Episode 211 - Comic Books! - Relentless Geekery

Overview

Behind the Scenes of the Comic Book Industry: Distribution Challenges and Iconic Stories In this episode of Relentless Geekery, hosts Alan and Stephen are joined by special guest Colin, a comic book industry insider, to discuss various topics in the realm of comics. The conversation covers distribution challenges within the industry, changes since COVID-19, the role of major distributors like Diamond, Lunar Distribution, and Penguin Random House, as well as fascinating insights into the business dynamics. Colin shares personal stories and experiences from working in a comic book store, emphasizing the importance of community and customer engagement. The episode also delves into the history and impact of significant comic creators, myth-busting some common misconceptions about legends like Stan Lee, and acknowledging the contributions of artists like Jack Kirby and Don Heck. The discussion further touches on the value of continuity in storytelling, the influence of movies on comic book perception, and the diversity of content in modern comics. 00:00 Introduction to Relentless Geekery 00:43 Special Guest: Colin Talks Comics 00:55 The Comic Book Industry: Past and Present 03:05 Distribution Challenges and Changes 14:41 Comic Shop Dynamics and Customer Experience 24:34 Comic Book History and Influential Works 39:13 The Evolution of Comic Book Characters 44:09 The Influence of Comics on Society 44:35 The Comics Code Authority and Its Impact 45:10 Marvel’s Rise and the Role of Creators 45:57 The Evolution of Comic Book Credits 47:36 The Role of Editors in Comic Creation 49:29 Generational Shifts in Comic Book Storytelling 51:01 The Complexity of Comic Book Continuity 52:10 Current Trends and Critiques in Comics 55:26 Diversity and Representation in Comics 01:12:30 The Legacy of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby 01:24:47 Concluding Thoughts and Future Discussions

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Do you like conversation on a variety of topics? Feel like no one wants to talk about the things that interest you? Tired of only hearing the same political, sports, or catastrophe talk? We feel that way too. Join two high functioning geeks as they discuss just about anything under the sun. We can’t tell you what we’ll be talking about each week because we don’t know where our brains will take us.

It will be an interesting conversation though, so hang on and join us. Here comes the Relentless Geekery.

Stephen: Hey, there’s Alan. Okay. And a special guest today. How cool is this? We have a special guest. Special in a good way. True. True. Okay. Yeah we changed it up a little bit today where we got Colin on to talk comics because [00:01:00] you’ve been starting to get your comics finally, two months later or whatever, and Colin works at a comic store at the moment and has a lot of information on the industry.

So we were going to talk stories and business and everything else geeky with comics. Exactly.

Alan: I’ll start because I am the one that you’ll have me having, so real quick, I stopped buying comic books like more than a decade ago because it was time to watch where our money was going and make sure that we got to retirement safely.

And now that we are retired safely, and I’m thinking, what do I want to spend my money on as much as anything else in the world? It was maybe going back into the habit, and it is indeed an expensive habit that I’m discovering. You know what I mean? I’m a completist when it comes to Marvel DC, the main publishers, and so I’m spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars, even at a big discount.

I buy them from a place called M& M Distributors that I used long ago, and they’re still in business, and they still seem to be pretty cool. But I’m having to get used to it takes a while you got to preorder two [00:02:00] going on three months in order to get things they, I’m not sure which distributors they make use of Diamond and maybe others.

And maybe that’s the first thing, a special guest Colin. Information came out recently, Diamond had not quite monopolized, but they were definitely a dominant player in the industry. And then when they have. Flirted with bankruptcy multiple times now, the world starts to wonder what’s going to happen if our pusher man, our source, dries up or whatever, like I was used to previous to having occasionally things get We don’t have enough copies coming in, so we’re going to have to give them to our biggest pull customers first, and that kind of thing.

Is that kind of stuff still happening? What’s the kind of behind the scenes stuff that goes on in a relatively innocent industry like comic books?

Stephen: So before he answers don’t you think, Al, that Colin needs to have a white cat that he’s petting? E.

Alan: Exactly. We’ve gotta get the full blow fail going.

Yes, . [00:03:00] Alright, sorry, go ahead.

Colin: Bomb some okay,

I gotta rewind a little bit. So for those of you listening who aren’t familiar, diamond comic retailers was the sole distributor for comics and toys in the United States. Some parts of the world, depending on where you’re at, going on 30, 35 years that changed in 2020, they have not been a monopoly or even something that resembles a monopoly for about five years 2020 covid hit and changed the whole game for comics.

Basically any piece of anything you thought you knew about comics. After 2020, it basically stopped applying, at least the business side of things.

Alan: I didn’t know about that because that’s right in the gap. I hadn’t been buying and back in the days when it was, let’s see, Jeppies. And I’m trying to think of some of the older names.

Yeah,

Colin: Jeppies still owns it. The Jeppie family still owns Diamond. Basically what happened was in 2020, COVID hit, everything shut down Diamond distributors [00:04:00] put An industry wide pencils off notice. Nobody was allowed to put out anything. Marvel DC and the big companies did not like the fact that a single distributor could basically tell them to shut everything down.

Was it a good decision for the moment? Yes. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that they had the power to shut the industry down literally completely just by saying, we’re not distributing anything anymore.

Alan: Embargo on, if you will, from. Basically,

Colin: basically what then happened was as companies got out of their exclusive Exclusive contracts with Diamond.

They opened up to other retailers. So there weren’t any other distributors at the time. DC Comics actually paid and helped set up two different distributors. Lunar Distribution and UCS. Distribution and UCS is not around. They did it for a year and then they shut down. They did not like it. And basically what they [00:05:00] were I don’t remember exactly which companies, but essentially they were larger comic company or comic shops that had.

already some infrastructure, some warehouses, some packing people, because they do a lot of online stuff. I think one of them was connected to Mile High. Mile High has, is the biggest in the world ever.

Alan: Yeah, exactly. She made a pilgrimage there. They’re out of Denver, and that, that’s one of those things that really is a warehouse.

It isn’t a when you go to their place it’s like an Indiana Jones warehouse full of book stuff. Okay.

Colin: So DC pay essentially helped pay for them to get set up. Lunar is DC’s exclusive at lunar and lunar has been around for about that whole five years, about a year later, Marvel got out of their exclusive contract with diamond, went to penguin random house, which is one of the big five book publishing houses they’ve been wanting.

They’ve been wanting to break into comics for years. This has been their opportunity. They were already distributing the Trade Paperbacks Collected [00:06:00] Editions. They weren’t doing singles. Marvel went to them, Dark Horse went to them, and IVW went to them. Dark Horse has Hellboy, and Grendel, and a few others, and IVW has Ninja Turtles, and Godzilla, and not a ton else, Sonic.

Alan: But still big enough titles and big enough rewards that they, it’s a win where you want to be, where you have some power in terms of people want to have your business so you can pick and choose or even set up your own company, like you said, and that by having competition, like anybody that really thinks capitalism works, by having competition, you keep prices down in the industry instead of winning.

That kind of thing a we declare not. Okay,

Colin: the real issue with this is it’s none of it’s really competition is the problem. They’re all exclusive at the separate companies now. So Marvel is exclusive at Penguin DC is exclusive at Lunar image comics, which has spawn and savage dragon. Some of the other stuff is exclusive at Lunar.

That’s it. There is no competition. It’s just [00:07:00] now. Comic shops have to get from three different companies instead of one. The biggest thing that it really did was on the front side, we got a lot less damages because Lunar and Penguin was a little rough to start out with, but Lunar from the get go knew how to pack comics and Penguin figured it out.

Eventually we have virtually no damages from them. Sometimes printer damages, but in terms of actual like shipping damages or handling damages, it’s like. We get about 500 issues a week from each of them, and we have maybe three or four books that are damaged. Whereas Diamond, it’s entire shipments sometimes, most of the time.

Wow. The big part that is important to know about the situation that led Diamond down to bankruptcy is that when everybody pulled out, they made the worst possible choice. They didn’t go, oh crap, we don’t really have a whole lot of comic guys anymore. They had three or four companies, and a lot of small ones, but three or four, mid tier and a lot of small ones.

They didn’t go crap. We better, shift more into the toys, which there is [00:08:00] no central distribution for toys. You either get it straight from the companies, and it’s a terrible deal unless you’re a big shop, or you get it from the of two big online retailers. Which are your direct competitors and they have no incentive to do good business with you.

In fact, they have an incentive to hurt you more than anything. Exactly. Exactly. So

Alan: what diamond really

Colin: should have done was gone further into the toys, try to bank for more deals, better deals while they still had the money instead, they went we need to be getting Marvel and image and dark horse and IDW we’ll buy it wholesale.

So they. Are paying we’re paying they still are We’re paying the same percentage off that we do as a shop that gets it directly from the distributor Wow. Okay. And then selling it to stores with a 15. So we pay 50%. That is industry standard with any of the Penguin Random House [00:09:00] books.

So Marvel, Dark Horse, and IDW, you don’t get an option to advocate for a better discount that is just flat unless you’re Barnes and Nobles, it is just flat 50%. And that was the case with diamonds. Then diamond was reselling those two people buying them through diamond for 35 percent discount.

So they’re doing, they’re getting a 15 percent profit on paper, but that’s not including the shipping and then the unpacking and then the repacking and the organization and all the structure there. And. I guarantee you they were losing five to ten percent of what each book is worth on each book.

Just

Alan: out of shrinkage, out of whatever the industry terms are for the more people that touch it, the worse that you have chance of breakage, if you will, or theft, or and there is another middleman, so there’s, Not the profit gets divvied. This is really classic capitalism. We said, okay.

Colin: Damages were outrageous, if so, if a book sold out at penguin, we check if diamond had it, if we [00:10:00] needed it, if it was Marvel and if they did, we’d say we ordered 10, all 10 of those would be destroyed, like unsellable, destroyed, not like a small little. Damage here or there that we can deal with and sell, maybe for 50 cents less, not even worth putting in the dollar boxes.

