The Corner Box

Top Comic Book Picks of 2024 on The Corner Box S2Ep15

• David & John • Season 2 • Episode 15

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0:00 | 58:46

John & David wrap up 2024 with their Top 3s (or 8s), and talk about John’s uncanny impressions, the new version of Jonathan Hickman, John’s disappointment in non-sex comics, the end of David’s Dog (Man) Days, and John revives a “classic” Corner Box joke.

Timestamp Segments

  • [00:50] Kraven the Hunter.
  • [03:39] John has fallen behind.
  • [05:00] A spin on Top 3s.
  • [05:58] All-time Top 3 Comics.
  • [12:47] Top Image Books.
  • [20:47] Top Marvel Issues.
  • [30:03] A new version of Hickman.
  • [31:59] Top DC Books.
  • [38:12] Top One-Shot Reprints.
  • [40:08] Top Artists.
  • [45:36] John wants to quit comics.
  • [48:03] Top Kickstarters.
  • [54:21] David’s sad moment.
  • [57:39] Surprise guests.

Notable Quotes

  • “The villain of the next Spider-Man movie ought to be whoever green lights the Spider-Man Villain movies at Sony.”
  • “I’ve never seen a worse title for something in my entire life.”
  • “I should not be this entertained by a Sonic the Hedgehog movie.”

Relevant Links

LAST DAY TO BACK!
Super Kaiju Rock n Roller Derby Fun Time Go Book #2 | Kickstarter

David's Fun Stuff!
Did Someone Say Fun Time? Let's GO!

John is at PugW!
Pug Worldwide

Books Mentioned

Welcome to The Corner Box, where your hosts, David Hedgecock and John Barber, lean into their decades of comic book industry experience, writing, drawing, editing, and publishing. They'll talk to fellow professionals, deep dive into influential and overlooked works, and analyze the state of the art and business of comics and pop culture. Thanks for joining us on The Corner Box.


[00:28] John Barber: Ho Ho Ho. Welcome to The Corner Box End of The Year Wrap-Up. Ho Ho Ho. I'm your host, Kraven the Hunter. That’s my Kraven the Hunter imitation. I didn’t see the film, but I think that's what he sounds like. I'm John Barber. With me, as always, my good friend,


[00:48] David Hedgecock: David Hedgecock. Kraven the Hunter.


[00:49] John: How many times did you see Kraven?


[00:52] David: Oh, John, I don't mean to disappoint you, but that didn't make my Top 5 list for this year.


[00:56] John: Even though this is a Top 5 list for comic books, disqualifying Kraven the Hunter from the list, just why go over that?


[01:04] David: It's on everybody else's Top 5 list.


[01:08] John: We’re recording this a few weeks ago, as you're listening to this, listeners, and Kraven the Hunter is exactly as relevant now as it is in your future.


[01:18] David: Did that movie, I mean, seriously, the gross on that, did it even hit $15 million?


[01:25] John: I don't know.


[01:26] David: We shouldn’t talk bad about those movies. They're awful, but--


[01:29] John: It isn't the quality of the movies. I’ve seen enough think pieces in the immediate aftermath of, is this superhero fatigue? And listen, I do think superhero fatigue is a real thing. The reason nobody saw Kraven the Hunter is, it’s a movie nobody wanted to see, and evidently, it wasn't very good. There’s nothing more to learn from it than that. Maybe it was really good, and no offense. I feel bad for the people that worked really hard to make it, at blah blah blah, but somebody should’ve focused their efforts on a movie that people might have wanted to have seen, regardless of quality. Anyway.


[02:03] David: Yeah. Who's in charge at Sony, man? Come on.


[02:06] John: The villains of the next Spider-Man movie ought to be whoever green lights movies at Sony. […] tries to take down. That's how they should bring it in, like, “will you find out Wilson Fisk has been secretly bankrolling all these movies about villains to try to discredit Spider-Man?”


[02:21] David: That's pretty good. You should be in charge, John.


[02:24] John: That's what I keep saying.


[02:27] David: I know. I agree.


[02:29] John: No, I don't really want to be in charge of much, but I am in charge of my list of the Top 30 comics of this year.


[02:36] David: Oh, very well done. I like it. Yeah, it's not a Top 5, John. We’re keeping it Top 3.


[02:42] John: It gives space for Chase.


[02:43] David: Who's not going to be joining us now.


[02:45] John: Oh, man. Well, Dave Baker, at least, would be able to.


[02:47] David: Oh, yeah. Dave?


[02:51] John: Oh, man. Kraven? Oh, Kraven left, too. Ho Ho Ho. I'm actor Jack Nicholson. Why don't you hold it between your knees? I can do a million impressions.


[03:07] David: A regular Eddie Murphy.


[03:11] John: Welcome to the Norbit of podcasts. Genuinely, no offense meant to Eddie Murphy, whose last couple of movies—the Dolemite movie was great. Anyway.


[03:21] David: It really was. That Dolemite movie was great. I'm a massive fan of Dolemite already, though. So, I was the target audience for that one. You couldn't really screw that one up, as far I was concerned, but it was good.


[03:31] John: Speaking of good.


[03:32] David: So, yeah, John, like you said, we're doing Top 3 stuff, and that's why I have a list of eight things that I want to talk about.


[03:37] John: All right. So, here’s where I'm coming into this. I think it's different than where you are. I had a great time reading comics this year, but I had a bunch of stuff I either haven't read yet, because I have this this puppy who's here in the room with me, and it has really hurt my reading for the last couple months, and I don't just mean I haven’t read the last couple months’ worth of stuff—I just mean there's stuff that I bought that I'm like, “ah, I definitely want to see how this is,” and just haven't got to yet, and other stuff I was planning on picking up. Being a 12-year-old boy, my Christmas list to people is nothing but video games and comic books. The list has not changed in subject matter in a very long time.


[04:23] David: Yeah. Same.


[04:24] John: Probably, action figures came back on, after a while, is the biggest change. I feel really under-prepared or under-read. So, I'm excited to hear the Top 8 that you have, to see what other stuff I need to check out.


[04:38] David: Oh, John, it's not anywhere near a modern list of things that happened this year.


[04:44] John: Oh, yours is just of things that you read this year?


[04:46] David: I did my best. I tried to find stuff, but on my list is Herb Trimpe.


[04:58] John: Well, let's dive in and see what we have.


[05:00] David: Dear listeners, John and I just said Top 3, and we did a Top 3 last year, but I forgot how we did it. So, I just made up my own version of Top 3 this year. So, here's how I wrote it down, John. John's giving me a look.


