Episode 26: The Escapies vs. Harvey Pekar's Ghost

The Escapies discuss the strange world that is the 2026 Harvey Awards Nominations. In other news, the new issue of Absolute Batman is HIGHLY contentious between your beloved hosts, the new Twilight Zone comic is an unexpected masterpiece, and is Absolute Flash the Absolute title you're missing out on?! All this and more in Episode 26! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:26

And you are my world. And if I read comics, I'd have more to say during this podcast. The Escapist Podcast.

SPEAKER_10 0:40

Okay, you have to go again because I coughed.

unknown 0:42

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 0:45

Uh no. Next time, don't cough.

SPEAKER_10 0:51

I've had something like in the back of my throat for like the last two hours. I'm like pissed about it. Um I I I um. Yeah, we've got some comic book news to talk about. Nothing uh scandalous.

SPEAKER_06 1:15

But Oh my gosh, what is going on over there? You've got all the bad words stuck in your throat because there's been so many kids in the store today we can't curse. No, I'm Oh god. Just let it all say every bad word you can think of.

SPEAKER_10 1:28

I'm unwell. Um but we've got some stuff to talk about. We've got a new Tradmore series to talk about, a new Daniel Warren Johnson series to talk about, and then we'll talk about the nominees for uh the Harvey Awards for 2026, which should be kind of exciting. Um I think I've we've we've read some of them. Um I've not read all of them, not by half. I feel like whenever these books come out uh I mean these nominations come out, there's always like a digital webcomics section that makes me just like really aware that I that there's like this whole world of comics that I know nothing about.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 2:18

Like absolutely nothing about. But we'll get into that. Um maybe I'll read some after this episode. Uh but let's talk Tridmore and DWJ first. Um we'll hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Okay, so first one for DWJ is gonna be Chainkata uh by DWJ. This is his first solo announcement since uh his collaboration with Riley Rosenau on um The Moon is Following Us. I don't they haven't like released a ton about it other than to say it's like kind of taking kind of the beta ray bill space mullet end of things, um, and that it's going to be riffing on there's a specific style of martial arts. I'm trying to find this the the name of it here. It's like referenced in one of the articles that I read about it, where like chains and like stuff are used as weapons, and he's instead is like, what if I did that, but with chainsaws? Seems to be another like very high octane, like big blockbuster action series from DWJ. Probably the best blockbuster person we have uh writing and drawing comics. That's kind of all I have to say about that one, I think. There isn't um a ton to say about it in the earliest announcement yet. Um and then kind of the most interesting one to me is Trad Moore announced a completely like solo um independent series gonna be published to Oni in 2027, so a bit of an early announcement. Um, but it's called Touch Me Some Place Nowhere, which is a great title. I I just fuck with that very deeply. Um and this one he describes as a cascading cast of outsiders through their turbulent, violent, and libidinous misadventures in an alternate New York, where a colorful hierarchy of street gangs compete for domination and literal wild animals roam the streets. At its center, Kelly Muir, the prodigal child of a powerful New York City crime family who is about to find herself on a self-immolating lovesick bender through the exuberant nocturnal archipelagos of drug-infused ganglin Brooklyn after dark. So this looks rad as fuck. Um I just love that most of the people on the like the front cover image, because that's kind of most of what we have at this point. Most of them are women. Um god. I have ad blockers on my computer, but not on my phone.

SPEAKER_06 4:43

Oh, the art is so amazing.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

It's so good to see Tradmore back.

SPEAKER_10 4:47

Um yeah, it looks like it's gonna be maybe the most beautiful comic of the year. It's it's from the promotional material, it's as beautiful as uh like any of the most beautifully illustrated pieces of uh comics art that came out this year. I mean, in my head it's kind of like up there with um like Batman Dark Patterns, um which That's Hidden Sherman, right?

SPEAKER_05 5:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_10 5:16

Yeah, okay. Uh and then like Absolute Martian or something. Like it's just like just from the promotional materials, I'm just so excited to like have a book that is like 30 something pages of that art to look at, you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah, for however many issues, even if it's just like four, I'm I'm here.

SPEAKER_10 5:35

Yeah, because we don't know much about it really, uh, do we?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

No, it's I mean like other than like horny psychedelic crime book, we kind of have very little, but like for for That's all I need. That's all I that's all I need, and also when Trad Moore says that, that means a very different like a lot of promotional material just being like, oh, this is like a horny cr like psychedelic crime book. I'm like, okay, but how horny, how psychedelic. Whereas like Moore has long shown his capabilities in doing all of those genres and doing them very well. And he showed himself as an excellent writer with the last kind of thing he did, which was um, or last major work he did, which was uh uh Doctor Strange Fall Sunrise.

SPEAKER_06 6:15

Um my god, I still have my signed Fall Sunrise Treasury edition and signed poster. Same.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Nicest guy, like one of the nicest dudes of comics I've ever met too. We we had him at a signing in 2023, and he was like he's like very he doesn't do a lot of signings. He's like a very quiet kind of you know, he's he's he keeps to himself, he doesn't do a lot of social media stuff, he doesn't do a lot of appearances, but he came here and he was just like as like him and DWJ both were just like incredibly sweet people. It was just a pleasure just being around them. They just had like a warm, inviting like vibe. Um yeah, I'm I'm crazy excited for this book. I'm a little sad that I don't think his wife Heather Moore is colouring it. Oh, really? I think it's just I think he's coloring it, and he's also an excellent color.

SPEAKER_06 7:06

Yeah, no, the colors. I mean the color looks amazing.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

The color looks amazing, and it could be Heather Moore too, because like they're the announcements haven't, you know, it's possible that like they neglected her in the announcements because comic book sites are comic book sites. Um, but either way, it'll be beautiful, and yeah, Heather Moore, if you haven't checked out her colors, uh she's just an exceptional colorist. Um, I I think she's just a stunning talent. Um but yeah, I'm excited to read this book. I think the only other thing I'll say, just because it's interesting, is this main character look like this this uh the who seemingly is Kelly Muir, looks like the lead. He did an EC, or it was like one of the EC like horror anthology books, maybe it was Hello Darkness, recently. And it was really good. Like it was just about this like woman with an eating disorder kind of experiencing this like this this like alternate self maybe appearing under the bed. Like it's a very abstract story that does like he writes about like women's self-image and eating disorders shockingly well. Like, people don't often cover that subject material very well. People also don't make good like horror out of that shockingly, but he and he yeah, he did a shockingly excellent job covering that kind of like very tricky material, especially in such an abstract fashion. And this character looks a lot like that character. Like down to the down to the like the exact like broad build and like anyway. That's all I have to say about that.

SPEAKER_06 8:44

Yeah, do yourself a favor and literally just Google uh God, what is it? Touch me someplace nowhere, Tradmore, just so you can see this cover art.

SPEAKER_10 8:55

I mean, just yeah, the art.

SPEAKER_06 8:56

Like I'm already so sold.

SPEAKER_10 9:00

Even if you don't know who Tradmore is, you should just look look at it and be able to be like, okay, yeah, I do want to read that.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

And I love again how much almost the entire, like, there's like a probably like 10 to 12 people in this, like, this image, and excluding the dog the dog and the tiger, like almost all of them are like very different women, like women of very different like builds and hairstyles, and like that's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 9:24

Yeah, women don't often get to be that different from each other in most comics. Yeah. So this is really nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Men can barely draw one woman sometimes. Trad Moore drew like 10 women and all well. Thank god. Thank god someone's someone's doing it. Um sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there earlier.

SPEAKER_06 9:44

Um that's kind of I said what I said.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

That's all I have to say on on that, I think. We won't really know more until 2027, they said, but they just kind of wanted to give us a little teaser because they know any triedmore news is good, tried more news.

SPEAKER_10 9:59

Uh okay, yeah, the next thing we've got is um the Harveys. Uh if you don't know what the Harveys are, they're named after uh famous early independent cartoonist Harvey Picard, um who has I mean, honestly, too many books to kind of count under his name.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Um probably the most well-known being like American Splendor, right?

SPEAKER_10 10:26

Yeah, American Splendor is probably kind of the best known work. Um he's known as kind of like an early uh yeah, like practitioner of what is now understood as kind of uh comics journalism and cartooning journalism, um in ways that are often really interesting. Um he wrote a book about a hacker that was illustrated by Ed Piscore. Um yeah, I don't know. Picar is very interesting um himself, uh he's dead. Um but these awards are named after him, um, and they honor kind of independent uh n independent comics. I mean, not necessarily only independent comics, but often kind of they revolve around and are focused on um the more underground, weirder stuff normally. Um, although unfortunately there's some stuff that uh is kind of squeaking into uh some of these categories as nominees that I'm a bit disappointed about. Uh, but we'll get into that as we go down the list. Um I am gonna kind of skip over Best Digital Book of the Year and Best Children's Book, because we don't really read either of those things.

SPEAKER_06 11:54

Um It's not Dave Pilke, is it? No.

SPEAKER_10 11:58

Um The only thing that I'm kind of interested in from the Best YA books is Flip by Ngoziu Kazu, and then This Place Kills Be by Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Go. Gao. Um both of those find kind of interesting. Um Best Manga I got it. Thank you. Has some stuff that I think is really interesting and some stuff that I think is like outright not good. Um I see the uh Yeah, the nominees are Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki, um, which is quite good.

SPEAKER_04 12:30

Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_10 12:31

Um He rolled me up like a Grilled Squid by Yoshiharutsuge. Um I kind of have mixed feelings about Tsuge. I think he's I mean, he's kind of a cartoonist, an artist who's incredibly important to like the history of manga and his medium, but I actually don't but well, one, I don't know that he needs more accolades than he already has. Um, and I also just like I don't think that he's particularly interesting outside of a historical context to read.

SPEAKER_04 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 13:04

Um there's Land by Kazumi Yamashita, which I don't know anything about. Um and then there's Miss Ruki by uh Fumiko Takano, which is also really good. Um both Miss Ruki and Billy Bat are uh talked about in um the Thick Lines podcast, which is hosted by Katie Skelly and Sally Madden. Um we'll get into a Katie Skelly book uh later.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Um We also talked about Billy Bat on this podcast. I forget how many episodes ago, but we got it uh an uncorrected proofs and I read it and talked about it on the cast a while back. Did we? Yeah, a while back. Oh, okay. It was like several months ago. So it was like a long, long time ago.

SPEAKER_10 13:47

And then uh My Gorilla Family by Ijima Ichiro is fine. Um I actually don't think it's a ver I think it's not a very good comic. Um it's sort of like reading uh a really old EC horror book or something, where uh the preservation of it as a piece of sort of archival media is important and it's important that it be translated to it's important to a very small number of people who are interested in really old niche um manga from like the early to mid-20th century or whatever. Uh but much like a lot of those old EC comics, it's not actually very good comics, they're not very entertaining. Um they're frankly like pretty poorly made, and then because of their age, they often come with um some unfortunate sort of narrative surrounding uh gender, especially in older manga. Um if this wins, I'll be kind of disappointed. Um it's translated by one of my favorite manga translators, Ryan Johnson. Um that's his name, right? No, Ryan Holmberg, sorry. Uh Ryan Holmberg, who translated a lot of kind of he translates a lot of this genre of manga, um, and some of it's really great. I think often a lot of it is probably more interesting to scholars and like collectors than it is to sort of people who really want to read this work and kind of have a good time reading it. Um I think Yoshiro Itsuke is another example of this. Um and then the last one is My Life in Twenty-four frames per second, um, which is a manga biography, um, a manga autobiography by um animator Rintaro, Rintaro, uh who's uh um he was like an early animator for toy animation um in 1958, uh and if you know anything about mango toys huge, um and then worked with Osamu Tezuka, um, among other legends. Uh I have not read this. Um I've heard interesting things. Um I probably won't read it honestly, but um my pick would honestly be either Billy Bat or Miss Rookie. Um Miss Rookie is just so fun, and I think the fact that it's like a sort of a serialized strip that was collected and is about like sort of like working middle class female life in Japan. Um it's just like so fun. The the art is just like wonderful, the coloring's gorgeous, it's hilarious. Um and then Billy Bat is kind of just this like wonderful uh yeah, just like wonderfully entertainingly made tale.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Um It's like a historical paranoid thriller and also kind of like comic book and national history, and also like five other things. It's really tricky to pin down.

