know.

[06:50] John: Like, like the thing I described there wasn't the first time I've had that exact experience last page, though, is somebody having sex. I'm on board. I'm not complaining, but I don't know.

[06:59] John: Good for him. I can't admire enough that somebody has been doing 281 issues of a series and changing it and growing it and making it weird and different and still keeps going. And I'm really happy people are checking it out.

[07:12] David: I feel the same way. It is weird and bizarre and so far away from like commercial superhero work at this point.

[07:21] John: That's great. There should be more things like that.

[07:23] David: So kudos to Eric Larson. Hopefully the heat continues. I don't think it matters to him whether he's selling the book or not. I think he's going to keep making it. The other artist watch on another sort of like, you know, fresh face, Andy Kubert, have you heard of this guy?

[07:37] John: Yeah. Yeah.

[07:38] David: Yeah. Andy Kubert. He's like, he's real good, man.

[07:41] David: He's real good. And, uh, he's, he's on this new book called terminal with another, uh, writer who we haven't talked too much about recently, uh, Kurt Walkman. Is that his name?

[07:50] David: You go something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

[07:52] David: It's nothing like that. Anyway, he's done some other books. So terminal number one is burning up the charts.

[07:58] David: It was a top five book in July, John. So terminal number one really did some serious numbers.

[08:02] John: Yeah, and again, here's how John interacts with this thing. So there's a blind bag of it and you can get inside the blind bag, either the first issue, issue two, issue like 12 or issue 18 or something. One of them's like David Finshark and then the next one's the next Hubert Ark, I think.

[08:20] John: So I bought it and I got issue two and I opened it And I was like, well, what do I do with that? It's like, I don't have issue one. Can't read it.

[08:28] David: And I want to go back and buy number one.

[08:30] John: I'm on the hook for two issues to see if I like it. You know, I don't know. Maybe you won't like it.

[08:34] David: So it didn't come with an issue one and an issue two didn't come with two books. That's hilarious.

[08:42] John: Two is the weirdest one too. Like, like, like the, like getting the first finch issue. Oh, that makes sense.

[08:46] John: Or here. Wow. Like it's almost like the, you know, an image did those, uh, issue 25s. You know, if you get like a great team, you're like, Oh, that'll be interesting.

[08:54] John: See where it goes. But this is just what happens after the issue. I should have bought.

[09:00] John: I guess.

[09:01] David: Here's the thing, John. Our listeners are in for a treat because I might've gone a little crazy on this terminal number one blind bag thing. I have not done any of this blind bag stuff yet.

[09:11] David: So I was like, well, what is this all about? And so I saw on eBay, I think it was on eBay that there is a blind bag number one with a Rob Liefeld exclusive to the blind bag cover. And it was like one in 50 or one in 100, you know, in the blind bags.

[09:30] David: And I was like, Oh man, it was going for like a hundred bucks or 200 bucks. Like on eBay, like immediately now it's more like 25 bucks. So I probably should have just waited, but I was instantly like, man, I don't want to pay $200 for a cover.

[09:41] David: That's way too much. Like, especially for a book that like it was a book like super loved and it was signed or something. Like, you know, I can, I can justify a lot of stuff.

[09:49] David: Well, I couldn't justify that. But I was like, Oh, you know what I can do? I can just buy a bunch of blind bags.

[09:55] David: And I bet if I buy enough blind bags, I can get one. So for our listeners, I got 20 copies of terminal number one blind bags, 20 of them, John, and so we're gonna, we're gonna open all those on probably the, like, maybe you're not the next podcast, but one of the next two or three podcasts, I'm going to open them all on air. I, it's probably going to be dull because I don't know how visually, like, I don't know how that's going to sound.

[10:18] David: Like we're going to open all of them or we're going to open them until we get to the Rob Liefeldt cover that I want. So one of the other things is going to happen. And if all 20, I open all 20, I don't get that Rob Liefeldt cover.

[10:30] David: I'm going to be very upset. So where are we? Oh yeah.

[10:34] David: Who to watch, John. So Eric Larson and Andy Kubert. Congrats to both for some of the heat.

[10:42] David: We're going to bring it down for just a minute here. Eric, we're not lowering the lights, but we're just going to be a little sad. There are some people who are not on the list that were on the list last time, John.

[10:51] David: So people that are now off the list. Marco Chiquero, if you recall, he was a number one in our very first top 10 hottest artists. Marco Chiquero was our first number one, but he's fallen to number nine as of last time. Now he's all the way off the list. John has nothing really to do with his ability. It has more to do with the fact that we just haven't seen anything from this guy for many, many months at this point.

[11:22] Speaker 4: but he's right back up. He's not doing Transformers. The SWAT cats thing still hasn't

[11:27] David: hit. It's not in stores or anything. So it's kind of like a non-starter and Lobo is firing okay, but it's not burning up the charts the way I think some people, including myself, anticipated.

[11:37] David: So Jorge Corona last time came in blazing hot at number seven. Now he's all the way off. And who is off the list as well, Tom Riley, G.I. Joe's Tom Riley.

[11:50] David: So, much like Chiquito, he just hasn't been producing at the volume. G.I. Joe, which is sort of his main book, has had a lot of different artists on it, and it's had a different artist in the current story arc.

[12:03] David: So we're just not seeing a lot of Tom Riley's work, and so he's fallen off the charts once in a while. All right, so that's the preamble to our top player list. Now we're going to get right into it.

