The Corner Box

Boom! Studios Elizabeth Brei Goes Gaga Over Nana on The Corner Box S2 Ep23

• David & John • Season 2 • Episode 23

Share episode

Elizabeth Brei returns with hosts John and David for Part 2 of this Valentine’s Day Special to talk about all things NANA, visual art choices, emotional depth in comic writing, comics that should be in print but aren’t, and Ai Yazawa’s manga being released in English for the first time. Also, David discovers a new rabbit hole, John learns how wrong he did the pandemic, and Elizabeth goes to Jackson Hole.

Timestamp Segments

  • [00:56] Paradise Kiss & Neighborhood Story.
  • [02:47] The art in NANA.
  • [06:21] Digital vs analog art.
  • [07:04] The details in NANA.
  • [08:45] NANA’s emotional depth.
  • [13:35] David’s first impressions on NANA.
  • [14:00] NANA’s primary love story.
  • [16:56] Princess Ai.
  • [18:47] New releases of Ai Yazawa’s manga.
  • [21:26] John’s Moebius saga.
  • [22:43] David’s all-time favorite anime.
  • [24:48] Elizabeth walks David down a new path.
  • [27:06] Elizabeth’s upcoming projects.
  • [28:55] John did the pandemic wrong.
  • [30:42] Jackson Hole.

Notable Quotes

  • “Am I going to drop $800 on this? Maybe, someday.”
  • “I feel like I wouldn’t go near that in a flame-proof suit.”
  • “We’re the gold standard of comic journalism now.”

Relevant Links

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

John is at PugW!
Pug WorldwideCornerbox.club.

Elizabeth Brei is Making Cool Things!
Elizabeth Brei

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: Welcome back to The Corner Box. I'm one of your hosts, John Barber, and David Hedgecock and Elizabeth Brei are in the middle of talking about one of Elizabeth and I’s favorite comics, NANA, by Ai Yazawa. We just started really delving into the topic, and I think Elizabeth and I get kind of geeky about it. Hopefully, we get David to check it out.

You mentioned before that you saw Paradise Kiss. That was based on her, I think, previous manga.


[01:02] Elizabeth Brei: Yes.


[01:03] John: And that didn’t come out from Tokyopop in the US. The manga had. It’s much shorter. It's 5 or 6 volumes, I think.


[01:10] Elizabeth: Yeah, it's pretty short.


[01:11] John: It's about art students, fashion students—the fashion stuff is totally forefront on that. You really see how it goes into it. The figures in NANA […], they tend to be, like you said, 6-foot-long legs—male and female, everybody.


[01:27] Elizabeth: Yeah. It's big feet, very lanky figures, almost like heroin chic.


[01:32] John: Yeah.


[01:33] Elizabeth: Very of the time. Also, for Paradise Kiss—Paradise Kiss is a sequel to Neighborhood Story, which was Ai Yazawa’s only other long-running manga before NANA, which, only recently, in the last year, has started English serialization. It is available in English, for the first time ever, from Viz, and it's so much fun. It's got a lot of the same energy as NANA, without being quite so dramatic, because these are high school characters, but it's a delight, and it's not as long as NANA, and it's actually finished. So, Miwako is one of the characters in Paradise Kiss. Her older sister, Mikako, is the founder of a brand called Happy Berry, that we hear about a lot in Paradise Kiss, and it's about when she's in high school. So, it seems like Ai Yazawa manga are getting their flowers a little in the States. So, they're all fun, and they're all so similar in themes, and what Ai Yazawa’s clearly interested in.


[02:37] John: The volume I have says that there's 22 million copies sold in Japan. That's in 2005 people. That was a much higher percentage of the population in 2005, than it is now.


[02:47] Elizabeth: Yes.


[02:48] John: I've always been fascinated about the art in NANA, and there's so much care in the fashion, such great storytelling. The comic’s really clear and well-told. You get to the parts where she clearly doesn't give a shit about what she's drawing, and every cityscape is glow effects on nothing, or a threshold filter applied to a photo, and it totally works.