SPEAKER_10 17:09

Yeah, but wonderful nonetheless. Um I was supposed to read it for uh review it for the comics journal, and I just like didn't want to because I just thought it was like really boring, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Um pretty well. Like those like 70s ones, like there are gems in there, but they are buried under a lot of stuff that is as you exactly as you put it, much more interesting for historical preservation purposes than actually reading it.

SPEAKER_10 17:40

Yeah, it's fine. I don't know. I think if you're like a scholar of that era of manga, it's probably interesting to you. You probably won't find it particularly interesting if you're not. Yeah. Um The best international books are also kind of a mixed bag. I know what my favorite would be to win. Um the first is Animan by Anouk Ricard, which I just thought is like I just don't think it's a very good book.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 18:07

Buff Soul by Moa Romanova, which I don't know much about. Um and then there's Mary Payne by Loa Laurenti, which you read and you should talk about. Yeah. Um then there's Octurnos by Laura Perez, Teodora's Letters and Enslaved Woman's Flight, an enslaved woman enslaved woman's fight for family and freedom. Oh, that one's on there. Um my Marcello di Salete, which you should also talk about because you've read, and then there's Witchcraft by Sole Ortero.

SPEAKER_06 18:34

Which I've also read.

SPEAKER_10 18:35

Um which is a fave of the store. Um I'm part way through it and really enjoying it. Just like beautifully crafted. Um we've been talking about this a lot, but like also just a beautiful book object, like a lovely comic to own. Hold in your hands, look at on your shelf, flip through. Uh similar it gives me kind of a similar vibe to like a serious polyp or like a Michael DeForge book, where it's just kind of a joy to to look at even when you're not actively reading it, and to kind of like hold in your hand. Yeah. Um that would be my favorite to win. Um, I don't know. You you should you should give us your two cents, because you've definitely read more of these uh than the rest of us have. Did you read Nocturnos?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

I have not read Nocturnos yet. I like I know I need to at some point, but I've grown. She has kind of like a it's uh Laura Perez, Lauren Perez? Uh Laura Perez. Oh, okay. Yeah, she um I think her work is cool. It's a little bit more kind of like spooky vibe, like cicadas in the night, if that makes sense. Yeah. Kind of vibe, which is like cool, but like not entirely my bag, so I've like not ever had quite the like I've always been interested, but never quite dived in. Um I would I would agree with you. I think Solar Tarot's Witchcraft would probably be my book. Um just because yeah, I mean I I don't have much of anything else to add to what you said. I think that book is largely like just such an exceptionally crafted book. I think it balances a lot of tones very, very well. I think the ending could have been maybe a little bit. I have feelings about the ending, but like, but I but I think it largely holds up. Um Teodora's Letters. I have a hard time deciding if that were or Mary Payne would be my pick. I'd be pretty happy with any of those three, to be quite honest with you. Because I think they're all really great books for very, very different reasons. Um Teodora's Letters is really beautiful, and I think it in it in it provokes a lot of good thought about kind of like the nature of like narrativizing history when when history has been largely erased. Um and what we and the kinds of history we can compile from like from from the record, which makes it a kind of an interesting comparison to Charity and Sylvia, where like we have so so much like historical record with them, and then because of Teodora's status as like an enslaved woman in Brazil, we have significantly less. Um and kind of like what is it, what does it mean to like narrativize somebody who was enslaved and denied like personhood and storyhood, and like the the suppositions we have to make around that. I think it's really cool. It's a really ex it's a really good book. I think the art style is also just like tremendously interesting. It's kind of got like a charcoal um kind of like ash painting kind of effect that looks insanely beautiful. There's a lot that I wish that it maybe had dived into more, but like I think that maybe is just like not fair to the scope of like what the book is actually doing. Like, I wanted to know more about like the free black communities in Brazil that were like outside of and like a lot of other stuff. That the book kind of like touches on, but like it just kind of can't by virtue of like it's it's focusing on these like very specific kind of personal dimensions. Um and then Mary Payne, I would be shocked if that one wins.

SPEAKER_10 22:14

Um because it's just like it's not like a pleasant or like yeah, that that book is that's a real kind of love it or hate it book. Like I personally don't really want to read it because it just doesn't speak to me. Yeah. And I could I think it it it's very dependent on sort of like what the knee-jerk reaction of the readers for it are, you know, and like I'm not sure that you can really like attend to its significance as a work if you don't like it. Whereas I think you could read Theodora and um get something out of sort of the significance of the story, even if, say, like you don't particularly find it like gripping or something, and sort of recognize the artistic power of what it's doing archivally. But Mary Payne, I think it's like probably really easy to crack it open, start reading it, and then be like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 23:16

I'm like not into this. Which is not to say it's a bad book. I just think it's it's a it's an easily contentious book.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Oh, totally, yeah. No, it's like um it reminds me a lot of how people not what not what a David Lynch thing is actually like, but people, but how people talk about David Lynch as this kind of like incredibly abstract, difficult to like parse thing that just feels like rancid, and it's like Lynch is weird and he's abstract and not all of it's understandable, but I do think he's significantly more accessible than people like to frame him as. Like, you can you can usually read what he's going for emotionally and have like a pretty solid idea. Whereas like reading Mary Payne, I was like, oh, this feels bad. Like I don't entirely know what all of this means, but I can understand it in a very it's like it's it's it's poetry, is is what it is. Like it's it's less narrative. Sometimes an artist wants you to feel bad. Sometimes an artist wants you to feel bad, and it's like, is this like how consensual is this relationship with this weird guy and his like weird veil drapes and the weird balloons in his house? Like, is this a consensual or comfortable encounter? Like, is anybody who's manipulating who here? What even is exact like are they even having sex? Is like that's that's kind of where this book ultimately lies in most of its interactions. It feels bad. I think it's really neat, but yeah, I'd I would be shocked to see this win, and I kind of probably don't think it should. Um but I think it's cool. I think if you're looking for a bad time like me, like it is worth looking at. And the art is gorgeous. It looks like um it looks like Ian Bertram's art was like left out in the sun too long and soured. Um kind of sh like got I don't know, like fruited molds and stuff. Um It's nasty work. I fuck with it.

SPEAKER_10 25:14

Yeah, it's it's very unsettling for sure. Um the next section is a little bit odd. Um It's like best uh like comic book adaptation. Um I think they're including both sh I think they're including like shows and films, but also games. Um So like an the new LEGO Batman game uh is on here, which I honestly think is kind of cool. Um but then like the boys is on here, um, the new Invincible is on here, Peacemaker's on here. Um I think like a lot of the stuff that I find kind of annoying is I think both the Oh yeah, I've formulated my thought on this. Um so there's a there's a lot of anime on here. There's Chainsaw Man, there's Demon Slayer, uh, there's My Hero Academia, um There's like the one piece Netflix live adaptation, which I haven't seen yet, but I'm curious to watch. Um, but also I was just scared of the concept of a live-action anime, especially as made by Netflix, although I've heard good things. Um I think it's a little bit I think what's present here is only sort of adaptations by the most popular studios of the most popular versions of both American comics and also uh Japanese manga. Um so you're getting I mean, like if you if you look at the titles, it's like the most popular manga that is being published in Japan and also that is selling in the US right now is like Chainso Man, Chansa Man, Demon Slayer. Um I mean One Piece is always up there. My Hero Academia has been kicking ass uh for like almost a decade. Um although I think it's over now. Um like these are all the most popular sort of brand name manga that have become anime on the market, and then obviously like The Boy is Invincible. Um for the Dentalist, we've got like Spider Noir, which is like uh a Marvel title being produced by like Prime Video and MGM Plus.

SPEAKER_05 27:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 27:38

Um I would love for this category to become like a little more indie, you know. I mean, there's there's so much anime that is produced from manga that you could be sort of engaging with. Like, no one needs to be told that the Chainsaw Man anime is good. No one needs to be told Um that the Demon Slayer anime adaptations are like exciting or interesting, like they're already massively popular. Yeah. And similarly, like I you just you don't need to give the boys I mean the boys does not deserve an award, first of all. I think the boys is like stupid. Um, but also it doesn't need recognition. It's already like a prime video adaptation of like a Garth Ennis turd.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

And and the boys and Invincible, their new seasons, both were like panned for being bad. Like, it seems like they just kind of announced every adaptation they could think of that had happened in the last year, and it's like, okay. I know I know Chainsaw Man is like the most like of of this list, of this list, Chainsaw Man is pretty easily my pick, because that movie's actually gas as fuck.

SPEAKER_10 28:54

I think honestly the best adaptation on this list, and I have not played it, is probably the Lego Batman game. Yeah, there's also that. Like that's probably the best thing that's on it.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

I'm trying to paint. Oh, yeah, there was some way to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_10 29:07

Um like having not played it, but like knowing knowing what I know about sort of both the prestige of like Lego Batman, but also just like how how much people sort of traditionally have cooked on Batman games.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 29:25

That's probably the thing that should win. Um I just think like, why not choose some stuff that doesn't already have millions of eyes? Yeah. That is probably sort of creatively and more artistically of merit. Yeah. You know? Um, but no one ever said awards were meritocracies.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Um this is one of the better, like, awards lists announced this year, and even then, yeah, it's like, you know, awards are not narrowing meritocracies.

SPEAKER_10 29:58

Unfortunately. Uh but the last one, and this is the last category, and this is um this is where some stuff gets a little weird, uh, is Book of the Year. Um, and I'm gonna read the sort of description of it, and then we can talk about what it should be. Um the Harvey Award's highest honor recognizes the year's best work in an effort to help guide readers, retailers, librarians, and educators to essential titles. Book of the Year makes the Harvey Awards unique. If someone asks which comics they absolutely have to read these this year, these nominees are the answer. Um, says I think the director of the the Harvey Awards. Um. So this list is really odd. Um I'm gonna start from the bottom and then go up. Uh, because I think this will like sort of illustrate the oddness of it. Um there's ten nominees uh for Book of the Year. Do we want to talk about them as we go or do we wanna just at the end of after that? I think let's maybe speak briefly about them as we go. Um I've I think most we've read collectively almost all, if not just straight up all of these. There's like one or two that I haven't read that I don't think you've read either.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 31:23

Um I haven't read the bottom three. But there's The Wait by Melissa Mendez, which I I do have quite high on my list and just like haven't gotten to read. There's The Ones in Feature Riot by Joe Sacco, um which happy to see Sacco makes a lot of sense. Um, and I also have not read that yet because I he just has a lot of shit, guys. Like he's got a lot of books, they're very wordy, they're very intense, they're amazing.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Yeah. It's like I have my I have my Palestine book and also my like uh uh like Bosnian genocide book, and I'm like, it's it's hard to feel the like both the density and the like oh I'm gonna crack open the Bosnian genocide book.