[05:18] John: Dave had a prose biography not from last year on the list. Our rules are pretty lax.


[05:23] David: Yeah. No, that's true. I broke it down this year, in no particular order. I did my favorite collection of the year.


[05:30] John: Oh, nice.


[05:31] David: I picked a favorite Image book. I picked a favorite Marvel and DC book. I picked a favorite reprint. I picked some favorite artists and some favorite Kickstarters. I made some bold predictions.


[05:43] John: Okay.


[05:44] David: That's what I’ve got for you, John


[05:45] John: Okay. Let's do this. I’ll try my best to follow your lead on this one. How about that?


[05:51] David: Sure, I guess. I mean, I'm excited to hear how you broke things down, too.


[05:54] John: Yeah, I don't think it was as exciting, though. I like what you're doing. So, let’s go for it.


[05:58] David: All right. So, my Top 3 were the Squadron Supreme and the Micronauts, but the winner this year was a Kickstarter, a repackaging, and the first time in hardcover, of Poison Elves. So, my, probably #1 favorite comic book of all time, Poison Elves—there’s not been a new printing of that for, oh, probably, at least, a decade. Sirius Entertainment, the publisher of Poison Elves, did a Kickstarter towards the end of the last year, I guess, but fulfilled it this year, and they collected the first 20 issues of Poison Elves, and the first 20 issues of Poison Elves is called the Mulehide Run, because Mulehide Press, which was Drew Hayes, the creator’s, self-published imprint, it was published under that, Mulehide Press. So, yeah. We got the first 20 issues of that collection, and that first 20 issues is—I fell in love, so deeply, with Poison Elves in those first 20 issues. So, it was really just so fun to be able to revisit that stuff in a really nice package and a really great format. The Sirius Publishers did a fantastic job putting together a beautiful package. It was a really gorgeous little box that it came in. The packing and everything about it was just a deluxe experience. I really loved it. So, that was my favorite collection of the year.


[07:26] John: Nice. I can do this. Luckily, I'm obsessive enough that I kept a list of stuff. I know what my pick is going to be here.


[07:32] David: Oh, nice.


[07:33] John: The Time² Collection from Howard Chaykin and Image Comics.


[07:38] David: Yeah.


[07:39] John: This is a collection of three one-shots that Chaykin did in the 80s, along with a new story created for the collection, about an alternate reality. The series is just called Time². I think it's basically everything Chaykin thought was cool and fun to draw, and have be a piece of comics from New York, or from the 20th Century. So, there's 30s and 40s cars, and everybody dresses in that style, a lot of demons and magic, and jazz, and stuff. The problem with the series is that the first part of it was actually an American Flagg! special. So, it was a regular format comic book, where Reuben Flagg from American Flagg, Chaykin's ongoing series, falls into this other universe and then encounter some of the characters in here. The events in that set in motion the first Time² graphic novel that came out from 1First Publishing, which is an old Marvel-style graphic novel, 8½ x11-ish, 64/72 pages. Something like that. Chaykin drew and then Ken Bruzenak lettered all these, and Steve Oliff did some cool painted colors for it, I believe. Then there's a second graphic, a third chapter in it, which also builds on it.

None of these were particularly well received, evidently. None of these sold really well. They seemed to really shed the fandom that he'd started to grow on American Flagg!, that wanted another comprehensible story, which this is not. It's narratively him throwing in every trick that he has, where you’re having to piece together the story, in a lot of ways. That's not exactly the right way to say it. It's more like the movie. No Country For Old Men than it is a Marvel movie, where the Marvel movie show you, you go A to B, and B to C, and C to D, and No Country For Old Men would have these huge gaps in it, where you’d have to piece together what happens, and it's famously leading up to a big shootout that you don't see. That kind of stuff. That's more of the milieu that he’s working in this.

So, I have those original 3 volumes, and this new collection of it reproduces them really nicely. I think this is the first time they've ever been reprinted, since the 80s. I think there might have been some Deluxe Editions in the 80s that came out, right around the same time as the regular editions, and it's got a new story, which is weird, because Chaykin doesn't draw like he used to, and I mean that in every sense you could mean that about. In a technical sense, he draws these individual pieces that he put together in Photoshop. You lose a lot of the part where I think it's “Chaykin dressed that guy in that suit because he wanted to draw that suit 48 times,” and that might still be the case. He might still be drawing it that many times. It doesn't have the same feel in the art. When objects close up, sometimes, get blown out more, or lines become chunky and thick, that stuff gets resized electronically. Not terrible, by any means, but those first three are really weird and interesting. Then the new one—it’s interesting, and it's interesting to see 70-whatever Howard Chaykin putting a cap on the story that he started in his 30s. It is a story only in the most generous and technical sense, but I loved it.


[11:03] David: Yeah. It's a glowing endorsement. It's hard to go wrong with Chaykin. You can, but it's hard.


[11:11] John: This is advanced Chaykin. If you like Chaykin and you like his stuff on The Shadow, and maybe you've read Twilight, this is the more difficult version of it. The difference between reading The Tyger, and then going into The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and then into The Books of Urizen, in terms of William Blake. We all know the difficulty ramp of William Blake.


[11:32] David: The half of the audience that is here for the grunts and the poop jokes that I make just left. All right. That’s a good one, John.


[11:39] John: Poison Elves, too. I don't know that much about Poison Elves.


[11:42] David: You know, you did such a great job of explaining the Chaykin book that I realized that I didn't say anything about what the story is. Poison Elves is a fantasy adventure story about an elf named Lusiphur, who is a bit of a rogue, a bit of a ne’er-do-well, but he finds himself thrust upon a grand stage and has to find the hero within him to make things right in the world. Along the way, there's a lot of Rockabilly sensibilities. It's a lot of Witcher mashed together with Elfquest, and a dash of Dave Sim thrown on the top. Beautiful artwork. By the time you get to the second half of the Mulehide Run, it just turns into incredibly rendered pen-and-ink drawings. Just a real delight. Just a fun adventure story. If you're a fantasy buff, in any way, shape, or form, or enjoy TV shows, like Witcher, or books, like Witcher, this one's definitely for you.

All right, John. I'm going to move on to my Top Image book for the year.


[12:51] John: This is just Image?


[12:52] David: Just Image. I thought, “let’s try to get the wide audience,” John, do the big publishers. My Book of the Year for Image comics is Rook.


[13:04] John: Oh.


