Your Good-Time Comic Pals Having a Chitty-Chat on The Corner Box - S3Ep43

The fellas get into how summer events stopped feeling like summer events and became a never-ending conveyor belt of crossover noise. John pulls from the Marvel trenches with House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Tony Stark taking the heat, and Ralph Macchio’s very correct complaint that Spider-Man should not just walk into a press conference like some regular dope. Then Absolute Batman takes over the room, with Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s monster hit reportedly moving wild numbers and now heading into animation with the actual comics creators involved. David and John debate whether that’s a creator win, a workload trap, or both, before veering into the eternal truth that most superhero adaptations still lose to the comic on the page. And once “What John and David read this week” kicks in, it’s a full rack raid: Ghost Machine, Kyle Starks’ Wrestle Heist, Vertigo’s new wave, Lobo, Drew Hennessy, Dai Dark, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and Invincible crushing graphic novel sales like it never left.

Captions:

“They started building tent poles instead of building up in the summer.” — John on how event comics became a constant cycle

“Spider-Man doesn’t walk to a press conference and walk out like a normal person. He’s Spider-Man.” — John channeling Ralph Macchio’s perfect superhero logic

“Well, how about Tommy Lee Edwards?” — David on the emergency button that fixes any bad comic idea instantly

“Let them cook.” — David on Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta being involved in the Absolute Batman animated series

“I think bank robbers are heroes, David.” — John offering the only morally correct read on Wrestle Heist

Splash Page:

[00:00] – The Guest Is Nobody: John teases an exciting guest, and David immediately undercuts the whole operation because it’s just them.

[01:37] – Summer Events Lost the Calendar: David and John talk about how big comic events used to dominate summer, but now announcements and launches feel scattered across the whole year.

[04:10] – Event or Just a Big Story?: John uses Avengers Armageddon to unpack the fuzzy line between a major arc and a full-blown line event.

[07:10] – Civil War From the Trenches: John explains how tie-ins worked, why the X-Men mostly sidestepped Civil War, and how Tony Stark became the guy everyone wanted to punch.

[08:31] – Spider-Man Should Be Spider-Man-y: Ralph Macchio’s issue with the identity reveal scene becomes a perfect lesson in why superhero staging matters.

[11:27] – The 1985 Photo-Realism Trap: John remembers Mark Millar’s original photo-manipulation plan for 1985 and why Tommy Lee Edwards was the better answer by a mile.

[16:47] – Absolute Batman Has the Juice: The guys react to Absolute Batman’s huge sales chatter, Nick Dragotta’s art, and the thrill of a top-selling comic actually being good.

[18:42] – Absolute Animation, Creator Control: The Absolute Batman animated announcement flips David from skeptical to fully interested once Snyder and Dragotta are involved.

[33:18] – Ghost Machine Is Firing: David catches up on Ghost Machine and celebrates Brian Hitch, Gary Frank, and Francis Manapul producing big, polished comics on a strong cadence.

[34:23] – Wrestle Heist Deserves the Belt: David breaks down Kyle Starks’ wrestling-meets-bank-robbery comic and mourns the fact that it may not have sold like it should have.

[45:07] – A Bittersweet Credit Page: John spots Drew Hennessy’s name in God Summoner and reflects on a great inker, unfinished work, and comics that deserve to be seen.

[47:47] – Bones, Backpacks, and Goth Space Chaos: John sells David hard on Dai Dark, a manga about immortality-granting bones and exactly the kind of weird nonsense this show was built for.

[50:12] – Comic Books Without Pictures: David discovers prose novels, then pivots to Dungeon Crawler Carl and why comic shops were smart to pay attention.

[53:20] – Invincible Still Won’t Die: The BookScan numbers turn into an Invincible victory lap, with compendiums and trades dominating the graphic novel chart years after the series ended.

Support the Corner Box:

David Hedgecock (https://funtimego.com) - The Corner Box Co-Host

John Barber (https://www.pugworldwide.com) - The Corner Box Co-Host

The Corner Box (https://www.thecornerbox.club) - Official Website

Dive Deeper Into the Back Issue Bin:

Scott Snyder (https://www.dc.com/talent/scott-snyder) - Writer of Absolute Batman, with the episode circling how much creator involvement could matter for the animated adaptation.

Nick Dragotta (https://www.dc.com/comics/absolute-batman-2024/absolute-batman-1) - Artist and co-creator of Absolute Batman, praised here as the visual engine giving the book serious juice.

Brian Michael Bendis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Michael_Bendis) - Writer behind New Avengers, House of M, Secret Invasion, and a big chunk of the Marvel event era John discusses.

J. Michael Straczynski (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski) - Writer of Amazing Spider-Man during Civil War, brought up for framing Tony Stark as very much the bad guy.

Chris Gage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christos_Gage) - Writer mentioned for Civil War-era work that gave Tony Stark’s side more shape than most tie-ins did.

Ralph Macchio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Macchio_(editor)) - Longtime Marvel editor whose Spider-Man staging complaint becomes one of the episode’s best craft lessons.

Mark Millar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Millar) - Writer of 1985, discussed here through the abandoned photo-manipulation version before Tommy Lee Edwards saved the day.

Tommy Lee Edwards (https://www.tommyleeedwards.com) - Artist of 1985 and Winterworld, praised hard for roughs so alive they could carry a whole graphic novel.

Brian Hitch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Hitch) - Artist name-checked through Ghost Machine and the broader discussion of cinematic superhero realism.

Gary Frank (https://imagecomics.com/creators/gary-frank) - Geiger artist praised as part of Ghost Machine’s absurdly strong art lineup.

Francis Manapul (https://www.dc.com/talent/francis-manapul) - Artist mentioned for Rook: Exodus and the sheer visual strength of Ghost Machine’s current output.

Kyle Starks (https://www.kylestarks.com) - Writer and artist of Wrestle Heist, celebrated here as a cartoonist with sharp timing, bite, and big personality.

Vladimir Popov (https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/wrestle-heist-1) - Colorist on Wrestle Heist, singled out through David’s praise for the book’s full visual package.

Steve Pugh (https://www.dc.com/talent/steve-pugh) - Artist on End of Life, praised as a perfect match for Kyle Starks’ Vertigo writing.

Greg Rucka (https://www.gregrucka.com) - Writer mentioned through Gotham General and the Gotham Central legacy.

Chris Condon (https://www.chriscondonwrites.com) - Writer discussed for Vertigo crime work and the upcoming Gotham Central connection.

Jacob Phillips (https://jacobphillips.com) - Artist discussed with Chris Condon, with John noting the nice crime-comics lineage of that pairing.

Jorge Corona (https://www.dc.com/talent/jorge-corona) - Lobo artist praised by David even while the story is not fully clicking for him yet.

Skottie Young (https://www.skottieyoung.com) - Writer of the current Lobo run, discussed as David waits for the book to fully land.

Nicoletta Baldari (https://www.instagram.com/nicoletta_baldari/) - Artist praised for a Little Lobo sequence that David absolutely loved.

Drew Hennessy (https://www.marvel.com/comics/creators/12758/drew_hennessy) - Late inker remembered warmly by John and David, especially through unfinished work and a shared credits page.

Ron Lim (https://www.marvel.com/comics/creators/208/ron_lim) - Artist mentioned in connection with John accidentally breaking the sad Drew Hennessy news.

Paul Pelletier (https://www.dc.com/talent/paul-pelletier) - Artist on The Others project John and David discuss with real affection.

Q Hayashida (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Hayashida) - Creator of Dai Dark and Dorohedoro, whose goth sci-fi weirdness immediately hooks John.