[03:17] Elizabeth: Yeah.


[03:18] John: That's one of the things I've always—especially, at that time, I was really thinking about—I think I've brought it up here before—but there was a movement, over the decades in comics, especially post-Image Comics, the generation of artists that were coming out in American mainstream comics, superhero comics, and stuff, where the baseline level of art became so good, became so high, that—there are people that you could point at, here and there, before then, but in 2005, if you were a kid, and you were looking at Marvel Comics, and you were like, “I want to do this,” you are not as good as Bryan Hitch. You can't draw like Steve McNiven. You never will, but I had that experience with Bill Sienkiewicz, when I was a kid. I would see all this art, and didn't think I could do it, and then I saw Sienkiewicz, and I'm like, “it's sketchy and weird. I can't draw perfect superhero bodies, but I can draw sketchy and weird,” not understanding the skills beneath it, and I feel the same thing [with] NANA, but also the whole wave of manga that was coming out, at that point—there were books about learning how to draw manga—there have been, always will be—but there wasn't “learn how to Fotoref a cityscape filled with rubble. Learn how to spend 14 hours drawing a building in the background,” because nobody wants to do that. Nobody cares, and that doesn't inspire anybody, even though it looks great, but I always liked that about it, and I thought that was interesting, where she would pull out the stuff that works just fine, when it's just a threshold filter.


[04:53] Elizabeth: Yeah. This is actually funny. When I was doing the Last Song, which is the name of my bootleg NANA comic, I spent so much time thinking about what NANA looks like, because I was trying to rip it off. That was the goal, and the artist on that, Kay Lucero, who was really awesome to work with, she straight-up said, “I'm going to just make all of the backgrounds Photoshopped cityscapes,” and I was like, “Why would you do anything else? That’s the only way to do this,” and it's so interesting that it's so a part of the aesthetic of the comic that, I think, if she had drawn them, it would feel totally different. Like you mentioned, the glow effect. Sailor Moon does that, too, except that Takeuchi actually drew those cities and then put the glow effects over them, and that gives a much more cartoony feeling, and that works, because Sailor Moon is extremely a cartoon, but, I don't know, it gives it such a weird dreaminess, too, because the filtering is just, “we're existing in a space, but don't worry too much about the space.”


[06:21] John: So, we've talked about some of the digital versus analog stuff, in relation to--what's the guy that does Innocent? Talk about him using all this digital stuff, versus me, geeking out on Sergio Aragonés hand-drawing these ridiculous backgrounds, but there's no part of this that makes you think, “they're trying to pass one by.”


[06:42] David: Shin-Ichi Sakamoto.


[06:44] John: Yes, thank you.


[06:45] Elizabeth: Yes. Yeah, and I think it's interesting, too, because it throws into such sharp relief when she is like, “I'm going to draw this place.” Just in my mind's eye, I know exactly what the apartment that they live in looks like, because she’s so clear. She's like, “I designed this apartment.” Also, it's apartment 707, which is one of the many coincidences that happened to bring them together. They live in apartment 707.


[07:14] John: Yeah, I never realized. Okay, or I forgot. If it literally says that in the comic, I did know it, and I've forgotten it. As far as I know, I didn't know that.


[07:24] Elizabeth: Yeah. Explicitly, it says that, and we know that they call her “Hachi,” for two reasons. It's a double-joke, and they're both Japanese jokes, that Hachi comes after Nana, 7 and 8. Also, Hachi is short for Hachiko, the famous Japanese dog that waited for its owner at the train station, and he was never coming home, because he died of a stroke.


[07:46] John: It’s owner, Richard Gere, I believe.


[07:48] Elizabeth: His owner, Richard Gere, correct. I just learned, by the way, last week, that Hachiko, the dog Hachiko, is stuffed, and in a museum near Shibuya station, and you can just go look at him, and I'm so horrified by that idea, because I know that they built a statue for him after he died. So, he’s still waiting at Shibuya station for his owner to come home, but you can just go see the dog, stuffed in a case. I hate that.