[13:05] David: Part of the Mad Ghost Publishing imprint at Image. Rook is written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jason Fabok, and Jason Fabok is the reason why I think Rook really works, for me. Jason Fabok is an artist. I've been paying attention to him for a while, as I'm sure plenty of people have. His work, over at DC, over the last couple years has been just really stellar. I think he did The Three Jokers with Geoff Johns. I think that's the last thing he did, famously, over there. That was just gorgeous, but it feels, to me, like Jason Fabok is putting all of his heart and energy, and soul, into Rook. Every single page is just lovingly rendered with a massive amount of detail, and I don't know how he's doing it, other than, I think, he's only trying to get six books a year out, and that must be how they're doing it, but there's just a hyper amount of detail in it. I feel like Jason Fabok has just thrown the gauntlet down, in terms of commercial artists, within the Big Three publishers, just daring people to try to catch up with him, and his art has not always been the one that I've been drawn to, but he's in that—Gary Frank, who else is in that style?


[14:22] John: Doug Mahnke?


[14:24] David: Yeah, Doug Mahnke, Gary Frank—in that last decade-ish of DC Comics—he’s in that style, but he is pushing the envelope, and pushing himself, so hard with this book. At least, it seems like it. Maybe it's effortless for him. It looks like, though, that he's just really pushing the envelope and pushing himself quite a bit, and throwing a ton of energy into this thing, and I'm just there for it. I can feel it. I can see it on the page. I can see how hard he's working, and the story itself is, as I say many times, it's a Geoff Johns joint, but it's so well rendered, it’s so well done, the storytelling is so good, and from the art side, that I'm really enjoying it. So, the story is a bit of a sci-fi piece. Earth has given up the ghost. It's been completely destroyed by humanity. So, humanity has gone off-world to destroy other planets. We're on a planet that is owned by a corporation, and the corporation has figured out a way to develop these helmets that allow whoever the wearer of the helmet is to control specific species of animals. Rook, our main character, can control crows, and his friend controls warthogs or pigs—boars. I think there's a difference there. There's another one who controls foxes, another controls wolves, another controls bears, and so on, and so forth.

You get the idea. […] the controls of the helmets, and the corporation that owns the planet has essentially left, and left a lot of people behind, saying, “yeah, we'll come back and get you all,” but it's looking less and less likely that anyone's ever going to come back and get these people. The planet was not completely terraformed yet. So, it seems to be reverting back to its original uninhabitable version of itself. So, these people are in a ticking time bomb desperate situation, where resources are becoming more and more finite, and there's no way to get off the planet, essentially. So, what do they do? Of course, some turn good, some turn to bad, and you get this post-apocalyptic science fiction feel to the whole thing. The first six issues are out and complete. It does a very satisfying beginning, middle, and end story to it, with lots of hooks to come. I'm anxious to see the next round, and really just was not something I was expecting or looking forward to, in 2024.

Ghost Machine was on my radar, but Rook was not one of the things coming out of Ghost Machine that I was initially excited for, but after having read it, and just diving into it, I just really like it. I'm really enjoying it, and I think Jason Fabok, in particular, just deserves some flowers this year, for the amount of work he's putting into it. Issue #5-6, it seems he's starting to feel maybe a little rushed, but he still is just slathering this thing with detail and emotion, and the storytelling and the pace is really good, and I think it's a lot to do with him. That's my Top Image book for 2024, John.


[17:24] John: Wow, okay. I think I started it and I need to catch up. We talked a little bit about Jeph Loeb being the guy that can really tee up artists. His former office mate, Geoff Johns, also does that, and was really good at that, and those artists that we mentioned, I mean, I was just throwing out, here’s guys that he worked with. There's a certain style that he works really well with and really tees up to get the best out of them, and think I it's something—He has the bombast of a Jeph Loeb or Mark Millar, continuity obsessiveness of a Kurt Busiek almost, or Mark Wade.


[18:00] David: That's a really good way to put it. In this particular story, in this particular piece, it’s definitely playing to Geoff Johns’ strengths, the strengths that you just identified. I think he's definitely playing towards those. So, I'm into it. I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying a lot of the Ghost Machine stuff, but Rook, in particular, has really stood out, for me. To be honest, I haven't read all of the Ghost Machine stuff, yet. There's some of the newer stuff that's just come out, I haven't had a chance to sample, yet, but for the first half of the year, everything that came out, Redcoat, Rook, Geiger, all that stuff is really clicking with me. I'm a fan. I'm buying every issue and enjoying the ride.


[18:33] John: Cool. All right. So, my favorite Image book of the year would be The Power Fantasy, by Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard.


[18:42] David: Oh, yeah. I don't think you're alone in that one.


[18:44] John: I just got caught up on it and then a new one came out. I haven't read the newest one, yet. It's definitely reminiscent of the Gillen/McKelvie stuff. Jamie McKelvie’s got a new series out, too, and I read those back-to-back. So, it was nice. It was almost like having a new Gillen/McKelvie book. It's a superhero comic, but the idea is that each one of these superheroes, with these incredible powers, is like a living nuclear weapon, and if they ever actually got in a fight, millions of people would die. So, it's a constant Cold War between them, and each other, and the world, at large. It’s an alternate history of what's happened since, at least, the 1960s, when things started diverging.

It plays a lot to Kieron Gillen’s strengths. Casper Wijngaard’s art’s really cool, really nice on it. Reading the McKelvie thing right before, Jamie McKelvie’s one of those guys that I think he's just gotten better as he's gone on, and gotten more like himself, and the naturalism that he has with his drawings just carries so much of the story, that you get so much personality and acting out of his characters. Wijngaard doesn't approach it the same way, but approaches it in a complementary enough way that it still works with what Kieron Gillen does. This doesn't have a lot of the big pyrotechnics of superhero books, of Geoff Johns’ stuff, but it does have these moments where a reveal could be really powerful, reminiscent of The Wicked + The Divine, especially with the weird takes on powers, and the power dynamics that it creates. I really enjoyed that.


[20:14] David: I've been meaning to pick that one up. I've heard several good things about that book. That was on my short list of things to try to dive into. How many issues of that are out, John? Do you know?


[20:25] John: I think four, as of this week. I think I’ve read the first three. So, maybe it starts sucking in Issue #4.


[20:32] David: Yeah. That’s okay. We can edit this part out if it starts, as long as Issue #4 comes out before this comes out, which is very possible, John. You ready for another one?


[20:47] John: Yes.