Nobody would want it.

Alan: That’s amazing. Wow

Colin: Yeah, that’s what killed them more than anything is that 35? And the issue is you had a lot of shops that went well, why are we going through all these companies? We’ll just keep getting it through diamond. It’s easy. You’re not thinking about the fact that they’re only getting 35 percent off after shipping, it’s more like 25 percent off.

And then after the pools and all the labor and everything, they’re making maybe 5 percent on a book. If it’s a three 99 comic 5%, that’s pennies,

Alan: right? It’s, the fact that their margins are getting squeezed and it’s not getting done in order to get better service or better quality or anything that I could just see how everybody’s turning away from them.

Colin: Worst service, the worst customer service to interact with. It’s not bad. It’s just [00:11:00] complicated. You can’t just Lunar and Penguin both. I’ve got the emails, we’ve got a personal rep we can deal with. We’ve had six different Diamond reps in the last year. I don’t know who any of them are, they’ve never reached out to us.

The only that’s correction. The only time they’ve ever reached out to us was a random low level person, not our rep, reached out to us because I input in a damage order incorrectly. The only time they’ve ever reached out to us. Whereas Lunar and Penguin

Alan: In a collectibles world, everyone knows the condition matters.

Everyone knows that, and not only Mint versus Very Fine versus all the things that are classic, but now that it’s down to the gnat’s eyelash with all the grading services, you can’t have something come in that isn’t starting at Mint, and then you might have some difficulties of your own, but you don’t want to buy a Mint, anything other than Mint, if at all you can help it.

And so why make sure that it was like, The reason that I went back to M& M is because they’ve always packed, double boxed, really well padded, same as you said, [00:12:00] nothing ever arrived damaged, no water, no, no puncture, no anything like that. And so I, it’s worth going with a known quantity to make sure that it’s getting into your hands in exactly the condition that you want in an industry where condition matters.

Colin: I will add to that. I think that In terms of condition, I think that there is a huge gap between the way comic shops have to deal with it and what customers look at. So customers assume if they’re buying something, it has to be a 9. 8 right off the wall. 9. 8 grade. That’s the highest you can reasonably get.

It can’t be. It can’t be. We cannot damage out something to our distributor, any of the three, even the ones I like working with. If it is anything worse than anything better than a very fine is like an eight. If it’s got one small being, that’s not damageable. If it’s got, some non color breaking waving this on the cover.

That’s not damageable. And a lot of customers. Assume that it has to be and it’s in the [00:13:00] shop. That’s the problem. If not, it’s not us. The distributors do not let us damage it out. If it’s anything better than an 80 and

Alan: There to it. So one of the another reason like this is The quandary of anybody that’s ever tried to do delivery, like when they first started to have grocery shopping available, it was like I want stuff that if I was at the store, I would knock on a couple melons and pick the good one, and that’s what I’m gonna take.

So you have to have a shopper that’s gonna do things to the same standard that I am. So when I’m in the comic book store, I really do pick up the stack of ten and look down the spines and pick the one that’s got the least deformation in the spine. The staples are just right. And I was that shopper. And again, I wrote to find a place that had that same standard of care that is just being on the number and they’re like dealing them out like cards. It, I’m, I was happy to find someone that would do that for me because I wouldn’t, I didn’t stay with anybody that wasn’t the amount of, I don’t know, time and care that I was willing to put in.

So [00:14:00] like I said, I,

Colin: It’s not time and care though, at least for smaller shops, it’s that just the cost we can’t, if everything with a small little imperfection didn’t get put up on the wall, that’ll kill shops, unfortunately, the margins on my

Alan: level of care, you guys can do what you’re trying to move.

10, 000 copies or whatever the real number is every single week. You just can’t put that much time into that when you’re trying to move quantity, not quality necessarily. Okay.

Colin: Yeah. And the other thing is, the stuff that hits the wall is maybe 5 percent of what we actually order every week.

We get, we have so many pool customers. And generally the idea is anybody that’s pre ordered, it gets the nicer copies first. That’s just. Flat, you know because they’re the guaranteed sales, um you know if you are concerned about the condition of your books setting up a pull list is generally my best recommendation But even then it’s if you get a damn, you know a copy that to you seems damaged I, it isn’t the shop to blame, at least from my perspective,

Alan: , this is funny to take a step back [00:15:00] for those who don’t collect kind books, you’re getting some insights into this is how it really works. That there’s, it isn’t that you just always go in and hit the spinner racks and see things that have already been bent back a couple of times from somebody.

pulling on them or reading on them or something like that. The world really advanced as soon as things went to direct sales that you could count on the comic book store, like a pull list, but you could pre order things and make sure that you got what you wanted. And it wasn’t even a matter of condition.

It was a matter of, wow, I don’t want to miss an issue of Spider Man ever. Please make sure that I don’t. You know what I mean? If I get a Saturday instead of a Thursday, and it’s already sold out, because usually new comic books were like Wednesday nights and put out Thursdays, that’s, is that kind of still true?

It’s Wednesdays.

Colin: We, we put them out generally on Tuesdays and do pools, and I do my like promotional video on Tuesdays, but Wednesdays is new comic day.

Alan: Oh, it’s Wednesdays, So for those, just that, People who go into a comic book store and they don’t know all of this. There really is a, an interesting culture and business practice behind [00:16:00] all of this that has evolved from people who care about these things.

That, that’s part of the business now. You get guaranteed sales because you know how many people have pre ordered them through pull lists. And you don’t have to go in there and say, what if I miss an issue? What if the only ones left are chewed on and things like that. The fact that I have, I think, like 50 years worth of comics in really good condition.

Are they all 9 and 8? Probably not, but where nothing was, I, the kind of clubs that I belong to and then the buying services that I belong to, they really upped my game in terms of almost always being able to find almost all the things that I wanted and keep them in good shape. Some places even pre bag and board them for you, which was a little bit weird to me I’d actually read them instead of just Buy it in, hermetically sealed, store them away, a thing.

So what, how would the store you work, or the chain of stores you work, work compare to what’s in Cleveland, or what’s in the United States? We talked, Mile High actually has stores that run off of its warehouse and stuff. Are you a small, medium, [00:17:00] large? And what does that get you in terms of knowledge, or preferential treatment, or is it a matter of how much love you guys put into it?

Colin: So the thing is, we are larger than I’d say 80 percent of the shops, locally, We’re probably in the top 25 percent in terms of size across the country. Most shops are, one small room, little bit of a hole in a wall, about a couple dozen, boxes and then.

Most of their sales are just full customers coming in every week. We have about 300 boxes out on display and then, oh God, I don’t know, probably close to 250, 000 action figures in the store. It

Alan: really is a differentiator when you walk through and you can see they’ve got things stocked in depth from the past.

Not just what you just said, the pull service. Yeah. Okay, very good.

Colin: So there’s really a couple different categories of shops. There’s the old school shop that’s, the hole in the [00:18:00] wall. There’s the guy sitting behind the counter watching a 70 year old TV show on TV, hyped up a little too loud.

And he hasn’t read a single thing that’s come out in the last 40 years and insists that the best time of comics was when he was a kid. And then you got this little bit

Alan: of a little bit of, that, whatever that stereotype is, some people are the stereotype.

Colin: Yeah.

But, some of those guys are grumpy, but some of them, if you get a chance to really talk to him, so they got some of the craziest knowledge and stories, And then you’ve got shots a lot like mine, where we don’t just do comics. You have a large inventory of a variety of different things within comics, but you also do a second thing.

Generally, my recommendation, I’ve been asked, I’m very active in the online sphere for comics. I do a I moderate the largest, as far as I know, the largest independent Comic book server on discord. We got almost 6, 000 people and, I do all kinds of other stuff, but I get a lot of people asking, I want to start a shop.

What do I do? One of my biggest recommendations, you can’t just do comics anymore. You got to have a [00:19:00] second thing you do just as well as comics. What we do is comics and toys and generally, ideally, if you’ve got the space and the knowledge, have a third thing that you do. Okay. And we’ve got an okay amount of.

Trading cards, magic and Pokemon mostly.

Alan: Different crowds, slightly different crowds, but you also get cross selling in case they Exactly. Because sometimes people have a collector’s instinct and they’re just looking for the medium that’s going to be in which they work. And then they say as long as I’m here, I could get into the next version of Magic the Gathering or whatever else it might be.

Yeah. Honestly, when you said 250, 000 action figures, That’s a rough estimate, but yeah. That’s really I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many in one place except on the floor of a convention or something like that for you guys to be so amazingly well stocked and whatever you cover, just I’m sure it’s video games, comic books.

Adam has multiple

Colin: storage units. Yeah, we’ve got about five storage units. We also. I believe we have the largest selection of loose action figures [00:20:00] in any shop in the state. They’re the ones they’ll repute the action There

Alan: we go. We

Colin: we don’t have the exact proof for that but we know enough shops and been to enough shops and everything.

We feel fairly confident in saying that

Alan: You’re the shops send people to if they don’t have it because they know that you guys in a lot of ways. Yeah variety That’s very cool

Colin: And that touches on something that I feel is very important that a lot of people just don’t understand about comics is Yes in theory that we’ve got a couple dozen shops around us, you know In theory, there are competitors, but we’ve got connections with them, john at Kenmore and john at JC’s, they’ll call us up and be like, Hey, I got a cool customer.

Somebody wanted to try this. I sold out. You got a copy. Yeah, come on by, we got a copy for you. We’ll put it aside. We’ve done the same thing. It’s,

Alan: it’s no favors is so much what you want, not only a business, but a hobby to be because, if you do this thing, they will extend you that courtesy when they get into it.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. And there’s competition.

Stephen: But the pool [00:21:00] customers don’t travel usually an hour away. That’s right.