SPEAKER_10 32:03

Um but I'm sure it's great. I've flipped through it, it's beautiful art. Um there's more weight as Salem story, which I actually don't know anything about, and like I can tell you tiny, tiny bit. I feel like I've like Oh, it's this book. Yeah, yeah, I recognize this book. Yeah, I've flipped through this. The art in it is amazing. But yeah, again, I have not read it. Um so it's I'm just gonna read what PRH says about it. Uh it's set in Salem, Massachusetts in 69. Uh s sorry, in 1692. Um it's sort of like set in a period in which um accusations of witchcraft are being thrown all over the place. People are like super paranoid. Um it's based on true events and it surrounds uh curmudgeonly farmer Giles Corey and his great-souled wife, Martha, who are forced to confront their troubled pasts, fighting to hold on to their principles, even at the cost of their lives. In the 1860s, famed writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow stroll the streets of Salem together, reflecting on their dark connections to those wicked days. Today, graphic novelist Ben Wicke wrestles with the complex legacy of the witch city and what it shows us about the best and worst of humanity. Um again, I have not read this, but the art is magnificent. Similarly, the book that just seems really like fun to hold. Yeah. It's got some Alan Moore copy on the front cover, which honestly, they must have paid him so much money for that. Um, because he does not want to be associated with comic books in any way.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

That's that they might have got him on this one, because he does love, like, let me tell you about a city, let me tell you about the fucked up ghosts under the city. He does love that.

SPEAKER_10 33:58

Yeah. Um but uh but what was I gonna say? Um I'm sure it's good. I I haven't read it. Um got a Piao 2 Studios book that we've stocked and have been selling quite well, A Garden of Spheres, which is high on my list of stuff to read. Same thing.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

I have I haven't read it, but I've read it. I haven't read it, but I've read everything else she's done. Is that she did Stages of Raw. She did Stages of Raw, she did a Frog in the Fall and later on, she did um she did a story with Gareth Damien Martin for um another Piau book, what was it called? Um X-Mag 6. Um, and then she did a smaller book called Um World Heist. Um so I've read everything but um Garden of Spheres at this point. If you like Nausica, the Valley of the Wind stuff, if you like just like extremely beautifully drawn comics, um it feels very of a piece with like Emorios and a little bit of a little bit of Mobius in there, definitely some some Miyazaki. Um uh yeah, I I just like it's it's stunning, it's gorgeous. I've been so happy to see Piao selling so well. Like we were for a while, Sprocket was the only store in the city which had any uh or in the bay that had any Piau stuff, but then they went out and I was like, we're gonna need to get Piau stuff, people are asking for it, I want it, we should get it, and then we've been selling it like gangbusters. Um it looks excellent.

SPEAKER_10 35:26

Uh yeah, it's beautiful. It's another just gorgeous book object. Um there's The Ephemerada Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief by Carol Tyler, which I'm not quite super interested in reading, but I have seen it and it looks good.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Yeah, same.

SPEAKER_10 35:41

Um there's Drome by Jesse Lonergan, which is excellent.

SPEAKER_04 35:44

Yeah, that's a great one.

SPEAKER_10 35:45

It is, I think, Matt Fraction's favorite comic of like the last ten years. Did he say that really? Um yeah, there's I watched a video recently of him in uh it was like a Matt Fraction's closet picks sort of style video, and he raved about drome. And I personally love Jesse Lonergan. The last Jesse Lonergan thing that I bought was actually his tarot deck, which is incredible. Yeah. Um, but he's amazing, and he kind of, to me, is sort of one of the last great image artists. Yeah. Um when I think about image monthlies, he's like sort of like the the last of the last generation of good image artists.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Um one of the only people who's like actually good at using a grid, um, Tom King found dead in Miami.

SPEAKER_10 36:32

Yeah. Um Jesse Lonergan loves the grid, and the grid loves Jesse Lonergan.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

He knows how to use it. Like, motherfucker knows how to do like motion, like nobody's business. And like using the grid to communicate like speed and motion itself.

SPEAKER_10 36:44

In very different ways, he and Simon Hanselman are both like true masters of the grid because I think they just really embrace it.

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 36:52

Um, and yeah, if this one, I'd be super happy. It's very cool. Yeah. Um the one that I want to win personally is Canon by Lee Lai, which is the next one on this list. It's a favorite of this store.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 37:05

One of my favorite books ever, probably.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

It's incredible.

SPEAKER_10 37:09

Um, just sort of like, yeah, sort of a just true champion of the comics form. Um another great book, but I don't think that beats Canon, is Black Arms to Hold You Up, A History of Black Resistance by Ben Passmore. Um, another excellent book. Um Ben Passmore, I think, probably the great political cartoonist of our time. Yeah. Um This is I think it's from Pantheon. Yeah, it's from Pantheon. Um it's kind of this like it's this sort of humorous, satirical, uh, but also very serious sort of historical look at exactly what it says. The history of armed black resistance in the US. Um it's really good. His art's magnificent, he's just like so fucking smart. Yeah, and the way that he sort of is able to write about history and draw about history is so fluid and graceful and well done. This is a really magnificent book.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Yeah, similarly, his uh his story in American Cult through Sprocket about the move bombing is like head and shoulders the best thing in that book. Like the way that he talks about the move bombing and tells that story is like unbelievable. Yeah, he's he's you said it, he's one of our greatest, like floating coordinates. He's so good.

SPEAKER_10 38:29

Um let's see, and then the last two, and this is where it gets weird, um, is Absolute Martian Manhunter Volume 1 by Dennis Campano Vierodia's from DC, and then this is where it gets really weird, which is Absolute Batman Volume 1, The Zoo, by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragana from DC. Alright. Um so let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Yeah, okay, so Absolute Martian. I can super understand. First of all, this or or canon would be mine very easily. Um that said, I with Martian specifically, it's like it's so not a traditional DC book that I can see it being on on here. Like, it would I would feel weird if even something as good as Absolute Wonder Woman were on here, because that's like still like very much like a a DC cape book, whereas like Martian feels so afield of that. Absolute Batman is just a deeply, deeply unserious suggestion. Like this is this is this is toddler versus atom bomb shit happening here. Um like Absolute Batman is like fun, and sometimes it's even good, but like this this is this is deeply unserious. Like, we like and this is I just I I don't even have anything else to say about it. It's just deeply unserious. Um and I'll make a brief note of this. This reminds me a lot of similarly, the Arthur C. Clarke Awards just did their nominations, and all of them were like actual real books. Um well, okay, that's not fair. They were they're all actual real books, but five of them were like serious contenders for best of the year, and then one of them was Dungeon Crawler Carl, which um one of the judges compared to Nanaquame Ajay Brenya's um Chang Gang All-Stars, um, which is a vile offensive comparison.

SPEAKER_10 40:21

Um, said you have not read Dungeon Crawler Carl. No. I have read Batman, but Yeah, you have not. I I I have to point this out because you are so vitriolic about this book, but you have not read it. I've read little excerpts. And neither have I. But you have not read this book. I've read the Excerpts. Um again, you have not read this book. Um So I I do think that's worth noting. It is worth noting. I have read Batman, though. Um I I and my my take, which I think is maybe uh maybe will come off of uh slightly controversial to you two, is that I don't think that Absolute Martian Manhunter belongs on this list either. Um I think that it is probably the best comic book monthly to come out in the last however many years. Um but I think and I I remember I was listening to a manga chat a while ago, um, while drawing uh that was like Simon Hanselman and Josh Pettinger. I think one other cartoon is talking, um, and they were talking about the not the Eis was it the Eisners? No It might have been the Eisners. Um but they were talking about how they Pettinger and Hanselman were both talking about being nominated uh for like best book of the year or something. Um and they lost to Tom to like Tom King's uh human target or something. Um and I just think like part part of what they were talking about is the sheer sort of advantage that you have as a as a writer, and just like the sheer advantage that the book has if it's backed by a company that's as big as DC. And like do I think that Absolute Martian Manhunter is as good as Canon, um, or like Drome or Garden of Spheres for Black Artens to hold you up? Like, yeah. Do I think that it like needs this award or like deserves this award more than the other books? No. I think in fact it probably deserves it less, especially because it's granted so much reach by virtue of being a DC comic. And I think that does not take away from the quality of the book at all. Yeah. But I do think that it takes away from the sort of deservingness of it, uh, for these awards, you know? Like I think uh like even Bleeding Hearts, which is like not even like I mean it's a Vertigo book, like I think I would still feel weird about Bleeding Hearts winning, but I would feel better about Bleeding Hearts winning than Absolute Martian Manhunter winning. But I just think if you have the backing of some company that is just so much vaster than like Drawn and Quarterly or Pantheon, um or like fucking Piao 2, you know? Um, it just strikes me as a little weird that you're like on the same list as them, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

Um That's a good point, yeah.

SPEAKER_10 43:30

The fact that Absolute Batman is on here, because I think even like Absolute Martian Manhunter absolutely lives up to what they're describing here, which is if someone asks which comics they absolutely have to read this year, these nominees are the answer. Basically, you're saying that these are the ten most most historically and canonically important books of this year in the comics industry. And that is to me a very different question than what are the ten most sort of sensational, most popular. Sort of most important books for you to read to like talk about shit with your fellow nerds at the comic book store for the next couple years. Like to me this list should be of historical importance, and I frankly I have no confidence that we will be talking about absolute Batman in two years. Yeah. Um I do I think it's like a pretty damn solid Batman book. Yeah. Um does that mean it's of historical importance? No. Because we've had so many good Batman books. Yeah. It's been running for like a century almost. Like it's just It's just insane to me that Absolute Batman is on this list because it just pales so deeply in comparison with sort of the artistic and historical merit of every other book on this list.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Yeah. You know? Which is part of why, like, again, setting aside my like personal distaste about Dungeon Crawler Carlos aside, like, I think the way that Dungeons specific nomination was framed, and the reasons why they said they framed it, is probably what the same reasoning for Absent Batman is, which is like they framed it as like, oh well, we wanted to have like a a reader's favorite, like this is like a big seller, and we like wanted to like and that was their that was their reasoning for putting Dungeon on on um on the Arthur C. Clarke Awards, and similarly I feel like that's what's happening here. It's like it's the thing that like has the most attention and money and like going towards it.

SPEAKER_10 45:41

Yeah, it's just really odd because it's like it's not I feel like that's like not necessarily like what the Harveys are, I guess, and like that's a little strange to me. Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know, we'll see. My my guess is it's just not gonna win, and like good. I would love to hear what Aldo has to say. Um because Aldo's been whispering Absolute Martian to himself.

SPEAKER_09 46:06

Um I agree with pretty much all that you said, except like and I don't want Absolute Batman to be on the list, because like I don't think it's bad, but it's just a really cool action comic. Um but yeah, I actually think it should be because like right n like culturally right now it's huge. Um and people like pe people are like, Do you have Absolute Batman? Do you read Absolute Batman? So for the moment, yeah, I think it fits on the list, but I don't think it should win. Cause um I don't think Martian Manhunter should win either, but I think it should be on the but like I love Martian Manhunter. Um I haven't read any of any of the other stuff uh on the list, but uh pick pick any of those over Martian or Batman.

SPEAKER_10 46:53

Yeah, I I think yeah, I think you make a very good point. Um it's it's interesting too like the amount of excitement that absolute Batman like just seem to summon out of people. Yeah. It's kind of amazing. It's a hype engine. I know people do kind of go insane for it.

SPEAKER_09 47:19

Um he has an axe, he's got shoulder spikes, his cape is like we a weird shape, like he's cool, he's really cool.

SPEAKER_10 47:28

Um yeah, I'm I mean I'm gonna vote. I'm I'm a voter for it, so um send me money if you want the absolute Batman to win. I guess is what I'm saying. Um no, I'm just kidding. Uh Harvey Picard's ghost.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Um I can hear him banging on the glass up there. Uh let's talk new comics. Should we should we trans transition into Absolute Batman? Because I do think this is a good avenue into just.