Matt Dinniman (https://mattdinniman.com) - Creator of Dungeon Crawler Carl, which David flags as a major crossover opportunity for comic shops.

Robert Kirkman (https://imagecomics.com/creators/robert-kirkman) - Co-creator of Invincible, which dominates the sales chart discussion like a cape-wearing wrecking ball.

Absolute Batman (https://www.dc.com/comics/absolute-batman-2024/absolute-batman-1) - The big DC hit driving the episode’s sales, animation, and creator-control conversation.

Absolute Batman Vol. 1: The Zoo (https://www.dc.com/graphic-novels/absolute-batman-2024/absolute-batman-vol-1-the-zoo) - The first collected edition of the Snyder and Dragotta run that keeps coming up throughout the episode.

Civil War (https://www.marvel.com/comics/discover/114/civil-war-the-complete-event) - The Marvel event John uses to explain tie-ins, Tony Stark backlash, and how event storytelling gets shaped.

Transcript

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

[00:00:24] John: Hello and welcome back to The Corner Box. I’m one host, John Barber, and with me as always, my good friend, David Hedgecock. David, we have an exciting guest this time.

[00:00:35] David: Just us. It’s us. Just us. Just us. Everybody turns us off right away.

[00:00:39] John: Oh, man. We’re doing so well.

[00:00:41] David: We’ve had a couple of really good weeks, man. Bart’s ears, the two parter, and then David Peppos came on. We’ve really blessed our listeners with some amazing content lately.

[00:00:51] John: You’re in Bart, tell all those stories. It was fantastic. Here’s the thing. I found myself saying at my dinner table that I’ve never said before to my wife, “Oh, so here’s the thing that happened on the podcast.” And then I related part of that, part of a story there and she was really interested and it was a new like a good story.

[00:01:08] David: Well, that’s her first question. You do a podcast?

[00:01:11] John: Yeah, yeah. Who’s David Heshcock?

[00:01:13] David: Perfect. Yeah, man. I really enjoyed both those interviews. Barsears, what a treat that was and getting to meet David for the first time was pretty fantastic too. Yeah. You and I haven’t really talked at all because the episode before that we did a deep dive on Frank Miller 300 and I was With chase so it’s been a couple weeks since we’ve actually just sat down and did a little chitchat John

[00:01:31] John: Yeah, all right. Well, I got nothing. So hopefully you have something well join us next week a

[00:01:37] David: Lot has been happening in the comic book world lately We were heading into like that convention season, you know time where announcement start coming and like, you know You start getting revelations coming from all the different comic book companies and all the exciting stuff that’s gonna be happening. It used to be that it felt like when I was younger, which was 30 million years ago, that comic books, like starting in June is when like traditional school cycle where summer would kind of hit in June, and then all the really cool like event comic books felt like they would hit in June as well. And then it was the whole summer of like events for the various companies. And then once you get hit September, it was kind of like back to school. And it seems like things would kind of taper down after that, like the events would end and you kind of go back to regular schedules and regular storylines, the books kind of go back into their separate corners. But it feels like now the summer is when all the events are announced and then like DC in particular, like October hits and then suddenly it’s like, boom, you get these really big things happening in October. Maybe I’m just thinking about DC when I’m saying that, but it feels like that’s a thing now. It’s like we’re not as married to the summer event.

[00:02:45] John: I remember Marvel had like a slogan of like biweekly for the summer on some of their big titles.

[00:02:50] David: Yeah, that’s right. That’s for sure. They would double ship all summer.

[00:02:52] John: I don’t even think I thought about that when I was there. I haven’t really thought about that. I mean, events kind of dipped for a little bit and then they came back in a big way in the early 2000s. That sort of segued into it being like almost a constant cycle of events. You know, like the timing was sort of determined by how fast you could do things without overlapping with other things. They started building tent poles instead of building up in the summer.

[00:03:18] David: Yeah, at a certain point, it feels like the books, maybe I’m just thinking about Marvel in particular, but it feels like the books never go back to their own supper corners anymore. I don’t necessarily mean this derogatory. I don’t want to start bashing on companies right now, but it’s like one nonstop event leading into the next event. And you never really get to have just an uncanny X-Men book that is just an uncanny X-Men book that’s telling a story in that book and nowhere else. Yeah. I don’t feel like you get that as much anymore. Not to say that doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t happen, but it just doesn’t feel like it happens quite as much. Marvel in particular feels like it’s just event after event after event. There’s like literally two events going on right now. I think, I think Queen of Black or something like that. Oh yeah. Well, Mary Jane’s like the Queen of the Nolley, Blackie. And then at the same time, we’ve got the Avengers Armageddon thing going on.

[00:04:10] John: Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s also, it’s, I mean, this is like a weird thing to say, but it’s sort of, like I read Avengers Armageddon and I’m, like, I was kind of like, oh, is this an event or is this a big Avengers story? You know what I mean? Like, that line is in some ways fuzzier, but in some ways more defined. Like when I was working there, when we were doing this stuff, when we had Civil War and House of M, I was there for, my first Marvel retreat was the one where House of M was getting sort of outlined for everybody. Like, it was already like figured out at that point. That was my first Marvel retreat where there were huge questions that were still open as to whether or not, as to what was going to happen at the end of House of M.

[00:04:48] David: Was that Brian Michael Bendis sort of leading that event?

[00:04:52] John: Yeah.

[00:04:52] David: I didn’t get into that one. I really, really enjoyed Brian Michael Bendis on Avengers, the new, his new Avengers run. I thought it was really good.

[00:04:59] John: Yeah.

[00:04:59] David: But I didn’t really get into any of his other Marvel stuff. His Ultimate Spider-Man, again, I don’t want to disparage, but it just felt like he was just telling the original stories again with like a new twist, which was cool if I had never read the original stories, but I had already read, you know, a bunch of Spider-Man. So Ultimate Spider-Man didn’t really ever get interesting to me until Miles Morales showed up and then I was 100% it and I was like, oh yeah, I’m on board for this now. So I didn’t come in until way late on that. And then his X-Men stuff kind of left me cold. Like I liked the concept, but it just got confusing immediately and I didn’t stick around for that. Guardians of the Galaxy was also kind of like interesting for a minute, But then I don’t know. I just it didn’t none of it really landed with me But his Avengers run a hundred percent landed with me. I loved I really lost his Avengers run I was in for the whole thing

[00:05:46] John: Yeah a lot of the events that were coming out of Marvel at that point were sort of Brian writing a thing in Avengers and Him recognizing and everybody else recognizing that that could be sort of elevated to another tier where you know Like House of M was basically It became a big X-Men event, but it was the follow-up to Scarlet Witch. It was, you know, what happened to Scarlet Witch after it had disassembled. Right. Like, that was sort of the genesis of it. For a long time, there was like a question as to whether or not Secret Invasion was going to be the next Avengers arc or whether that was going to be its own event.

[00:06:19] David: Oh, really? It was debated that it might just stay within the book?

[00:06:22] John: It was pretty much like Brian’s call in the sense that if you really just wanted to do that in Avengers, it would have been okay. But I don’t even know how to describe it. Everybody was, you know, kind of try to figure out what things you could do to get shine lights on everything and sort of what you could spin out of it. So it was actually, I think originally it was going to be an early New Avengers arc and I kept getting pushed back in New Avengers. So the story, it’s sort of the question of what was going on with some of the underlying stuff in New Avengers was sort of dragging out. So it was coming bigger and bigger. And I think like Civil War delayed it. Like I think when Civil War came in, like that push bell was going to, you know, like then he needed some more stories to carry you through that. So, you know, like stuff like that could happen where like Civil War kind of came up from a different direction. Especially if you wanted to tie in with Civil War you’re gonna be have to adjust where the other stuff is happening.