Alan: They find the closest quality one. You know what I mean? I was, I I used to in Chicago when I first got out of college a long time ago I went with Moondogs, a guy named Gary Calabono, who was relatively well established, but he had multiple locations.

Where did I go? The one that was the closest, it wasn’t their store, but I wanted the convenience of it, not that I have to make a pilgrimage every single week to go get my comics. So

Colin: there’s two elements for pools. I’ve found that’s almost entirely what I do. That is like my job at the shop.

There’s two elements that make a shop an ideal place for pool customers. One close to their house. That is the first thing people think about. They’ll deal with mildly crappy service if it’s two minutes away. But the more important thing I’ve found is it’s gotta be a shop they like coming into.

Alan: I hear you.

Colin: Not just because of the stuff they’ve got, but because of the community. I talk a lot about this and I think it drives Theodore a little bit crazy sometimes. [00:22:00] But the priority for me every single time is making sure every person that walks in feels comfortable and feels like they can talk about this stuff.

Because a lot of people think, go

Stephen: to the shop. Except for the people with backpacks that are planning to steal it yes,

Colin: but

Stephen: no

Colin: There are a lot of you know There’s a lot of people who this is the only time that they get to talk about this stuff And it’s stuff we mutually love, you know I’ve had so many people when I you know Green them in and I read a lot of kind a lot of different kinds of stuff.

I’ve read just about At least one thing from just about everything in comics, I could talk about just about anything somebody likes And i’ve had a lot of people come in and say, you know I like talking about this stuff. I’ve been to so many other shops and they just look at you like you’re a bother, like you’re bothering them by wanting to spend money in their store, and I think that’s such an important thing is building this community, forging these friendships with people.

I’ve got a couple people. So I do videos every Tuesday night at 630 [00:23:00] on our Facebook page. I go over all the new release books for the week. I talked about what I liked. What’s worth reading. What’s a good jumping on point for new readers wanting to try something out with the new weekly stuff.

And I get a lot of people watching, not just who are our pool customers that are commenting for what weekly books they want, but I know that there’s a shop up in Cleveland that has three or four people that watch my video. Just because they want to hear about the books because nobody at their local comic shop talks about it like that, or has read all of them to be able to talk about it, and I’ve got a couple people in Columbus, a big fun down in Columbus.

It’s a toy show or toy shop. This guy mentioned that

Alan: they actually had a couple. They had

Colin: a couple locations. They closed down. That one is the last one remaining and when I was the owner of the current one comes in every once in a while when he’s doing his toy runs and he mentioned that he knew a few people down there that watched our video, that it just offhandedly mentioned it when he had some comics in the shop, People will, [00:24:00] meet me at a show or, stop in at a shop and feel comfortable talking about this stuff.

And that’s the most important thing. And that ends up, even if they live down in Columbus or up in Cleveland, an hour or two away, they still will come in when they’re in the area and still spend money. It is a long term thing, but I, if I have somebody that, that he’s talking with me.

I’ll drop everything and just chat with him for an hour or two. And that has gotten us a lot more customers and more sales and just a larger community.

Alan: It’s really, so it’s wonderful. It’s reassuring that still matters. In other words, as much as we talked about the business side at the start and how efficiency and pricing and all that kind of stuff matters, but this still is really a wonderful hobbyist field.

And especially if you love it. And you don’t necessarily have family members or other work associates that are into it as much. It’s like water in the desert when you go into a place and you can really get enthusiastic or get critical or just share your knowledge. And I [00:25:00] regularly did that.

One of the reasons I went to Moondogs was because a guy named Chris there that was my guy. Whenever he was in the store, I didn’t get out of there in less than an hour. I would read the books and then we would just, and not only talk about comic books, but about a lot of other things as well.

And you develop a real friendship and rapport. And then I can see how even when I stopped by at one time to get wonderful things signed. Oh, I can’t, why is his name not coming to mind? P. Craig Russell. P. Craig Russell. Exactly that, that I wasn’t looking to leave. I loved visiting with him. I loved visiting with you and the other guys in the store.

I loved seeing what you had, it just was. I guess because I’ve gotten so used to getting everything by a mail order, when I stop by at Carol and John’s, for instance, and that you just, you throw out comments to see, are they a clerk or are they a fan? And then you get a better experience of it and all that turns out so good for you for identifying that.

And not only because of the kind of person that you are, but it really is what the right way to do business, for something [00:26:00] like this field really isn’t. I know it’s just business. It’s always been a fan thing, a hobby thing. The Fan Expo coming up here in Cleveland, people don’t just go there shopping for comic books, they go there for the entire experience of their TV and movie heroes, their shows, their tv I have had the good luck that every time I’ve gone there, I’ve had a conversation with who I think is like an absolute legend, and depending on when you go, you can have a wonderful conversation with Jim Stranko on Sunday morning.

Nobody else was at the booth. And with Mike Grell. You gotta tear

Colin: away from Stranko.

Alan: He won’t shut up sometimes. Actually, it was funny that I kept looking and making sure that I wasn’t getting in the way of him selling his sketches or doing whatever business he had going on. But yes, he was, like, not just answering questions, but asking me questions.

Because after they know that you’ve been doing this for a long time, and you do have favorite artists, but why? And he really, [00:27:00] without my ever being in the field, We had a wonderful conversation, and then he he seemed to be hungry for that, it not just being, sign something, handshake, on you go, but that someone that could actually talk about things at a deeper level, because it’s been a big part of his life and they must have that same desire, like Mike Grell and he had his, a guy friend of his that, that They kept saying we’re so happy that you’re here and talking about something besides, how much will this be worth if you sign it?

You know what I mean? When I

Colin: met, when I met Mike up at Fan Expo Cleveland I’m a big Green Lantern fan, big fan of his Warlord. He’s one of my favorite artists at DC. He made, he, we chatted for a few minutes. And I was very interested in like the editorial side of his green arrow run Because it was sold as a normal book It was way, several years before vertigo or the idea of comics for adults But it did some brutal stuff and there was some mild nudity in some of it And I was [00:28:00] like, how did you get away with that?

We talked a lot about the process there and basically it summed up with Dick Giordano was inking the book and he was also editor in chief So if they wanted to do the story, they could do whatever they wanted.

Alan: I never knew that, I thought it was at least for mature readers, but yes, there really were.

Yeah. Others like Whisper, long ago, really had like psychology, like Stephen Grant, I’m trying to think who else worked on some of these things. I had the same thing. How are they getting away with this? Because it wasn’t red line. That’s another thing I just experienced. Like the red line comics, Blade or something like that, where it is going to be the artwork is a little bit gory.

And the storylines are red band. Thank you. And, but a lot of those things, they just put that for mature audiences only. And I guess you hope, like any other content books have always gotten a certain amount of extra special attention because they aren’t for adults. They’re only for kids.

It’s all still richie rich. And then when you see something that they’re really not even, oh my God, the bad ones, the nudity, the violence, that it’s [00:29:00] just mature themes. Oh God, we’re going to have a mixed family in comic books? We can’t have that. That’ll warp the children. It, it has often been the target.

You know what I mean? That comic book legal defense fund exists just because they started to have lawsuits that could close stores down because they Went after him so much. That’s a whole separate conversation, but I, when I met Mike, I had to deal with that,

Colin: when I met Mike he was, he made a comment that I was probably the youngest person that was excited to meet him that, that knew who he was and talked to him and stuff.

And I’ve gotten that comment from a few different people. Best interaction I’ve ever had with anybody was Steve Englehart. He wrote what I think is the single finest Batman story ever written. Wrote one of the best Michael Rogers,

Alan: right back in the day. Yeah. The Strange

Colin: Apparitions cycle with Michael Rogers.

And Simonson did a couple issues as well. And then did a huge Green Lantern run that I’m a big fan of. All kinds of stuff. He, I think he’s almost incapable of writing a bad comic book. He’s the only guy that wrote Avengers and Justice League

Alan: at the same time. Yes,

Colin: exactly.

But anyway we talked [00:30:00] for almost an hour. And I had a whole bunch of Batman stuff to get signed by him. And I was telling him, I think strange apparitions is the best Batman book of all time. And I could back that up a bit by the fact that I have read every Batman comic book ever written.

Like no exaggeration.

Alan: Steve has really, yeah. Steven has mentioned that I’ve not done that. I have read whatever I could, I may, maybe whatever was since my birth, which is 59. But I have not gone back and made a point of, it’s not worth it. Just

Colin: read the big issues, just read the stuff that people say.

There’s a

Alan: lot

Stephen: of

Alan: rough issues back then,

Stephen: stories

Alan: now. It is reassuring to know because I’ve gotten like the masterworks or whatever the DC vs. Marvel things are. And if they think it’s the highlights, then at least I get it. This is the first appearance of Catwoman. This is the first, whatever else it might be.

Often it’s character introductions or big turning points in the mythos and stuff like that. And I know from having read some Golden Age that it was like, This really was for kids back then. It’s so simple, [00:31:00] lighthearted, it’s so nothing. There

Colin: was a lot of complex Golden Age stuff, but it wasn’t the big stuff.

The Batman, the Superman that stuff was not only for kids, it was also thrown out quickly and not, there wasn’t as much care the best stuff that I found is Jack Davis’s Plastic Man is some of the best stuff ever written. I think the Fawcett Captain Marvel Shazam stuff is some of the best superhero comics ever made.

Then you’ve got Will Eisner’s The Spirit, which is if you’re looking for like complicated, complex like. Thoughtful stories in 8 to 10 pages. That’s that stuff. A

Alan: mystery. Not just. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Colin: When I met Steve Engelhardt, he, I was telling him about how much I liked his strange apparitions run and everything.

And he was telling me basically that he’s never had anybody young. Ever talk about it. And so I’ve been using some of my influence talking to people online Be like read this and we’ve got a small angle heart [00:32:00] fan club and I emailed him some images of some of our chats about it because we’ll get together and chat about some of those comics and I think I think This is drifting way off, but I just was reminded, I think, Ali, you might be interested in this.