[08:20] John: There was a two-year period where, every single night, my wife would fall asleep watching Futurama. So, I would watch every Futurama episode, except the one that's like Hachi. That’s the one I always had to skip, because that just can't be on in the background. That's going to destroy me for the rest of the day.


[08:39] Elizabeth: How dare Futurama.


[08:46] John: The thing that I always think about with NANA, though—there's such an emotional depth to the characters, and a great understanding of the characters, and without giving anything away, and also, I haven't read this in a long time, and I was hoping to read some of it before we did this, and I absolutely did not, but there's a moment where something happens to one of the characters, and it being a grounded, realistic character story. There's a handful of things that could happen to a character, at this level. A large life-changing event was going on, and Hachi's would-be, or sort-of-boyfriend, finds out about it, and then he reacts to it, in a way that redefines everything you knew about the character, up to that point, and you realize, “that's the kind of guy he is,” and I didn't know it, either. You didn't know that that happened, and it's such an amazing moment in that comic, where almost nothing pulls it off like that, where the character does something, and it isn't like they're acting totally out of character, or they're doing exactly what they’re expected to do, but this thing that makes you, through this action, redefine every action they’ve taken, up to that point, in a way that wholly works for the character.


[10:03] Elizabeth: Yeah. We're talking actual boyfriend?


[10:06] John: I forget now, but it's when she's pregnant.


[10:10] Elizabeth: Right. Yeah, we're talking Nobu?


[10:16] John: I'm sorry, it has been a while. I forget.


[10:20] Elizabeth: Yeah, because there are two guys involved in that.


[10:23] John: Yeah, but I think there's one who reacts really poorly, and you realize that this person was actually a […].


[10:30] Elizabeth: […] I think you could make the same argument about Nobu, but I think, in the opposite way.


[10:39] John: There's this thing of the actions defining the characters, in a way that you don't see in a lot of storytelling, and you don't see in comics a lot. It isn't just a cheap twist. It isn't like, “it turns out, everybody you thought was good, was bad, and everybody you thought was bad, was good. It isn’t that.”


[11:00] Elizabeth: What’s interesting, to me, about Takumi, as a character is, he sucks. I think it is really easy to just shorthand him sucking the whole time, and Hachi just being too, I don't know, stupid, for lack of a better word, to see that he sucked the whole time, and instead, it's so smart, because we know that he's arrogant and self-involved, but we also know that he's charming and handsome, and that, at least, on some level, he's a good-enough person that he hangs around the people that we do like, in this, and he's one of those characters that, especially, I am so bummed that we don't have more of. He steps up for that kid. We know that he chooses to be a dad, because we see him in the future with his kid, but we don't know what bullshit he pulled on the way, and we know he pulled, at least, a little, because he's the one who told Nobu, who was actually Hachi’s boyfriend, when she found out she was pregnant, that she was pregnant, and implied to him that Hachi had cheated on him, which we know that she didn't, and Nobu knows that she didn't, but he's such an interesting character. I think it's funny, because he's the closest anybody comes, in the story, to being a villain, and even with him being a villain, it's mostly just that he's a dick, like all people, sometimes.


[12:43] John: Yeah, not me, but other people, yeah.


[12:47] Elizabeth: Yeah, I have a lot of feelings about every character in NANA, if you can't tell. I can talk about them forever.


[12:53] David: That's why we brought you on.


[12:55] Elizabeth: That's why I’m here.


[13:00] David: I have zero experience with NANA, although I'm definitely going to pick it up and read it after this. I just got a subscription to the Viz app—Shonen Jump app, I guess—which I have really been enjoying. Man, that thing is packed with so much good stuff.


[13:18] Elizabeth: It is so cheap. It's, what, $4 a month, or something, and it gets you their entire […]. Insane.