SPEAKER_10 48:03

Yeah, go for it. I wait, I can I can take it because I haven't read Absolute Batman. Okay. For the listeners at home, the phone's ringing.

SPEAKER_06 48:10

So it's the only way to call into the show.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

Oh my god, that would be so much.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Absolute Absolute Batman is is a land of contrast. Um I think it is often a pretty fun comic. It's a comic that I've enjoyed many times. I think some of it is even very good. Um, the Poison Ivy issues, especially. I have also been a noted hater of the um of the Joker issue and the the Arkham issue. And I think it's best best to explain before I actually get into the specific details that like Obsolute Batman is a hype machine, and it's a naturally occurring hype machine because it's cool as fuck. Like, Snyder and Dragota have figured out that like doing cool shit and doing it like with solid technicals is cool, and like that's rad as fuck. And it's such like a naturally occurring engine that like the entire image uh like speculator market is trying to replicate what absolute Batman just naturally had, forgetting that like fucking White Sky is never going to be a Batman comic. That like none of these things can replicate that because they absolute Batman was not trying to be a hype engine, and it just became one. That said, I think with both the announcement of the show and this arc in particular, the absolute Batman like machine has like fallen victim to its own hype, like it's started to smell its own farts a little bit. Because, like, what have we got before we even get into specifics? What do we have going in this arc? We have the introduction of Scarecrow, the introduction of Deathstroke, the introductions of the like villainous forms of Penguin and Two Face, we also have the Robin Mechs, we also have the origin of Harley in the middle of the arc. We're going to have Clayface's first appearance. There's two other first appearances, which I'm not even going to count because they're very brief. Um there's probably shit that I'm missing, but the point is, like, they're doing like 20 different things. Scarecrow just kind of disappeared for like two or three issues until the very end of this one, and it's like this this was the boy. This is the guy the fucking arc is named after. Where is he? What is he doing? Um, which again is kind of the least of this book sins ultimately, because like at this point the book is kind of operating frequently, at least this arc, is operating on like how many hype moments can I fit into a book? And hype doesn't mean good. Hype means will they write 10,000 articles about this on comic sites? Absolute Batman's darkest twist yet, absolute Batman's newest introduction of a fucked up villain. Um again, we do have that. Like the introduction of of fucking um Calendar Man as like a little boy who eats his way out of the body of the older version of himself is eye-rollingly embarrassing. It's it's the level of like absolute condiment king is like use like tries his condiments out on people because he's a cannibal. He's so fucked up. It's it's it's it reads as like wouldn't it be fucked up if and there's gonna be 10,000 articles about like the cat the not your daddy's calendar, man. And it's like I didn't need that. No one wants this. But again, least of this book's sins. Um the greatest of these books' sins is that this is supposed to be a Harley origin issue. In the middle of the arc, for some reason, um, drawn by someone else, and I will say, were their Deladera completely innocent. Um, his art is fantastic in this. I actually would like to see him draw more. Absolutely Batman. His figure work, awesome, his character acting, awesome. Sometimes I would even argue maybe even comparable or sometimes even a little better than Dragota's, um, which I say is somebody who loves Dragota's work. That said, like Harley is nothing here. Like, this isn't an origin issue for Harley. Like, the interesting stuff about Harley has already been told to us. Like, that she's like, that she's like the leader of this like Red Hood anarchist self. That's cool, I like that. This book doesn't talk about that. This book doesn't give us any meaningful insight into Harley as a character. This book doesn't give us really anything to work with. What this book or what this issue is, is a setup to a punchline. And the punchline is, you know what the twist out of Harley Quinn is, her daddy's the joker. Or her daddy's maybe the joker. Which is, okay. Either her dad's the joker, and that's fucking stupid, or her dad's not the joker, and that's also fucking stupid, especially because Harley's whole point in telling this story was like the joker and the and the the scarecrow manipulate you with information, and they're they're gonna tell you lies. And so maybe it's a lie, but if it's a lie, then why is she fucking telling us this? Why does it matter? Like the story's actually not really that relevant. She could have just said, Scarecrow's lying to you, bud, and Batman says, I know. Umberly also spends several speech bubbles literally explaining what a straw man is. Um, which is It's a lot, it's actually a lot of text on that page. It's a so much text on that page, and it's like, dog, calling it the straw man was enough. Like, I f I figured it out. Like, it was not a hard like you spelled it out and then Harley just spends several word balloons explaining it. But if like the Joker's her dad, that's fucking stupid. And if they want us to believe Joker's her dad, it's fucking stupid. It's the same problem that like that like Joker manipulated Batman from the very beginning thing.

SPEAKER_10 54:13

That pissed me off.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

I was so annoyed by that. It's the same thing. It's like either it's true and that's stupid, or they're like fucking with him. They're like fucking with him and it's like, well, that's also dumb. Like, it's a waste of time.

SPEAKER_10 54:26

Well, I think it's a little bit it feels a little bit to me like whenever they try to either make Batman's parents being killed in like the normal content movie, like something that one of his like villains did. Yeah. Or when they try to make Spider-Man become Spider-Man, like this act of fate or something, it's like fans hate it because it actually kind of undermines the like thematic foundation that is both of their characters, which is like they just happened to, they were like normal people who happened to have some deep trauma happen to them. Yeah. And then kind of decided to help others because of it, because of something inside of them.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_10 55:09

Not because of like. Which is kind of a bummer because I do feel like Snyder in Absolute Batman was writing characters pretty well. Yeah. For like the first, like ten, twelve issues or something. Yeah. Like it really did feel like he was writing Bruce Wayne as a character. He was writing Bruce Wayne's friends as a character. He even wrote Bane as a character. Which is hard. It's Bane.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

You know? Yeah, Bane's not had very many good takes over the years. And it's kind of just sad to like watch him. It just feels like he's turning his back on it. I don't know. He's huffing his own farts. Like, what is this issue? It's not character beats, it's not plot developments, it's moments that they will write an article about. Like, we're gonna we're gonna hear, like, there's gonna be 10,000 articles about how like Scariko actually may have Bruce Wayne's dad chained up naked in a basement. Maybe that's real, maybe that's not, but like, who fucking cares? Like, it's not a plot beat, it's a it's like a twist so that like comic sites can hype it up and they can write little articles about it. Like, same with the calendar man thing, same with Harley's origin, which again tells us nothing about her. Kind of think Aldoma Boy. Sorry.

SPEAKER_09 56:41

I don't read, I've read like four or five issues of this and Oh, I thought you were caught up.

SPEAKER_10 56:46

Never mind.

SPEAKER_09 56:46

No, I mean I've read the latest issue, but like I just read them here and there when I'm gonna. Oh, that's so funny. It's like I wanted to read. Do you like know what's going on in like the No I like look at the covers and I'm like, okay, so Robins are like evil and they have big mechs. I like Harley Quinn, so I wanted to I wanted to read this one because I like Harley Quinn and I I heard it was like her it was more about her, and then I read it and um You're I thought it was my favorite custom ever.

SPEAKER_10 57:14

I I love when you go in the store. That's so good. Uh yeah, I really like not drinking the Kool-Aid at all.

SPEAKER_09 57:21

No, I I drank the Martian Manhunter Kool Aid. Yeah, I think. Well, that looks neat. I think I think Abs Bane Flash. I think the Flash looks cool, but I haven't read any of it. I have I've I've read zero. I've not even seen a panel.

SPEAKER_10 57:34

I just caught up to Absolute Flash. Uh-huh. So Persephone and Walter think that, like, they and I I'm not saying this to refute them, but their take is that like Absolute Green Lantern is like the sleeper hit of the absolute universe. I think Absolute Flash is the sleeper hit of the Absolute Universe. Because I just think it's really fun. And I think that it reinvents a lot of the characters in ways that I think like Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman, like, haven't really done. Cause I think Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman kind of like darken and twist a lot of these characters. Um and then sort of Absolute Green Lantern and Absolute Martian like fully change like everything in very different ways. Like Absolute Green Lantern, like the concepts for the powers are really different. Um, like the nature and look of the characters is often like incredibly different. And then Absolute Martian, it's just like it's basically like Dennis Kemp never read a Martian Manhunter book ever and was like, here's my Absolute Martian. Here's the book I wanted to write before you gave me this title. Um in the best way possible.

SPEAKER_09 58:48

Um I mean, yeah, he's not he doesn't work like he looks like Gumby and like he's like he was he was designed out of clay first.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

That makes sense. That's so cool. Have you ever had Riguez like sculpt him sculpted him out of clay first to get like a better handle on the design? And then like once you know that you just see him the little the little clay model, little dude!

SPEAKER_09 59:07

Um sorry.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

No, no, don't apologize.

SPEAKER_10 59:10

But absent Flash, though, it's like I think like a lot of the characters remain really similar, but I think he like he changes the nature of their relationships to one another in ways that I think are so interesting. Um, like, Flash has this kind of great rogues gallery of like goofy science villains, basically. Yeah, and like I think at this point, like, like I think the the Ryan North Flash is a great example of this. Like Captain Cold is like an erstwhile ally of the Flash in saving Central City or whatever. Um which I think is like it was like this wonderful kind of like tense buddy comedy, like two or three issue arc that was great. Um and then in Absolute Flash, like he also forms like this like kind of interesting alliance with like a lot of the people that are his villains in the normal book, but instead, like they're both victimized by the US government in Absolute Flash, and they sort of end up teaming up in this like really emotionally sort of satisfying, interesting way, and they play with his powers. They kind of they he uh Lemire is doing a similar thing to what uh who's on Absolute Green Lantern? Oh, Al E Wing. Um to what Al Ewing is doing in Absolute Green Lantern, where they were like, okay, like we're gonna make their powers pretty similar to what they are in the original comics, which is like he like you can make things with your ring that you imagine or flashes fast. Like but they tweak the sort of underlying foundations of those powers and like change the sort of sci-fi explanations of the concepts and stuff so that they can kind of tell different stories with the same powers, which is something that I really love. And then the art is really good too. The art's wonderful. The coloring's great, the inking is really good. Frankly, I don't know why people aren't talking about it more, because I just think it's it's not as like emotionally devastating or something as like Absolute Martian or like as like bombastically like Oh my god, like did you see that shit? I can't believe Snyder did that, as like Batman is or whatever. Um but it's just like really fun and I think really like heartfelt in a way that Absolute Wonder Woman feels. Yeah. Um like I think there's just like a lot of heart and a lot of care going into it. But I think that because it's not super flashy, or it's not like this huge total overhaul of like characters and lore in the same way that like Batman or Martian is, or even that that Wonder Woman is. I think Flash and Green Lantern have both kind of flown under the radar because people don't have shit to like tweet about them or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:02:09

Um but they're they're just as good as all the other stuff that's coming out, with the exception of like Absolute Martian, because like nothing is as good as Absolute Martian.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:02:18

Um I think they're just kind of like it's harder to encapsulate them in like little sound bites, and so they fly under the radar a little more. Because Green Lantern and Flash are both the only absolute series that we don't have like basically a whole shelf dedicated to our stock of.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:02:35

Because they don't sell as well. But they are both excellent.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:02:39

And you would like Flash. Like, I I think you would enjoy Absolute Flash.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

You would. I because I've I have read some of it, and if I were if we were doing the podcast when I was reading those early issues of Absolute Flash, I would have stayed on it. Because my my reading habits were just different. I was reading a lot less monthly titles, and I was keeping it tighter, so it just kind of got something that got lost by the wayside. That said, what I like I read like the first arc of it and I thought it was pretty good. Like I it is a pretty good book, and I would agree with you, like that and Green Lantern both like in different ways, but also similar ones, like fly under the radar. Because they're just not as like they're not as flashy, they're not as soundbitey, exactly as you said. Like, and they're just not like the big three. Like, and frankly, they're both better series than Batman is on a consistent basis, like saying that.