[20:48] David: So, my next one, John, was my Top Marvel pick for 2024. Everybody knows what my Top Marvel pick is going to be. So, I actually narrowed this one down to one specific issue, my favorite issue of the whole year from Marvel, and I read a lot of Marvel this year, mostly on the app, but this one, I actually bought physical copies of, and continue to buy physical copies of. Spider-Boy #8.


[21:10] John: 8?


[21:11] David: It was just really clever and really well executed issue of a comic book, and Spider-Boy #8 is titled Fun and Games. Dan Slott writes it, Jason Loo is the artist, Erick Arciniega is on colors, and this issue introduces a new villain, named Puzzle Man. Puzzle Man seems to be breaking the fourth wall a little bit. What ends up happening, in this issue, is that there are all these different types of puzzles—a crossword puzzle, or word search, or a maze—and the reader is invited to actually solve these puzzles before you move on in the story, and solving the puzzle, or whatever the little game is, informs the story, in some way, shape, or form. So, as an example, Puzzle Man is on a giant full-page splash, hidden, hard to find, as if you're doing a Where's Waldo?, and you have to help Spider-Boy find Puzzle Man on the page. So, the idea is that you can't proceed forward until you find Puzzle Man, because on the next page, you'll have found him and helped Spider-Boy find him, and then that's how Spider-Boy finds him, because you pointed out where he was. You told Spider-Boy where he was, and I thought the whole thing's really executed just incredibly well.

It's very clever, and it's really cool to have a print product in your hands that is that interactive. Everything is so interactive because we're online, these days. You're listening to it, you're watching it, you’re reading it, you're engaging with the material in so many different ways, and it was really fun to see an old-school printed comic book able to create that level of interaction and engagement in a very comic book-sscentric way, but in a way that you can’t really recreate in a lot of other ways. So, my hat is off to Dan Slott for just having some fun and playing, and inviting the reader to play. Spider-Boy is not meant to be a book that Gen X is really supposed to be that into, I think, but that's why I'm so into it, because I see the appeal that it could potentially have to somebody who is the age of Bailey Briggs, Spider-Boy, that 8/9/10/11-year-old kid who's maybe jumping into comic books for the first time. I love that Spider-Boy exists for those kids, and the potential of kids discovering this at that age, and discovering a print product, or a product that’s superheroes that might be a comic bookshop thing that gets them into a comic bookshop. There's a lot of really cool books here for kids of that age, I think, in my opinion. I just really love it for that, and I'm entertained by it, too.

There are things that are happening in the story that tug on my emotional strings, as well. In this particular issue, Bailey's mom is a mutant animal, has been mutated into a half-animal/half-human, and doesn't remember Bailey. Nobody remembers  Bailey, and she is transformed back into a full human. So, back fully to his mom that he remembers, how she looks, and he's very excited, because he thinks that now that she's transformed back to looking human that she'll then remember him, but she doesn't. So, there's a really severe, heart-wrenching moment, where our hero is excited that he's got his mom back, in her original physical form, but she still doesn't remember him. Not only is it a fun, entertaining read, but there's this really nice emotional beat and emotional undercurrent to the whole thing, that speaks to the Spider-Man struggle, at large—the repercussions of family, for a superhero.

I'm not saying that correctly, but Spider-Man's family suffers repercussions because of Spider-Man, which is not something that you see, necessarily as much, in other superhero books, and Bailey Briggs in Spider-Boy has that, as a through line, as well, but in an interesting new spin on it, if that makes sense. Of all the books I've read this year, this was the one where I was like, “wow, man, that is fresh. That is original. What a great way to engage with the audience.” I felt like Dan Slott was really showing off, and the art by Jason Loo was super good. Competent. I missed Paco Medina a little bit on this issue, but not so much that it's pulling me out of the story or making me be upset. So, Kudos, all around. It's a great kids’ comic.


[25:54] John: I still need to check out Spider-Boy. I'm embarrassed I haven't. That'll be one of my New Year's Resolutions. I need to check that out. That and Poison Elves.


[26:02] David: There's 2 trade paperbacks on Spider-Boy out, right now, collecting, I think, probably the first eight issues, or so. So, definitely jump on, if you can, and give the first trade paperback a look. Like I said, it's not built for the adult audience to be the core audience. It is built for an adult audience to be reading to a younger audience, I think, and both enjoying it. That’s all I’ve got.


[26:26] John: All right. Yeah. So, let's see. For my Top Marvel book of the year, I think I'm going to go to one I would not have expected I was going to say here—Aliens vs Avengers, by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić. I was really impressed by it. I haven't seen the new Alien movie that came out this year. I know it's on HBO Max. I probably will check it out. It always surprised me, though, that up until this year, there'd only been those two Alien movies, and nobody had ever made an addition one. So, it's exciting to see these characters again.


[26:55] David: After so long.


[26:58] John: Alien has a really nice history in comics. The original, the Dark Horse stuff—well, no. Going back, the original graphic novel in Heavy Metal, by Simonson and Archie Goodwin, was great, a really good piece of storytelling. The Dark Horse series is what really put Dark Horse on the map for doing licensed comics.


[27:17] David: That and Predator.


[27:18] John: Yeah. Predator came a little bit after that, because the Alien one came first in black and white, and they did the color Alien, and color Predator. Alien’s easier to say, for me, than Predator. So, I like that more. So, this is a real different take on it. The other one I want to throw out there, the great Superman vs Aliens, by Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan. Really cool series. Stormwatch—was it the WildC.A.T.S Aliens, where Stormwatch […]


[27:49] David: I forgot about that.


[27:51] John: That’s the comic that sets up The Authority. Good stuff. Anyway, this is out of regular Marvel continuity. It takes place sometime in the future, maybe 20 or 30 years in the future. I think they say what it is, but I forget. T’Chala and his Kingdom are out in the far reaches of space, trying to solve something, and then they find out they've actually been away from Earth for decades. Then meanwhile, back on Earth, the entire planet has been destroyed by aliens, and the only survivors are guarded by the last surviving handful of Avengers that are left. It's Miles Morales, Valeria Richards, I think. She was still in there, right? Some of Hickman’s favorites, with some other ones. […].


[28:30] David: Definitely Hickman favorites.


[28:32] John: Yeah. This is a real Hickman-y Marvel book. It's super intellectual, super big picture, “we're going to take off and 1000 people are going to die so that the other 9000 can survive, and that's the best we're going to do” situations. It was really nice to see Aliens handled that way, tying Wayland-Yutani, I think, to his Maker stuff from Secret Wars, intellectual, but then also overblown superhero dynamic art, cool stuff that Opeña does. Really enjoyed it. Have you checked it out, at all?