[13:26] David: Yeah. It’s fantastic. I'm having a great time. I'm reading more than I thought I had time for, but I'm finding a way, because it's so much good stuff. Anyway, looking at the visuals of NANA, though, it looks somebody tried to illustrate David Bowie's life. The aesthetic, and the feel, it's got a very—I don't know how else to put it this—David Bowie look and feel to it, just on the brief look. I'm in on that. That's fantastic.


[13:59] Elizabeth: Yeah, and Nana’s primary love story, if you want to ignore the fact that her primary love story is with Hachi, is with Ren, who's a member of another band, who used to be in the same band as her, when they were in their hometown, and they're all very Sid and Nancy. That's explicitly a reference that they're making. He wears a padlock around his neck, that she put on him. She has the key for it, even after they break up. There's a really great scene where she decides she's officially going to split with him, because he went to Tokyo without her, before the story starts, and didn't ask her to come with him, and she decides she's finally going to end things with him. So, she takes him the key, so he can unlock the padlock, and lots of stuff happens from there, but it’s so cool and dramatic, and visually interesting, that she doesn't just go to have an argument with him, that it’s “I'm literally releasing you,” but I love those aesthetics that are built in. Vivienne Westwood is a huge part of this. They're all explicitly wearing Vivienne Westwood clothes and jewelry, throughout. At least one piece—Shin, who’s the bassist in Black Stones, Nana’s band, wears an actual Vivienne Westwood lighter. It’s so cool. It's a globe that you wear as a necklace, and it's a lighter, and this is a real thing, and it's an actual plot point, but I have an eBay watch on it, because so many people sell those, and I was like, “am I going to drop $800 on this?” Maybe, someday.


[15:44] David: Definitely going to have to have that, at some point.


[15:46] John: When this initially came out in the US, it was the anchor of Shojo Beat Magazine. […] Shonen Jump was coming out. So, they started putting out Shojo Beat in the United States. I think it was the one—There were a couple of other ones I liked, but that was the one that really stood out. That was the big one, at that point, I believe. Obviously, because it's huge. The story takes place a few years before it came out, and I remember very much, reading it, and one of the Mangas ends on September 10th, 2001, and I’m like, “oh man. Here we go. Next one. This is going to be big,” and utterly unreferenced, whatsoever. Nothing. September 11th is just the next day in the comic. […].


[16:40] Elizabeth: That’s so funny. I don't think I even clocked that. Wow. That's what I should have included in my American bootleg.


[16:46] John: That's right, yeah.


[16:48] Elizabeth: […] history changed, after the event.


[16:56] John: Here's a thing I just found out, looking at Wikipedia, while I was on here, I didn't realize, my three favorite comic creators had all gotten together. Ai Yazawa, DJ Milky, AKA Stuart Levy, and Courtney Love, and they created a comic together. So, there's a Tokyopop series from 2004, called Princess Ai.


[17:18] Elizabeth: Princess Ai?


[17:21] John: And I never knew this—Ai Yazawa did the character designs on it.


[17:25] Elizabeth: Okay. I didn't know that she was involved in that. I was familiar with it.


[17:29] John: Yeah.


[17:29] Elizabeth: That's cool.


[17:31] John: I feel like I wouldn't go near that in a flameproof suit. Understand, I'm saying this is somebody that, at one point, in my head, Kurt Cobain was the guy dating the singer from Hole. I'm not being a jerk about that, but the combination of Stuart Levy and Courtney Love writing a manga, it can't help but be the best.


[17:55] Elizabeth: I’ve definitely read Princess Ai. I couldn't tell you anything about it now, but it's funny, because I definitely picked it up, because I was like, “this looks like it could be like Paradise Kiss,” but I didn't know that what I was reacting to was it looking like Ai Yazawa art.


[18:13] John: Not just her name being part of the title, but somebody else, Misaho Kujiradou—that’s horrible, but I’ve never seen the name before in my life, until now—did the art.


[18:29] Elizabeth: They don’t even have their own Wiki page.


[18:32] John: Yeah, no.


[18:34] Elizabeth: Ai Yazawa’s listed first, above this person who actually drew it. Misaho-San.