[00:07:10] David: Were certain books mandated to be that like they had to be tied into Secret of Agin or Civil War or whatever it was? No, I mean it was really down to the editors and creative

[00:07:20] John: teams discretion but like it would be like if X-Men wasn’t going to tie in with Civil War And it didn’t. The X-Men titles didn’t tie in with Civil War. We were doing something else. There was a Civil War X-Men limited series to sort of set up what they were doing, to sort of take the place of it without it being the main series. This is funny because I was actually thinking about this. I was thinking about how Avengers Armageddon reminded me of Civil War and its construction and tone much more so than DC KO did or something. And it was like the anniversary that Chris Gage is writing a Civil War series set in there. was like when Chris Gage first started. Like, I’ve been thinking about some of this stuff. That one of the weird things that happened with Civil War, if you look at everything that was coming out then, Iron Man, the comic didn’t tie in with Civil War because it was the end of this story arc. Tony Stark’s story in Civil War was all told in the main book, but then also in Spider-Man where he was Peter’s mentor during Civil War, right? And J. Michael Straczynski, 100%, was like Tony Stark’s the bad guy, and Captain America’s the good guy. So when you look at all the stuff that Straczynski was writing, it’s all written with that in mind. So Tony Stark is mad portrayed as the bad guy in Spider-Man. I think he had to be reeled back in from some of the nefarious stuff that he had Tony Stark do, whereas in the actual Civil War book, if you just look at that, Tony’s basically acting in good faith but taking things too far, which is a thing Tony Stark does. And I think that that was a big part of why the negative reaction to Tony Stark came out. There was nobody telling his side of the story. Actually, aside from Chris Gage when he did this one shot that laid out Tony’s side of things in a way that better than anybody else had done. The other thing, this is a real digression here. I remember Ralph Macchio being really like mad about a scene in Secret Wars. When Spider-Man reveals his identity to everybody and he pulls off the mask at the press conference. He wasn’t mad that Spider-Man revealed his identity. What bothered Ralph was that the scene was drawn where Iron Man, Tony Stark, brings out Spider-Man and they’re standing up in front of the microphones and the cameras are filming him. And Ralph’s sort of two points were, number one, why would anybody think that was Spider-Man? Like he just walked out there. It’s a guy in a Spider-Man suit. Why would anybody seeing that think that was actually Spider-Man? Why wasn’t Spider-Man doing something Spider-Man-y? Why wasn’t he standing on a wall? Why wasn’t he hanging from the ceiling and pulling off his mask? His second part was the exact same thing, but that’s what Spider-Man should just be doing all the time because that’s what Spider-Man does. That’s what makes him Spider-Man. Spider-Man doesn’t clog to a press conference and walk out like a normal person. He’s Spider-Man. He swings out. He does something weird and off-putting to everybody. And that got me really thinking about how much at that point, maybe Marvel in particular, but I think superheroes in general were really pushing towards this sort of cinematic realism for what turned out to the obvious reasons, but I don’t know that they were like that

[00:10:25] David: obvious then, if that makes sense? Selt more like they were trying to manifest it into reality, not that it was going to be a reality.

[00:10:32] John: Yeah, you had the Sam Rami Spider-Man movies, but those are actually pretty stylized and weird. Those aren’t like, like you don’t look at those, you don’t watch those and think that’s a standard movie with a superhero in it.

[00:10:42] David: It’s a Sam Raimi movie stylized and weird, in my opinion.

[00:10:46] John: Yeah. I like it to stop. Yeah, yeah. But you had like the Daredevil movies, you had the Fantastic Four movies, I think it’s at least the first Ghost Rider, two, if not all three Blade movies. There were a bunch of movies out then, but there wasn’t the overwhelming superhero universe there would be a few years later. You’re right, yeah. I was kind of trying to manifest that, but you look at like Ultimates, and that was all about hitch drawing this photo realistic version of what the stuff would look like. Mark Miller did a series with Tommy Lee Edwards that I edited called 1985 that was-

[00:11:16] David: I love that series.

[00:11:17] John: Oh yeah, yeah. I thought it was really good too.

[00:11:19] David: But do you remember what it was originally supposed to be? It’s been a while since I read it. I just know that I love that. I remember loving that Tommy Lee Edwards art in it.

[00:11:27] John: Mark had found these guys that were going to do photo manipulation and the whole thing was going to be photos of actors manipulated into like superhero costumes and stuff. - Oh, that sounds awful. - Like, this is like up online. This is a thing that people saw.

[00:11:42] David: - He made his intent known.

[00:11:44] John: - But he was very excited about it.

[00:11:45] David: - It sounds like Jim Starling lettering his own comic books. It doesn’t sound good at all.

[00:11:48] John: - Exactly. And we had this like kind of, I don’t want to say everybody, I’m sure there’s some people that liked it. Almost everybody was like, “This doesn’t look right.” Like, Mark would see the images that would come back, and he wouldn’t see what they were. He would see what they could be, you know? So he’d be like, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. But the next time they do the vulture, it’s gonna be amazing.” And let’s give him another shot. Mark doesn’t sound anything like that. Like, eventually, we sort of - there’s like a come to Jesus moment that like, this isn’t gonna work.

[00:12:16] David: - Yeah, chase some unicorns, man.

[00:12:18] John: - Yeah. I think maybe Joe talked to him or something. I don’t really remember. I don’t remember if it was some combination of Joe, Ralph Macchio, possibly me, but I don’t remember really having that discussion. I do remember talking to him about it. And then it was like, “Well, how about Tommy Lee Edwards?” And everybody’s like, “That’s great.”

[00:12:37] David: That’s a great thing to keep in your pocket. Just like any time you, “Well, how about Tommy Lee Edwards?” “Oh, yeah, wait, you can get Tommy Lee Edwards? He’s gonna do it.” “Okay.” “My mind is horrible. Let’s go with yours.” Man, he’s so good. God, I wish he was more prolific. I really do wish he was more prolific. I’m grateful for the stuff that we do get from him, but God, I love his art.

[00:12:56] John: He’s like running like an animation studio or something.

[00:13:00] David: I don’t know what he’s doing. I hope he’s making a billion dollars doing it though. I haven’t talked to that guy in forever, but man, I love his stuff.

[00:13:05] John: I wish he would do a comic that was just his roughs. You know what I mean? Like I wish he would do like a, I don’t know, like a side project, not a full on superhero thing, not a full on blow you away thing, but his rough art is just so good and so full of life. And I mean, I love the final stuff. Don’t get me wrong. Like they, but like when he knocks out So like these roughs in a week, you’re like, man, you could do like a hundred page graphic novel of this in like six weeks.

[00:13:29] David: Instead you get one issue of Winterworld over the course of like eight months. Thankfully, that book though was set up in a way that we didn’t have to put any pressure on Tommy. Not one time did I go to Tommy and say, Oh, Hey, I need that soon. We baked it into the program that it was done when it was done. And that’s when we would be able to squeeze it in. Dixon was really good about that too. Actually Chuck was able to write in a way that allowed us to get some really great artists for that series because of the way he was writing it. Anyway, that’s a digression on a digression on digression was to add to what you were talking about. 1985, Time of the Edwards, you found the you suggested Time of the Edwards.

[00:14:05] John: No, I didn’t suggest Tommy. I think I think I think Mark you don’t tell me.

[00:14:08] David: Oh, okay.

[00:14:09] John: I don’t actually remember who Tommy is. I think it was Mark. I don’t remember.

[00:14:13] David: That’s a much better choice. Yeah. That solved all the problems for me. I like that book.