SPEAKER_10 1:03:31

Sort of nauseating.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Yeah. Um like you can go from those like Poison Ivy issues that Aldo just picked up, and like they're some probably the best issues of that book. Like, easily probably the best issues of that book. And then you come over to this, the the fucking Scarecrow, Two-Faced Penguin, Deathstroke, Robin Beck, Calendar Man, fuck ass, uh, arc, um, and it continues to fall apart under the weight of itself.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:00

It's just really odd because I do feel like Snyder knows how to write Batman. Like we've seen him write Batman in a way that is not a villain every issue or every two issues.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:12

And I do kind of wonder if a certain amount of it is like an editorial bent rather than like what Snyder would love to be doing. Because the way that Snyder talks about Absolute Batman is like if they'll let me write like 400 issues or whatever, like I will. But it doesn't seem like what DC is having him write is something sustainable for that long. Yeah, because he's like running out of reveals. And I feel kind of bad for him because I do think like you could get six issues out of like almost any of the villains that he's creating, you know, like the the one that I think of like most sort of frequently when I think about like things that I regret don't recur more in Absolute Batman is the Mr. Freeze story arc. Yeah, that was a great arc. It's like it's really creepy, it's like really odd, it's a fun reinvention where he's like infected by like the virus of cold.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:05:08

Which I think is very sort of fascinating and weird and hard to wrap your head around. But then he only appears for like one issue and it's just a bummer, you know? And like the best arc I think is probably either the first arc or the bane arc. The bane arc is really fun and it's one of the longer ones, but that's because it's longer. Yeah. You know, like or the Poison Ivy arc, I you're like it's like what two issues. And like when I saw the second issue with Poison Ivy, I was like, oh yes, maybe he's gonna like uh tell another story. Yeah. Because he has a villain appearing in multiple arcs, and then it ends. And it's uh it's a very bombastic ending, and I did like the Poison Ivy issues, but uh I wasn't left wanting more in a good way. I was left thinking that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

Yeah. That's all. Like we're not gonna see her again for like thirty issues. Yeah. If at all.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:04

Which is just a bummer, you know, and like we haven't seen Mr. Freeze. No. Where's he at? Where's my boy? Where's where's Mr.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:11

Chili Billy? Yeah, where's Mr. Chili Billy? Yeah, it's like I hadn't thought of editorial to your your point. Like I hadn't thought of editorials, like interference here, because that that that could be as much, if not all of it, than than Snyder himself. It's just like this series need hut needs hype moments, and for a while it was like it was it was a natural hype machine because it was good, it was fun, it was big, it was bombastic, you could tweet about it, and it was cool. And then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger, everyone was trying to do it, couldn't live up to it, only Batman was sustaining it, and then DC was like fifty billion more to our money printer, please.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

And at some point, like absolute Batman is going to collapse under the weight of that, and it's probably gonna happen pretty s like it's already collapsing under its own weight, and it's like barely being held together. So either The absolute Batman bubble bursts. It will burst! You can feel you can actively hear it pop in real time. And like, whoever's decision, whether that's Snyder's or editorial or whoever, needs to shut the fuck up and let the book just be a book.

unknown 1:07:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

Because it's feeling increasingly less like a book and increasingly like a series of headlines that they just got a bunch of really good artists to illustrate. Which again, bummer, because Deladera does some stunning work here. Like, frankly, don't even read the words. Flip through, flip through for Deladera's art. It's awesome. I would love to see him do more. It's great.

SPEAKER_10 1:07:37

Yeah, I feel bad for Snyder, because I didn't really like his New 52 Batman.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:07:43

And I just feel like it doesn't seem like he's being allowed to pace Absolute Batman the way that he wants to.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:07:49

Because the way that he paces New 52 Batman is honestly kind of perfect. Yeah. It's like the minute you're kind of ready for something to wrap up, he's wrapping it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:07:59

And he's wrapping it up in ways that are very entertaining, yeah. But he knows when something has sort of perfectly stayed its welcome. Yeah. And he knows how to really perfectly transition from one thing to another. But then I think he's just given so little space to do anything with any of these characters that one, you don't get to kind of sit with any of these characters other than Batman. Yeah. But two, he's not able to transition. Because there's just there's not enough space to start a story, much less end it or transition into another one. Uh-huh. Whereas like I think the Court of Owls is such an excellent example of Scott Sander writing really well. Yeah. Because he's like leaving these little breadcrumbs the whole story through, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, this like creepy fucking thing is happening. And he's like set it up really well, and you're like ready for it. Yeah. And it's fun. Yeah. And exciting.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:56

Let him transition. Let let Scott transition.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

Like to your point, yeah, like his New 52 stuff and his All-Star Batman too. Like, if you've read his All-Star Batman run, also paced excellently. Like he's He has the sauce. He has the capability of writing these characters well. And even if he was retriting Old Brown, which is not what I would want from him, but even if he was, he is capable of doing it. It's just sad what they've what this book has become. And uh, I don't know. I hope get better soon. Um but they won't, because Clayface is next issue. Um And Barbara Gordon and etc, etc. down the line. Um until there are no more Batman characters left. An absolute condiment king will pour the last line of ketchup on the last hot dog made of the Denizens of Gotham. Amen. Amen. I'm gonna briefly As it was for told. If we don't have anything else to say about Absolute Batman.

SPEAKER_10 1:09:59

Hit me with like a brief Catwoman update.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:01

What's what's going on with my girl? So I was significantly less positive on the first issue. The second issue, I think, has kind of found some footing here. I don't think it has the gas for more than six issues.

SPEAKER_10 1:10:14

That's good though. It's only six issues.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:15

It's only six issues, but I will say it finally, because too, something you said earlier was like most of Absolute Catwoman at this point, like hadn't had a relationship with anybody. Like it like 80% of her character was just like has fucked Bruce Wayne before. Um and has kind of cool outfit. Um and while I like we've finally gotten to a point where she's having this relationship with other characters, and particularly like interesting women in DC who we haven't seen before. Like, and even to kind of contrast to um absolute Batman a tiny bit, this is the introduction of like absolute huntress and absolute Vicksage question mark as a woman.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:02

The question.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

The question, and like they don't make a thing of it at all. Like they're they're just like, oh yeah, these are my friends that I used to roll in a crew with back in the day, and like we got locked into these like social roles that we had when we were 13 years old, and then we didn't know each other for like 20 years, and then now we're like forced back into proximity again, and like trying to engage with with each other as like the complex adults that we used that that we that we've grown up to be, and uh that we've grown up to be. Thank you, Deepa, that we've grown up to be, uh, while still kind of sinking into these old uh social roles. And like that works. Like that's again, it's not mind-blowing stuff, but it's like it feels like it's finally found a solid ground for her character to exist other than absolute Batman makes money.

SPEAKER_10 1:11:53

Yeah, I do kind of wish that they'd had someone else write Absolute Catwoman. Partially because I think maybe Scott Sider just like should be given the space to just work on Batman. And also because like I would love for like there well for one that for there to be like more women characters just like written by women, but also for there to just be like more women writers in the absolute universe.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:20

Yeah. So this is co-written by uh a non-binary person, Shay Grayson.

SPEAKER_10 1:12:25

Still, it's like I feel like the the selling point though is undeniably Snyder. Yeah. And it would be great if everyone was just allowed a few more opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:39

Yeah. Uh it does it does feel like a bummer that like for most of the people in the line are pretty white. Um, with the exceptions of like Dennis Camp and um and um and uh Porncy Pisha Chote. Um for certain. There's pr there might be other, and then like Genoa Lindsay when he was doing Absolute Wonder Woman Syncodian. But for the most part, the the line is pretty white, especially in the writing department. Um it's kind of a shame that the first absolute book to be written by a black non-binary person also has to be chaperoned by Scott Snyder. Um that said, the difference between the two issues, I'm wondering if Snyder kind of bounced after the first, because there is like a pretty marked shift in the like the internal voice, and it's way better. It's way, way better. Like again, it's not revolutionary, but it's like I actually there's like an actual voice here rather than just like a series of like Ocean's 11 cliches and cat puns. Um she feels like a tangible person now. Again, nothing that deep, but like but uh but but like something that'll at least follow through to the six issues, to which like after the first one, I was like, I'm not even sure I'm gonna read the second issue, dog. And I'm glad I did, because it was significantly better than absolute Batman this week. Um I'm excited to see where it goes. I want to know more about Absolute Victoria Sage. Tell me I want to know more about her. What's up with her? Is she gay or what? We don't know yet. They need more gay bitches. I mean, Che Grayson's gay, but like let's they're not e like we're not even sure if DC Editorial is letting letting Kelly Thompson make Absolute Wonder Woman explicitly gay yet, so we'll see. Um what do we want to jump to next?

SPEAKER_10 1:14:33

Oh, I did want to say my hot take. I think that absolute Bruce Wayne is getting bisexual.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:38

Oh, no, he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:14:40

I think he seems really bi. Yeah. Um I don't know that I can really explain why. No, you're right. That was my question. But I absolutely stand by my take. I think that the way Nick Tragota draws him also feels kind of gay, kind of fruity.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:57

No, I I get I get what you're saying though, like it's hard to articulate, but he's got a kind of like He's he's got the kind of vibe of like guy who's like really popular with like twinks and trans women, and he's like enough of a chill dude that he just kinda doesn't bring it up. Like he's not like a bragging dude. Like he's probably got like an insane gay body count, but he's just not the type of dude to like be weird about it. He fucks with the dolls, for sure. He definitely Say what you will about absolute Batman. Absolute Bruce Wayne fucks with the dolls.

SPEAKER_10 1:15:33

I think I think Absolute Bruce Wayne is um a little bit like uh Marlon Brando, in that Brando has that like he's got that quote that's like, um, I like many men uh have had homosexual experiences with other men um and feel no shame about it, you know? Yeah. Like I think he's just kinda chill with it. He's just chill like that. Marlon Brando said that? Yeah. Shot up. That's so fun. Yeah, queer queer legend, Marlon Brando. No kidding.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

Most celebrities used to fuck dudes more.

SPEAKER_10 1:16:09

Yeah. I think Hollywood was just a less surveilled place back then.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:16:14

It was both a less sort of publicly accepting, but also far less surveilled place. Yeah. So you kind of just do whatever. Yeah, you can kinda I don't know. Yeah. Uh, what should we talk about next? Um, oh, I'll talk about Daredevil. Please, yeah. Um and then we'll talk about uh that. Um Daredevil number four, um best issue so far of the run. Um it's is it Stephanie Phillips? Yes. Yeah, it's Stephanie Phillips. Um I have I really enjoyed issues one through three. Um issue one gave me so much hope for comics, uh, because I was so just like Saddened by the Salad and Ahmed run of Daredevil. Like it just kind of sickened me.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:12

Oh no. Um it was so bad.

