EPISODE 17: GRRRL SCOUTS - STONE GHOST

Welcome back to MORGAN TALKS COMICS... 

This week we're looking at issue one of GRRRL SCOUTS - STONE GHOST by another of my comic book heroes, JIM MAHFOOD, published by IMAGE COMICS. JIM is another artist who is a BIG influence on my comic book making, weaving music and pop culture into my storytelling. 

I've been a fan of his work for a LONG time, and have a lot of his work in my collection. It's really good fun to look at one of his comics for the show, as I love the way JIM puts comics together.

Enjoy the show, and let's hear from you about the show or want to choose comics for us to look at.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Morgan Talks Comics. This week we are looking at Girl Scouts Stone Ghost from Jim Food. Jim Food is another artist who's a big influence on my own work, my own storytelling. I've been a fan of his for a very long time. It's been interesting to see how his style has evolved over the years. It used to be a lot different to kind of what it is now, but it's still the same if that makes sense in any way, shape, or form. No. Could it not? Sorry. And introducing, welcome back, Eliza Moraleo Chamberlain.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Hello. I hope it's warmer where the listeners are. A little bit phrasing.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah, it's a bit chilly today.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Right. What were you saying? It made no sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

So um Jim Food has been uh uh I've been a favourite of mine for a very long time. I've got a lot of his stuff, and it's been interesting to see how his style has evolved over the years. It used to be, I guess, in a way, more it was a bit more restrained and a bit more sort of clean lines and stuff like that. He's now now draws in a more energetic, looser way, looser way, yeah, yeah, much looser. Um, but I love the way uh Jim tells stories. He's again he's a big influence on on my storytelling. Uh music is a big part of his comics as well. Uh, a lot of his early comics were talking about sort of like hip-hop and jazz and stuff like that. Um, I think it's probably where I got the idea of putting a playlist in my own books. Usually in my graphic novels, I put a playlist at the end of what music I was listening to at the end of each book. Well, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah. Yeah. Keeping secrets.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah, so I'd put a playlist of music I'd be listening to while I'd be making making comics. And and I think pretty certain that's that's come from from Jim's uh certainly his earlier comics. Again, music is a big part of what he does. He does he does a like a radio show where they have uh a playlist every week and stuff like that, and very much comes from a hip-hop, uh, jazz background, and there's lots of really interesting and autobiographical comics as well. Um, Jim quite often puts himself into his work. Not necessarily the stories, but he'll they'll as you'll see, there'll be um more like autobiographical stuff, which again has informed my autobiographical comics and and persona.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I'm just looking at this rather strange woman with unfortunate legs. Um, this leg goes up to a hip, but it's still a gap. And that I was looking at myself and poking. I couldn't work out how you could do that. You can't have that.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, I mean it's it's kind of uh again. I was talking about how how Jim's uh style has evolved over the years. He's nearly always had girl girl scouts, um, comes from the riot girl uh scene of the I think the nineties, though it was like indie rock music.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Is it girl?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Girl, yeah. Like like growling, like growling, um, but is the Girl Scouts themselves have been around for a long time. Um it started off with three three main characters, and they were they were they were drug dealers. Oh my god. Um but they all had very interesting lives outside of so they had like sort of there's there's one series where they had to have like day jobs because they were trying to go go legit and stuff like that. What's this weird thing? Well come to him. He's he's a little supporting character that's it that come that comes in through the through the comics.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

So I'll have to wait to live.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah. So do you want to dive? Should we dive in? Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Jim's style is is very much it's a m it's much looser and much more of an organic kind of style now, but still echoes a lot of like I can see um Jack Kirby in here. We'll have to do Jack Kirby at some point because he's a he's a influence over a lot of my favourite artists. Um it's nice to see that there's variant covers for this series as well, which are really cool. We'll come to those a bit later because that's that's in that's actually in the magazine. But then we've got a we've got a nice opening splash page of this sort of crazy looking city.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Um are you convinced that's a city?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, because there's like towers here, there's sort of like rooftops here. Jim tends to set his stories in like a very much urban settings, so in town settings, towns and cities.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Right, what were these things?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