[18:42] John: And Juror 13 author, DJ Milky. I never understood why the rest of her manga didn't come out in the US, and I'm glad that I've got it. I absolutely did not realize that Neighborhood Story was out. I’d completely forgotten about that relationship, too. Paradise Kiss, as well.


[19:00] Elizabeth: Viz has been releasing a lot of them—has plans to release a lot of them. Also out is Last Quarter, which is her supernatural one, and it's only a couple volumes. It's a lot of fun, too, and it seems very dramatic when you start it, and then eventually, you start hanging out with middle school kids, and they're trying to solve the supernatural mystery, and it’s a treat. I've only read it recently, because it just came out in the States, for the first time. There was a movie that they made in 2004. It starred--


[19:37] John: Richard Gere making a return appearance.


[19:39] Elizabeth: Yes. No. Chiaki Kuriyama, who we, I believe, know from Kill Bill. She's Gogo in Kill Bill.


[19:48] John: Oh. Yeah.


[19:52] Elizabeth: It’s a weird movie. I really enjoyed it, but you should get around to watching the live action NANA movies. They're silly.


[20:00] John: That's one of the weird things about me, is that sometimes I'll read something, and then just not really be that interested in watching the--


[20:08] Elizabeth: That’s fair. […].


[20:10] John: You're not kidding. I guess, [the] last volume of Last Quarter came out five weeks ago. That's very recently.


[20:18] Elizabeth: Also, I think yesterday, Viz announced they're doing 25th anniversary omnibus editions of NANA, which will mean it's the first time it's been in print since they were coming out. It’s extremely hard to find NANA manga. I have a collection of NANA manga that I think is worth something like $3000, if I sold it all together.


[20:40] John: Oh, that's funny.


[20:41] Elizabeth: Yeah, because it hasn't been in print in decades. They're finally putting out new ones this year. Now, I have to decide if I'm going to be a person who has more than one edition of a book.


[20:52] David: I feel like you should go ahead and make $3000, and then spend the $200 that you have to spend to get the omnibus when they come out.


[21:02] Elizabeth: But, now they’re […] worth it, David. Now, they're […].


[21:03] David: Right now, they are, but no one’s paying attention, Elizabeth. Throw those things up on eBay right now. Do it. You’ve got to make that money. You're going to make $3000, and then you're going to take $800 of that, and buy that sweet watch that you want.


[21:18] Elizabeth: You're right. That's what I should do.


[21:20] David: That's how you’ve got to do this. Maybe move off of NANA for a minute.


[21:26] John: The only thing I was going to add was just, it's a long-running gripe on this show about things that shouldn't be out of print, that are out of print. Moebius has been my long-running one. Funny thing, anybody that follows my Moebius saga, I completely missed that Moebius Library: The Major came out last year—A comic I was waiting for and excited about, and then nobody mentioned that it came out, as near as I can tell. So, I just found that out, and the ridiculousness that the only Airtight Garage story that you can get in print is that one, which is--It's a cool story, but it's preposterous that Airtight Garage hasn't been in print in English since before Neil Gaiman was writing Sandman, to go back to that reference earlier.


[22:14] Elizabeth: Wow. Who is there to talk about comics coming out anymore? Where are you guys? Come back.


[22:20] David: We are the gold standard of comic journalism now. I think that's obvious.


[22:26] John: The Woodward and Bernstein.


[22:29] David: So, NANA’s great. I'm going to totally read that. We definitely want all four of our listeners to listen to it, or to read it, too. Visually, it looks very cool, and I'm all about the visuals, as long-time listeners know. I wanted to just give you a quick credit for introducing me to my all-time favorite anime. I'm literally just re-watching it. I just happened to be watching it, over the course of the last several weeks. So, when John mentioned that you were going to be coming onto the show, and I was like, “oh, man. I’ve got to tell her.” Gurren Lagann is the greatest thing, and I love it so much, and I'm so glad that you introduced me to that anime. I’m re-watching it again. Even knowing the major plot twists in the first 8 or 9 episodes, even knowing it, I was just--I'm captivated by that show. It’s so good. There's so much happening in that anime. There's so many wild, big ideas in that anime, and yet, the central through line of, I guess, friendship and family—there's this very consistent through line of that, that keeps it all so clear, and so easy to follow and understand. It's so relatable. Even at its most outlandish moments, it is a completely relatable anime. I just love it. So, I want to thank you, on the podcast, for introducing me to that anime. It’s fantastic.