SPEAKER_10 1:17:14

Um I didn't realize that. But this run is really good. Um I would say like I was telling Gordon this, uh, but like if you haven't started it and feel daunted about where to start, I think like pick up issues one through four and like read them all straight through as if they were like a little trade in and of themselves, and you'll get like a really nice little sort of not full story arc, but sort of beginning to really big fun cliffhanger of like maybe the first half of the first story arc or something.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_10 1:17:51

Um Phillips has introduced like a new villain, which I think is fun. Um he's like this from what we understand. Actually, I'm not gonna say what we really understand about him, but uh there's a villain stealing people's eyes and murdering them. Um and Matt Murdoch is a suspect. Uh what, like the lawyer? Yeah. Um but it's just it's just really good. The art's great. Um I always forget this person's first name. Um It's Lee Garbette. Um and it's just uh it's just like one of those things that's really solidly written. They're like not shying away from like the inherently very dark aspect of Daredevil's character, which is a real gripe that I had with Ahmed's run, because Ahmed's run of Daredevil was like so goofy, and Daredevil's just not a goofy character. Like Daredevil's villains are like murderers and like human traffickers, and he's just like a guy who boxes really good and like can take a lot of punches. Like it's not a silly goofy romp. Yeah. Um and Ahmed made it that in a way that I found like really annoying, like super quippy and just like so bland. And then Phillips took the series and said, You're not doing it right. Let me show you. Um, and like swerved really hard into like eye-stealing serial killer territory in a way that is just like really, really fun. And there's like hints of horror in this that are really good. Um, and we'll we'll talk about this more with Barbara Gordon Breakout and Clayface, but there is like a real mystery at the heart of this book that I just like that to me makes a comic so compelling and fun, especially because like I mean Daredo was like not sort of like a true detective, but like he he he's he is like he's a detective in much the same way that like Batman is a detective. Like he's trying to solve crime and get to the bottom of crime, although it's often like organized crime rather than like Joker crime or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:20:18

Um and there's like a few different mysteries at the heart of this. There's like a bit of like a police procedural vibe to it that's really good. Um it just feels like really well-written comics. Um on a title that I really love. Um, and I think everyone who's a Daredevil fan but was kind of put off by the last run, um, would do well to pick this up because it's just a good time. Are you ready to check out? Yeah. Um everything okay. That's kind of all I have to say about uh this run. I just I feel a little bit like I do with like the Flash and the Fantastic Four, where I just feel like they were kind of done dirty for a while, and then they just ended up with the right team, and all of a sudden they're good again. Um and it makes me really happy because these characters deserve respect and care and effort, and Daredevil's getting all those things. Um let's talk let's talk Juni Boss um what's its face? Oh, Twilight Zone? Yeah, thank you, Twilight Zone. I was gonna say Juni Boss Twin Peaks.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:28

That would go crazy. Um for those who don't know, there's a Twilight Zone comic coming out right now where they just switch out writers and artists like every issue. Sometimes it'll be a writer artist. Um Tom Scioli did one that I shockingly didn't like that much. It was just like I don't know. He made some weird paneling choices in there that didn't compliment his art. Um uh Dan Waters did one with Morgan Beam. Like, there's been some some fun little little teams, but like none that have like really captivated me um until I saw Juni Baugh writing and drawing a Twilight Zone issue, which meant that I was going to lock the fuck in uh like an adult. Um and Aldo and I locked the fuck in like adults and read The Twilight Zone A Day in the Life by Juni Ba or Day in the A Day in the Day in the Life by Juni Bah. Aldo, what what were your thoughts on A Day in the Day in the Life?

SPEAKER_09 1:22:20

Uh it was really good. I didn't know there was Twilight Zone comics until I came in today, and I was like, wait, what? And it's done by Juni Baugh. Um so I was like, that's cool, so I picked it up and uh it was really, really good. It made me cry. I had to stop reading it for a bit because I couldn't, I couldn't see the letters because there was tears. Um the art is fantastic, like the character designs are just really cool. Um on page 17 panel, like just the whole page, uh the expressions on the character is is really cool. He goes from one expression to another. Uh there's like sort of a transformation uh happening. Uh and it's just it's like very good uh and emotional and um yeah, it's uh it's really I don't know how to talk about things without just like being like, this happened and then I felt this way, but so I won't. But uh it's very good. It's just it's very good.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:19

Um as you said, like it's a hard issue to talk about narratively without spoiling, so we just won't, but like but just on a technical level, like Juni Baugh has always pulled from like various kind of like West African art traditions and like uh painting and pottery and like and and a lot of different kind of kind of traditions. And he does some like incredibly cool stuff with like figure work that we haven't seen entirely. Like it's very similar to figures he's done, but not entirely. He does some really cool stuff with the faces, um, which again I won't say anything about what those faces are.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:59

Um if you know Juni Ba's art, you know you're getting something really cool and creative.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:05

Yeah, and if you're just like if you're just familiar with like West African art traditions, I mean like these are the faces that are on some editions of um Audrey Lord's Sister Outsider. Oh really? There's there's there's that I I don't I don't know enough to say like what hyper specifically like that genre of of facial design is called, but there is a copy of Sister Outsider or one of the publishings of Sister Outsider that has faces like that. Um Let me see if I can find it. Um Okay, this one wasn't as distorted as I had remembered it in my brain, but you can still see some of the like the ways that the nose and the eyebrow and kind of like curving into a cheek are kind of like one continuous line. Right. Um and the ways or yeah, or the ways that like a mouth and a nose and a brow ridge are like abstracted into like one kind of squiggle. Um Boss just kind of a master of the form, and he does something here which is like I'm sure another comic has done it or done something like it before. Like someone's had to have done that, but like the way that like the only thing I'll say narratively is that what one of his characters is a diver. And so there are multiple pages of the book where the reading order is a U, like they're diving, going from left to right, um, the panels diving across the page in a U.

SPEAKER_10 1:25:28

And it does comics are for nerds, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:31

Yeah, that's why we work here.

SPEAKER_10 1:25:35

I have lots of sex. Speak for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:37

I'm really I've seen sports of it. Hold up, I fuck a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:44

By the way, I've been here for the past 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:47

Welcome, welcome back to the podcast, Sam Cameo. Hell yeah. Sam Cameo. Sam Triumph. That was beautiful. But yeah, this is just this is just this is just a beautiful book. Like both visually and just emotionally. I was very struck by it. I knew it was gonna cook, but I was just kind of not ready for like I don't know, platonic ideal of like a Twilight Zone comic, platonic ideal of like this kind of like folk tale that he's gotten really, really good at telling. Um like with the fable of Earl King Wood, and same with uh Mobilis and uh Jellia, little pieces of monkey meat. Like, he's just kind of one of the most important comics talents we have in Bro, we're sold out.

SPEAKER_10 1:26:34

Of Twilight Zone? Twilight Zone. Yeah, I want to read it.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:37

You guys made me want to read it. That never. I'll just let you borrow my copy. Baskets. I'll let you borrow my copy. Yeah, you're wearing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:45

I literally just read it. I I can't say there's much I could add on to this conversation towards it. Uh however, it is quite the little um it is quite the little transitionary story. Yeah. And I love the the slightly subtle themes of what we leave behind.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:09

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Really cool stuff about generational legacy, as as as you put it, and like what we leave behind. I yeah, if you haven't read a Juni Ba book before, Sam, I like uh implore you to read a Juni Ba book.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:24

Remind me, did Juny Ba do Monkey Meat is the big one. Monkey Meat.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:29

He did, he did uh that Robin book. Yes, I was just about to.

SPEAKER_10 1:27:35

I've got the the entirety of Boy Wonder. I really want to read that as well. Walter really likes it. It's excellent.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:41

It's really good. It's made me care about Robins that I have never cared about. I've never cared about Jason Todd in my entire life, except for that that one issue that he's in in Boy Wonder. So cool. I just don't I just like a lot of the robins don't do much for me, but but like Juni Ba finds. What about the gay ones? Which one? Like a lot of them.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:02

Oh, wait, really?

SPEAKER_10 1:28:04

I mean only kind of.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:06

Only kind of. One canonically.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:08

Um there was like a token gay one. But this that's Tim Drake. Yeah, Tim Drake's the token gay.

SPEAKER_10 1:28:13

Grayson is bi.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:14

No. Dick Grayson's not officially bi, but like and ass is bi- that ass is absolutely bi. That ass swings many ways. But ass is a tether ball, it's swinging in all directions.

SPEAKER_10 1:28:25

There are a lot of pretty explicit bisexual jokes in Grayson, which is the Tone King Dick Grayson as a super spy. Yeah. Um. And that I think canonizes him to me as gay. Not gay, but queer. Yeah. Um, but they've never actually shown him with a man. Um They should. They should, yeah. They should, yeah. It's one of those, like, as far as I am concerned. The sales of Nightwing. Cause the the prime readers of Nightwing, barring Aldo, are like bisexual girls between the ages of like 15 and like 23. And if they turned Nightwing even like 10% more yowie, the sales would skyrocket. Like, you would have people buying every cover of Nightwing. It would be selling at like absolute Batman levels.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:27

If if they gave Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing. A twink? Alien boyfriend. It would be the only comic ever. They would be the only comic ever.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:42

And I quote you on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:45

They did this to Bucky Barnes once. It happens in all of the comics in our store disappear except for Nightwing.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:51

They gave Bucky Barnes a twink.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:53

Didn't he like date himself from the future?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:55

Yes. Yeah, in 20, in 2014, Friend of the Pod, Alej Coe, and Marco Rudy. I keep wanting to say Marco Rudy, though. Which Marco-I'm sorry, Marco Rudy, Friend of the Pod, and not Friend of the Pod, Marco Rubio. Marco Rudy. So this was immediately after Original Sin, and Jason Ern was like, alright, uh Bucky Barnes is the new man on the wall. He's the new, like, he's the new space cop. He's like gonna watch from the sky. And like, he uh uh Alishko took over it's like a 12 or 13 issue series. For the first issue, he's like, alright, he's doing space cop shit. Alright, now he's not doing that. He's fucking he's fucking a non-binary alien baddie queen, and also That's also an older version.

SPEAKER_10 1:30:36

That's probably what Peter Parker is doing right now. True. I would like to point out that Peter Parker is having sex with an alien baddie right now. And I think that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:48

That is wonderful. Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, was the blueprint. But the crucially the other person that he's fucking is an older version, like an old man version of himself from a different timeline. How how much older? Like probably in his like 50s or 60s.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:07

Like si like significantly notably older.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:09

Does it come with boomer wealth?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:12

Does it no, it's it's sad.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:15

Okay, so he was like he he wasn't around to make money, you know. He was the winner's busy.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:21

I mean shit ass, what's the point of dating a 55-60 not going to make you the sugar baby?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:28

Sam is on the pulse. Sam on the fucking pulse. Um sorry, I'm trying to find the interiors of this. Mike Delmundo did some like amazing covers for it. Oh. Yeah, the covers are awesome, but this is not even the interiors. Um Let me sorry find the Marco Rudy. There's like an the second issue of this book is him as Bucky climbing up the walls of like the ice giants, like like like Jotner or whatever it's called. And like Loki's Jotunheim, yeah. And Loki's ice wolves are like turning into ice storms and trying to bite him off of the wall.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:06

As one does.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:07

As one does, yeah. It's it's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_10 1:32:11

You call it Winter Soldier, I call it my Monday.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:14

Yeah. This was just a published Bookie Barnes comic in 2014. We used to be a proper country.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:20

That is a really cool full page.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:22

Yeah. The entire book just looked like this too. It was it was like it's profoundly out of print at this point. I have no idea where to find this shit anymore, but it's probably on Marvel Now. So if you have like a Marvel or whatever they call that thing, um online.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:38

You gotta own nothing. We're gonna take everything off, and you will own nothing, and you will love it when you spend a hundred dollars on nothing on Marvel Now.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:47

I hope you're hungry for nothing. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, we were talking about Nightwing and then No, we were talking about Twilight Zone.