[12:12] David: Starting off with number 10, we have a newcomer onto the scene coming in at number 10, thanks to his blazing hot cover work and his blazing hot creator owned book, Mark Spears, monsters on Mark Spears. Here's why Mark Spears is so hot. First of all, I know this is about interior art and that's why I really want to put the focus on, but there's hardly any cover artists out there right now that's, that's selling hotter than Mark Spears covers.

[12:40] David: People love his work and they love what he's doing. And he's cut, he seems to be covering every single comic book on the planet these days and all of them are usually like the one in 25 variants. So Mark Speer is coming in at number 10.

[12:54] David: And just as a point of reference for his interior work, this is a book that's coming from Keenspot. This is not one of the big publishers in the direct market industry right now. Keenspot has like make a pretty big space on the, on the interwebs for the direct market, it's not that big.

[13:08] David: or just way into his book that we're talking about issue 11 of a ongoing series came in at the top 100 of sales. That's a pretty impressive and meaningful thing for a creator own book, not by any of the big major companies, not even the top 10 biggest companies. And he's coming in at the top 100 still with the issue number 11, very impressive.

[13:29] David: And I think it speaks to just the popularity of his style and the popularity of his writing. So Mark Spears coming in at number 10, number nine, uh, moving from number 10 from last time, another creator owned book and creator own artists working on his own project. Brett Bean, Brett Bean of Dork fame.

[13:48] David: You know, he came out firing hot with a Dork number one a few months back. Uh, but sales continue to do really good on that book. It's an image comic.

[13:59] David: We're now seeing Brett Bean doing covers on other projects, which, you know, also speaks to the level of notoriety. So Brett Bean coming in, he was at number 10 last time. He's moved up one in the charts.

[14:09] David: He's now at number nine. Our first newcomer is coming in at number eight this month. I feel like this is probably a bit of an oversight on my part, uh, because this guy probably should have been on the list much sooner.

[14:21] David: He's undeniable now, John Jamal Campbell.

[14:23] John: Oh yeah. And, uh, a couple of things about Jamal Campbell.

[14:28] David: I don't know if you've seen the man's work, but I literally don't know how he is doing what he's doing on Zatanna. Every single page is beautifully rendered. I think he's handling pencil, sinks and colors on it.

[14:39] David: Everything he's touched on Zatanna is gorgeous. And here is a thing, John, you and I have questioned like, why does DC comics keep wanting to make Zatanna a thing? Like nobody wants Zatanna, right?

[14:50] David: Like to the point of like, why are you putting Jamal Campbell? Who's clearly like a fantastic artist. Why are you putting him on that board?

[14:58] David: Why are you forcing him to do that? But Jamal Campbell through sheer force of will and pure talent has made Zatanna, a top 25 selling book, John. It's in the top 25 now.

[15:09] David: That is an incredible feat and he should be applauded. And in fact, he was and the thing that really pushed him into our top 10 list was the fact that he won the 2026 Eisner Award for Best Writer Artist for his work on Zatanna. So undeniable, like the man is clearly a force to be reckoned with. And I'll be shocked if we don't see Jamal continue to climb the charts.

[15:32] David: I wonder if he just really really loves Zatanna like...

[15:35] John: Yeah, no, I don't mean to come off as anti-Zatanna. It's just like it's weird that there's like always a Zatanna book and her appearance in Absolute Wonder Woman is a big thing and fantastic though. Like I got no problem with that. Like it's just funny. It's just a weird one.

[15:49] John: Anyway, good. That's awesome. Jamal Khaled. Nice.

[15:52] David: Number seven in our top ten hottest artist of the moment, another newcomer, John. Oh, so this is based on past performance, but also based on what looks to be one of the hottest books coming by the end of this year. Welcome to the top 10 Daniel Warren Johnson.

[16:10] David: Oh, I'm only just now realizing that there's a theme going on with some of these newcomers and this top 10 list. Everybody so far has been a writer artist, John. It's nice to see this. Nice to see that we've got some of these writers who are really burning up the charts. So Daniel Warren Johnson announced a few weeks back that he is going to be doing a new creator own book at image comics called chain kata.

[16:31] Speaker 4: Right.

[16:32] David: And the tagline is chicks with chainsaws in space. And I heard that and I subscribed immediately to all of that and need that in my life. I'm not alone in that John.

[16:45] David: Uh, the, uh, Ash can at San Diego comic con for chain kata. This is an Ash can. It's not the issue.

[16:50] David: It's an Ash can.

[16:51] Speaker 4: Yeah.

[16:52] David: A signed copy of the San Diego Comic Con 2026 chain cotta ash can. I signed copy. The cheapest you can get it is $400 right now.

[17:04] John: My goodness.

[17:05] David: We're a couple of weeks out from San Diego Comic Con. We're months away from this book hitting and based. So we're talking Daniel Warren Johnson.

[17:13] David: People have faith and belief in Warren Johnson in his art and his storytelling. And I think that $400 for an Ashcan is speaks volumes of where Daniel Warren Johnson is in the zeitgeist of the comic buying community. And so for that reason, and all the other reasons of all the things he's done in the past few years, Daniel Warren Johnson finally makes our top 10 list.

[17:34] David: Congratulations, Daniel Warren Johnson, number seven on the top 10 hottest stars of the moment. All right. Number six, moving down two spots from number four is our friend Dan Mora.

[17:45] David: Dan Mora is still the Justice League Unlimited. And world finest artist, like the Batman's Superman world's finest artist. He's doing two books a month, John.

[17:56] David: And one of them is a super team book, Justice League Unlimited. The man is a machine. I don't know how he does it because he's also doing covers.