I think there’s this interesting anti trend, in this assumption that readers my age, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older, but, 30s and younger assuming that anything that happened, that was put out before Watchmen doesn’t matter,

Alan: They saw

Colin: Cory, they saw Disposable, exactly,

Alan: I, I, Steve and I had talked about that, that, and it’s not just comics, but it is pretty much everywhere that they think the world started when they started, so they won’t watch black and white movies, they won’t watch old television, and there’s so many, 90 percent of everything is crap, but it’s terrible 10 percent that’s good just because you make a sweeping statement like, only black and white movies, maybe you should watch bye.

Adams rib and things that have fantastic dialogue. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it’s, we [00:33:00] can start naming examples, but I see that too. In fact, bear with me a little anecdote. I was not at fan expo. It must have been wizard world. It must have been whatever the various incarnations of the thing that have been in Cleveland comic con.

I think it was just called that exactly comic con. I was in the audience for when they were having a, what’s the best, Storyline that you’ve ever read and people were only talking about things from the last five years and honestly I put my paw up and said how does that compare to like?

the burst of creativity from Fantastic Four like 30 to 50 when they invented the Inhumans and they invent you know and no lie There was like a little pause of silence, and then the guy that was running the panel said, Why don’t you come up here? And so they put me on the panel because I really had that elder knowledge, but I was so happy to share.

If you don’t know out of the sea of graphic novels, collections that are available, here’s why you have to go read these kinds of things, because It’s not just Watchmen. You should read Camelot 3000. [00:34:00] You should read like Daredevil, Frank Miller years collected, and all these other things that were, like, and I guess they might know the Frank Miller.

That one

Colin: is, yeah, definitely talked about, but it talked about that’s the only good one of the 70s, and I’m like, the 70s is like my favorite decade for comics ever. It’s insane.

Alan: And even it’s funny, it was very nice to be reading new comics and going, oh my god, they’re bringing Metamorpho back.

Yeah, that was really fun. There were so many second tier titles at DC, not so much Marvel, I read a lot of Marvel, but I loved, Metamorpho and Challenges of the Unknown and Doom Patrol. Yeah. That’s, there was really cool, creative stuff going on because maybe it wasn’t so much they had the hero of Dick Giordano.

It was more like, nobody even knows we’re putting this out. Let’s just have fun and do really cool, interesting things. And so I love Sea Devils. I’m, and I could just remember, yeah. C Devil’s kind of stuff wasn’t. To everybody’s taste, there’s only so many undersea adventures you can have if you don’t live on the coasts, but it was I love, whenever anybody [00:35:00] asks, that I really do have, man, if you haven’t read this, if you haven’t, for instance, Sandman. Wow, step on a landmine, now with Neil Gaiman, going through such difficulties, but you’re wanting to read some of the best comic books that have ever been done, story and artwork, just go back and read the first, what is it, 60 Sandmans, that kind of thing and, 75, other 75, there’s other titles we can start naming that just old Alan Moore Swamp Thing, like when Alan Moore showed up and nobody knew who he was, and it was another one of those situations where Swamp Thing is a third tier character.

They don’t know what to do with him. They don’t even know if this is going to survive beyond its initial 18 print. Didn’t they have 18 issues where that was the make or break point, and whether you were allowed to change the title? Back then. Now,

Colin: now it’s eight.

I guess, the thing is, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing is still plenty talked about, people, that is still, very held, held in very high regard.

Same with Sandman. I’m talking more Silver Age stuff, early Bronze Age stuff, stuff you’d be shocked at the number of people [00:36:00] that talk about how they read, hundreds of comics a month. a month. Who don’t know who Jack Kirby is

Alan: like that, like that’s not, but talking about that, about you don’t know, you colonize, you don’t know who Kirby is, you can start naming

Colin: the Eisner

Alan: Kurtzman

Colin: that time, Harvey nobody talks about Harvey Kurtzman ever anymore, or Walt Kelly, or, it’s like, it’s fascinating, back in the 70s and 80s, comic strips, We’re looked at the top tier version of comics, that is the ideal that is where the art is The real artistry the real stuff worth analyzing and critiquing now.

It’s the opposite Everybody looks at comic strips as being you know, the really bland lame garfield stuff

Alan: Yes, exactly

Colin: and now comic books are it but nobody looks at comic strips as being so influential pogo has had What is one of the most influential [00:37:00] pieces of drawn work ever, in terms of its effects.

It had on not just animation and comics in general, but also just the way American humor is made and the way political humor in America is done. There are words and phrases in our lexicon that come directly from that strip and nobody in the comic scene anymore. Talks about that ever, there’s this huge lack of curiosity and interest in the history of comics and I don’t quite know where it comes from But i’ll tell you what I do my damnedest to try and fight that as much as I can Because comics history and the origins of the stuff and the people that came first Is really one of the things that i’m the most passionate about, I am a jack Kirby fanatic I’ve read everything the man’s ever created.

I cried when I got to see my first piece of Jack Kirby original art person. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody knows who he is. Everybody associates [00:38:00] Stan Lee with having done everything that he did.

Stephen: I’d say Colin, we know. Where some of that most of it probably comes from it’s that for 15 years We’ve had the coolest superhero movies and people said oh my gosh superheroes are cool.

I’m a comics book fan That have never read comic books They’ve only seen the movies and we’ve got 15 years of that now Or

Colin: or you’ve got a lot of batman fans like I’ve read every Batman book ever written. You’ve got a lot of Batman fans. And they are, I don’t want to come off gatekeeping where yes, you obviously like Batman.

You’re clearly a Batman fan. But if all you’ve read is Darknet Returns, Killing Joke, and maybe Year One, and then most of your knowledge comes from the live action movies, most of which I’m not a fan of as a Batman diehard I don’t think that you’re an authority on it at all. A lot of people In that position seem to really come off a lot of people like there’s just this, in a lot of ways, a lot of the biggest [00:39:00] characters, there’s just like a lack of understanding of the character because all they’ve read is the couple big ones and most of the time, because the couple big ones, especially with that aren’t really great representations of the character themselves,

Alan: When they were first created, boy I have, I, I often talk about comic books and one of the things that I get at a local library or the comic con or something like that is there will be little kids that are they know the movies, they know the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And when I talk about something like this, they’ll be like that’s not right in the movie. It was, this is so you have to know that there’s this whole multi, the multiverse that you’ve heard about. There is a multiverse of all the comic books that went into the, Distillation, the tiny sliver that you’re getting in this movie, for this movie being two hours long, I’ve read 20, 000 hours worth of comic books.

There really is something to be learned if you want to, and you don’t have to buy it, go to the library and get old Batman classics and stuff like that. And if you’re, it, and not only, [00:40:00] as there are some characters that have been through all different kinds of changes to the mythology and stuff like that.

have matured, or they’ve just, depending on who the writer and artist have been, they’ve done new things. But that’s an interesting talk to have as, so why did that happen? Was it reflective of the times? Was it predictive of the times? Was it just, we’ve had a hundred issues of this, let’s do something, let’s break something, and decide that now, Green Arrow’s origin, if you will, of being, stranded on the island and surviving.

But now there’s all the mythos of he wasn’t alone on the island, and now there’s the whole enemies lurking secret organizations that impinge on the multiverse, the Arrowverse, if you will. And Steve and I have talked about this a lot. One of my favorite things, when people who really know comic books is, when you see someone that retcons something so cleverly, that they have something new to the mythology, the Winter Soldier.

After that was canon, that Bucky died, and Captain America [00:41:00] frozen, and all that kind of stuff. And they found a way to bring him back without just saying that was all a big imaginary tale. We’re just gonna throw that away. That they found a way to make it that it could make sense, and that there were such good stories, that you’re like, I want it to make sense.

I want this to be part of the new extended universe, if you will. It I guess even Captain America being sane as you, wanting to make sure that people know lots of good stuff has gone before and that it’s worth finding out like Oh boy, there’s so much to say here.

Colin: Even Captain America being frozen was a retcon originally.

He they were just putting comics out until the mid 50s. And then they just cancelled it, turned it into a horror title. And then when Lee and Murphy were doing Avengers,

Alan: right? Exactly. Okay. Yeah.

Colin: They wanted to bring them back and they had to figure out what part of Captain America they wanted to keep.

And then later that other version got used by Demetreus and the Englehart as the different other evil or darker caps.

Alan: That’s right. There had been a cap in the [00:42:00] 50s. That was that cap had to contend with what not quite super soldier formula because it was corrupted, made him into where he was capable of doing those.

See that. So the fact that Stan and Jack Brought him back, Frozen and Ice, Avengers number four, right? You know that, on the way to bring him into the modern universe, and then all the cool man out of time, man out of country stories that they were able to do with that. And then that’s basically where the

Colin: character came from, in my opinion.

Alan: I think you’re right. So it I love the fact that, wow, um, The conflict between comic books and episodic television and movies is very much creating cool new things that Loki’s being treated differently than he ever has before, and Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D. and Captain America and whatever else it might be, and I, it’s very interesting to see someone who has a movie background, a cinematic way of looking at things, and it’s not that’s new, comic books have always been relatively cinematic.

They’re like, Storyboards for movies, if you will, but to see someone that gets it [00:43:00] and doesn’t get it, and Stephen and I have talked about this, the quality of Star Wars things coming out is very much based on, are they trying to make money or are they trying to build this wonderful mythology and add wisely to it and make surprises in it without saying, ignore all that.

It’ll be a different universe. It’ll be an alternate universe. You know what I mean? It’s very satisfying to have evidence That people have read those things, and they don’t want to deny that they existed and happened. That they want to have I’ll add this to it, and we’ll get something wonderful new, but that you still have, if you want to, you can go read that past 70 years worth of stuff, and catch up on.