[23:56] Elizabeth: I think the thing that I like in anime, and manga, in general, that I think is a common theme, is this one of found family, and just the people around you are your people, and sometimes you have to make them your people, even if it's not a perfect fit, and I think, Gurren Lagann’s a really cool example of that, and I think also, I'm really fascinated by anime that were anime first, but many, not most, anime are adaptations of manga and Gurren Lagann’s one of the few that—not the few. I guess, there are a lot, but it is an anime. It was made to be an anime. There is a manga now, but it was an anime first, and I think it shows in the storytelling that it wanted to be a cartoon, and it's a really good one. David, I wish I knew you liked it so much, because I have so many more that I could give you, by the Gainax guys, and many of the Gainax guys went on to be Trigger guys, and Trigger anime, if you love Gurren Lagann, you will love every Trigger anime.


[25:02] David: I think you've actually walked me down this path a little bit, in the past, but I'd love for you to do it again, because I do need to pick up--Didn't they move? What was the next thing that they did? Was it Hunter x Hunter? Is that the next thing that they did? Were they involved in that? Was that before? Didn’t they have some involvement in that?


[25:18] Elizabeth: I think that’s a totally different crew.


[25:20] David: Oh, is it? Okay. For some reason, I thought it was the same crew.


[25:24] Elizabeth: That's a really fun anime, and I think, an extremely long-running manga. Manga, of course is written by the guy who—I never remember his name. I just know that he's married to Naoko Takeuchi, who created Sailor Moon, but that one’s really fun and weird. I think Trigger's probably best known for Kill la Kill.


[25:45] David: I have watched Kill la Kill. I think you might have told me about that one, and I loved it. It was great.


[25:49] Elizabeth: Yeah, it's so good. My weird favorite that I think is a little underrated, from Trigger, is Little Witch Academia, which is so cute. It's just about girls in magic school, and there are a couple seasons of it on Netflix. I just think it's so much fun. It has that Trigger energy and insanity, but is still cute. It's still about 14-year-old girls learning to be witches, but the actual best one is the movie, Promare, which is about firefighters who wear mech suits to fight fires. It is the most bonkers thing I've ever seen.


[26:24] David: Promare?


[26:27] Elizabeth: Promare, yeah. Beautifully animated. I got to see it in theaters, which was really exciting, because I think all Trigger’s stuff should be on a big screen, but it’s so much fun. So weird. I feel like I say things are weird, and I mean that in the most affectionate way. That is a compliment. I want stuff that doesn't look like anything else, and that's pretty much everything, but I'm really glad that you like Gurren Logann. It’s so good.


[26:55] David: It's so macho. It's the most macho thing. I love it. Elizabeth, I think we probably should wrap up. We've certainly taken a lot of your time, but what are you up to these days over at the Boom! Studios? What projects are you working on these days?


[27:11] Elizabeth: Yeah, I think Boom!’s been in the news a lot lately, because we had a big acquisition last year, and that's […] of new opportunities, and stuff, and yeah, I'm working on a lot of stuff. I don't even know where to start to talk about it. Most recently, just last week, or the week before, was the launch of the newest series that I'm editing, Bronze Faces, which is about a group of Nigerian artifacts, from colonizing museums that stole them. It’s written by Shobo and Shof Coker, and drawn by Alexandre Tefenkgi, and I am having such a great time editing that book, and I really hope people pick it up. It’s beautiful. Of course, it is. Alexandre's amazing. That's my newest baby. Other than that, if you pick up a Boom! Box book, my name is probably on it. So, if you're more down to earth, or silly—Actually, David, you should read I Heart Skull-Crusher, if you haven't, because if you like Gurren Lagann, you’ll like that.