[18:03] David: But Dan Mora comes in at number six. He's dropped a couple of spots because the books that he's on are just not getting the kind of attention, I think, that maybe Transformers was pulling for him. But still amazing work.

[18:14] David: selling books, Dan Mora deserves all the accolades. Holding steady at number five, on the last list, he was a newcomer and just came blazing onto the list and number five and has held his position for the last few months, Jorge Jimenez on Batman.

[18:29] John: Oh yeah.

[18:30] David: So again, like we said last time, this isn't even the most popular Batman book and yet it's still a top 10 best selling book still and Jorge Jimenez as a big part of that. He's fresh and it's quite a feat that he's pulling off. Number four, another newcomer, John, and this is he's coming in guns blazing from out of nowhere. Your friend in mind, Neto Diaz.

[18:55] David: Hey, all right. Yeah, so Neto Diaz, Neto Diaz, Uncanny X-Men. At this point, the Uncanny X-Men regular artist, Neto Diaz, his work is getting recognized, I think, finally in a way that he deserves probably one of Marvel's best artists right now. Uncanny X-Men is doing quite well even though there seems to be some pressure on Marvel and on the X-Men line in specifically that things aren't going well. But Netodia seems to be the bright spot in all of that.

[19:23] David: We're seeing more and more of his covers showing up on all the other Marvel books. He is now exclusive to Marvel. He's one of their thunder strikers. What are those things? What do they

[19:33] John: call them when they're like storm breakers? Yeah, whatever. He's one of those guys. So

[19:42] David: at number four with his uncanny heat. Our top three, there's no surprises here. I think we'll go through them rather quickly.

[19:50] David: There's been some changes in the top three, but overall there's no surprise. At number three, last time he was number two, Ryan Ottley. Ryan Ottley, who is drawing Battle Beast and famously invincible.

[20:01] David: If an original piece of art from Invincible drops anywhere on the planet for sale, it goes for thousands of dollars immediately. Ryan Ottley's work is being lauded and very desired. And Battle Beast continues to just be a sales juggernaut for a secondary character of a main book that hasn't been published in years.

[20:24] David: It's incredible what Battle Beast is doing. Ryan Ottley is definitely one of the big reasons for that. He's drawing some of the most brutal battle scenes that one can imagine, some fantastic work.

[20:36] David: But he has dropped one. And the main reason though is that Battle Beast is back on hiatus for a few months. They do six issues on and then they take a few months off and then they do six issues again.

[20:47] David: So we're all a little bit of a break, much like we've seen with some of the others that have fallen. Ryan Utley is on a break. Number two is Nick Dragoda.

[20:55] David: Absolute Batman continues to be the thing that is saving the comic industry. I don't know how else to put it. And Nick Dragoda was a large part of that, but he has dropped one, John, and here's why.

[21:06] David: one is Hayden Sherman. Hayden Sherman is like, "Oh Dan Mora, you think you can draw two books?" "Hold my beer. I'm going to draw two books and they're both going to sell even better than the ones the two that you're drawing at DC." Hayden Sherman, he's gotten all kinds of accolades for his work on Absolute Wonder Woman, well deserved. It's an incredibly well-drawn book, beautiful, beautiful design elements to what he's doing. Now it appears that he is going to launch another huge selling book at DC, Legion of Superheroes is coming back. And all signs point to that being a

[21:41] John: top 10, top five best seller when it launches. I agree with you on Legion of Superheroes. That's never happened with Legion of Superheroes. It's not like they haven't put like big people on there.

[21:50] John: It always doesn't work. And I wonder if it's going to work this time. This looks like the one to do it. But it seems, you know, no matter how good the Mark Wade Barry Kitson run was, or how hyped the Bendis Franz's book one was exciting. Great talent here.

[22:08] David: For some reason, I think that Legion Superheroes this time, I don't know, I think DC has earned my back home try.

[22:14] John: Yeah, I agree. History tells me I should think about it.

[22:21] David: Yeah, the last time I was really interested in Legion Superheroes was when Keith Giffen was doing it back in like 1983. So, and even then it was like kind of peripherally. Joshua Williamson is the writer on this one.

[22:31] David: Joshua was writing a top five book for every publisher on the planet right now. Like he's writing, he's writing for every publisher. I love that he does how he does that.

[22:40] David: I'm all on board for Hayden Shimmer, more Hayden Shimmer artwork, especially when they're going to give him so many different characters to like design and play around with. Very excited. So that's, that's it, John.

[22:49] David: That's the top 10 hottest artists of the moment. Top 10. Yeah.

[22:54] David: All right. So, uh, that's it folks. I hope you enjoyed that.

[22:56] David: We like doing, I like putting those together for, for all of you. Hope you enjoyed that. But that's not all John.

[23:00] David: We have so many other things to talk about today.

[23:02] John: Yeah.

[23:02] David: We're just getting warmed up.

[23:04] John: Oh man.

[23:05] David: Hey everybody, we're gonna take just a break here for a minute and talk about my new book that is launching soon on Kickstarter. The best way for you to support the work we do here on the podcast is to buy the books that we make. Kind of a win-win for you guys.

[23:19] David: You get entertained here on the podcast and then the way to support it is to get entertained by a cool book. That book is Miss Mina and the Midnight Guardians, which we have done. So we are kick-starting soon.

[23:28] David: It features the artistic talents of the Zhang brothers on interiors. They are an amazing art duo. They're twins.

[23:34] David: Their art style has a beautiful manga-infused influence to it that I find super appealing. I think you guys are going to love it. And we have some fantastic cover artists that we brought on for this one.