[29:10] David: Yeah, I heard good things about it. Esad Ribić?


[29:14] John: I called him a Jerome Opeña. Another excellent artist. Yeah, sorry.


[29:20] David: You just happened to name 2 of my top favorite artists, but Esad Ribić, I'm always going to show up for that guy. That guy's amazing. He’s incredible. I love his stuff so much. Yeah, I definitely showed up for this one, even though on the surface, I was there for the creative team on this one, for sure. If you were just selling me Avengers vs Aliens by team that you were going to throw at it, I'm probably not going to show up, but if you're going to put Hickman and Esad Ribić together, and throw it on that, okay, you’ve got me. Let’s see what happens. 100%. I really enjoyed it. I think I've only read the first issue. I don't know if I have any other issues.


[30:02] John: I think there's only one more.


[30:03] David: I like what Marvel's done with Hickman, or maybe it's Hickman himself that's managing his career different, but I think spreading the Hickman wealth around and having him do these 4 or 6-issue minis with a bunch of different artists, and just going in and hitting something, and then getting out, and then just having the one title that he's on, like Ultimate Spider-Man, I think that's a better use of Hickman than the way they've done in the past, where it's just like, “hey, Hickman. Write 173 issues of Avengers this year.” This version of Hickman where it's like, “hey. Do a monthly title and enjoy yourself, and then spread out. Do six issues of something over here, 6 issues of something over there.” At the end of the year, you’ve still done 24/36 issues worth of stuff, but it's spread out over a bunch of different properties, and I don't know, I just feel it's a better way to use him. I like this version of things. I hope that they continue to use Hickman in this way. I don't think that we need another big event Hickman thing, although they just announced one today, and I'm like, “okay, here we go, Imperial,” but this version that they're doing right now, I prefer it. I like it. I hope they continue to do it. Doesn’t sound like they're going to, but we'll see. So, yeah. I'm with you on this one. That's a great pick, John.


[31:19] John: Almost any creative team you can imagine, the comic they're going to make, it's going to be a good or bad version of that comic, depending on what you like about that creative team, or how you're envisioning it, and you're probably going to be pretty close to what you get, and this comic isn't that. This comic isn't what you think you're going to get. I like the way it does the thing that I think is nice when you do these crossovers. There's something that genuinely effects people about Aliens and about The Avengers, and instead of mashing toys together, this I think, to some degree, gets at the heart of what it is that is interesting about Aliens, and uses The Avengers to show that, and vice versa. I don't know. I think it's cool.


[31:59] David: We did Image and Marvel. So, of course, we have to do DC. Everybody on the planet is picking one of the Absolute books. My honorable mention, not my #1 pick, but my honorable mention is definitely Wonder Woman #1. Wow.


[32:11] John: It was a good issue, right?


[32:13] David: Holy moly. What a book. That is just—everything about that book was perfect. That art came out of nowhere, for me. That guy is—Josh Hayden? Is that his name?


[32:23] John: Yeah, I think so.


[32:25] David: [Hayden Sherman]. I should have wrote that down. Anyway, Absolute Wonder Woman #1 as my runner up. The expectations were very high. I think it delivered in spades, and way better than Absolute Batman or Absolute Superman, as far as I'm concerned. That was the cream of the crop, for me, but my pick is the Lobo Cancellation Special.


[32:48] John: Okay.


[32:50] David: I haven’t read a Lobo book in a while, because I'm really just like, if it's not Simon Bisley doing Lobo, I'm not really that into it, but Simon Bisley or Keith Giffen, to a lesser degree, or Alan Grant, to a lesser degree—That’s my Lobo, and that's where I want it to stay, but Lobo Cancellation Special is drawn by Kyle Hotz, and man, I'm telling you, Kyle Hotz, in the last year or so, has really levelled up. I don't know how he's levelled up after having a 20-plus year career already. I don't know what he's done, but man, that guy's so good right now, and he's just clicking on all cylinders, for me, every single thing that I see from him. So, this is the first interiors that I'm aware of that he's done in a bit. So, I was like, “yeah, I'm going to check that out,” and I couldn't have loved it more. Man, Kyle Hotz is so good. His art is just fantastic, and he's perfect for Lobo. So, I've got a new Lobo artist. I'm now accepting Simon Bisley or Kyle Hotz for my Lobo, and just super fun, exactly what you think a Lobo comic’s supposed to be—a little irreverent, offbeat humor, and ultra-violent in parts, just with some fantastic artwork by Kyle Hotz. That's my #1 DC pick for the year. There's a lot of really good stuff coming out of DC this year, art-wise, but I just thought that Kyle Hotz thing, that just really caught my eye, caught my attention. I really loved it.


[34:16] John: I feel like Kyle Hotz is one of those guys that—he’s like The Rolling Stones, or somebody, that every Rolling Stones album that comes out is the best album they've ever done since Exile on Main St, or since, whatever. Every review does that. I feel like Kyle Hotz had this weird place, where every time he’d do something, people would be, not necessarily reviews and stuff, but people who were looking at the stuff to hire him, would be like, “Oh, he's not just another Kelley Jones guy,” but he's not been that for so long. I mean that very positively toward Kyle. I don't think he looks like that, at all, but I think it was a thing, for a while. Maybe I'm projecting, or something? Did he write it, too?


[35:01] David: No. As you were talking, I realized, “oh, I didn't talk about the writing.” Friend of the show, Kyle Starks, is the writer on it. That was the other reason why I picked it up, because I was like, “Oh, Kyle,” which I've read several of Kyle's books this year. This year was the year I found Kyle Starks, and really have enjoyed his stuff, and this is just exactly what you would expect from Kyle, and great humor, really fun, he delivered exactly what you’d want from a Lobo comic. Go Kyle Starks and Kyle Hotz.


[35:30] John: Cool. So, let's see. I'm going to pick my favorite DC comic. This is anticlimactic after what we just talked about, but I am going to pick Absolute Wonder Woman. I think that was my favorite DC book of the year. Hayden Sherman is the artist. Blew me away, too. I knew Hayden. I was aware of the name. I know I’ve read comics by him, but this really took it to another level, for me. Kelly Thompson, I think, did a great job. I think this combines a lot of the weirdness of old Wonder Woman comics. At some point, we're going to get together and talk about Sensation Comics #1, which is one of the oddest comics I think I've read. The early Wonder Woman stuff, I think, is weirder and more troubling than early Superman and Batman is. Usually, a lot of the stuff gets ignored. I feel like Kelly builds on that weirdness anyway. Maybe I'm totally off base about what was influencing her. It's a whole universe where all the DC characters are poor, and here's what happens when you strip Wonder Woman of money—She rides the skeletal form of Pegasus.