[00:14:18] John: But I was thinking about trying to get the realistic style. The idea was that that was exciting because you didn’t have that other places. You know, like you had a couple superhero movies, but they were always scaled back in some way. You know, the X-Men were wearing… I mean, I liked the costumes in X-Men, I liked the black costume thing, but they were wearing the black leather, like the Matrix, not like bright colored X-Men stuff. You know, with X-Men, there was a reason for that. You’d have Daredevil, but it would be kind of a grimy Daredevil costume, not the bright red one that you love, David. You didn’t get the full-on superhero costumes for a little bit outside of Spider-Man, but that that was in this weird hyper-realistic world of the Spider-Man movies. You look at that, that world did manifest. Everything looks like that. They look like movies trying to be photorealistic and shooting with the same, you know, gray, whatever, 30% gray levels or whatever, to get everything to look the same way. That struck me reading Avengers Armageddon because you have these scenes of like people, like the superheroes standing around in an office looking at screens on the computer computer and talking. Like I love Chip Darsky, I don’t mean anything bad about the whole thing, but it was really, you know, it’s kind of like, well, yeah, but I don’t know.

[00:15:28] David: What if they were doing something cooler? And what if they were running or flying while they were looking at a wristband, like with their computer screen on it? And yeah.

[00:15:37] John: Yeah. Whereas like 25 years ago or wherever, that was new. You know what I mean? Like that idea that you’d have these kind of being in there and, and, and no, there’s just a regular room. As I mentioned last time, I was on with Chase that I’ve actually been drawing some stuff. That got me thinking about the quality of looking at a comic and being like, “Oh, that seems like that was fun to draw.” Those scenes in the office don’t seem like they were fun to draw. Different people have different tastes. If you sent Steve Dillon a 24-page script and 20 of those pages were two guys sitting in a bar and the last four were the coolest, most fun superhero scene ever, the next week you’d get the 20 pages drawn and then six weeks later you’d finally get the last four pages. Because all he wanted to do was draw a guy sitting at a bar talking.

[00:16:20] David: Yeah, what you’re saying is correct. But there’s not a lot of dudes like Steve Dylan. And that’s why he was so great, though, because he reveled in doing the things that I think a lot of artists don’t get their juice from, right? Like most artists are like, want to do the big fighty fight, the big bang, you know, punchy punch stuff and drawing somebody sitting at a desk or sitting at a bar drinking a beer is not as exciting for him. But yeah, you could tell that Dylan, that was his jam.

[00:16:47] John: Yeah, that’s the quality of things that I think is maybe helping drive some of the stuff that we’re all really liking. You and I are really liking that the world seems to really be liking. For instance, Absolute Batman. That seems like that’s pretty fun to draw. I don’t know if you saw this, but I saw that book selling half a million copies a month.

[00:17:10] David: What? No. How is anybody getting this information these days? I don’t know. You’re right. These sales charts, we’ve got multiple distributors. I don’t know how people are figuring this stuff out right now. If that’s true, man, the industry is going to be in a nice spot for the next couple years. That’s an insane number. You haven’t had a book doing that since the early 90s, at least at that level of consistency.

[00:17:31] John: Like it sounds like the sales have been going up on it. And it’s in like the millionth printing of number one. Earlier this month, Scott Snyder review set on X, the absolute Batman 20 sold a half a million copies.

[00:17:42] David: Damn. That’s a crazy number for an issue 20.

[00:17:46] John: Yeah.

[00:17:46] David: They got the juice, man. Nick Dravolta has got the juice, man. That guy’s, uh, the guy’s drawn the hell out of that book.

[00:17:51] John: Yeah. I remember thinking this back when Morrison’s X-Men was coming out. That it’s fun that like you can look at. Comic at the number one comic and it’s pretty good. You know, like it’s a good one. It’s neat. That’s nice when that happens. You know, it’s like, Oh, everybody enjoy this. Something you can cheer for.

[00:18:08] David: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m, I’m in, I like it. I’m enjoying it. It’s not my favorite. It’s not even my favorite absolute nine book, but it’s a good book I actually started buying the physical copies of that book actually around like I don’t know 17 or 18 I start picking up the physical copies because I just wanted to start looking at it in the print version

[00:18:28] John: Instead of reading on the digital. I think a lot of people have been doing that. Yeah, I think I think that clearly

[00:18:33] David: 500,000 copies man. That’s crazy. There’s even bigger news with ads bat speaking of reality and movie tie-ins and things like that.

[00:18:42] John: Yeah, they announced, so as we’re recording this, they announced the Absolute Batman cartoon series. I saw the headline last night. To me, really interesting and exciting about it was that Scott Snyder’s show running it and Nick Dragoda’s a producer.

[00:18:56] David: That is so crazy to me. Finally somebody’s recognizing that the talent in the comic book industry is through the roof like thank you. Like whoever’s finally paying attention to this stuff. Like of course Scott Snyder and Nick Drogota should be intimately involved in that cartoon. Like they’re the dudes that made it. Let them cook. They’ve proven that they have a successful formula and they know what they’re doing. I love that. I went from being barely interested in that cartoon to supremely interested. I will 100% want to watch that cartoon now.

[00:19:29] John: You know, you have to go pretty deep into this to be able to put on my Mr. Negative hat and find something I’m not happy about. One of the things I really like about Absolute Batman is how comic book-y it is, you know, just how much I like the comic bookness of it. I had the experience when I watched the Batman Year One cartoon that I realized what I liked about Batman Year One was not what was in that cartoon. I liked the way Mazzuchelli put the pages together. I liked the way the pacing worked. I liked the actual drawing. I mean, I like the story. It’s fine. But watching it play out in the animation for me, it seemed like it was like badly paced. just because I was so used to the year one pacing, maybe I wouldn’t have felt that way coming on clean. It was trying to be very close to the comic book. And in my opinion, like, missed what I thought was made the comic. I feel like this about basically every superhero movie,

[00:20:19] David: I read the book and the book is better. Like, that’s how I feel about all these superhero movies. Like, I read the comic book and the comic book is better. Like people, historically, because now superhero movies been around so long, it’s not really novel or new anymore but the people that know I’m a comic book collector that I that I made comic books used to ask me like oh the new spider-man movies out isn’t that great or you must be really into that have you gone and seen it yet it’s like nah I haven’t seen it yet and and I don’t know that I’m going to because I don’t know man I read the book I know what’s gonna happen like yeah the story isn’t exactly the same but as soon as that guy Dr. Octavius shows up on the screen I’m not surprised later when he’s Dr. Octopus I know who that dude is the second he shows up I know what’s going to happen with that guy and I know the story of Dr. Octopus, right? Like I know what’s going to happen. So as long as they’re sort of just adhering to the general concepts of these characters, which they largely do, especially the Marvel use stuff, you kind of know what’s going to happen. So it’s kind of boring, like watching Marvel movies for me, like historically, it’s kind of been boring because I kind of know what’s going to happen. I know who the characters are. I know how they’re going to react to stuff and I’m rarely surprised by what’s happening. And not to say that I don’t enjoy the movies, I do enjoy them, but I’m sort of just above the level of indifference, I guess. Right? All right. Oh yeah, that was cool. Like, that’s special thanks for Neaton. And the story was okay, but I’m not, oh my god, Captain America Winter Soldier was the greatest movie I’ve ever seen. And it’s not, it’s never been that for me. The closest this come is for me is Guardians of the Galaxy. But I think that’s because Guardians of the Galaxy for me felt like such a kind of departure from Annihilation in sort for the vibe of Annihilation. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know how those characters were going to act with one interact with one another. And so I was surprised. And I genuinely didn’t know how things were gonna how the characters were going to behave. And so it was I felt like I was it was something new and fresh and original. And I didn’t know what to expect. And so it made it so much more enjoyable for me watching that movie. Also I think James Gunn’s just like he’s really good director and I like his stuff. So yeah, So when it comes to those animated movies where they basically retell stories, I’ve never once really enjoyed any of them. I’ve tried a bunch of them because they’re always on Amazon Prime or Netflix or whatever. So I’ll watch them, but I’ve never been impressed by one, let’s say that. But I guess you can do it because Batman Adventures. So Batman and the Animated Series? Yeah, that was some of the best Batman stories ever told, right?