Superman and Batman, and the big shift from Golden Age to Silver Age, and the big collapse of that, and the birth of the Marvel Age, and whatever else it might be. It’sI don’t think you get an understanding of Seduction of the Innocent. That book Unless enough about what was going [00:44:00] on in comic books, and in the 50s, and understand why, that was one of the first big things where comic books were only for kids, and we can’t have these bad things happening.

They are turning our little kids into communists, right? They’re going to bend their mind, warp their spine, and lose the war for the Allies. Something interesting. The crap that they did was terrible, but you don’t get how terrible it was unless you learn about Estes Kefauver, and all that. Like some of the first virtue crafts some of the first if anything was like How about if you guys who know nothing about this field stay the hell out of it?

We’re having a wonderful time over here and you’re using this as a crusade and then Comics Code Authority comes in and changes comic books for 15 30 years depending on how you look at it You know what? I mean that now there’s no monsters because you can’t have the undead you can’t have Anyway, I use the word wolf man.

You can’t use the world

Colin: Until Marv came along. That actually was one of the big things that led to the weakening of it [00:45:00] Because that was actually one of the first things that led to the rise of horror titles in the 70s Was Marvel Finn’s name.

Alan: Actually, his name had to appear if you’re going to attribute it.

Colin: Yeah. That’s funny. And actually, ironically, that’s also what helped the companies credit their guys a lot more. Because Marvel only did it begrudgingly because Kirby made a big stink. And DC only did it very rarely if it was one of their big guys. If it was a Gil Kane book, they credit everybody involved.

And if it was Batman, it would just be Bob Kane. You wouldn’t see any other name on there.

Alan: Exactly. Exactly. I remember learning names because they actually signed somewhere, and I guess they screwed up and didn’t blank it out. So Bruno Premiani, if I remember right, did the Dupont Draws who’s this guy?

I’ve never heard of him before, but I know it’s his artwork because it’s been that artwork for the last 30 issues. And what you just said, they’re going to let this guy labor in obscurity? He’s doing really wonderful work. One of the cool things that Marvel did that [00:46:00] DC didn’t, and why I became a more of a fan of Marvel, was because they actually Broke that fourth wall and said here’s the bullpen where you’re gonna meet these guys You’re gonna hear him sing a little plastic record, you know That

Colin: was that was more of the myth building than anything, most of those guys didn’t actually work at the bullpen didn’t really exist in the way that it was being promoted and Interesting off that little recording if anything was one of the big one of the very Like big things that contributed to Ditko wanting to leave Marvel because he didn’t like the way Stanley talked about him and treated him on the record.

It’s interesting that so Stanley didn’t do a lot of the initial developing of the myth of Marvel. He’s associated with it because it was his name on there, but it was actually Flo Steinberg who did a lot of the development of the Stanley persona and a lot of the idea of that, that they’re this merry Marvel family at the bullpen and everything.

Because they were exactly this fan letters

Alan: histories. That’s right And

Colin: she’d respond to them In stan’s voice and it [00:47:00] stand like that and ended up starting to use that more In his like public appearances, and that’s what led to the stan lee soapbox And that’s what led to a lot of the myth building, but i’d actually argue interestingly enough that kind of idea well, it was great for fans actually let it led to a Harder time for the artists to get rights because you couldn’t take away from this idea that Stan Lee was running everything and handling everything and the guy coming up with all the ideas and that everyone else was just helping him and seem like the company.

So the artists had to shut up and deal with it. Or leave, like Lee, like Kirby did and Ditko did, and a lot of others, and that whole regime stayed when Lee went to Hollywood to try and make Marvel movies, in the mid 70s, and Roy Thomas took over, if anything, Thomas was even harsher about it than Lee was, Thomas is convinced that even though he didn’t even though he was just the editor on the Wolverine title, [00:48:00] or on Wolverine’s first appearance, he should get credit on being co creator of him, because he gave the name Wolverine to the, to Trimp and me.

I have read

Alan: That Len Wein says he had this idea for a character. Roy Thomas is the name that threw out Wolverine because of all the connotations of a feisty animal and stuff like that. And there is something to be said for that, but it sure, naming something is not the same as the full blown, what this character is all about.

Colin: The thing is, for the last 45, 50 ish years, the credits in terms of co creation of characters has consistently been if you’re an editor, you don’t get to unless you wrote that book. And then it later became universally agreed on that. If you’re an editor at a company, you don’t get to write the books.

That only came into things after what’s his face? Shooter, Jim shooter came in because nobody liked. Working with Shooter, Shooter was awful to everybody, and one of the ways they ended up taking his power away [00:49:00] when they were essentially pushing him out of Marvel, was that whole idea.

DC had been doing it for a few years by then. There were a few special edge cases for like events. But if you were an editor, nine times out of 10, you didn’t get to write a comic and thus you didn’t get to get co creator treatment now with Roy Thomas pushing for that Marvel, essentially awarding it to him.

It seemed that we’re seeing a lot of changes in debates in terms of how we look at comic book history. And frankly, I think it’s a very bad thing.

Alan: What’s interesting is like capturing Appalachian music before the guys who created it. Die and go away. There’s a lots of stuff. Maybe, there’s always been, interview mags like Rocket Blast Comic Collector and Comics Journal and stuff that tried to talk to the people in real time about what was going on behind the scenes.

And of course, accounts varied. And so you had to decide who did you believe, what camp were you in? You didn’t have to decide, but you were aware that it wasn’t. [00:50:00] Clear about those kinds of things. And in some cases, I’m wondering who’s going to die first so that the other person gets to be the one that tells the story.

Wayne and Trimper are dead, Thomas is not. Like that. It I know that there’s any number of editors, like Archie Goodwin that became editor for a while, and they missed the creative process so much, or they missed this, the residuals, or whatever the credit that goes with creating a whole bunch of stuff that, that some editors are more active than others, that they really were, maybe like you said about event books, if the editor brings everybody in and says, this is going to be Atlantis Attacks, and we already have this kind of framework, and you guys are all going to do this and this, There really isn’t anybody that accounts for the creation of that big event as much as the one that first put it together.

You know what I mean? And whether it was going to be, since we talked about Steve Engelhardt earlier, didn’t he write the Avengers Defenders crossover? With the evil eye? Yeah, I think so, yeah. That was, there really was a guiding hand between that and whatever crossovers that started to be not only in two [00:51:00] titles, but in many of them.

And then it like Maybe there’s a parallel with, it used to be that the in movies, you knew the actor, the main actor, and maybe the writer, but the director wasn’t the auteur, and then it became, you started to have people like Hitchcock, or people that really wrote and had a certain style.

I, I, it’s funny, I just watched To Live and Die in L. A., and William Friedkin movie, nobody else looks like his movies, they really has a certain way he does it. And I think that started to happen perhaps in comics as well, that there were editors that were powerful enough, or creative enough, or persuasive enough, that you really wouldn’t have had the New Universe without Shooter.

You know what I mean? You wouldn’t have had I’m trying to think of other things where I know that it was a particular Sorry, shooter did secret wars like that. Exactly. And I’d like to it wasn’t the whole new universe. Whatever that out shoot of death Incorporated into it, you know that not that it lasted very long Wait that initial did but the fact that they still have [00:52:00] appearances by Starbrand.

Starbrand. A couple times in the Avengers

Colin: stuff from Jason Aaron, yeah. Okay. A couple times.

Stephen: Al, you got your box of comics. What have you, I mean it’s been a while since you got new stuff. What have you read, what’d you like, what stories are you delving?

Alan: It’s funny, I bought a couple hundred, and so I’ve only gotten up to G.

You know what I mean? I’m gonna get my next batch of comics coming up probably in a week and a half here in February. So I gotta bear it out. I gotta, this is work now to read all these things. They’re still doing, big impressions Superman, Batman, major titles. They’re doing a whole bunch of generational stuff now, that it’s not only about the Batman, it’s about all the other Bat people that he’s associated with and his son, Damian, and various other Robins that kind of became sons, but then some died and some went bad and whatever else.

And they’re playing with that still, in 15 years. Pretty much since I stopped actively [00:53:00] buying, some of those things that I thought that would be an interesting thing if it turns out that Talia, Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter, you mean that there’s all these things ties to villains and ties to that there’s murky things, that it’s not just Boy, I know I’m talking fragmentedly.

There was a title called Infinity Incorporated, where it was all kinds of Justice Society people, had their sons and daughters, and it all seemed to be that they were That was Roy Thomas. And he does, he loves that golden age and leaking into the silver age and so forth. It didn’t seem to be that there was, Seediness that they really were just they happen to be the children of and so there’s there was the generational conflict of can I measure up to my father or mother?

I don’t want to become a superhero. I want to be a chef or whatever else it might be. But then they started to have James Robinson did things with Starman where maybe there had been some stuff that villains were actually like. Too attractive. People had dalliances with people and the grand [00:54:00] Gino, is that how you pronounce it?

Gino? That whole storyline was that the sins of the fathers are visited upon, the youth. And I’m seeing that there’s a lot of cool stuff going on now where they’re trying to extend or maybe resolve what happened with Metamorpho, what happened with Batman and all of his legacy. There’s Black Canary is an interesting theme because she came from Earth 2 to Earth 1 and they had to resolve a whole bunch of conflicts there.

And now we’re finding out that there’s all kinds of people that are determined to be the best fighter in the world. But we’ve already got Lady Shiva that claims that title, or it could be that the latest cat, no, bat girl, the one with the full mask.

Colin: Cassandra.

Alan: Cassandra, thank you very much. And she’s like daughter of Cain, right?

Who is also a main,

Colin: She’s Shiva and David Cain’s daughter. So she’s Shiva’s daughter.

Alan: So she does have good lineage in terms of her genetics have to be fantastic, but just that she’s trying very much to be a [00:55:00] hero, but she’s absolutely from bad stock. And so she

Colin: was, Cain raised her Not knowing how to talk.