[23:45] David: We have Chuma Hill, who has been covering Absolute Wonder Woman, Absolute Batman, amongst other DC titles. Eisner Award-nominated Ludo Lullaby will return for another cover on Miss Mina. And we also have Tony Harris. Yes, Tony Harris of Starman and Ex Machina fame.

[24:03] David: Gorgeous painted cover for us. So those are just some of the cool things that we have available for you. We also brought back Jonathan Mayberry, five-time Bram Stoker award-winning author and New York Times bestseller. Jonathan Mayberry is doing an original prose piece in the book that will accompany a backup story that is being drawn by Green Lantern artist Osvaldo Montpeller. Very excited to see it. The Kickstarter will launch in just a few weeks, but the best way to support us right now is to go to get.funtimego.com and can learn all about the book and you can sign up for our VIP package. The VIP package basically gives you extra special discounts and secret reward tiers that only our VIPs get to see. So it's the best possible way to get access to the Kickstarter campaign when it goes live is to have that VIP in your back pocket. So head over to get.funtimego.com untimego.com and learn about the book and sign up for our VIP.

[25:01] David: Thanks so much. Let's get back to the show. One very exciting bit of news and I think exciting for our listeners.

[25:09] David: I did not know this because I'm not in the mix the way I once was, but there's a new Dog Man book coming, John.

[25:15] John: That's true.

[25:16] David: So November, the latest Dog Man original graphic novel is coming out in November. Mr. Pilkey is back on board. I'm excited for that.

[25:24] David: I think I might try to pick that one up and maybe catch up a little bit. I think I have all the books. If not, I'm going to catch up.

[25:29] John: Yeah, you know, it's funny circumstances dictated a pause in my son and I reading one piece and then we went back and we've been rereading Dogman from the beginning. And we actually just wrapped it up last night. The most recent one. Now we're rereading Cat Kid.

[25:43] John: So I'm 100 percent primed. It's funny. We both have this reaction.

[25:47] John: I don't think we I think we only read the most recent one like once, even though he's got multiple copies of it. People knew he really liked it and got it for him for his birthday.

[25:55] David: The reason I acknowledge it, A, I personally am into it, but also the Dog Man deep dive that we did, which I think we did it in season two, and by we, I mean you, is easily our most listened to episode. Wow. That episode of the podcast has been listened to more than any other episode we've produced, which makes me concerned that children listen to it, and I hope that we did.

[26:16] David: I think we were like, okay, like generally we're pretty clean, but I get, dear Lord, I hope we were clean on that one. The other thing that was wild to me, John, that I saw in these numbers is Queen and Black number one. Do you even know what I'm talking about?

[26:31] John: Yeah, it's a new Marvel event. Yeah, right?

[26:34] David: Yeah. So some new Marvel event, there's just Venom stuff and Spider-Man stuff. Is Mary Jane Venom or something? Anyway, Queen and Black number one, not only is it a top five best-selling book in July, which kind of blows my mind because I haven't heard anybody talk about Queen and Black at all.

[26:50] Speaker 4: Okay.

[26:52] David: $7.99 book and it was top five. That's crazy to me. An $8 book that I haven't heard anybody talk to and it was top five best seller.

[27:02] David: That's shocking to me. I guess I should give some kudos to Marvel for making that happen, however they did, because that's completely off my radar and it performed very well for stores. So, I mean, it's great.

[27:16] David: And I like the fact that, I mean, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I like the fact that people are willing that high in their spending for books. I think if fans of comic books are willing to spend a little bit more money on our entertainment, comic book entertainment, that we will hopefully continue to like get nicer things. I don't know. It's probably folly to say that, but I hope that that's the case.

[27:39] David: I think comic book publishing companies get locked in to trying to make things as cheap as possible, and when you make things cheap, you get what you pay for. I'm kind of interested that that came in And did so well. The other thing that I thought was, man, John, absolute, the absolute line of DC continues to dominate. Of the top 10 best selling books, five of them were absolute.

[28:03] John: All different? Or was it was a double up? All different.

[28:07] David: And it's and it's stuff that you wouldn't expect either. So so absolute Batman issue 22 in July was number one.

[28:15] John: What? You're right. I didn't expect that. That's the one that you would expect. That's the number one. But then

[28:20] David: Number two, best selling is Absolute Green Arrow. Number three, like whoa, absolute green arrows, they're selling like that. And then below that is Absolute Catwoman.

[28:30] David: I'm just like, really? Like I love the artists on Absolute Catwoman by the way, but I just didn't expect it. And then of course you get to number six, Absolute Wonder Woman, Absolute Superman comes in at number nine.

[28:41] David: And so of your top things, it's so wild that it's still doing so well.

[28:45] John: Wow, that's cool. Good for DC, good for everybody.

[28:48] David: When DC's doing well, if Marvel could do well and DC can do well, the comic industry is going to be healthy and we'll see more Chancada.

[28:55] John: So there we go. Yeah. Yeah.

[28:58] David: That's it. That's all I got for numbers, John. We can stop playing with numbers now.

[29:01] David: We can do, we can do some other stuff. You want to talk about what you read this week? Sure.

[29:04] David: Yeah. Hit it, Ed.

[29:05] Intro: Here's what John and David read this week.

[29:08] John: Yeah. Yeah. We don't even try and we still managed to sink our yas there. We're so good.

[29:14] David: We're about to wrap up season three of this thing. I think it's safe to say we're professionals at this now.

[29:19] John: Exactly. We should be doing a podcast about how to podcast.

[29:24] David: We will probably get more listeners.