[00:22:42] John: Yeah, and that felt very much like they’re almost doing an ultimate Batman in animation, all the best parts of the character from over the years. This slight nods to the Tim Burton movie. This seems more like an anime-type thing. You know what I mean? As much as the absolute books are influenced by manga, especially Batman and Wonder Woman, the idea of doing a direct adaptation of a specific story as a series with the creators involved in it, I wonder how much that’s going to be similar to that model. You know what I mean? That’d be a cool model to have. Like, I’m weird about some of that stuff too. When I read a book, I often have no interest in seeing the movie.

[00:23:17] David: I’m saying.

[00:23:18] John: Like, there are exceptions. Like I like the Dune movie, but I still haven’t gotten around to seeing Dune 2. I should. It’s better than the first one, for sure.

[00:23:27] David: I didn’t really like the first one that much, and I really liked the second one. I still have no idea what’s happening in those movies, but I like the second one better than the first one.

[00:23:33] John: No, so I mean, I think they adapted to Dune perfectly. I’ve been reading one piece with my son like crazy, like he was like massively into one piece. Now he’s like reading of himself and trying to catch up with us.

[00:23:43] David: Oh, that’s fascinating. How old is he now? Eight? Seven. Seven. Perfect. Yeah. He’ll be like sometimes I, you know,

[00:23:51] John: I just get to words. I don’t know what they are. So I just kind of keep going. But you know, a lot of us just fight scenes. So there’s not it’s not hard. But One Piece is about to have if I’m not mistaken, it’s about to have three TV shows in production based on it. At the same time, I believe the original anime is still ongoing, still adapting the series. There’s the Netflix live action series in America, but they’re relaunching a new anime, starting over from the beginning, retelling it, maybe being a little more faithful to it, because I think they made some changes in the beginning, but also being in HD and using modern technology and having the budget where they know this is the most popular comic ever. You know, if not the budget was when in 1997 when they launched it or whatever. That’s wild. The One Piece TV show is basically, I think, the same as the comic. It follows the same stories, They go to the same places. I have not that much interest in watching the anime, you know, but I really like the comic I really like the manga. I don’t know that would be an interesting model to do that But what if every season of absolute Batman would have to 12 issues of the comic that might very well be exactly what they’re gonna

[00:24:55] David: Do here. They’ll be interesting to watch this play out now. Well, I’m far more interested in this announcement than I was 24 hours ago I have to say yeah, yeah first side I was like, you know, it’s just another commercial exploitation of a thing that the comic books is doing You know somebody’s gonna take this thing that’s really cool and they’re gonna shred it and it’s not gonna have any of the heart Or understanding of what it is now, but now you’re like got me super into it It will be interesting to see how this animated series Essentially creates American anime like how it’s going to make that work because I feel like there’s attempts at that At various levels of success over the last couple of decades But the two guys that know how to do it at least for the comic book form are the two guys that are gonna do it For the animation so and I wonder if they’re gonna completely have to stop making the comic book

[00:25:43] John: That’s my other thing is like oh is this gonna be like a George RR Martin thing? Where okay? I hope you like to sell in a hundred half a million of number 20 because number 21 is coming out in 2045

[00:25:54] David: Exactly they can’t do both you can’t if they’re getting paid real money to do this animated series the economics of scale You can’t compare the two like if Nick Dragoda has to figure out whether he’s gonna draw another page of Batman or be the producer of a

[00:26:09] John: Television series like put your money in the television series man. Yeah, but I mean a producer credit can be anything So that doesn’t really say what he’s gonna be doing, but they’re probably tapping him to do designs

[00:26:21] David: This is probably not the case because it’s never the right case It’s never the case But I wonder if to go to and Snyder have some sort of like Share on the creation of the characters where they’re gonna actually make some real money off of the this success Outside of just selling the comic. I don’t know

[00:26:37] John: But once they get involved in the animation there might be stuff like that

[00:26:41] David: I’ll tell you man If I was a creative talent working for the big two I would definitely be looking at DC a lot more right now because that’s just One more reason why why you work at DC like if you do some stuff over DC and it blows up They’re gonna give you even more outside of comic books What a great couple of years for this absolute program.

[00:26:58] John: Is there any way in the year 2026, 2027 that an animated TV show, and I mean like dollar for dollar, literally make as much money as a 500,000 unit selling comic book?

[00:27:11] David: I think the comic book makes more money, but I think the perception is probably the other way.

[00:27:17] John: David, let me put on my Mr. Negative hat. What is the other way around?

[00:27:22] David: Here we are back to Mr. Negative.

[00:27:24] John: What if this is the other way around and this is how they’re trying to screw over creators is by getting them into the failed medium of television. Perfect. You’ve come full circle.

[00:27:39] David: I actually think that your idea of taking, you know, a season and making that like the first 12 issues of the comic as an example and really using the comic book as your Bible for the stories and really like staying faithful to the spirit, not necessarily, you know, the dialogue and every thing but saying saying very faithful to the spirit is a great idea but is there a version of this where you introduce the entire absolute world universe and is there a missed opportunity by not making this the absolute universe cartoon instead of the absolute Batman cartoon yeah like it starts with Batman but then Wonder Woman gets folded in and the right and then you’ve got like the absolute Justice League running around but I think the version that you suggest is the better version of that I’m just sort of playing as advocate there.

[00:28:25] John: >> Who knows? Maybe that’s the way they go. Maybe there’s a way that that’s what they’re doing. I don’t know. Maybe my math on the amount of time that it would take to adapt 12 issues of the comic is really off as well. And I don’t know. It seemed like that would work for a modern season. I mean, to me, a big part of the excitement of those comics is they’re not trying to be the MCU. You know, I feel like I can read Absolute Batman and not have to think about what’s an absolute Wonder Woman. And when they cross over, because they have, and they’ve crossed over, and it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to get me to go read another thing. It feels like the characters showing up in each other’s book.

[00:29:05] David: That is a strong appeal for me as well. That’s exactly what I don’t want. Like, I keep my chocolate in my chocolate and my peanut butter and my peanut butter, and I don’t need you to mix them up this time. I think you’re right. I think Absolute Line seems to have been doing exactly that. And like DC KO was maybe the absolute line was going to be pulled in that, but it wasn’t.

[00:29:26] John: Yeah. I was, I’m fuzzy on what was supposed to happen there. That was a weird beat in that story of, of where he-

[00:29:32] David: Yeah. If something changed, something, I think something changed. Yeah. I like your version, John. I think that’s the way, I hope that’s the way they go. Just adapt the faithful to the comic book, let these guys cook in a different medium, bring in, you know, anime aspects, the way they brought in manga aspects to the comic book. And yeah, that’s good. I like that. But do they have to explain the dark side thing at how the universe, how the absolute universe is created? Do you think they have to go into that or you just hand wave that?

[00:29:59] John: And just, I don’t think that that’s a big appeal for the other 480,000 readers. I know there’s not really half a million readers of it. Even just like anecdotally talking to folks at the comic book store and stuff, that there seem to be people coming in to buy that book. And I don’t think they’re coming in to buy the book for that overarching dark side story. I mean, that was the thing that really killed me reading it, is that I didn’t really know that dark side story when I started reading Absolute Batman. It doesn’t really affect the stories. It’s just, I don’t know, explains why they’re all poor.