He never taught her how to talk. He never spoke around her. He taught her how to fight. So her fluent birth language is body language, is movement. And Shiva has said that that girl is Cassandra Cain is the only person alive that can be able to compete with or even be, it’s interesting.

The thing with the Batman stuff is there’s this perception of Batman as being this deep, dark, angry loner. In terms of the books that haven’t been involving a bat family in one way, shape or form, you’re looking at a brief period of about eight, eight months before Robin was created in the thirties.

And then you’re looking at. About nine or about six years in the 70s and that’s it That’s the only periods of time that batman has not had a [00:56:00] family as like a predominant part of his story And his backup and everything and even then he still had alfred. Not in the golden age Alfred actually appeared after Robin, but in the 70s, he still had Alfred.

It’s really the movies that put off this idea that Batman’s a loner, but the comics embracing the family ness for Batman, I think is a great thing and expanding out and giving more characters in the Bat family titles, I think is just a very good thing, frankly.

Alan: Yeah, as I’ve seen, how many they’ve gotten, it really is. Wow. There’s So there’s families of titles, there’s so many X Men things, there’s so many Batman things. And I like the fact that someone’s got to be coordinating all that. There’s got to be a continuity cop that’s saying you can’t have them in Singapore if they’re going to also be in this next issue at whatever the current It’s

Colin: gotten a lot looser, and Marvel’s still stricter about it, but DC’s a lot looser about it.

DC’s kind of philosophy is, If these stories are going to reference each other we’ll figure it out we’ll figure out when they fit and I actually I prefer that kind of look at continuity because [00:57:00] More often than not you look at the periods of time in these companies histories where continuity is king over anything else and you look at a story stagnation in a lot of ways with the exception of the early days of marvel because frankly That was just when everything was being created, but there’s a story stagnation that kind of happens because you’re like, oh man We got six Batman books.

Batman can’t be over here because he’s over here. But I wanted, It allows the writers to do a little bit more and then that’s then the editor’s job is to go Okay, we’re gonna put those little boxes that tell you when this fits in everything.

Alan: This happens before the events of exactly so i’m torn because I like the cleverness of how they were able to make all that work and make sense And so I didn’t see it so much as stagnation as That they had all these moving pieces, and they were able to make it work.

Maybe because I’m a coder by nature, creating order out of chaos, being able to get all the things that could go wrong, not go wrong. There’s a skill to that. There’s a real elegance to that. And I’d have to think there probably were times when it was, I know I’ve read stories [00:58:00] about no, you can’t have table, because I’ve got this whole thing going on, and he’s totally involved in this thing, and so you can’t borrow my character, if you will.

And about Lobo, about various other characters that people got very territorial about, nobody can write Venom except me, or you can’t have Venom without it being exactly in this character type. And I know they also had the big binders of this is what is the basis for this character. They don’t

Colin: have Bibles anymore.

They don’t have universe Bibles. They haven’t in years. I would also say from a retailer’s perspective, that sort of intercontinuity, everything is taking place all together. And, this Batman book is referencing this Batman book that’s referencing this Batman book. All that does is keep people from wanting to read the stories.

It makes it really hard. If, I’m not buying one book.

Alan: I have to buy 10 in order to get a full story. I’m not buying it then. So I’ll read

Colin: none. Exactly. The current Batman arc that’s starting next month is a sequel to hush, which is a big story. That is, is. Recommended to a lot of new readers, it’s a very popular story [00:59:00] But it also because it’s a sequel and a sequel to a sequel Readers who haven’t read every show batman or haven’t had this, You know the last 25 years of batman history uploaded into their brains They have to buy minimum three Trade paperbacks to catch up before reading the current Batman title and I have no problem with doing sequels like that It just it shouldn’t have been in the mainline book.

I the way they’re handling it. It’s really

Stephen: Don’t be so anal about the canon, I mean look at Star Trek if you take Star Trek as the shows Yeah, the books and the comics and you try and get a cohesive chronological timeline It becomes ridiculous and stupid and impossible I’d rather just enjoy each individual story and if it’s loosely connected great, but i’m not gonna He can’t be there at this one minute because he was over here at this one minute, you know I do agree.

But with this

Colin: batman hush example at the very least it is a direct sequel. It’s like You gotta read everything first. Yeah, but it’s [01:00:00] Batman.

Stephen: It’s so it’s probably not worth reading anyway, so

Alan: What’s interesting is

Colin: i’m not looking forward to it. I don’t care for the original Now that

Alan: i’m back in I would admire people who could write stories that are in line with that plot line that still stand alone That even if you hadn’t read the three trade paperbacks, you’d still get enough out of it that you would just say Wow, there’s a lot of history here.

Maybe I’ll go catch up, but it’s still good enough now. There’s

Colin: really good examples of that, too, like Immortal Hulk, for instance, Al Ewing one of the best Hulk books ever made, one of the best Marvel books in the last 20 years. It is so steeped deeply in, in the Hulk mythos, between the Peter David run, but mostly the Bill Matlow stuff.

And then some of the Greg Pack run, it’s involved very deeply, but it also brings in stuff like. The Alpha Flight play a major, secondary role in it, and it’s got Rick Jones, anytime Rick Jones shows up in every, anything, you gotta have at least one page dedicated to explaining who the hell he is, and why this random guy that [01:01:00] doesn’t I have any powers right now matters so freaking much to everybody in the Marvel Universe, but they do a good job of giving you just enough information that you can read the story and enjoy it.

And it’s not relying on you having read, the last 50 years of Hulk, it brings in Zen new a C level one off monster story that got brought into the first couple issues of defenders, and then never brought in again.

Alan: And he was actually borrowed from when, before Strange Tales was Dr.

Strange, and then Nick Fury and so forth. That’s where they had all those Zaks, Grot. I’m sorry not Grot, Gort. You know what I mean? They Groot originally appeared in that. Groot! That’s how I was trying to, what’s the guy from the Guardians of the Galaxy? It’s funny to see them bring them in, Fin Fang Foom, and say Gorm.

Leave them in The crypt that they were at when those things changed into comic books. It’s funny. They’ve had any number of things return like that. I’m pretty sure Zax was in Hulk, right? The electric being, right? And stuff like that. So I, [01:02:00] there’s been a number of things that when I’ve read it, it’s like Maybe because I took time out.

Okay, I really don’t know what’s going on here. Let’s see if this is good enough. Then I’d want to go back and find out about it. You know what I mean? Try to think of a good example for that. Maybe, and actually, almost everything up till now, I think when I get to G, Geiger, It’s going to be the first book that’s not Marvel and DC that I ordered so much things that I already knew, but it’s also, wow all kinds of new artists and writers, and I like most of what they’re doing, and then someone will show up.

Who was it? Maybe it’s like a Marv Wolfman? No, it can’t be him. Someone that is still Marv Wolfman had a, Mark Wade is writing Wade, yeah. That he’s still doing good work, and he must be The old man in the mountain in whatever offices and chat rooms and stuff like that.

Colin: Wade’s had consistent work.

He’s there’s this like idea that like old creators can’t continuously have jobs in comics after 20 years. And I [01:03:00] frankly don’t. Agree, I think you just gotta constantly be keeping up with the trends and with how things have moved Mark, wade has done a really good job of that. Walt simonson has also done a really good job with that He’s semi retired not putting out titles, but he still does covers and he still does, You know a legacy short story here and there Chris claremont is still writing chagrin.

I like I love claremont sexman. It’s great I love his new mutants The man hasn’t written a damn good thing since 1991, and he just, because of the name, keeps getting jobs,

Stephen: and it’s driving me up the wall. Let’s go ask Alan did some of the new stuff. First of all, just a side comment Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man on Disney is a great series.

We’ve been enjoying that one now, too. You’re falling behind more and more on the cartoons. I really am. And

Alan: it’s funny, oftentimes how things go here in House of Baltus is, Kalia and I have dinner together and we watch a bunch of TV together and cuddle. And then as of 9 or 10 o’clock, I will go [01:04:00] upstairs and that’s when I’ll do my three hours of things I know she wouldn’t want to watch.

So it often is comic book animation or it’s too many guns and explosions in the movies and stuff like that. And Rookie is back too. So we have, we are absolutely up to date on that one because we both really enjoy that one. Resident Alien is about to start up again. That’s based

Colin: on a comic.

Alan: Yes, it’s funny, I’m aware without having read any of those issues that Walking Dead came from comic books, Resident Alien, actually I have read a lot of Walking Dead, but that’s a book that there’s nothing good enough new I don’t even know if I’m going to continue to buy it.

I think it’s still Kirkman writing it. For Walking Dead? For Walking Dead? It

Colin: ended about a decade ago. It’s doing colorized versions now. Then that must be what I bought without there being any. The colors are horrible. There’s no reason for them to be colored.

Alan: Yeah. Okay, I must have bought things not knowing that it was a redo.

Stephen: You’re going in, you’re going in alphabetical [01:05:00] order, so you haven’t gotten any of the new ultimate stuff yet. Which, oh. I’m curious, especially X Men. But did you read the Absolute Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman stuff?

Alan: Yes. Wonder Woman. Very good. Exactly. So some of the Absolutes, some of the All Ins, there’s certain things.

Is that just hype or is it really that they’re starting over, doing multiverse, whatever?

Colin: So All In is just a relaunch initiative. They do that every so many years. It’s everything you can jump on at any point, and that just keeps it healthy, gives new readers a chance to try things out.

Absolute is just DC’s, ultimate universe.

Alan: Okay, I did, I enjoyed all of those in terms of a little grittier, a little bit more adult, perhaps, and just that they really do seem to be paying attention to what makes the character. You know what I mean? You can’t do I don’t know, Hulk without a certain amount of Jekyll Hyde.