[29:27] John: Here's a book that I think has kind of been flying under the radar that I've been reading. I caught up on a bunch of comics this weekend. I read about 35 new comics because I've let it slip a little bit, some of my new comics. The comic is called "Royals." It's an image comic. I think around the time this comes out, we should be issue... These sticks should be coming out shortly.

[29:44] John: That's the end of the series so the paperback should be out soon. It's by Derek Kirk Kim and Jacob Perez Way back when I first started in comics as I mentioned before that a webcomic site called modern tales.com That was for competition with keen spot But we were the other one besides keen spot But Derek was kind of like the boy most likely to you know Like he was the one that was gonna really blow up his comics same difference and other stories came out from of graphics. And I remember running into Gene Yang, who at that time was not Gene Yang yet.

[30:15] John: You know, he was Gene Yang, but I mean, he like his name was Gene Yang.

[30:18] David: Yeah, he wasn't a middle school teacher. Right. Yeah. He was a friend of the comics on the

[30:22] John: side. He and Derek were, and I conjecture, still are friends. I ran into the two of me at a convention and it was Gene saying how dumb Derek was, because he wasn't going to draw this Superman graphic novel that Scott McLeod was working on. Gene really wanted to work on Superman and he couldn't understand how Derek didn't want to do that. And Gene eventually got to write, like, like eventually one of the best Superman stories at all with the Superman smashes the clan.

[30:47] David: Fantastic port.

[30:48] John: Derek, I felt it kind of disappeared. I don't know. I didn't see him as much, his name out there as much. He came back a couple years ago, last year, maybe the year before with the series he's writing a drawing called Mermaids from Image. Then this new one came out with called Royals. It's him and Jacob Perez drawing it. I don't know if you have this, but sometimes you have these books where it's like, well, I'm gonna pick this up because I like the person that did it, but I don't know if this is gonna be the comic that blows me away.

[31:11] John: I don't know if this is gonna be the top of my read pile. The premise of "Royals" didn't really... it sounded fun.

[31:17] John: It sounded like a good premise, but it didn't sound like one that was gonna, like, lie this thing at the top of my stack. And then, in fact, oh, nothing to "Royals" whatsoever. The fact that I didn't read these comics for so long, I let a bunch of packs stack up.

[31:29] John: I still have a bunch to read. "Royals" I think must have come out at just the right time, where I had three issues of it that I haven't read as of this weekend. And it wasn't had nothing to do with the comic itself.

[31:39] John: It was just that must have been the weeks it shipped in. And it's the only one that I had three comics comics. So there were several I had like two of so probably if I let everything go for another week would add much. But anyway, the premise of royals is that it's these two brothers who are psychic, they can read each other's thoughts only each other's thoughts though, but they can always they can hear what each other are thinking. They're Korean American, and they go to Korea to rip off this card game 'cause that's what they do. They play cards together. One of them watches like video feed and sees everybody's hands and mentally tells his brother what the cards are so that they can win at playing cards. Fine, cool premise, whatever.

[32:15] John: But man, Jacob Perez's art in this series is so good. His storytelling is so awesome. There's a chase in issue two, like a foot chase.

[32:26] John: And I was just like, whoa, I didn't expect this would have this super dynamic, really fun, really well choreographed foot chase. Since then there have been car chases, more fight scenes and stuff that's really well, well laid out, well choreographed, well done. But I don't know where the story is going next.

[32:43] John: Every issue there's a new twist to it that builds on the premise. It's funny, it's a fun, enjoyable read. But there's twists and turns. I mean, this isn't a spoiler, but one issue everybody winds up getting killed at the end and you're like, well, what happens next?

[33:00] John: How do you keep going? I have no idea who's on what side, who has what abilities. And I've just been really enjoying the hell out of it. So many twists and turns in those last three issues. Can't wait to see how it all comes together at the end. It'll be a great graphic novel to sit down and read. And oddly enough, Jacob Perez's next thing is a series of graphic novels with Gene Yang.

[33:21] John: So, uh, shocker.

[33:23] David: I think it's safe to say that Jean, Derek are still friends based on that.

[33:27] John: Uh, so my Royals, I don't know how that I missed that because I'm pretty religious

[33:31] David: about buying anything that Derek or Kim does. So yeah, I mean him and Jean Llewyn Yang did Duncan's kingdom. Do you remember that?

[33:39] David: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[33:40] David: Yeah. I already knew Jean and I knew Derek or Kim from like the mini comic scene. Right.

[33:46] David: They were doing some mini comics before that. Duncan's kingdom was like this thing that they that landed image. I remember being so jealous because I was like, oh man These guys are just blowing up and Derek Kirk him was art was so gorgeous on Duncan's Kingdom I loved it so much and then Derek Kirk him won the Zara grant for that story that he did that you mentioned What's the name different thing difference and other stories? He got a Zara grant for that I was like, man, these guys are blowing up left me in the dust But yeah, I love Derek Kirk Kim's work and I'm definitely gonna pick up who else I did not know about that one John

[34:18] John: Yeah, each issue is extra long too. It's like each issue is like 30 pages. So it's-

[34:21] David: Oh, really?

[34:22] John: Yeah.

[34:23] David: Is it priced higher or is it, do you know, $4.99?

[34:26] John: $4.99, I don't know, is that higher now?

[34:28] David: I don't think it is anymore. I think that's kind of standard comic books now.

[34:31] John: Yeah.