These? I think these are like towers.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

These things.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, they're like the they're like bits of towers like on a castle or something like that, turrets or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Oh right. Right. So it's not a modern city.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Uh no, it could be an older city. Um again, nice work with the Jim tends to do his own lettering as well. Um, so that sort of fits in nicely with the way the pages all flow together.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

And is that uppercase?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

It is uppercase.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

They don't listen to me, do they?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

You would kind of think considering that this is this is like Jim's own handwriting, that he might he might write in in upper and lowercase. But again, I don't know, it's it's something that I do. I I tend to write a lot in capitals. Um but I think that's my back my bat my print background.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yes. But I'd say over and over again that a poor reader can read upper and lowercase much easier than they can read uppercase. And as I've said before, I haven't said it recently because I've been holding back, but I can't hold back now, is that a comic is a really good way of getting a poor reader to read because they get they get something straight away from what they're reading. They don't have to read lots and lots of text before they know anything. Yeah, they can look at the pictures and let it guide them, but when it's all uppercase, it makes it more difficult. And I don't know. I don't know. I should I take out some great big ads to put on advertising thing of me jig as saying.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Well you'll be pleased to know that the graphic novel I'm working on at the moment has upper and lower case.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

I am pleased to know, and I actually thought your other ones did too. You sneak them by me, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

The graph my graphic novels tend to, because I set my text on uh on a computer, so I it's easier to work upper and lower. If I'm doing it doing lettering by hand, I generally tend to use caps then, capitals. So if I'm drawing a drawing a strip completely by hand, then it's quite often in capitals.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I can't even convince you. How am I gonna convince the rest of the comic industry?

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Uh it's a sad state of affairs.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

It is. You don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Because you're a good reader.

unknown 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

You don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

No.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Okay. So yeah, opening up with a big urban setting, um, lots of nice use of like simple use of colour, and similar to Ashley Wood that we were looking at in the last episode, there's a lot of use of like lectrone toning, the self-adhesive tone tone stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Could you show it to me again?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So, yeah, you can see it here just here, detail on one of the roosts, like sort of these jagged lines, and then you can just see like lots of little dots inside it, but it's all cut by that's being cut out by hand to follow the shape of the lines. This bit here to using letrotone. Um that's strange. Yeah, it's it it's just a nice way of adding depth to to a piece. So we open up and we go further in, we open up into a big double page spread, so we've got this sort of fantastical city setting in the background, and we've got dialogue between two of the characters in tight in small panels across it with the with the dialogue in little bubbles above them. So we've got Dio and Gordy talking to each other. Dio is the female character in in this in this story.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

I like that because even though it's it's quite complex, the part you read to get the story is clear, it's perfectly clear.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah. Is it a steampunk again or is it uh it's definitely science fiction, it's it's definitely got a very science science fiction vibe. Um I know because I I'm I'm a fan of of of Mafud's work, Jim's work.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

What's this about?

SPEAKER_00 9:19

They're like you know, they're they're like big signs, you know, like in like Las Vegas or something like that, they'd have these big signs pointing to stores and stuff like that. Have they? Yeah, all like neon lighting and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Oh yeah, I've only seen Elvis written big.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah, you stood in front of it.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

I did.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, so we've got this kind of we've got this fantastical cityscape with like excuse me, big signs popped up and stuff like that, and then we have the the dialogue between the two characters, uh Dio and Gordy, in simple little panels across. And then we come we actually see them sitting in a bar.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Um is that a person?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

So we have them sitting here in a bar talking talking about um what's going on and how they've been feeling. So here we've got another we've got another big character, Turtleneck Jones, because he wears a turtleneck.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

But is that his eyes?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

They're his eyes because he's wearing sunglasses.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