[00:30:32] David: I like that the god of this universe essentially is a bad dude. Because it really does inform the characters. That’s why they’re different because their environment is radically different from the environment in the main DC universe, right? And I like that it’s a known quantity, Darkseid, who is the god that’s causing this chaos, for lack of a better term, is this evil sort of insidious feel to the world. So I really like that, but it doesn’t have to be called out that it’s Darkseid doing that for the animation. I wonder if they’re going to try to tie it to the main DC universe the way they did in the comic book.

[00:31:10] John: No, we’ll see. I mean, a lot of the other stuff being like, like is more closely related. They had previously announced, they talked about the Mr. Miracle series from the Tom King, Mitch

[00:31:20] David: Girard’s series. They’re both involved in that series too, right?

[00:31:25] John: Yeah, sounds like very much. Yeah. Scott Snyder was talking, I think, on Word Balloon or something about talking to, about hearing the auditions and Girard’s promo art for this event that just happened. But my understanding is like they’re casting the voice actors to play live action, if they they do a live action crossover with something. So this is Yeah, I heard that.

[00:31:49] David: Speaking of Tom King, he and Elchis Beverly were on the red carpet for the premiere of Supergirl. And I am such a fan of how do you say is it Elchis? Elchis? locus.

[00:32:01] John: Okay. Yeah. I don’t know.

[00:32:02] David: I’ve heard that. Yeah, I mean, you have heard it said. I’ve never heard it said. I just read it.

[00:32:07] John: It’s pronounced like it’s spelled, but that’s hard to get there the other direction.

[00:32:11] David: I’m going to just say so Elquist Beverly was walking the red carpet and I had a man. Her art is just amazing. I love her stuff so much. I would, I would kill to work with that artist. Like she’s so good, but I’ve never seen somebody being photographed on the red carpet look as awkward as she looked. She looked like a complete deer in the headlights. Like she, she’s like, man, I am not comfortable. You can just tell a couple of the pictures is making me laugh. Oh man. She would much rather be on drawing right now. At least that’s the look she had on her face. I don’t know. I thought it was pretty funny. That’s cool that, you know, they got invited to the red carpet. Yeah, that is. That’s very cool. At least they’re getting that. Should we talk about what we read this week?

[00:33:05] John: Oh, hey, we haven’t done that for a few weeks.

[00:33:08] David: No, we’ve been busy doing other stuff. All right. Hit it, Ed.

[00:33:13] Outro: Here’s what John and David read this week!

[00:33:16] John: Yeah! Yeah, all right.

[00:33:18] David: All right, you want to go first, John, or you want me to? You go for it. I’ve been reading so much stuff, John, because a month ago, last time we talked. I’ve getting a lot of books, John, a lot of books. And so I’ve been trying really hard to like get through the stacks and stacks of books that I’ve got. And I’m doing a pretty good job. I’ve been like sitting down on the weekends and during the week and reading a lot of books. But of the stuff that I’ve read recently, I just caught up on all the Ghost Machine books. And man, Ghost Machine books are just really drawn really, really well. Like Brian Hitch is so good. And Gary Frank on Geiger is so good. Francis Manipole on “Rochenfeller” is so good. These guys are all so good. And we’re in such a great timeline right now for comic books. Those three guys are three of the best in the industry, and they’re producing so much content right now. Ghost Machine is clicking. They’re putting out stuff on a regular cadence. And so it’s a treat to sit down and just read five issues of a Brian Hitch comic book.

[00:34:21] John: It’s fantastic.

[00:34:23] David: So anyway, I read some Ghost Machine, caught up on some Savage Dragon, but the one I want to talk about is a friend of the show, Kyle Starks, did a comic book called “Wrestle Heist.” Did you hear about this one? Yeah, no, see, I haven’t read that. So it’s a five-issue miniseries, came out from Image Comics. I think it just wrapped in like April or maybe May. I picked it up because Kyle’s a friend of the show and I want to support him, so I kind of picked it up side-unseen and just put it to the side because I wanted to read it all on one batch, which I did. And I’m glad that I waited because every issue I wanted to read the next one, like right away and I had it. So I could. And I did. It was delightful. I really liked it. And Kyle Starks as an artist is just as good as Kyle Starks as a writer. And that is saying something because Duke can really write.

[00:35:08] John: Did you not read like Rock Candy Mountain or that stuff?

[00:35:11] David: Or no, I had, but, but I think that this stuff was like, um, I don’t know. It had a, it had a different flavor to it. a different feel to some of his other stuff and a more polished look and feel. Like it felt like his maturing as an artist. He’s clearly establishing a style with this particular miniseries and I like it and he sticks to it. He’s pretty consistent. It’s a very consistent style that he’s got going. So it’s the story of this character. He plays the bad guy. I don’t remember what the terminology is in wrestling, but Kyle Starks uses the term, the bad guy terminology, the heel. He’s like this amazing heel who lifts all the other guys up because his performance is so great that it just, by its very nature, he makes the good guy that much more good. But this heel is about to leave the wrestling organization that he’s currently working for and has worked for for a few years to go to a different wrestling organization who’s going to actually treat him better and pay him fairly. He’s not being treated well at the wrestling federation that our organization is working for currently. And the owner of the wrestling league is of course like this true villain, like really just like a jerk and thinks he knows everything and has made all these people who they are and they wouldn’t have success without him. It’s his final match with the old wrestling organization and he’s on stage and it’s this big tournament thing and he’s wrestling for the championship belt, but they already know he’s going to lose. He already knows he’s going to lose. the match, the champion defeats our hero of the story, but actually breaks his neck, like really breaks his neck and puts him in the hospital, almost kills him. And as our hero is lying on the mat with his broken neck and the paramedics and stuff are all starting to come around him, the owner of the wrestling organization comes up and whispers in his ear and says, “Oh, you thought I was going to let you go? You’re nothing without me,” kind of thing, real, real evil villain stuff. forward in the story is essentially this guy who has his neck broken can never wrestle again if he does, he’s hurting his neck and becoming paralyzed or dying. So he can’t wrestle anymore. So he decides to get some other older wrestlers who have been treated poorly who no longer work for the wrestling organization, get them together and plan a heist to steal all the money from one of these big wrestling events that their former boss puts on. And how they plan this heist and try to execute it. And everything that seemingly goes wrong and does in some ways and then how it ends up. And I won’t give the story away ‘cause it turns into a bank robbery heist movie. Like it’s just really fun, like wrestling story with all the terminology of like modern day wrestling. And if you’re a wrestling fan, oh man, you’re gonna love this thing. And, but then it’s also like, It’s been mixed together with this bank robbery heist story. Right. So it’s, it’s super fun and it’s got a bunch of really cool twists and turns. And you know, you think the story is going one way and the characters are setting things up one way, but then, you know, it gets twisted on its head and doesn’t all come together until the very end. And thankfully Kyle explained some of this stuff so that people like me can make it all make sense to be like me as well, but it’s really all there the whole time, if you’re paying very close attention. Anyway, it was really fun story. Really enjoyed it. Uh, that he’s got some really fun back matter where he pretends that the back matter it’s like articles from a wrestling magazine. And so there’s like faux interviews and faux ads for, you know, weird wrestling stuff. It’s just really clever. And I enjoyed it quite a bit. Um, fantastic coloring, fantastic art, really clever, fun story that if you like bank heist, you know, kind of like robbery stuff with, with clever twists at the end, definitely recommend it. The only sad thing about it was at the conclusion of the fifth issue, Kyle makes a comment about, well, I hope you guys enjoyed this because probably not going to do this again because it didn’t sell very well. And I was like, Oh man, I’m, I’m sad to read that because I, I would love to revisit these characters. He really makes, um, all the characters that he introduces as sort of the ensemble cast of bank robbers heroes. Uh, the, what would you call those if they’re like anti-hero hero? No, it’s not the right term. What’s like, what is that?