[34:35] David: All right, John, I've got an interesting experiment here that I want to try with what I read this week. 'Cause I've read so many books recently. Like, I feel like I say that a lot lately, but I've been reading a ton. Even though I don't feel like I have any time to read, I have been reading a ton. One of the books that I read that I want to talk about was Spawn number 376.

[34:54] John: Okay.

[34:55] David: Now, why the heck would I want to talk about Spawn issue 376? Well, John, it's the first Spawn book I've read in at least 350 plus issues.

[35:05] John: So I had no idea. That's yeah.

[35:07] David: I am not, I'm not a Spawn guy. I, I, it's horror, John, and I'm just not a horror guy. And there's that also, as soon as Todd McFarlane stopped drawing the book, I was like, I'm out.

[35:17] David: like Todd McFarlane's writing, like, he's not like, Adjective of Spider-Man. I didn't like the writing on that in that book. Spawn, I didn't like the writing in the book, but I was there 100% because I loved the art.

[35:29] David: So as soon as he wasn't drawing it and he was only writing, I was like, that's the worst of both worlds. I'm going to go ahead and check out. And I did not check back in until issue 376. The reason I checked in for issue 376 is because it's the first time that Spawn has had a different regular writer since Todd basically launched

[35:47] John: book. Well, is that right? I think there were some other writers in the middle there. I thought they

[35:53] David: were all just aliases that Todd used. Oh, I know. I know at one point there was a writer that was writing the book and it was just Todd McFarlane using an alias. Oh, interesting. I know for a fact that happened. So maybe, maybe there's been a, anyway, okay. I made them for this one because the new writer is Matthew Rosenberg and I like Matt's work and the artist is Steven Segovia and And I like Steven's work too.

[36:16] David: So I was like, okay, you know what? I'm not a spawn guy, but new jumping on point. I'll jump on.

[36:20] David: I'm jumping right back off. John, right back up. I read it.

[36:24] David: I didn't enjoy it at all. I didn't know what was happening in the book, but not in a, Oh, I can't wait to find out what's next. Like not in a Savage dragon kind of way.

[36:32] David: And more in a, Oh, I'm really bored. And like spawn shows up in like three panels in the whole book. And the rest of it's about a kid who's like dealing with suicide and somebody dies and this is depressing and not anything what I want in a superhero comic book even remotely closed. The art was good and I think the storytelling was competent. It just was clearly I'm not a spawn guy. That's what I've discovered. And it's weird, John, because you know it's a very polished book. Like it's very professional. The cover is beautiful. The design and layout of the book is minimal and gorgeously put together. The art is really, you know, of a high professional quality pencils, inks and colors. There's all these ads for like cool spawn toys in the back, like it's spawn call of duty spawn. And it's just like, wow, man, this thing's got like everything going for it. And you know, Matt Rosenberg is a great writer who's worked at the big two, you know, for several years now. And so it's got like, professionally, it's like just slick and I could have not liked it more. And so that contrasts with this other thing that I picked up which is called Steel Streets. This is a collection of the first four issues of Steel Streets and it is written and drawn by Mahdi Keene, M-A-H-D-I-Keene, K-H-E-N-E and is published by Zuperhero Comics, which I think is just Mahdi Keene's imprint. The reason that Marikin got on my radar is because he did something called Bootleg Spider-Man.

[38:08] David: And I think I've talked about it on the show in the past.

[38:11] John: Yeah. Okay.

[38:12] David: So Marikin did this thing called Bootleg Spider-Man, which I don't remember how I found it, but once I found it, there was two issues available and I picked them both up and I loved them. And Marikin sent an email out on, somehow I don't even know how mine was email list, I guess it's because I bought Bootleg Spider-Man, but I got an email saying, "Hey, if you buy this collected edition of this thing called Steel Streets, I've done the third issue of Bootleg Spider-Man. I'm going to include it with this trade paperback collection."

[38:41] David: I'm like, "Well, I want Bootleg Spider-Man, so I guess I'm getting Steel Streets." And I'm so glad that I did. Basically what he did was he took Robocop and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and mashed them together into this really weird, wild, new version of things.

[38:59] David: It's very much like a RoboCop story layered with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And it's of a very, I don't want to say low quality, but it's not like slick or professional in any way. It's very much like, you know, we've been doing a lot of the outsider art stuff and this is outside of the outsider art.

[39:16] David: The anatomy is all over the place. Some of the weird choices that are made for panel layouts and it's just weird, but it is charming and just fascinating to read. It's got like the spot colors, like one color spot colors in it.

[39:30] David: The story is literally just like, what if Raphael died and got turned into a Robocop and goes out for vengeance. It's the exact opposite of Spawn 376. It's like done in this package that's like too small, really, it's kind of too small for the art.

[39:45] David: It's like in this really small digest size collection. And the art definitely needs to be like shown off a little bit bigger than what it is here. So like even the format's kind of wrong and the art's just kind of off and like unprofessional.

[40:00] David: The lettering's all over the place. The writing is kind of oddball. But man, I loved it.

[40:04] David: I loved every bit of it. So I couldn't recommend it more. It was such a weird experience to read those.

[40:10] David: I basically read those two things back to back. I read Spawn and then I read Steel Streets. I was like, man, these things could not be farther apart away.

[40:15] David: And the one that you would think I would like more because it's of a much more professional quality is the one that was just laid an egg, whereas the one that's just kind of like some dude in his garage, you know, some dude in his basement just like going to town is the is the more interesting and charming and well crafted book. So there you go. That's what I read.

[40:39] John: Yeah, when I had this big stack, the first thing I read was laser quest by Harry Nordlinger, which is from from floating world comics that actually published a lot of the

[40:49] David: I think floating world comics is becoming like my favorite publisher.