I can't see them on there, but yeah. Very 1960s, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, yeah, Jim's got a real kind of like late 60s, early 70s vibe, you know, like the like the sort of blacksmith the the shaft movies and that sort of thing. That era of music music making.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I like the music, yeah, they were too violent for my life.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah. So not that I'm old enough to remember that. I take it that he's um older.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

No, I think I think Jim's about the same age as me. He's in his in his early 50s. I'm not in your early 50s. No, I'm actually in my late 50s now. Just pointing that out to be helpful. Yeah, thanks. Um, yeah, so there's a another another crowd jump in and they're they're crawl they're calling for Turtleneck Jones, who's who's with Dio and Gordy. And uh a fight breaks out in the bar.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Oh, I like these pages very clear. Yeah, so it's busy, opposite.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

A little bit like the Ashley Woods stuff we were looking at last week. There's this Jim knows how to put a page together and it and make it sort of quite clear. And it interestingly, the first couple of pages are more abstract, but as the story starts unfolding, they the the the way that the panels flow is much more logical. So that's like um as I say, it's like a little electronic key. They're gonna go off on a mission, and they've got Toe on the Jones, who's some kind of sort of like big tough character. He's gonna I think he's working as like security, like a bodyguard for them.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

But do you wear silly glasses? Well, sunglasses, we're not sunglasses, they're they're women in the 1960s glasses, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I guess it's got that kind of shape to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

So I can't see him as a tough one. Not to mention his roll neck jumper.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

So we see them all having a drink at the bar and then they're talking about what they're going on. Jim's dropping comics actually into a comic as well. So the the uh Gordy handers hands deo a comic from the Sinister Steroids Squad Supreme. Is it a real one? No, it's it's made up. It's made up, but it's sort of like in universe of of this story. Right, yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

There's a really weird picture.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Where's her mouth? Just a tiny little dot there. Oh so as I say, Jim's style has changed a lot over the years, whereas it used to be a lot clear, cleaner and clearer. He's gone to a sort of a more abstract, um, in a way, almost like pure cartooning there, because it's it's taking faces down to real basic elements.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yes, I can't help but wonder how she gets on at the dentist. It wouldn't be able to get her mouth opened up to see it.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

It's not real. It's not real, is it? So we see the crew heading off here and um they're going off on some kind of mission, and then Dio is talking about her boyfriend who's died.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

On the next couple of pages, we flash over. So, yeah, so Jim's used the so the background of these pages, which are quite busy because they're more like sort of like little diary comics. It's just done in a dark blue against a yellow background. It's I think they call them legal pads because they're used in courtrooms, so it's like lined paper. You can see the pale blue lines in the background.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Oh, right, it's just like how um pads are used for everything. Yeah, end up in university and what have you.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

So it's like drawn on line paper.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

And this is I can't see that it's blue, it looks black to me.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, it's kind of got it's got a really nice sort of like very deep blue tint. Right, you're right. But this is telling this is talking about um how that how uh Dio met her boyfriend and everything, and what happens, you know, but talking about their relationship and stuff like that. So it's adding some background to how she's feeling. And then he gets he gets cancer and dies at the end.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Right. Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

And she's obviously she's very melancholy, so she's like nothing would be surprised. Nothing after that would ever be the same.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

No. Now that is a serious issue.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

What? Cancer.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah, and about uh a boyfriend dying and everything. Yeah, it's not your usual nonsense, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

No, absolutely. Um there's there's quite a a an emotional undertone to the storytelling here where you know Dio is fight fight finding it quite hard to carry on because she's upset after her partner's died, and then we've got we've got Jones here as a he's a bounty hunter, and he's just like, yeah, let's get into it and just go for it, kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Who's this?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So Dio and and Turtle Night Jones have gone off in the in their in his spaceship to do whatever they're gonna do, their mission. Okay, yeah um, and then we flip back to Gordy here, this this little sort of like octopus sidekick of Dio.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Oh, is that the thing that's on the front?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah, okay, yeah. He's making a phone call to somebody called Taco, which is this kind of like demonic fit-looking figure in in in like robes.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

And he's talking to her. He's clearly setting Dio up for something. He's gone behind her back and he's talking about doing a bit of the bargain. He uh Gordy's saying I did my bit of um I ful fulfilled my part of the my part of the bargain, please let them go. So that Taco's got to his family as prisoners. I say, but his he betrayed the others, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Yeah. Right, okay. What's that about?