[28:13] John: Yeah, it's pretty […].


[28:15] Elizabeth: Yeah. If you're into the manga style.


[28:18] David: I haven’t checked it out.


[28:20] Elizabeth: Yeah, and Fence, and almost everything Boom! Box is putting out. That's my crew over there. Yeah, I have other books that I work on.


[28:30] David: I was looking at, I guess, your LinkedIn, or something. I wasn't stalking. It was for the podcast, I swear. I think you've been, now, working at Boom! almost the exact same amount of time as you had worked, previously, at IDW.


[28:42] Elizabeth: Actually, I believe I have worked at Boom! longer, now.


[28:47] David: Wow. So, time flies.


[28:49] Elizabeth: Yeah.


[28:49] John: You were there for 20 years at the beginning of the pandemic.


[28:52] Elizabeth: Correct. Yeah. You're right.


[28:55] John: I remember that taking me from the age of 30 through 235, like I roughly am now.


[29:04] Elizabeth: You guys, can I just say, I keep telling everybody this, the World Health Organization declared Covid a global pandemic on my 30th birthday, I think that was really mean of them.


[29:15] David: That was inappropriate. I agree.


[29:17] Elizabeth: I'm really pissed off about that. I think that's unfair. So, I’ve spent all of my 30s in a post-Covid world.


[29:23] David: Yeah, John, you just did the pandemic wrong. The pandemic was great for me.


[29:28] John: Yeah, I'm well aware of that fact. If there's one thing I don't need anybody explaining to me, it's how wrong I did the pandemic.


[29:40] Elizabeth: I don't know if David's ever told you this—So, after lockdown had just ended, but everyone was still doing outdoor seating, mostly, I was already at Boom!, and Danny and I went to dinner at Tajima, on Adams, and they have a line outside to get in, and Roz was in line ahead of us, and it was like, “oh, that's Roz. I should say hi, but I don't know if I'm allowed in this Covid line. Whatever. It's fine.” She ended up coming to sit outside, and David and Lorelai were also there. So, it ended up being, there were 4 old IDW employees.


[30:18] David: Oh, that's right. I forgot about that.


[30:20] Elizabeth: At the same restaurant, and that was the last time I saw David. Every time--


[30:24] David: Man, and it has been that long. Wow. Listen, Elizabeth, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for taking some time to chat with us, and for educating me, at least, on what sounds like a fascinating dive that I'm going to be jumping into very soon, NANA.


[30:43] John: I just have one more thing I want to throw in about NANA that I thought was really funny. Marvel Comics VP, and Spider-Man editor, Nick Lowe and I—I introduced Nick to NANA, and there was at Jackson Hole restaurant in New York, and we always planned to go there just to be like the characters in NANA, because they would always go to Jackson Hole to eat, and we never did.


[31:03] Elizabeth: I actually went to Japan this past Christmas, and we went to Jackson Hole for dinner, and it's just a regular izakaya. It's in the middle of a neighborhood that's off the beaten path. We walked in, and they looked at us like “white people. They're here for NANA stuff.” They put us at a table that had a well under it, that was just full of NANA merchandise. Ai Yazawa did little cowboy sketches for the menus.


[31:34] David: Oh, that's awesome.


[31:34] Elizabeth: Jackson Hole was in the manga, because she's friends with the guy who owns it. She was like, “can I put your restaurant in my comic?” and he was like, can you my put new restaurant in the comic, instead?” That was Jackson Hole. So, I've actually been there. It was really great. I recommend it. They brew their own beer, if you like beer.

 

[31:53] John: Thank you for joining us here on the Corner Box podcast. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thanks for coming. Love to have you back, anytime. We’ll be back with another guest, I believe, next week. Thank you all very much.


[32:04] David: Bye.


[32:05] Elizabeth: Bye.


[32:06] John: Alright, I'm going to go ahead and hit record.


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.