[40:52] John: Okay, you look at like something like Batman, right? Like, like, Jorge Jimenez is on Batman and Matt Fraction on Batman. That comic's really well put together, right?

[41:01] John: Yeah, some alternative artists that I think you can, like, easily say have a level of craft in the style that they operate in that is as high or higher than like that issue of Batman, right? Like, I think like Chris Ware or Dan Clowes or something, like, those people know how to, know how to draw, know how to put together comic books, and they're operating in a different style. But craft-wise, the last Dan Clowes graphic novel was better put together than the new issue of Batman, as good as the new issue of Batman is, right? I would argue. And then there's other artists, like you're saying, though, that are just like, "No, the level of craft and Laser Quest is not that high in its own style." You know what I mean? It doesn't fit together as well. This wasn't the best comic I ever read or anything. It's definitely the sort of thing I want to see more of.

[41:46] John: You know, like it's a story that doesn't quite all come together. It's not perfect, but it's, you know, something from the person that made it and means something from the person that made it. I really appreciate that.

[41:57] John: And that's been one of the things that's been kind of going through my head with these both the outsider art stuff we've been doing. Some of the I've been digging into like stuff that I don't know that much about. I kind of came up in a way in like the fallout of the post Ninja Turtles black and white boom, right?

[42:13] John: Like there's just like a bunch of stuff that I really liked from that era. And that was the sort of thing that really appealed to me when I was in high school, was that idea of an age where that was very old by the time I was in high school. But they're not very old.

[42:27] John: This wasn't going on while I was in high school. But that idea of being like Dave Sim or something and just making your own comic and putting it out there, that was awesome. And I loved seeing those artists like Drew Hayes and Moak.

[42:40] John: I don't know, all these people are varying qualities. Some of them were, you know, one of them was Jeff Smith. None of the rest of them were.

[42:47] John: All the rest weren't. But I still liked a lot of that stuff. You know, there were Terry Moore. Like, he's really good, right?

[42:55] John: But like, not, but there's other stuff that's, I'm with you. I more and more appreciate that now. And more and more appreciate people going in and making the comics their own, whether they're in a mainstream or their own setting.

[43:08] John: Like, I don't automatically like that stuff more than what Matt and Jorge Jimenez are doing on Batman because I think they're doing a great job. And not only doing a job but doing something with it, you know, like telling a story that's worth telling. I feel that way about the absolute books. Like I think there's something more to it than just moving chess pieces around and maximizing IP potential, you know. Like I think there's more to it than that. I like that. But I do like it

[43:31] David: when people just do it themselves. I think you hit the nail on the head for me that it's a more personal work. And I think that's the thing that I'm attracted to is that I feel like I'm hearing the unique voice come through. Someone's truly speaking. This thing is RoboCop mixed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The main character is, you know, half frog half man. Like it's not like, it's silly.

[43:54] David: But there's a voice that's coming through that's very strong and clearly has some things to like share. And while I don't always understand all of it, I admire it. And I enjoy it. Maybe that is the reason why I'm more interested in is it's a more personal work, whereas Spawn as slick and as good as it is, because it is good. I recognize that even though I don't personally like it, I can definitely see why other people would, it doesn't evoke the same feelings for me.

[44:22] David: So anyway, there you go, John. There's what John and David read this week.

[44:27] Speaker 4: Yeah.

[44:31] David: I got one more thing that I want to bring up, John, and we should probably wrap it up. We to give a shout out to the folks over at Mad Cave. They brought back something that I didn't, I don't know how this is doing for them, but they brought back a story that I loved, The Last Starfighter. Yeah. If people haven't seen that movie, it's a fantastic movie. It still holds up, you know, 40 years later, whatever it is. It's one of my favorite, all time favorite movies.

[44:55] David: I think I'm the right audience for a Last Starfighter comic book. But I thought, you know, it's written by Benjamin Rabb and somebody named Derek A Hughes. And they did a great job, like, The first couple of pages, they sort of remind everybody, like, "Hey, here's where we're at. Here's what we're doing," you know? And then they jump right into a fun new story that has consequences, and the characters are exactly who you remember them to be, and doing the same kinds of things, but it's new and interesting, but the characters feel true to themselves, and true to the movie versions of themselves. I really liked it.

[45:26] David: And so I'm on board for the Last Starfighter, John. This is another one of these nostalgia plays that I've somehow been roped into, and I'm not usually a nostalgia play guy, But, you know, I got Thundar the Barbarian last time we talked about some of this stuff. And now I'm hooked on Last Starfighter.

[45:42] David: Kudos to the folks over at Mad Cave, Benjamin Rabb. The other thing I want to mention is the artist on this book, The Last Starfighter is a guy named Willie Roberts. All about a year ago, Willie Roberts and his, he had a writer, they were putting together his book that was for Kickstarter.

[45:56] David: And they were, I don't know how they got to me, but they got to me. And so I was just basically giving some free advice to them. And Willie reached out to me separately and was like, "Hey, you know, it's hard for me to get like valuable critique. Would you be willing to give me some pointers or just, you know, as an editor, tell me what you see?" So I laid into him, man. I gave him like unfiltered David Hedgecock.

[46:22] John: Yeah.

[46:22] David: I like to think that I'm pretty good about, you know, giving people critiques. Try to be positive, but you know, then also like, "Hey, this is, this is, be realistic." Right?

[46:32] David: And so for this guy, I was like, look, I'm gonna be real realistic with you because I don't really have time to do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway, because you gotta help people out. You never know when it's gonna come back to you. And I was helped along the way.