[36:27] David: Yeah. A big-ass sword. I’m in. The Hayden Sherman art’s just so good, but I think this is probably also the best Kelly Thompson, for me. This is my favorite Kelly Thompson thing, so far. I've always been kind of a fan of Kelly Thompson, but she's never clicked with me, in a big way, but this one, I was like, “wow, Kelly Thompson learned a lot of lessons, and she put them all in this bag,” because this Wonder Woman—what a great launch.


[36:57] John: I really liked her on Jem. That's where I met her was when they were working on Jem and the Holograms. I thought she was fantastic. That was her first mainstream comic work that she’d done, at that point, the first work-for-hire comic stuff, and I feel like when she got into Marvel, she played the Marvel game really well, which I think is what people were doing, at that time, did really good work—Jeff the Shark has blown up into a whole thing. It's not like this stuff wasn't good, but I feel like the stuff that she's doing at DC is more idiosyncratic and cooler, between this and Birds Of Prey, which I've also been thoroughly enjoying. Birds of Prey was going to be a weird off book. It's not a top-tier book, really, but Absolute titles are, and this is in front of a lot of people, and yeah. Wonder Woman stood out the most, to me, although I do like Batman, as well. Thought those were really good.


[37:51] David: I've enjoyed all three of the Absolute titles, so far, but Wonder Woman was easily the best of the three, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, John, you discovered Kelly Thompson. You should definitely take some credit for that.


[38:02] John: Thanks to Sarah Gaydos for pointing me in that direction.


[38:04] David: Oh, did Sarah point you in her direction? Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, ok. Shout out to Sarah. All right, John. So, we did collections, but I was like, “man, there’s been so many facsimiles and little one-shot reprint things this year, and I definitely have a favorite of that.” So, I had to call it out. New Mutants #98 3D reprint facsimile, John. Holy shit, dude. That is so good. I wore 3D glasses for 3 hours the other day, just pouring through that book, looking at every single panel in 3D. It’s like Rob Liefeld was coming into my face, John. It was fantastic. I loved it.


[38:49] John: Yeah, three's probably not even the right number of dimensions. Probably a little higher.


[38:53] David: It's got to be. There's got to be at least four or five in that book. It felt that way, John. No joke. I know I'm a stan for Rob Liefeld and Rob Liefeld stuff, but really nice package. The glasses are cool. They fit well. The 3D worked great. I really enjoyed it, and I had a such a good time reading a book that I have read 100 times, which I probably wasn't going to do that, but the 3D gave me a new way to enjoy it, and I thoroughly did. Hats off to you, John, and the PUG-W team, for getting that thing out in the world.


[39:30] John: Also, Rob Liefeld probably deserves a bit of kudos for that.


[39:34] David: Yeah, probably. I feel like he's probably given himself enough kudos […]. Look, I'm the biggest Rob Liefeld fan in the world, but he might be a little bigger.


[39:48] John: Yeah. […] going to be able to pull it off that fast. Detective 27, we talked about it at length […].


[39:53] David: Yeah, […].


[39:54] John: […] I liked it because it really felt like it was a comic that it emulates in shape and texture.


[40:07] David: All right. So, John, I picked a couple of artists this year that I was aware of, in one shape or another, but who I felt like really just caught my attention more than usual. First one is an old-school, Herb Trimpe. In the history of comics, when I was reading comics—I started reading comics in the late-80s/early-90s, really religiously. So, all that Image stuff was right in my sweet spot. So, a guy like Herb Trimpe, who had been around since the mid-70s/early-70s was, in a lot of ways, on his way out. His style was on its way out, by the time he hit the late-80s/early-90s. I had zero appreciation for that guy or understanding who he was, or what he was ,doing or what he had done, but now, over time, and just in the last year or two, I've really come to appreciate his work, and it's really frustrating that some of Herb's big stuff has never been able to be reprinted, because Marvel didn't have the rights to print it anymore, like Godzilla, as an example. So, it's nice that Godzilla, in particular, seems like it's going to be able to get some collection in the coming year, just to get some more Herb Trimpe out there, but also just going back and reading the work that he was an artist for. Dude was really good. He definitely was a great storyteller, and he had some serious chops, and there are moments when he's got the right inker on him, or when he inks himself, where he just really shines. He was one of the artists, this year, that I've just really grown to have a greater appreciation of. I discovered him in the last couple of years, but this year, I've really been diving deep and reading old interviews with him, and looking at a bunch of old original art, and stuff. So, really enjoying him.

The other guy who continues to blow me away, this year, I was just like, “man, this guy's so good,” is Riley Rossmo, and I feel like Riley Rossmo is just much like Tradd Moore. He's got this really interesting, unique style, where it feels a lot of artists right now are definitely—I’m feeling the manga influence with a lot of the artists right now, which is great. I’m totally a fan of that stuff and I like seeing how guys like Daniel Warren Johnson interpret the manga storytelling beats into their work, and Riley Rossmo’s definitely got some of that in his stuff, but he's doing this thing where, as far as I can figure out, he's filtering manga through this European cartoonist influence. It's Tintin by way of Dragon Ball Z, or something. I don't know, but I don't know how he's getting to where he's getting, but he's getting in a really cool, interesting place. He's hyper-stylized, but still really commercial, and I just love his work, and The Moon Is Following Us is the new series that he and Daniel Warren Johnson—and once again, Riley Rossmo’s just, man, he’s knocking it out of the park. That stuff is fantastic. So, just a couple of artists this year that got on my radar, in a big way, and continue to just blow me away, are those two guys.


[43:10] John: Haven't read The Moon is Following Us, yet. I realized I have accidentally not read it. I have Issue #1, just not where I was reading anything, and not […]. I'm looking forward to reading that. I loved him on The Sandman book that he did with Robert Venditti earlier this year, or late last year. Good choices. Interesting choices.