[00:39:40] John: I think bank robbers are heroes, David.

[00:39:41] David: Yeah. Okay. So heroes, yeah. It’s a great ensemble cast of heroes that he developed. I’d love to revisit them at some point. I really do think he developed some great characters in that piece. So hopefully the trade paperback will do some good numbers and people should definitely pick it up. Whatever money I paid for those five issues will worth it. I really enjoyed it.

[00:40:03] John: That’s cool. I’ll definitely check that out. seeing some of the issues go by and like, you know, I think I’m a stop.

[00:40:09] David: Kyle Starks is really on a tear for me, man. His new series, his new Virgo series at DC called End of Life. It’s called End of Life and Steve Pewdoo is the artist on it.

[00:40:18] John: Yeah.

[00:40:19] David: And whole, oh man, what a fantastic combination those two are together. Kyle’s writing is really like snappy and fun. Got some nice like bite to it. And Steve Pewds just like the perfect artist for the way Kyle’s writing this story. I’m really, really… favorite of all the Vertigo stuff. I’m reading a couple of different ones, but the end of life one is definitely my favorite.

[00:40:44] John: Sorry, this is going off on a tangent. I even talked about the Kyle Starks side of it. But one of the things that kind of impressed me also about these, in the last couple, in the last few weeks, but they were soliciting some of their new line, their new whatever it is, next wave, new, I forget what they called it, waves of comics of putting out. So looking through the solicit and you get to one, I misread it, and I thought it said Gotham Central by Greg Rucka. And I was like, “Oh, interesting.” But no, he’s doing Gotham General, so it’s going to be him doing a hospital story, you know, along the lines of Gotham Central. I’m like, “That’s cool.” That idea is kind of fun, and I think that’d be cool to see. The next solicit was Gotham Central, but the thing that really impressed me about it was by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips, who are doing the Vertigo series. And this rolls off the tongue. I think this is one of the nicest, most concise titles you’ll find. The Peril of the Brutal Dark and Ezra Kane Mystery. Something must have gone wrong there. I really like that series. I’ve been really enjoying it. And Condon and Phillips are kind of like a brew baker and Phillips type. They do a bunch of comics together and they’re all, I mean, kind of the same, the way the Brubick or the Elder Phillips is, but they’re all different. You know, they’re all fun mysteries for me or fun crime comics for me. But seeing the two of them going on there is cool. And then it also has this like weird bit of like, I know Michael Lark isn’t the same as Sean Phillips, but it’s almost keeping it in the family of artists trying it.

[00:42:19] David: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:42:21] John: Oh, the reason I’m first impressed by that decision is my understanding was, I don’t remember where I heard this. It might have been totally anecdotal and untrue. But I heard that series wasn’t selling very well. And it impressed me that they looked at it and saw that the reasons for it selling weren’t like qualitative and that this is like a creative team you could put on another book. And I feel like that’s always a smart move. And sometimes

[00:42:44] David: publishers don’t do that. Yeah, for sure. I’ve been guilty of that in the past. There seems to be a thinking at DC right now where it’s like, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Yeah. We’ve sort of talked about this. That’s a great way to put it. Yeah. This idea of like, okay, well, we can make this better incrementally. We don’t have to completely throw it all out and start fresh with a totally different or totally new thing. Like, this is all working. We just need to tweak, make three tweaks. We don’t have to change everything. And I think that approach is really, really working. I’m enjoying DC, like we say all the time, Enjoying DC more now than I have probably ever. Speaking of the next wave or the next level, the Lobo book that came out is part of this sort of like the new launches this year. And I’ve talked about a little bit like the Jorge Coronado is fantastic. But the story by Scott Young has not been, it just hasn’t been my total favorite. I don’t know. There’s something, it feels a little rehashed, not refreshed. But I have faith in Scotty. I’m sure he’s going to pull it out. And actually by the issue and issue three, it is getting a little bit better for me, but mostly because they brought in artist,

[00:43:58] John: Nicoletta Baldari. Oh, yeah. They’re friendly nine, Nicoletta Baldari. I take a lot of pride in

[00:44:03] David: giving her some of her first work here in the US because I’ve always thought she was just like an amazing talent. And she’s just done nothing but get better and better and better. And she, in this latest issue of Lobo, she’s chronicling Little Lobo, basically a little Lobo story that’s set inside the main story. And oh my god, it’s so good. And Nicoletta drew the hell out of it. It is perfect. And I loved it. And so that I’m so glad that I stuck with the physical copies of that book because I read that the other day. I was like, Oh, this is such a treat. It’s so good. Nicole Adelbal

[00:45:07] John: called God Summoner by Dionysus Zagaris and Manos Lagovardos. The art looked really cool and I was like, “Oh, let me check this out.” Flipping through it, the art still looks really cool. I haven’t read it, so I can’t speak to the story yet. Looking forward to it though. Nothing turned me off against it. But I went to the back and it had all the backers listed. And there weren’t like a ton and I was like, “Oh, maybe this is just like the high level ones.” Then I saw my name and I’m like, “Oh, no, that’s funny. I guess this is everybody.” And then at the bottom, I saw Drew Hennessey’s name, a little bittersweet moment where it’s like not to speak to any of the details you’re welcome to of anything you can. But you know that he and I worked on a comic that hasn’t come out. He’s an incur and just a really nice guy, one of the best incurs, and passed away a few months ago. Earlier today, I had the pleasure of accidentally informing Ron Lim about that. Oh. Just coincidentally, I’m laughing because it’s tragic. But it was kind of sad because this might be the last time we’re on the credits page together. It’s in God’s Summoner, which looks like a terrific book.

[00:46:11] David: The book that you wrote, wrote the hell out of, and drew over Paul Palatier Pencils was called The Others. I don’t know, man. I don’t know if that book’s ever going to see the light of day. I hope it does because I think it’s some of the best stuff that I’ve ever been involved with. And I said that during when we were making it, and I’m still saying it now. I love that book. That’s such a good book. You’ve wrote the hell out of it and all drew the hell out of it and Drew’s work deserves to be seen

[00:46:36] John: For all the reasons miss that dude. Yeah, we kept working on some other we worked on other You know some other stuff where you didn’t like sort of the the advertising type stuff that I talk about doing sometimes You kept asking me here. You’d always be like, oh, when are we gonna do another one? You know, he was he was he was really yeah

[00:46:51] David: He was into it. He’d distinct the whole issue for me I’m not sure but I think it might have been one of the last issues that he that he ate So that’s coming out at some point. I’m trying to figure out like, oh, how do you, how do you do that? I guess you just pay homage and respect as best you can and keep going. It feels like you shouldn’t hide his work, right? Like you should definitely share the work. So Rip Drew Hennessy, please miss. Well, that’s a little bittersweet. This God summoner just to, so we can move on. I don’t want to move on. I miss that. I don’t know. This God summoner looks pretty fantastic. I can see why you guys both contributed to it. This one skipped my notice somehow.

[00:47:31] John: Okay, so it’s got kind of a manga influence, really kind of detailed, sketchy kind of style. You see that sometimes in manga, but it looks like, I don’t know, Gary Gianni mixed with a manga influence almost.

[00:47:41] David: Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that.