You can’t do Batman without a certain amount of Orphan that had his parents taken away. There’s core elements of these [01:06:00] kinds of things, and they seem to be honoring that. I’m trying to think what I just read where Brainiac is a villain that I think he’s associated with. He is not Superman’s villain.

Now he’s something else. Creature

Colin: Commandos.

Alan: Creature commandos, like that. And so I’m looking forward to how they’ve either given or appropriated things to be in various different continuities, like when Kingpin was taken from Spider Man and put into Daredevil. There’s all kinds of interesting things that happen like that.

So I’m noticing some of that, that they’re let’s see. My biggest criticism is for the weight of the comic book, is a third of it ads nowadays? It’s amazing. It’s

Colin: actually less ad pages than they were in the 70s and 80s. Yeah, I was gonna say, I can tell. So in the 70s, it used to be 18 pages of story.

Okay. And then, 14 pages of ads. Now it’s 22 pages of stories and 10 pages of ads. Or if it’s a 32 page story, I don’t know how many ads, but I know the average ratio. It’s [01:07:00] just

Stephen: that the ads aren’t as cool. Yes, the ads aren’t as fun to look at.

Alan: Also, yeah, the ads are like house organ stuff. Like I don’t, if I, especially if you’re a completist like I am.

You don’t have to see the ad in 18 different books. You know what I mean? I got it. You’re going to have a special it that has been the most irritating thing is I really don’t remember the comic books being as larded with advertising as they are now. And maybe it’s because when I was young, you would just, I didn’t care about buying 100 army men for a dollar.

I didn’t care about, x rays. My cousin got those. Might be like that. I just tuned all that out. But because I guess I’m trying to learn about what’s current in comic books, I read these various different things and they’ll still have little interviews about what are you doing with Aquaman or those kinds of things.

But then when you see that reprinted, they, and also they have like teaser trailers, if you will, where At least ten books must have had a little four pages of sneak previews of Batman. Sneak previews. It’s I didn’t buy the book to get a sneak preview of Batman. Give me more of the story that is what I bought the book [01:08:00] for.

And so there’s all kinds of I, I like this. I don’t like

Colin: the sneak previews. I like the sneak previews for like big books they’re pushing. Partially because it’s It makes my job a little easier. It lets people know, Hey, this is going to be interesting. You’ll get a chance to look at the art. Like DC’s one this past couple of weeks has been Zatanna.

That’s got a lot of buzz and it’s giving me as a retailer, who’s going to order the book, I think next week, a better idea of how many we should order, how many people are interested in it. I, from everything I’ve seen, which is, a single shop and then a few people online, the sneak preview seemed to be more popular.

As like a newer thing.

Alan: As usual, I’m out of step with the industry. Honestly, maybe because I really, I like novelty instead of, I hardly ever read or watch something twice. I just, one percent of all that I’ve ever read and watched have I, maybe I’m getting older now, and now I’m doing a little bit more because we’re re watching Columbo, like I mentioned a couple episodes ago.

But having said that. That’s this jumping back in and feeling [01:09:00] a little cheated with many books, it’s weird. It I really want more of what I what I expected for my four bucks or whatever like that, and the price doesn’t matter so much as That I always like the letters, columns, I always the little, blurbs.

Where if you want to give me the six books I should be reading besides this, give me a little paragraph on each one to devote four pages out of my comic book to that thing and then to see that ten times. That’s my objection. So

Colin: It isn’t less story pages either, I will also say that. It is literally them adding those things on.

Adding to, alright. It isn’t taking away from anything. Alright. I We’re being an old grump. No, I’m just I am just saying, it isn’t like a detriment. They aren’t like removing pages to then add this advertisement there. They are essentially taking ads out to then have that stapled in the back.

Alan: Okay. It’s funny to me to get to the end of the book and it not be the end of the book. Now I have this thing and I kind of page through seeing if there’s anything different and then once in a while on the very last page I’ll have something that [01:10:00] might be interesting. But then after I’ve seen all of those various different little bits of interesting that’s That isn’t working for me and I can see at least I’m not being cheated I’m not getting left as you said, but it still is My time is valuable and they make me waste four pages of time for the last nine out of ten books You know the answer to that call, right?

It’s to cancel your subscription.

Colin: I will also mildly your subscription,

Alan: Gordon. Rage at it. That’s what I’ll do.

Colin: I will also mildly say this is the advantage of trade paperbacks and collected editions as well,

Alan: I really am thinking in some ways, am I really going to go back into this and read hundreds of different stories each month because there is something cool about starting to piece together the universe again, or am I going to go to the library and say, I really like Iron Man.

I will read concentrated Iron Man and they’ll read the

Colin: new Iron Man book right now is incredible that I don’t like the character. It is my favorite Marvel book coming out.

Alan: Very cool. I haven’t gotten the eyes. I’m

Colin: very, I just get very excited to talk about it. I think it’s very much

Alan: [01:11:00] exactly the Another impression is, it’s not only a generational thing, it very much is, oh no, in, in defiance of all the conservatism that’s flowing through our culture.

There’s all kinds of alternate relationships and alternate sexualities and so forth, and I think it’s wonderful. How in the world would you not have that in this modern society that, that, People will be attracted not only, cross sex, but across species, but across alien, but there’s all

Stephen: kind of makes sense for comics. We’ve always had aliens. We’ve always had alternative people created or magical or robotic or every color skin you can think of and all that. Everything else, starts to make sense there too.

Alan: A big talk that I did early on in my speaking about comic book career was diversity in comics.

And I said, the first 10 minutes are about what you might think of diversity. Oh no, minorities. And then it’s you know that they’ve had aliens and robots [01:12:00] and who has what rights. And, what do you do when someone commits a crime, but they have diplomatic immunity from another planet and things like that, so it was a delight to say. The world of comics is so much bigger than this world, and I hope it’s predictive, but I hope it’s at least acceptable that people will not bring their prejudice in and say, there’s no way that this could be real. You know what I mean? I only want the one version of Thor. I only want the one version of Captain America.

It’s wow, you might want to open up a little bit and get a chance to see that there’s really cool things happening otherwise.

Colin: Comics from the literal beginning have been a minority run. Art form, comics started very Jewish, for instance, by literally entirely Jewish businesses. . And it stayed that way magazine, 35, 4 years.

Talk about mad. Yeah,

Alan: I, I just went to the mad magazine exhibit that made no bones about that. The sense of humor is very Jewish. It’s very self-deprecating. It’s very Kurtzman. One of the

Colin: Kurt Harvey Kurtzman was one of the only, comic creator that didn’t change his [01:13:00] name to be more non Jewish sounding.

Alan: Exactly. At this Mad Magazine exhibit, you’ll be proud to know they actually had multiple books about the history of Mad Magazine and all of its spinoffs, and I bought a a thick old Kurtzman book that is, I think, the authoritative autobiography. I’ll give you a review of that one of these days because he really did figure into so much the creation of Mad and comics and working with Playboy, and like he really, he was one of those guys, maybe Stan Lee esque, where he wrote ten titles, and they were all distinct.

It wasn’t that he just ground, ground it out. He wrote Lee didn’t really write all that much. Wow, you’ll have to convince me otherwise of that, because

Colin: so Have you there’s this book that you should check out called Lee and Kirby Stuff Said, S T U F Nuff Said. That goes over, and it was done by Tomorrow’s Press, which is under the thumb of Roy Thomas.

I would argue this is more so shifted in [01:14:00] Lee’s favor than anything in terms of business. The debate as to who really did a lot of the work there between lee and kirby And what the book is it is not editorializing. It is not opinionizing anything. It is taking quotes from Just about everybody that was on the business side and the creative side of marvel in the 60s and 70s And putting them in a timeline quotes from interviews at the time later statements looking at Contradictions in the stories versions of the stories that sort of thing I’ve read the book quite a few times.

I’ve also talked extensively with people who knew some of the big creators at the time that worked there. I’ve also, I’ve read extensively on the whole thing. I’m a Kirby fanatic. I wanted to know. And basically the takeaway was. By that point in Lee’s career, he didn’t give a single crap about actually writing the stories.

He was very detached. Yes, he was very detached.

Alan: Okay.

Colin: [01:15:00] And all of his myth making stories of, my wife came to me and told me when I was told to do a superhero book, I, I should do it my way and do it this way and do it properly. No, it wasn’t why The Fantastic, that wasn’t why The Fantastic Four was the way The Fantastic Four was.

So As far as we can tell, the real origin of the idea of Marvel doing their superhero team was Julie Schwartz, editor in chief at DC at the time, essentially the guy behind the idea of the Justice League, and, um, what’s his face, the guy who ran Marvel at the time I’m blanking on his name.

Martin. Goodman, yeah, martin goodman. They were playing golf and schwartz was bragging about how good his sales were For the couple issues of brave and the bold and then the justice league, title and goodman Called lee and told him to do a superhero team. I need this team book. Okay. Yeah, but don’t Make it a superhero team make it something that they if it didn’t work out.

They could make it seem like something else That’s why the first two issues they don’t have costumes and the [01:16:00] covers are very old school monsters Lee then went to kirby told kirby he wanted to uh, about heroes make them a family and then kirby went and did it kirby would write rough script ideas in the margins of his pages You can see that in the actual pages that have survived a lot of them were destroyed Or hidden from him and then just destroyed by the elements in a shack in in a alley in brooklyn I am not joking about that During the lawsuit between kirby and marvel when kirby was trying to get his original art back what they had left of it They literally they put it in a Shack in a alley in brooklyn with no bottom to it.

No floor It was just open and water damage and mold and rot destroyed so much of it most of the stuff we have left was due to len ween and neil adams who were you know, low dogs on the totem pole or interns which Ween was at the time just Taking the stuff home when [01:17:00] they were told to incinerate it.

But anyway Kirby would write the stories essentially as he was drawing them, and then write out what the dialogue he had in mind was in the margins. And Lee would then come in and finish the bits. There was this, there’s this consistent deep propagandizing of Lee’s involvement with this stuff.