SPEAKER_10 1:32:55

Oh, we're talking. I have to point this out. We were talking about Twilight Zone.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:59

And that devolved into us. To Twink Zone Twinkle of how Nightwing should have a twinkle.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:06

Um, let's talk Bleeding Hearts, because uh the first arc of Dynast Camp and Stippen Morion and Matt Hollingworth's Bleeding Hearts, which is the best DC Vertigo book. Zombies. Um, on the shelf. That is correct. Good job. Um excellent Samia.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:21

You really did your homework.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:23

Um I was blown away by this. Um I mean it's it's not the end of the series, but it is kind of the the conclusion of the first arc. Um and it felt in many ways like the conclusion of Absolute Martian did to me, where it just like it just felt like Dinoscamp really like knew how to end it and just pulled out all the stops, and this book was has been amazing, but it hasn't necessarily kind of captivated me emotionally in ways that kind of other really amazing books of this year have. But I think this issue is really kind of the thing that reached into my heart.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:34:01

And there's so much really emotionally affecting things that happen in this book, um, that kind of tie all these sort of disparate threads together in a way that is just truly so impressive. Yeah. Um I'm so happy this book exists. Uh if you haven't started it, now that the first arc is over, the first trade is gonna be coming out soon. It's gonna be a magnificent thing to read and trade. Yeah. I can't wait. I'm really excited. Are you reading this, Sam? I am indeed. Yeah, did you read issue six just now? What are what were your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:37

I think it's really good. Hell yeah, but I have nothing else to say.

SPEAKER_10 1:34:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:44

I have nothing else uh constructive I can say. I need a sec I need a second read. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:34:49

I I think it really deserves a second read, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:52

I'd like to also state in a future issue, I believe, of Bleeding Heart, the main cover issue, it has a T-Rex skeleton in it. The next next issue, yeah. In the next issue, there is a T-Rex skeleton on the cover, and I think that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:07

Yeah. I'm excited for Stephen Morion drawing dinosaur skeletons. I think that's gonna be neat.

SPEAKER_10 1:35:12

Yeah, I think, um what what what he's like the strings that he's pulling in this issue are kind of like things that were always present in the first five issues, which are kind of commentaries on queerness, queer community, um, like race, ethnicity, anti-colonialism, um to a certain degree, although not greatly, gender, which I think is really interesting. I think this issue kind of picks up on gender, um just that most greatly, because I think this is where you get to see humans interact the most in the whole series. Yeah. Um but I think that like there's sort of aspects of this that are about kind of found family and the way that sort of queer people find family within one another, and just generally sort of minoritarian and um kind of communities that have been subjected to violence. Yeah. Find community within one another and between one another, um, that I think are kind of weirdly, I think it's hard to categorize this as kind of like an explicitly like anti-colonial or anti-white supremacist book or like um queer book or like abolitionist book or any of these other things, or sort of anti-misogynist book or feminist book. Because I think really what it is is kind of like this utopian pro-community book.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:36:41

And I think that what's interesting is that you can read this book and kind of take away from it these like really intensely valuable um like social, cultural, and emotional themes and lessons, and kind of honestly like utopian blueprints for any number of sort of variedly revolutionary uh ideas and concepts. Um and that's kind of magical, and I think part of what makes it possible for a camp to do it in this book is that it's a zombie book. Yeah. And what's remarkable is like because the zombies aren't the monsters necessarily in this book, um, and because they've sort of like moved past all concepts of gender, race, class, ethnicity, um sex, honestly. Yeah um it opens up this kind of world of uh social and cultural interpretation that very, very few other books can ever really achieve. Like I I think one of the other books that comes to mind is Ursula Calegwin's Left Hand of Darkness, which is a book about like a a planet in which there's no sort of concept of like gender, um, because gender and sex is sort of intrinsically fluid. Um, but even that I think struggles to go to the extent and sort of yeah, to the extent that Dennis Camp does in this book. And it feels like he's pushing himself as a writer more than any other thing that I've read from him in Bleeding Hearts.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:38:31

I think he's like really going into territories that he's never gone into before and anything that I've read. Yeah. And I've read pretty much everything he's done except for like 20th century Men and like maybe one or two other things that he did before people really knew who he was. Yeah. Um, like stuff that we have like two random back issues of in the paddock or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:38:51

Uh but this just I'm just blown away by this. Uh I'd love to hear what Persevity says has to say, because I'm I'm just I will just keep rambling. Um please go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:04

No, thank you for sharing that. Um I just want to add on to things that you you brought up. Um The first is that like what's interesting is that like um the I I think the queer stuff is probably the most like easily like mappable, but like, but to your point, like it's not perfectly mappable, and part of it is like that it's not just like functioning as like a queer metaphor, an anti-colonial metaphor, an anti-racist metaphor. It allows certain dynamics to play out. Like the fact that Rabbit is a young black girl and like other people are very willing to dispose of her so fast is kind of just left unsaid, but pointedly there. But also, like the queer stuff, like what works so well about it is that it really reads like an anti-queer rejection while existing in a universe without, or at least the zombies don't have such like strict notions of like sexuality and gender, and it works because it's not wrapped up in the hyper-specifics of like the zombies are doing homophobia, it's doing the zombies are rejecting who each other are on a personal foundational level that they can't like change, and it maps to queerdest because that's the closest like proximity that we maybe have to like express that. But it's like it's speaking to human rejections and like violent responses to not knowing who somebody is anymore. Like, and and feeling like hurt and betrayed because somebody isn't what you thought they were, and not knowing how to talk to somebody else because you didn't know how to tell them who you are now and what you became. The other thing that I kind of want to jump to is another point that you made, is that um I b I believe that this is kind of like I think Bleeding Hearts is in significant conversation with the 28 Years Later movies that are coming out right now, particularly Bone Temple, as kind of being these movies that like if like if the original 28 Days Later kind of set the template for like all contemporaneous, like Last of Us, Walking Dead kind of zombies media, and often did it worse, um these books are kind of specifically talking to zombie media after Romero and speaking to the more contemporaneous ones, were like, regardless of the quality of The Walking Dead or The Last of Us or whatever, like a lot of I I do think The Walking Dead is really excellent.

SPEAKER_10 1:41:49

Yeah, no, it's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:50

It's a good book. It's a very good book. But the point that I want to get at is not their quality, but that like. Um. For over a decade and a half, we couldn't get enough of the carnage and rotten fucking idea that all of humanity itself was fucking rotten, either by its very nature or most charitably, out of desperation. Cockroach is scrabbling to be, if not king of shit, mountain, than to live another day on its face. It's really fascinating then as blunt force, bold-faced cruelty becomes the excre excre excorable face of life in the 2020s, as everything collapses and the mask slips from capital to do the deed that it, not us, is desperate and eager to commit. That we return to the genre which called us savage, teeming masses of hunger and violence to instead search for kindness and connection in all of the carnage. This is by far the most violent issue of Bleeding Hearts, and it feels aberrant. Like it feels weird and wrong to be watching beats that would feel extremely normal and sometimes even mundane in any other zombie book, like a chase through a a a uh uh a mall. Like, and and the zombies even like kind of like their whole holiday is is like this is this is where it all began was a mall. Like they're kind of riffing on that to some degree, but like these kind of beats where they're trying to escape a mall and are in these violent situations feel weird and wrong, and like, because that's not those are not normal beats to these books, and they're not normal beats to like us as people.

SPEAKER_10 1:43:32

Yeah, I mean I think too, like I think the violence feels aberrant to this series. Um not necessarily aberrant, I think maybe novel to this series, but I do think that it's interesting that Camp I think what happens in this book is it's really easy to kind of fall in love with the community that Camp creates, especially in the zombies without recognizing the violence that is intrinsic to them, which is a violence that does cause harm to conscious people.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:44:12

Um, and I think another something that's interesting that Camp is able to do here is sort of point out the ways that we might glorify any given community and how easy it is for us to kind of make ourselves blind to the violence that that community does inflict.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:44:32

Um and I think there's kind of this like goofy thing that Camp does throughout the book, which is this like kind of goofy reference to like the favorite body parts that each zombie likes to eat and stuff. And I I I think that they're both like deeply grotesque, but also supposed to be kind of cartoonishly goofy. Like a lot of the references that the zombies make, whether it be in their names or in scenes where they're eating, are like pretty nauseating.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:45:04

Um but at the same time they feel natural and thus kind of acceptable. Yeah. And I think what's interesting here is that this issue both reveals an ugliness and violence that is intrinsic, I think, to human society. Um but also reveals the ugliness and violence that we have not really yet been sort of privy to about the zombies. Um and I think there's something really interesting going on there. Um there's kind of this refusal by Camp to make anyone a villain or a hero.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:45:48

Um, and instead to kind of treat all of his characters with a great deal of kind of kindness and empathy and care. Yeah. And I I really applaud that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:02

Yeah, no, it's fucking awesome. I this is a tremendously good book. Sorry, some friends of mine are here. I gotta say hi to them real quick.

SPEAKER_10 1:46:08

Robert Gordon. Uh I think we don't have a ton to say about Robert Gordon, but I think Aldo and Sam should start. Sam has joined us.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:15

Yeah. Uh it's really fun. I, you know, it's always great to have uh a woman-led series no matter what. Um and even better, women-led series uh around prison breakout story. Which I feel like in the scheme of comic books is not a th a totally uh used concept. I'd say. I because in in my many, many, many uh many a seconds of being alive and reading comic books.

SPEAKER_10 1:46:53

Okay, brag. We don't have we don't all have as many seconds as you. We couldn't all be born with a seconds fund. That's depressing. Have more faith in yourself. Sorry, my dad wasn't the CEO of Clocks, Sam. What? I don't know. It's been a long day. Yeah. Fair.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:15

But I see your point. Like, there hasn't been that many. I can't think of a single, like, I can think I can think of like women-led prison break movies, like women-centric prison break movies. Um obviously, like female prisoner scorpion 701 immediately comes to mind. Um I was going to say Paddington 2 jokingly. Um she's my girl, even though he's a boy, uh, many such cases. Um you know, I feel like I should have more women prison films off the top of my head, but I mainly just have female prisoner scorpions.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:47

Orange is the new black.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:48

Orange is the new black. Well, then I guess the Laverne Cox breakout. No, they're just kind of in prison.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:55

Laverne Cox broke out.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:57

She didn't break out, you know what? Aced it. Aced it.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:02

You know, with the with the rise of Bitch Planet.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:05

Bitch Planet, yeah. I yeah, Bitch Planet's a actually a pretty good comic. Oh, her eye.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:12

With the with the rise of serial pillar comics and uh in the industry, I feel as though this could be a catalyst for more prison break type uh scenarios in comics. Yeah. Uh but you know, time will tell with that.

SPEAKER_09 1:48:29

Yeah, absolutely. Uh it appear it looks like Nightwing is going to jail soon. Like Nightwing's a woman. From covers. Um, well then she'll be in jail with with Babs. Um, maybe. Bowch go bow wow! Uh oh. Is this how we get the Twink boyfriend?

SPEAKER_10 1:48:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:50

Is Barbara Gordon the Twink boyfriend?

SPEAKER_10 1:48:52

Wait, yeah, what if Nightwing's not a woman, but Barbara Gordon is a man? Bob Gordon.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:00

How would they even have sex? That doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_10 1:49:03

Well, she'd put his never mind. Are they gonna fraud? No, stop, stop. That's the last thing I'll say. Stop. No more. Let's talk Clayface. We're gonna Clayface.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:15

We didn't fraud on this podcast.

SPEAKER_10 1:49:16

I love you get fraug with Clayface. I love movies.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:23

I think poor Corinne. God. I think Clayface uh is really good. Yeah. I'm a fan of this, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like this is a this is a solid, like, new thing. Yeah. Uh I I I'm not super aware of any maybe past Clayface comics at all. But if this is the first of his comics, then this is a very strong start. And you know, with with Clayface being the actor that he uh that he is, at least we're we're At least we're we're doing a supposed Basil Carlo um uh Clayface, not any of the other ones that don't really show up.