SPEAKER_00 16:48

So there's these sort of like big kind of demon characters. You've got Taco, the the sort of priest, whatever figure in robes, and there's this sort of big demonic mouth, which is obviously like it's got an eye in it. It has. So there's a bit of like collage stuff here. There's a photograph of an eye that's been cut out and played and pasted in. Jim that very much like sticks things down and and uses tone and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

We all like cutting and sticking.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah, it's like it's he's very much a multimedia kind of guy, you know, uses a lot of different materials to put his stories together.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Right, this is good. You could do that, couldn't you?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Just for a change.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I'd yeah, I'd like to get more stuff like that. It's weird because I I tend to draw with pens and do a lot of my colour work on the computer, but I need to get I'd like to be doing more handmade kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

You've got some good colour colouring pencils, haven't you? Facial tones. Yeah. Somebody very clever bought you.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah.

unknown 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Somebody's very good the Lysemarai's very good at choosing choosing art supplies for me.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yes. And um what's it called? Charcoal. I don't know you've used that.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

I don't think I've used charcoal. I haven't used charcoal since I was at school, I don't think. Well, I bought you some. Yeah. So I need to be doing more art art. So anyway, we've got Gordy here and he's confronted by these other gang, this other gang of characters, and he's talking about um his children. He wants us to see it, he wants to make sure that his children are safe. So they by the end of the page they're turning around and and saying, gotta wrap things up, we've got a girl scout to track down. And we flap back into into the into the centre spread of the comic. A nice use of tone and just sync simple colours using red.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

It's not an accent colour.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

No, so it's it's kind of I think it's drawn with like with a a dip pen, like a sort of a you know, a fountain pen without a reservoir, so you just dip it in the ink and scratch on. I know. Yeah, but this is this is flashing back to Dio and Jones in their ship, and they've landed on another planet, I guess. Um they call it the outer sector. So we've got all of these kind of like beaten up city stuff going on, and then um they come across the group uh that were with uh Gordy earlier on.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Sorry, I didn't have any questions then when you got to No, you do normally I would have.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

And then they flash up a sort of like a little hologram thing, and this is actually the the the Girl Scouts of the of the title, the original three characters. Right. They're look they're looking for the girl for the Girl Scouts. Um and it's asking about some magic socks.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

What's magic about them?

SPEAKER_00 19:38

I don't know what's magic about them, but these guys are looking for them.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Perhaps they don't ever have to be washed and so. Maybe they're fish as a daisy. Is that supposed to be a mouth?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, so we flash over and the the leader, I think Bigglesworth he was called. Binglesworth, uh, is like is commanding so it's it's the the grand the the bad guys that that are seen at the beginning are lit are just called the teeth because they are just like real you know sort of like venomous teeth. But nothing but teeth. Nothing but teeth, and lots of eyes. They're kind of a bit like um Lovecraft creatures, HP Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Um I know the name, other than that, I know nothing.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

So Lovecraft was uh an American writer in the twenties and thirties who wrote some books about creatures called Cthulhu, and they've sort of passed into pop culture, I guess. That but they're very they're sort of extra-dimensional beings, they live outside our universe and stuff like that, and they're they're kind of like big sort of deities that have that are like got lots of eyes and tentacles and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

I wonder if I have seen I've just possibly have.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

They've been in films and stuff like that. There have been quite there've been film adaptations of Lovecraft stuff. Yes, but would I have seen them? Would I look at that and think, yeah, I really wouldn't see them? Probably not. No. Anyway, so there's a confrontation going on, and they're not fighting, are they? They're not fighting, but there's a bit there's a there's sort of kind of a standoff going going off between Jones and um Binglesworth.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Hat bags at dawn.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