That he was, a lot bigger of it, and they would have like long conversations. There was, it’s not definitive, and I couldn’t tell you I read an article in a magazine from the 90s. That was a comic history magazine. I have these few buried in my boxes that was talking about how it was trying to argue that the.

Outlines that lee supposedly typed out. That was given to some of the artists for certain like key issues or big deal stories were actually forged later by roy and it was trying to argue that the Writing style was a lot closer to roy thomas’s prose writing then it was lee’s You know stuff that [01:18:00] we have confirmation lee actually wrote like i’m going to be completely honest Lee very much did not do nearly as much as people say even people who are like, yeah, Kirby probably did more than he gets credit for.

Honestly, on everything I’ve read extensively. I’ve got a couple hundred comic history books. I’ve got dozens of of boxes of comic history magazines and files and stuff.

Alan: I read this one.

Colin: And basically my takeaway personally is that everything worth, more or less everything worthwhile from a lot of the Silver Age Marvel stuff was Kirby and Ditko and Heck and the artists and Lee came in and meddled.

I, I,

Alan: I like it. I’ll have to read. I’ll have to read the book. Because some part of me would say, Kirby was a creative genius, and I could see how he might have done all that, but really, Ditko did that too, Heck did that too Colon did that too, you know what I mean? Heck, it’s

Colin: really interesting with Heck.

Alan: can believe it, because he has created his own books, [01:19:00] but I don’t think of anything where Heck is attributed as being the creator. Yeah, his horror stuff. His horror stuff. Okay. Beforehand. Boy, I don’t know that. That’s why I don’t know. Yeah.

Colin: So if you’re just looking at comics as like just knowing the superhero, Genre, right?

It’s you’re missing a lot of the history heck Arguably, I would say his greater contribution to comics art and comics anything is his horror work He didn’t work on the ec stuff, which is the pre code horror that everyone’s familiar with

Alan: He

Colin: did do just about every like valuable and well known and talked about the analyzed horror cover in the other companies in particular, he did a cover

Alan: timely from okay.

Colin: From Atlas, from Avon from Harvey’s when they were doing Black Cat comics and a few others, he did a lot of that. He did Man in Black at Harvey. There’s this one of, one of the, one of the main covers that wasn’t from EC that was, one of the big pearl clutching covers at the time of the Seduction [01:20:00] of the Innocent was this very bloody decapitation cover.

Heck did that. Heck was a huge deal. Superheroes, honest to god, were just a tiny little footnote in his history, in my opinion. I’m familiar with all those other Really good biography of him, too. And actually, the reason that he got out of comics was because he felt that he was doing so much more work.

At marvel with lee’s, marvel method bullcrap that he and he wasn’t getting paid for any of it He was getting paid. I think at the time ten dollars a page, which was is, you know A lot more back then than it was now, but that’s not a lot that was lower than industry rates And there were there are several accounts of several different people talking about him and multiple interviews with him in a different tomorrow’s press magazines talking about how He was just battered beaten down and exhausted by it.

There’s a reason that I co creator of daredevil. He worked on a lot of stuff while not Wollywood. I

Alan: let’s [01:21:00] see Adam Austin, but that was attributed from colon. No bill Everett.

Colin: Yeah, Everett. There’s a reason that Everett only did two or three issues of Daredevil. This is why I

Alan: got a point in that show about comic books.

Colin: Yeah.

Alan: I didn’t usually come up with it.

Colin: And then there’s a reason Everett only ever did a couple issues of Daredevil and then basically left the industry. Again, it was because of the awfulness of the the amount of work they were required to do was more than anywhere else. And Marvel wasn’t even paying as much as other places, wow.

Alan: Okay, I honestly got lots to learn. You know what I mean? The first book, the propagandizing and the lionizing of him and becoming a beloved feature of the movies has very much made it that he’s Wonderful. Yes. Yes. Stuff like that.

Colin: The other thing is he gets this air of progressivism attached to him that I personally don’t feel he’s earned.

There’s one or two Stan soap boxes. I’ve got this wonderful book that collects all of them and it puts them in like historical context with what was happening [01:22:00] with Marvel was happening with the world at the time. And I. He only did two or three that were like really talking about racism and stuff, but at most all he said was we’re all people we should all get along and then you look at the time that this happened, and it was after the civil rights movement was, more or less one with the laws being put in and stuff, it was after that was a popular thing to

Alan: say, he didn’t do.

Black Panther. I could see how

Colin: Black Panther was entirely a Kirby thing. That was his idea first. He wanted to have an African superhero. He uh, and then I think the real reason that Lee started talking about, we’re all people, we should all love each other and everything was because that was during the time he was doing the college tours when he was pushing the pop art side of Marvel and really pushing that with the advertising.

Lee was a very good advertising man. And that I think was his biggest contribution to comics was the way he talked about them and the way he promoted them And the way he changed the way they were [01:23:00] looked at Interesting. The other thing is you look at the old school or the lee and kirby run of fantastic four it and the stuff that lee wrote of ant man and Then avengers it has some of the most Sexist bullcrap I’ve ever seen in a comic you look at you look at the way sue is treated and you look at the way the wasp is treated.

It’s treated It’s disgusting But if you look at the surviving bits that kirby contributed and then you look at kirby’s later work like kirby loved women He was a wife man, big barda was based off of His own wife, he would You know, talk a lot about how, I’ve

Alan: seen Ross and she’s not big, but I guess she was no but it was her personality that he based her off of and

Colin: You look at how he talked about Ross in interviews and he was, you know, basically talking about how she ran him, in a lot of ways and very positive.

He was a wife guy. Lee either didn’t mention his wife, or talk about that one story of her telling him to do the Fantastic Four, and that was it. [01:24:00] He never mentioned Jean, and you look at the surviving bits and pieces of the Kirby dialogue for Fantastic Four, none of the sexless crap was in there! It was Lee’s contribution there!

That was then crammed in later! Yeah! I have lots

Alan: to learn!

Colin: You look at some of the stuff that he was doing after Marvel, when he was, just Floating by and he was doing a stripper comic book. And then wait, I need that

Stephen: one

Colin: It’s called stripperella. And then you look at what he always would say his favorite.

Favorite, Cameo was in the movies, and it was the stripper scene in Deadpool 1, and he would always talk about how disappointed he was he didn’t get to interact with the strippers more. Like he was a weird guy with weird feelings on

Stephen: women.

Alan: Okay.

Stephen: Yeah. Alright, hey. I hate to drop it. I’m going to have to get going.

This might be our wonderful longest episode. Yeah. We may have to have Colin back on and do more. Once you get down to

Alan: G’s. Yeah, let’s see. So I’m up through [01:25:00] G. Let’s see. So maybe as I work my way through the alphabet, give me eight letters of the alphabet each time. And so as soon as I get done, we’ll have you back.

A special episode. One of the things you talked about the enthusiasm of talking about this, I’ve never been able to talk about these kinds of things with anybody as I have with you. Nobody else not only reads the comic books, but actually goes into the comic history of it, because I’ve read Many of these books, and maybe, again, they were a little bit aggrandizing, because if Stan Lee wrote it, he of course will give the Stan Lee perspective of it, but those there were a long time, like I said, comics journal and stuff like that, that were, if not actually anti Stan, they were definitely pulling the curtain back about all kinds of stuff that was going on, and all kinds of publishers, and yes, there was sexism, and yes, there was stealing people’s work and stuff like that, but I, In some ways, I didn’t love reading about that because I wanted to retain my innocence about comic books are just fun and [01:26:00] cool and heroic.

And honestly, just like I don’t like learning how special effects are made, because I want the illusion of that’s really a spaceship. That’s really a teleportation. I don’t think I blinded myself to it, but there’s been all kinds of things that come out since I was as actively reading all those various different things.

There, I know that I’ve gone on Amazon and started to look for like history of Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and there’s so many, and some of them even seem to be like The collected lectures of a professor at a university. It’s is that going to be interesting? Is that going to be dry? But if they’re fact based, I want to know the facts and make the decisions for myself.

So I got some learning to do. I got some I can

Colin: send you some book recommendations and stuff.

Alan: Please do. I would really appreciate that. That stuff said and that yeah, had to make some notes because I really do. There’s a guy named Travis Langley who writes a lot about the psychology of superheroes and a lot of his stuff has been very spot on and in some cases, not in a flattering way about like with the people that created these things, [01:27:00] either they didn’t get how to do this correctly.

Or they really suffer from it, too, and this isn’t helping. You know what, I’ve done keeping statements about that kind of stuff. I know you have to go, Stephen. When we have

Stephen: Colin on, we could say, Today’s episode brought to you by the letter H.

Alan: Exactly. Thank you so much, Stephen, for bringing your son on.

Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Insightful. And I just, this has been, Essence of relentless geekery. Exactly. It’s been the epitome. It’s been perfect. Thank you very much. We need to get Colin

Stephen: on and Ted Sikora and I’ll talk. Oh, Ted’s a great guy.

Alan: I still have some music people that I need to get on that.

I met at Frogstock and stuff like that. And yeah, everybody. I have a podcast. It’s oh, really? It’s we’re about 200 episodes in. They’re like, wait, what? And so I might actually have some ability to get people to hop on the phone with us on zoom with us and put this together. So that’d be

Stephen: cool.

Alan: All right.

Stephen: All

Alan: right. Talk to you gentlemen. Exactly. [01:28:00] Bye bye.

You have been listening to the Relentless Geekery Podcast. Come back next week and join Alan and Stephen’s conversation on Geek Topics of the Week.

Episode 211 – Comic Books!

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When's the Fun Kick In? Short-Sleeve Unisex T-Shirt

Episode 211 – Comic Books!

Overview

YouTube

Transcript

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When's the Fun Kick In? Short-Sleeve Unisex T-Shirt