[43:30] David: I picked a third one, but it's a little self-serving. It is self-serving, but it's also very true. This past year and a half, or so, this year, in particular, though, I discovered the Xong Brothers, and man, these guys are so good, John. They’re fantastic storytellers, and their cover art—if you get on Kickstarter, you almost can't see a successful campaign on Kickstarter without the Xong Brothers doing a cover for that campaign, and it is always the bestselling cover. These guys are blowing it out of the water on Kickstarter. Everything they touch is gold. Deservedly so. Their art is just this beautiful manga-influenced, manga-inspired style, […], and cool, they're able to draw anything from any perspective, and these guys are just—you and I have been making comics for a long time, and these guys are some of the best that I’ve worked with in a long time. I put these guys right up there with the best of anybody I've worked with in the last 15 years. I’m just blown away by how talented these two guys are. It's just been a thrill, not only to just see their art out there in the world, but to be able to work with them. I separate that one a little bit, because it's a little self-serving, but it's totally true. These guys are blowing me away.


[44:47] John: I think I talked at length about at least one of these two artists, both to some degree. So, the two artists I spent the most time with this year were Moebius—I really did my deep dive into Moebius. At a ComiCon, I got a Arzach art book that I haven't read yet. It’s in English and French. I deep dove into everything of Moebius that had been published in English. Oh, I saw some issues of a comic called French Ticklers that Eclipse put out. Here's the thing. I only know this because I bought it knowing that, because of my closeness to Moebius stuff, it hasn't been reprinted other places. It's not a sex comic. The whole joke about the title is that they're just French comedic things that will tickle your funny bone. That's the joke. I've never seen a worse title for something in my entire life.


[45:36] David: How disappointed were you when you realized?


[45:38] John: Yeah, obviously, super disappointed, David. Do you remember when I was texting you about how I was quitting comics? It was that moment.


[45:47] David: You've texted me that so many times, I don't even know.


[45:49] John: I'm always disappointed that it's not a sex comic. There’s some stuff in French, some stuff I've read in French and tried to translate on my phone. Really enjoyed diving into Moebius, and that made me really get into, via Blueberry, which is a lot of the Moebius stuff that I hadn't read before. That got me interested more in other European comics that I'd read or dabbled in but hadn’t really gone full hog into, which leads me to my other one, Hugo Pratt and Corto Maltese. I haven't finished reading Corto Maltese, yet. I've gotten sidetracked with other stuff, and the puppy, but I'm pretty far along. Constantly enjoying it, and that also led me to reading some Tintin, which is probably a funny story for another time, when we have more time, but Moebius is just, I think, one of best drawers of all time, a person that can draw on almost any style, and make it interesting and cool, and neat, and very interesting in his writing, as well. Very cool and very weird on the way he writes stuff, but also somebody that can do a completely straight, strict European graphic novel, 2 halves of a page fit together to make an album page style.

Pratt is definitely in that camp in the Corto Maltese stuff, but he's a post Milt Caniff, master of light and dark, and shadows, and minimalism. You can tell when he has an assistant on some of the ones, where they do these super detailed planes or boats, and this exact same shot might reappear in multiple panels, where it's been stetted in. So, it's weird to see. I don't know what to make of that. It's not as well drawn, but I like it in some of the other stuff, where he just does it very gesturally, and “here's the spirit of what the ship is,” because he does that so well. There we go. Those are mine.


[47:38] David: Yeah, those are great choices, John. You talked about Moebius so much that on my To-Do List is a deep dive on Moebius.


[47:47] John: Honestly, thought it was about a year ago. I did not realize that was this year until I was going over stuff for this podcast.


[47:57] David: I'm starting to wind down here. This is the last of the Top Stuff. So, I thought it would only be fair for us to, at least, maybe try to mention one or two Kickstarters, being that it is a massive distribution platform for comic books these days, and you and I are both participating in that platform’s distribution. I think I've said this before, but I'm a big fan and a faithful follower of the Kickstarter platform. I think it's a great way for people to be able to interact with customers and get their products out into the world–comic books, in particular. So, I've literally backed hundreds of comic book Kickstarters, at this point. So, it's really hard for me to narrow this down, because I’ve got so many. A couple that stood out for me this year. One, Matt Wagner and Kelley Jones Dracula: The Impaler. Just a fantastic story, gorgeous art, and the package itself was really top-notch. They put together a really gorgeous little hardcover and delivered it in a relatively short amount of time, and already moved on to the next one. It was really great to see. That's probably my #1 for the year, and I would say some honorable mentions would be Bronze Star by Mike Baron and Pat Broderick.

I really enjoyed seeing some Pat Broderick art after not having seen any in a long time. That project's always been on the periphery of guys that I enjoy, that I like, and seeing him do a Western was fun and cool, and just seeing Pat Broderick doing some interiors, or anything really. I don't know where he's been or what he's been doing. It was a surprise to see some of his work pop up like that. I think Mike Baron is problematic these days, but I enjoyed the story. It was fine story. It was a fun Western with a little bit of horror mixed in, lycanthropy mixed in, just a good little Adventure Western with some Werewolf mixed into it. So, a nice little genre mash-up, and I really enjoyed it. I don't know if there's going to be more of that coming out. It seems like there could be more, at some point. I don't really remember how successful the Kickstarter was, but I really enjoyed it. I hope they do more. It was just nice to see Pat Broderick art, especially after doing such a big deep dive on Micronauts this year, too, where I got to see so much Pat Broderick stuff in that first volume of Micronauts.

So, it was good to see what he's up to these days, and then the last honorable mention would be Keith Knight. I don't know if you're familiar with K Chronicles, but cartoonist Keith Knight has been making me laugh for 30 years. I was reading and buying his stuff when it was just little ashcan zines that he was selling in San Francisco, at the—Oh, God, what was the-- it's in LA now. It was the Comic Convention that San Diego ComiCon took over.


[50:54] John: Oh, WonderCon.


[50:55] David: Yeah, WonderCon. Was it called something before that, when it was up in San Francisco?


[51:00] John: Yeah, it was still WonderCon in San Francisco. It might have been something early-on. I’m not sure.


[51:04] David: Where is SPX?


[51:05] John: I think that's San Francisco, too, but that’s not WonderCon.


[51:08] David: So, Keith Knight, one year, my little brother and I drove up to San Francisco, which was quite a drive for us, went to SPX, Keith Knight was there and he have a ton of, I don't know if people know what an ashcan [zine] is, but basically a piece of paper folded in half, and you print your comic books on this piece of paper, fold it in half, and you throw a staple on it, and my brother and I brought a handful of these little ashcans that Keith Knight had, and they were the K Chronicles, the earliest of the K Chronicles stuff, and on the way home, my brother was reading the little comic strips to me while we were driving home, and we were laughing so hard, at certain points, I literally had to pull over because I was laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes, and I couldn’t see where I was driving. So, Keith Knight, I've been a big fan of his work forever, and his latest K Chronicles he Kickstarted called Keefer Madness, I got it just, I don't know, a couple of months ago, or in the last month or two, and it's just as good as it’s ever been. Super entertaining. Super fun.