[00:47:44] John: I don’t know. Maybe there’s other ways to describe it.

[00:47:46] David: No, that’s good.

[00:47:47] John: I was trying to transition to the book that I’m actually going to talk about, which I picked up a manga called… Like I saw this sitting on a table at Barnes and Noble, and This looks weird and interesting. I didn’t know anything about it, because I’m an idiot, I guess. I don’t know. It’s called Die Dark by Kyuhai Ishida, and that’s a pseudonym. Nobody knows what her real name is, but she created a series called Dorohedoro that’s a Netflix series right now.

[00:48:16] David: - Yeah, I’ve heard of that one.

[00:48:17] John: - Okay, yeah, yeah. It’s a sort of space operatic. That would be the part where you start on super goth-y comedy about a guy who’s… Everything’s kind of got a supernatural goth kind of feel to it. And it’s got a guy whose bones are known to grant immortality if you get his bones. So everybody is after him to steal his bones. He’s got a somehow kind of undead backpack. This sort of guides him through this world of everybody trying to steal his bones. And they go through a black hole to get where everybody looks kind of like the sort of monsters that would show up in Morrison’s Doom Patrol or like Kevin O’Neill drawings. Super fun, I love the art, fun and goofy. And it just has all these like goth science fiction trappings which are exactly what I was looking for and didn’t know it. I really enjoyed the first one. I haven’t read the rest of it.

[00:49:14] David: - When I’m dealing with non-comic book people, you know, the regular Joes on the street, I often get asked, where’d all your ideas come from? How do you think of all that crazy stuff? And I feel like that’s what I would ask that person. Where did you get these crazy ideas? That sounds insane. I want to read that though. You’ve described the perfect book for me. That sounds perfect for me.

[00:49:37] John: Yeah, I guess there’s a deluxe edition of it coming out real soon. I get an oversized version of it. So I guess it looks like it’s doing okay here in America.

[00:49:47] David: Okay, so it was Daidar Part 1?

[00:49:50] John: Yeah. going ongoing manga series.

[00:49:53] David: And it’s not complete. It’s still…

[00:49:54] John: Yes, it’s… exactly. It’s currently going on in both America and Japan.

[00:49:58] David: alright, I’m gonna check that out. The art looks cool. Yeah.

[00:50:00] John: My guess is it’s been… okay, it’s been coming out since 2019 in Japan. But a bit is still ongoing. Cool. I’m checking that one out.

[00:50:12] David: So I don’t know where I’m going with this. I have been super into these comic books without pictures. So they’re called pros, pros books, pros novels. Like professionals. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how it’s spelled up, but I think that’s what it is. Anyway, it’s just words, John. There’s no pictures in it. It’s just words. So you just read, like just read words. The easy version of having pictures, you know, to show motion and action and stuff, they actually just describe all of that with words. It seems very inefficient, but this is what they do.

[00:50:43] John: I hope they find a way to fix this.

[00:50:46] David: Well, yeah. We’ve felt the solution. The solution is color books, but I don’t know. For, I don’t know, maybe this person didn’t have access to an artist. So anyway, Dungeon Crawler Carl is a, see here, an RPG lit prose, series of prose novels. It’s sweeping the nation, John. It’s very, very popular. If you haven’t read it, it’s very good. There’s eight books in the series. I read the first seven books, like in three weeks and enjoyed the heck out of them. And I’m loathe to read book eight because I know as soon as I finish it, then I’m going to have to wait a really long time for book nine and I don’t want and so I don’t want to read the one that I have you know it’s like the bird in your hands were two in the bush or something that’s that’s not the right metaphor here but you know what I mean so anyway dungeon crawler Carl has been adapting the first novel into manga I think it’s actually already done so when I heard about this I was like oh comic book shops are gonna completely miss on this because they’re not going to get it they’re not going to know that there’s this thing called Dungeon Crawler Carl and the RPG lit is like a real serious like movement in this country and people are really into it right now. I was completely wrong, John, completely wrong. Dungeon Crawler Carl, the first volume of the manga did 36,000 units worth of sales in the month of May according to Bookscan and these are real numbers. So we know these numbers are actually pretty dialed in. That I think is great because I do think the comic book shops definitely should be picking this thing up. That 36,000 probably also includes large bookstores, but still that number tells me that comic book shops know about this and that it’s happening. And I think that Vault Comics, who is the publisher of note for this, putting out that free comic book day was really, really smart for them because it showed all the retailers like, oh, people really want this thing. That, Like that free comic book day, “Dungeon Crawler Crawl” free comic book day, shot up to like 15, 20 bucks on day one as soon as free comic book day was over. So people definitely wanted that thing. And so it’s great to see, I love the series. I’m excited to get the manga. I pre-ordered it. I should be getting mine soon, hopefully. Actually, I think I might’ve just gotten it. So anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to a comic book shops paying attention. Nice job. - All right. - Well, here’s another thing that’s interesting. I was looking at these sales charts, John, because that’s what you do as a comic book fan. You look at sales charts, John. Yes. And I was looking at the other book scans for the month of May, the graphic novel book scan numbers. Of the top five best-selling graphic novels in the month of May, 2026, Dungeon Crawlers number one, take a wild guess over what the next four are.

[00:53:20] John: Well, I know the next one. He told me. The next one I know is Invincible.

[00:53:25] David: Number two, Invincible, volume compendium. OK. Compendium. That means that’s the $50 or $60 version, right?

[00:53:31] John: Yeah, that’s great.

[00:53:31] David: That was great. volume two, that’s the number two best-selling title of them, a 10,000 units. That’s 60 bucks a pop. That’s that retail. Yeah. That’s a lot of them. Invincible volume one is number three, the new edition. I believe that would be the trade paperback of just collecting like the first six issues or so. That was 9,500 units of that. Number four is Invincible Compendium volume three, John, at 9,000 units. So another $60 book at 9,000 units. That’s insane. And then number five, finally, invisible, compendium volume one comes in at 8,800 units. That’s insane.

[00:54:10] John: That’s that really indicates last year, a lot of people bought number one. And then this year they remembered it and they’re like, ah, I got to get down.

[00:54:19] David: Cause the numbers for volume two and volume three are higher than the numbers for volume one, clearly, clearly that’s interesting. Yeah. And then if you go into just the top 10, there are two more invincible volumes in the top 10. So Invincible volume two, the new edition, Invincible volume three, the new edition comes in at eight and 10 respectively. Just Invincible is crushing it, man. Crushing it. That’s crazy numbers for that book. They haven’t made a new issue with Invincible in years. For years, David. For years. And Battle Beasts, you know, the spinoff essentially is still doing quite well in the comic books as well. Anyway, that’s all I have for you were absolute Batman books up there as well or I don’t see any absolute Batman in the top 20 which is interesting which is interesting because last time we looked they were number one through three like it was right up there so I’m not sure what that’s about but yeah there’s nothing

[00:55:12] John: invincible just dominated the top 20 I guess America has decided they want invincible as a cartoon not absolute Batman and they’ve turned on absolute Batman yeah yeah clearly to what we

[00:55:24] David: We should learn from this, is that absolute Batman is about to tank. That’s clearly what’s happening. So anyway, John, there you go. I think that was the chittiest of chats. I think we did a good business. So how you feel? Good, good. Thanks everybody for listening. Come back next week, we’re going to have more nonsense. Yeah, we’ve got some great plans for next week. I’m very excited to share what we’re going to be doing, but I don’t want to spoil it for everybody.

[00:55:47] John: We’ll find out then.

[00:55:48] Outro: This has been the Corner Box with David and John. Please take a moment and give us a five-star rating. It really helps. And join us again next week for another dive into the wonderful world of comics.