SPEAKER_10 1:50:11

Um yeah, because like the last major clayface story that I can think of was Tinian's Batman, which had Clayface, which was like kind of the first appearance of like Clayface significantly as a hero, like part of the Bat family. And I really liked that.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:27

Yeah, that was around the time that they were starting to push Harley Quinn uh in the Bat family as well.

SPEAKER_10 1:50:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really liked that, and I I think that's like a fun direction for the character, but I do think that like Clayface was never really allowed to shine as like something sinister. And there's one clayface here who is not a villain, or not yet a villain necessarily, although he does villainous things. And there's another clayface in this book who is most certainly a villain. And I think that it's it's high time that Clayface got a well-written, sinister plot. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he's often just like such a like, even in the Harley Quinn show, like the Harley and Ivy show, which is obviously a comedy, like, he's so goofy and so kind of like made fun of for being like this dumbass character kind of. And the concept, and this is why I think that he should be the next Matt Reeves Batman villain, is you could be so terrifying as Clayface.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:51:38

Like it could be such a terrifying concept.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:43

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_10 1:51:43

And he's scary in this book. Like he does scary stuff in this issue. Um, both the not as villainous, but also the very villainous one does stuff that could be very scary. And it's kind of body horror adjacent.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:51:59

And that makes me happy. Tickles my little lizard brain. Reaches inside and it tickles me pink.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:06

Grabs the brain, tickles it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_10 1:52:10

It's getting in the folds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:14

Uh I think it's also really fun that this is kind of the promotional comic for the upcoming Clayface movie. And it so is uh it so is a movie comic book, you know? Not in the sense that this is like a comic book face-off of the movie, but it is uh But they're I feel com movies in and of itself will be a determining factor within the next couple of issues, at least.

SPEAKER_10 1:52:40

Yeah, and this this makes me this gives me hope that DC knows how to make a team that can write good like a good kind of conceptual playface story, and that maybe they actually want to. I think so. Because I do feel like often whenever there's like a new movie coming out and they make like the movie comic, it's pretty indicative of how bad the movie's gonna be. Because normally the movie comic is awful and then the movie is awful. Like the Black Adam comic Well, that was doomed at the scene. As bad as the Black Adam movie. That was you know what? Either was doomed at the scene. Well, certainly, obviously, but like like other I'm I'm struggling to think of others off the top of my head, but like I think if you are making like a promotional comic that is excellent for a comic book movie, it at least proves that you know how to do a good job of it, which gives me very, very, very tentative hope for the Clayface movie. Not optimism. Hope. Uh what were you gonna say? You had clearly had some concepts.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:51

Sorry I interrupted you too. I got a little too overexcited and I wanted to apologize for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:56

Um, it's how podcasts work.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:59

It's the Adderall and that I didn't sleep, to be quite honest with you. It's how Adderall works as well. True. Two two small things. One, I like that this comic plays with the fact that there's eight fucking clay faces, and like it kind of like It has a sense of humor about it. Yeah, like it has a sense of humor about it, and it also is like using that as a as a lever to be like to build a suspense, because it's like if there's eight of these motherfuckers, who could any one of them be? Like, any one of them could be the person that they say they are, or not even realize that they are one of those people, and it plays with that very well, that kind of like disassociative identity kind of thing. Um, really cool. The other thing I'll say about it, other than the fact that I really liked this, I was very into it, um, is the author of Clayface Celebrity Dirt just had a uh comic of theirs collected um called Be Not Afraid. Um, I'm so excited to read that. This is really good. This is really, really good. Just the very not deep end, very baseline premise just being that this woman lives in this kind of small, very like religious town, and after being raped by an angel, she has given birth to this boy who's like more or less the Antichrist and has kind of never never grown up like emotionally. Like he's like a 20-year-old man at this point, but he's never grown up entirely, and he's kind of like too many people like that. Yeah. And so he she's like it's about her being like trapped in this house with like and this community with him and the like rotting living corpse of her mom, who like her son is kept alive, like, as as a as a punishment, and like just kind of yeah, it's like being less focused on this kind of Antichrist figure and moron, like, what is it like to be in a small community as a woman who like they hate you for things that happened to you and you had no control over, and also you're not safe in your own home because even your petulant little shithead son, who also to some degree had not no control over what happened to him, is also a fuckhead maniac.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:10

It's really good. Um, The Arts by Lysan uh Lissand Lissandro Estherin, who did the art for James Tinian's um really good queer sandman book from a couple years back. Um I forget Nightmare Country. Nightmare Country. Oh, yeah. It was the same artist as Nightmare Country. It's not like Nowhere Country.

SPEAKER_10 1:56:29

Oh, I I'm I'm excited to read that. I think that might be the next Tinian I read once I finish uh World Tree. The The Trades of World Tree.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:37

It's good. But yeah, if y'all liked Clayface, uh Celebrity Dirt, want to check out Be Not Afraid, this book fucking rocks. It's really good. I was very pleasantly surprised.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:47

Um Is that is that everything we've got? I have a I have a bad movie take. I saw Black Adam at the theater, and shit was cra like I didn't know the bad guy was just gonna be the devil from hell. And then the devil from hell pops up, and I was like, oh my god, like what the fuck is happening? It was crazy, and I had fun watching it, but I don't think it was like good. Um also the action scenes, okay, like in the beginning it's just like Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam, like bodying like normal dudes, but the way they portray it was like really cool, because it was like, no, he's like a god, and they're like just dudes with like machine guns, and um they show his like super speed and shit, and it just it was Aldo Aldo is a Black Adam movie apologist.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:35

I thought the action was cool. Alright, I thought the action was cool. You're never invited back. The villain was the devil from hell. He gets ripped in half by the horn. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_10 1:57:50

Um his business is going out of business.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:58

I've never been able to finish uh wait, what movie do I want to tell you about? Oh, um Christopher Nolan owes me hours and hours and hours of my life. Um I've never seen a movie of his that I've enjoyed, like actually. Um I watched Interstellar and when it ended, I was so mad. I was like, that was the movie. Are you fucking serious?

SPEAKER_10 1:58:18

Um not so crazy takes.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:20

These are some crazy takes, I'm not gonna lie, but like you were free to.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:24

Have you seen Memento? Memento is really good. I love Memento. We're not gonna sit down and watch it soon.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:30

I like Alpacino and I like Robin Williams, so I sat down and watched Insomniac, and then on the screen it said directed by Christopher Nolan, and I turned it off.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:38

That's how mad I am. Uh no. No, I don't.

SPEAKER_10 1:58:49

Um the mic was was muted for like five seconds, but oh yeah, we should talk about heaven really briefly.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:54

Yeah, we're gonna really briefly talk about this. Um also say if you haven't read uh Did You Hear About Mimi Green, it's a cool little queer book, queer horror book. It's not like mind-blowing, it's cool though. Writers, the guy who does the Cerebro queer X-Men podcast, it's cool. Hell yeah. Um also doing some kind of interesting stuff about like people like kind of like internalized fat phobia that's like interesting. Um and like comes from a personal place from the author who was like talked about that. So interesting stuff you don't get a lot in uh a lot of like published.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:26

Mimi Green is also just a really good name.

SPEAKER_10 1:59:29

Really good name. Um I I think we'll probably end up talking about this more once my review is out. Um, but we're Heaven is Katie Scelly's new book um from Phantographics. Um The premise is really fun without getting into too much. Um I mean this is what's on the blurb, so um it's about basically a group of girls who learn about um a strip club in the outskirts of Las Vegas um that appears and disappears at will. Um and one of them has just turned 18, they're high schoolers. Um, and so this friend group is like, you gotta go investigate, because you're 18 and you can work at the strip club now.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:14

Be a stripper girl.

SPEAKER_10 2:00:16

Um and so she goes and like basically, yeah, like tries out and becomes like a new stripper at this club to figure out the mystery of this uh of this strip club, this disappearing supernatural strip club. Um and it's a very short book. Um it's got like a wonderfully dark sense of humor that I think a lot of Katie Skelly's books have kind of like hinted at, but not really fully like exhibited until this one. Um this book made me laugh out loud. I thought it was just like so It's just so weird and so funny, but in such a just like deadpan, like yeah, what about it kind of way. Yeah. Um like it I think the takeaway from this book is it made me want to hang out with Katie Skelly. Um It made me it made me think, wow, like getting like a drink with Katie Skelly sounds fun. Um the other thing is for a book about sex work, um, I think that it does a really good job of like not making the choice to do sex work like a moral choice. It doesn't really condemn or like uphold it as sort of wrong or heroic. It's just like a job. Yeah. Like any other. Um and like for the most part the strippers are pretty normal. Um and the girl who decides to be a stripper briefly is like also pretty normal. Um and I think weirdly that's like something that people really struggle with. Yeah. Uh bar is in hell. Because yeah, the bar the bar for work about sex work is in hell. Um and yeah, I don't know, Katie Skelly, good job. Um I'll have more to talk about once I write my review. Um this is my favorite Skelly book that I've read. Easily same, yeah. By far. Um it makes me excited for whatever she's gonna do next. Um, yeah, I don't I don't know. What did you have to think about? What did you think about this stuff?

SPEAKER_01 2:02:22

That's that's basically it. Like, I've wanted to like Katie Skelly's stuff in the past more than I have here, and I liked it a lot. I thought it was funny. I don't think I really have anything else to add that you that you didn't um it's a good book, it's a good time. I also would love to have a cigarette with Kate Skelly and a drink. That sounds like a lot of fun. This definitely leans a little bit more uh like a like a tamer, like a tamer Gregoraki. At first I thought they were. Uh which is fun. Although I can feel like Nicholas like we can't let Nicholas Windig Reffin know about this, because he'll he'd be all over this shit in a heartbeat. And I don't know if that would be the best the best time.

SPEAKER_10 2:03:01

Um but as book done. Yeah. Uh let's finish off with what's on my stock, I guess. I've got Batman Golden Age Omnis Volume 1, because I'm trying to read all the detective comics. Um I bought like a fun Silver Age vintage issue of Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen, which happens which is a happens to be the second appearance of Dark Side.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:22

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_10 2:03:23

Um and is also drawn and written by Jack Kirby. Um just kind of like a fun little artifact. I've got The Heroing of Hell, um, Rice Boy, and The Last Delivery, because I'm currently working on like a long form essay about the comics of Evan Dahlm, so I'm trying to read his bibliography. Uh and then I've got a bunch of ongoing issues that we've talked about before, so like ASM, Supergirl, The Walking Dead Deluxe, because I've been collecting it since it started. Um I've got Fury of Firestorm, but I have not read past the first issue. Um really unsure what's going on in that. But yeah, it's uh Persephone says it's fun. Um Persephone's got uh Far Sector, um, which I'm excited to read as well, because it just seems really good. I've only heard good things. Oh, and I've also got Spinning by Tilly Walden, because I'm reviewing Charity and Sylvia for the comics journal, and I wanted to read her other nonfiction uh before writing about Charity and Sylvia. So um that's what we've got going on. Uh thanks for tuning in for episode 25. Aldo's got some noises he's gonna make, and then Pearl's gonna sing us out. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 2:04:36

I don't have any noises.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:38

That what no noises out.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:49

Thank you for coming and listening to the escapist. If you don't come back and listen to us, we will kill your family.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:00

A lot of aggression for a brand.

SPEAKER_10 2:05:02

Oh my god. Um what's up, Sam?

SPEAKER_09 2:05:06

A lot of aggression for a brand. I know. It's like Comcast trying to like fucking call you, they're like, we're gonna extortion you, and then you're gonna give us more money. No, I'm gonna fucking cancel my plan and eat my ass. Like, no.

SPEAKER_10 2:05:20

Uh yeah. We love you.