The story of this guy, a day in the life of a cartoonist, is how the strips play out. Just an interesting perspective from a cartoonist who is out there in the world, and nice to be able to still hear his voice after all this time. I think Keith Knight actually recently had a TV show made. I don't know if it was on the K Chronicles, specifically, but I think it's all the same thing. So, there was a TV show. I think it was on Amazon, maybe. Can’t remember what the name of it was. It’s got a season or two, and it was the Keith Knight K Chronicles stuff. So, it's definitely out there, but this Kickstarter, the most recent K Chronicles Kickstarter was another wildly successful one, for me. Totally entertained by him. So, honorable mention goes to Keith Knight and the K Chronicles, Keefer Madness.


[52:54] John: I got a bunch of Kickstarters this year, still behind a few of them. So, I think I would have to pick Dracula, as well. I'm excited for the next volume of that to come out. If I know you and I’ve got your Kickstarter, and I didn't mention it, I might not have read it, yet, but it's on my pile. So, there's some stuff I’m pretty excited about reading.


[53:15] David: Was there anything that you wanted to cover that I haven't steamrolled over, yet, John?


[53:20] John: Well, I thought we were just doing a Top 3. Should I go through them real quick? Somna, by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay.


[53:28] David: Tula Lotay, there's nobody better, John. That’s a fantastic pick. Tula Lotay is so good.


[53:32] John: What about Becky Cloonan? Is she better than Tula Lotay?


[53:34] David: She's fine. No. I think Tula Lotay might actually be the best artist working in comic books right now.


[53:41] John: I don't even think she's the best artist drawing Somna. I’m just kidding. No, they’re both very good. I'm joking.


[53:50] David: Becky Cloonan’s great. No slight to Becky Cloonan, but Tula Lotay is next level, dude.


[53:56] John: Dog Man Big Jim [Begins], which took an angle on Dog Man I wasn't expecting. Actually, instead of following up on the previous book, it really is starting a new trilogy of stories about Big Jim and continues the same themes as I went into at length in the Dog Man episode, but not actually continuing the diving into Petey’s story, like I anticipated.


[54:20] David: I had a sad moment yesterday, John. I took my son, my son's now a teenager, has been for a little bit, we went to see the Sonic 3 movie yesterday, Sonic the Hedgehog #3. I was very entertained. […] No. Sonic, John. Sonic the Kraven 3, and very good movie, by the way. If you like the first 2 Sonics, you're going to like the third one. Jim Carrey is hilarious in this. I think this is the funniest, actually, that Jim Carrey's been in a while. Completely over the top. There's a scene where he plays himself and his own grandfather, the villain of the piece, but is also the villain's grandfather. It's Jim Carrey, and at a certain point, he is dancing with his grandfather, and they're in these suits, and there's lasers pointing at them, and lasers reflecting off them. So, it's this weird disco dance thing that they're doing together, and I was laughing out loud so hard, I could not stop. I was dying. It was the silliest, stupidest thing I've seen in quite some time. I was like, “oh, man, I should not be this entertained by a Sonic the Hedgehog movie,” but I was. Anyway, the sad moment was, John, before that, we went to the bookstore.


[55:34] John: Oh, no.


[55:35] David: We were cruising around the bookstore, and Big Jim was there, and I said, “hey, are you still wanting to read Dog Man?” and he's like, “No, I don't think it's for me anymore, Dad,” and I was like, “I guess that makes sense.” So, I was a little sad because I think my Dog Man days might be over. I don't know. Maybe I'll continue to read it on my own, but it will be on my own, for now. Thankfully he's still into Kaiju No.8. So, we're both still excited for that one, but we've moved on, John. We’ve moved on from Dog Man. Officially, the Dog days are over, John.


[56:11] John: I was at a Scholastic book fair with my son. I bought the new Dog Man book. He roped me into going back for a third trip, or something, into there. Then, I read the collection of Super Mario Comics from Nintendo Power from the 90s. Didn’t know what to expect there. It was one that he wanted. I was certainly not pushing him on it, but as soon as he said it, I'm like, “yes. I'm curious to read this, too. Let's go.”


[56:36] David: Yeah, my son used to love taking me to those Scholastic book fairs, man, because I didn't say no to anything. I was like, “Yeah, that sounds great. Let’s read that.”


[56:44] John: Yeah. My last one, my #1 pick of the year probably won’t surprise anybody, #DRCL, by Shin-Ichi Sakamoto. That series blew me away this year. That was the other artist that I was going to mention, artist but somebody I was utterly unfamiliar with until this year. Very impressed with his storytelling. The rendering is immaculate, magnificent, but the way it's used is what really gets me. That's it. Okay, there you go.


[57:13] David: It's a gorgeous book. I'm so glad that you pointed me in the direction of that book. I also enjoyed the heck out of that book, and I'm definitely excited for more of that. The art's just so lush, and he's using a brush technique, or something. I think he's probably drawing digitally, but it's soft, almost dry brush technique that he's using that’s just so cool. It really looks nice. I love the work, and the story's great. I'm super into it.


[57:39] John: All right. Well, Ho Ho Ho. Wait till they get a load of me. Hey, Jack Nicholson, get out of here. Time to go home, everybody.


[57:47] David: I literally thought Jack Nicholson was on the podcast just now. I closed my eyes and I was right there.


[57:51] John: You thought Jack Nicholson teamed up with Rich Little to do a Jack Nicholson impression.


[57:57] David: Exactly. It's shocking how good you are at that. I never knew that this was such a great talent that you had, John.


[58:04] John: I know. It’s really something. You should hear me read books to my son. “Is that Jack Nicholson?” He keeps saying.


[58:13] David: All right. We’re done.


[58:14] John: Thank you for joining us. Happy holidays in the past, and in the future. Thanks for being here. We will be back next week. Goodbye.


[58:22] David: Bye, everybody.


[58:23] John: Should I hit record now? Classic joke came back just for the end of the year episode.


Thanks for joining us, and please subscribe, rate, and tell your friends about us. You can find updates and links at www.thecornerbox.club and we’ll be back next week with more from David and John, here at The Corner Box.