[46:42] David: So anyway, I gave him a bunch of pointers. And to his credit, he took it all like a total professional and then enacted some of the stuff that I was talking to him about. And I can see it in his work in this Last Starfighter.

[46:55] David: So some of the things that I specifically was like, hey, these are the things that you really gotta pay attention to, you gotta start working on. He's clearly been thinking about it and he's leveled up. The art, I'm not gonna hire this guy at Marvel or DC just yet.

[47:06] David: It was nice to see such great improvement in his work based on what I had seen before and what I'm seeing in The Last Starfighter. So kudos to Willie Roberts for taking some critique to heart and not getting offended and really doubling down and making himself a better talent and getting a really cool gig like The Last Starfighter, which I'm totally buying.

[47:25] John: That's cool. My tendency is to avoid the nostalgia plays, except for here and there, I get pulled in, I got pulled in on it. Okay, like we said, and then, you know what got me though, the other week was Team America.

[47:38] John: The Team America Racing, not the, as it explains to you, not Team America.

[47:45] John: Oh, South Park guys. South Park guys. But Team America, the 80s comic book that was based on a line of toys that was based on a cancelled Evil Knievel line of toys that was canceled when Evil Knievel like beat up a manager or something for talking shit about him, something like that. Little Toys had all these like stunt racing toys and they dropped Evil Knievel so they had to make up their own heroes and there was a Marvel comic about it. But like those characters I think are still owned by Marvel.

[48:10] John: Some of them wound up in X-Men and became different characters in Claremont's New Mutants. Really?

[48:16] John: Yeah. There's some crazy stuff. The 70s and 80s were weird. This had been serialized in Comic Shop News, the weekly newspaper at comic shops.

[48:23] David: Every time I think this couldn't be more random, you're making it more random. It was running in Comic Shop News. First of all, Comic Shop News is still around. Second of all, it was running in the Comic Shop News and it was a former Marvel property. Is it still Marvel?

[48:37] John: It's one of those things like Micronauts where Micronauts is not owned by Marvel, but Marionette and Bug and the characters that weren't directly, you know, like Space Glider isn't owned by Marvel, but Commander Rann is owned by Marvel. I think it's one of those kinds of things.

[48:53] John: Oh, okay. Where it's like the specific characters are owned by them. But maybe not. I don't know, man. I don't know.

[48:59] John: Here, you want to random it up one more? Everything I've just said. Like, who do you get to do the cover?

[49:04] John: Howard Chaykin?

[49:06] David: Yep, that makes it more random. That definitely worked. So they just put out a collection? Who's publishing it?

[49:11] John: Oh, it was from Comic Shop News. It was like, they're published, like, CSN.

[49:14] David: I'm so confused. I'm just confused right now. I don't even know how this happens. Why did you buy that? Why did-- how did that get on your-

[49:22] John: I really liked Team America when I was a kid. The Marauder, man. You thought you like who was Marauder? I think she turned into like one of the X-Men characters Yeah, they're like a Snake Eyes type character. It was just all dressed in black and you know, it was It made a lot more sense and he got to the end and found out it had been serialized and in Comic Shop News Cuz the pacing seemed a little weird and then oh that kind of makes sense. Yeah, it was alright I thought it was a rando pull right there. So the Last Starfighter guy. Hey guys Alex is going for the record I love that movie I had the Marvel Comic Super Special of that too.

[49:56] David: The adaptation of the movie. Yeah. Well, guess what? In the back of the first issue of The New Last Starfighter, there's an ad. They're republishing that movie adaptation as a glorious hardcover.

[50:07] David: It's like trade paperback collection of some sort. So deluxe formatting kind of thing. So I don't know why you would want that, but it's there if you want it.

[50:13] John: I used to buy a lot of those Marvel Super Specials. Like, I don't know what possessed me that I needed to have the Muppets Take Manhattan Super Special, but I totally had that. You know, I just had like a bunch of stuff like that when I was a kid.

[50:25] John: Like the Dune one is amazing, right? The one that was like Ralph Macchio and Bill Sienkiewicz doing David Lynch's Dune in 48 pages. Like that's wild.

[50:34] David: I've never read it.

[50:42] John: The Blade Runner one's supposed to be really good, which is I think Al Williamson drawing a Blade Runner adaptation. But I hadn't heard of either of those. Here's one that I read when it came out, and I didn't remember this one fact about it, but do you remember a movie called Howard the Duck that came out?

[50:55] John: Yeah, vaguely. Do you know who did the adaptation of Howard the Duck? It wasn't Steve Gerber. Kyle Baker.

[50:58] David: I did know that. Yeah. That's crazy.

[51:00] John: That must be good. I bet that's good. I bet it looks good.

[51:03] David: It probably is, right? Yeah, Kyle Baker's so good. I love that guy's stuff. All right, John, we got to let people go. They got some other stuff to do today.

[51:11] John: Well, thank you all for joining us here on the Corner Box. It's been an utterly focused and rock solid episode here. And once again, like always. So we'll be back like clockwork next week. So be here with something exciting.

[51:25] John: I think if it all comes out, it'll be pretty exciting. And if not, it'll still be exciting.

[51:29] David: John, we're like, we're like four weeks away from from the end of season three. We got to do put together some sort of like huge season finale. We got to wow our listeners.

[51:36] John: We've got people to impress here. Yeah, we got weeks. We don't need to worry about that.

[51:40] John: We'll see you all there and see you before. Take care. Bye. This has been the Corner Box

[51:45] Outro: 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.