What's this?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

So he's saying he can see tombstones in your eyes. Oh, it's supposed to be an eye. He's looking into Jones's eyes, and then Jones pulls his own gun on himself and he blows his blows his own head off. Why? To tr to escape, I think. But we've got a big splash page here with lots of different media put on it, there's paint splattered across it and all this kind of stuff. It's very loose and expressive.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

I would guess that a great big gun like that it'd just knock his head up.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, I'm sure it would.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Oh this is a good one. I like this.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Yeah. So there's a full page of reaction as Jones Jones' body just splats to the ground. And then Dio's saying, I did not see that coming. Neither did I. So we've got a big just like a a s uh slice across the page reaction where it's just a close-up on Dio's face.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

What does it say?

SPEAKER_00 22:23

And then down at the bottom in Jim's scratch lettering, says next issue, a whole bunch of other crazy unexpected shit happens. Do not miss out on the world's best-selling psychedelic comic book experience. Right. Because it has got kind of this kind of drug add all kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Is that a post post page?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

So we've got like a post page, yeah. So there's this this in this first issue, it's being used to talk about um how you know about the about the about this new series, Stone Ghost, but it's also there's some letters brought in that must have been bit must have come up from the previous series, which I think was called Magic Socks. That's what they were looking for. I can't remember why it's called Magic Socks, but Magic Socks. Because those magic socks. But then we've got some sketches here from Peach Mamoko, who did the variant cover. I know that Peach and Jim have a really good working relationship with Crossover. In Peach's latest comic, uh Cy for Marvel comics, Jim Maufu did the did the uh big chunk of the latest issues. It's a great series because they have lots of different artists working on telling one story, so you've got a really nice mixture of styles. Yeah, so yeah, got some really nice sketches there, and then we've got some backup stories. These are kind of like in universe stories, and we've got we've got Gordy and one of his kids, and they're reading this this character called Macho Tailfin, which is this big, like muscle-bound shark character who's like kind of this big sort of rampaging superhero who's like and so we're what what we're reading is like the comic within the comic, it's the stories within the comic, and again, this is drawn in in Jim's really nice, quite lots of busy panels, but not massive, so you can they're still quite clear to follow through. And they are logically straight across, and they're just really nice use of simple, like flat colour, you know, there's no like shading or anything like that, it's just lots of flat colour, which again I think as I've as my styles evolved, I've I've found that I I tend to prefer to work in flat colour now. Yes, uh, it seems to suit my style of drawing a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

But it doesn't look like these because you use different sorts of colours, yeah. More contrasts.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah. Yeah, Jim's using a very limited palette here, so we've got like we've got sort of almost like uh a very uh pale blue, we've got orange, and then sort of like a pink tone, and that's pretty much it throughout the whole sit throughout the whole story.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

What's that long thing you just put your fingers on?

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Where there? Yes, um, it's it's like a um, you know, remember in Batman they have the bat symbol, they put the searchlight that went up with the big bat symbol. So this is like a uh a light shining for Max Show Telfin, and it's a shark's thing, because he's a he's a shark, calling him up to and then carrying on, we've got a page of autobiographical comics. So this is this is Jim McHoo talking about the process of making making comics.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

I'd have to say, you artists do like talking about yourselves.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Well, I think I think it's kind of changed over the years. It's it's um I don't know looking back at like uh you know we've talked a lot about the history of comics, and I I think it's part one of the things that kind of changed more in the 60s when we had artists like Robert Crumb come up, and there's a lot more talking about life rather than just sort of like action-adventure kind of stuff. And if you're talking about life, you talk you end up kind of talking about yourself, about how people interact with each other and stuff like that. Yes, and Jim's always put this kind of he's quite often you'll see in his comics that he'll put himself in there and he'll be talking about the exp the experience of putting the comics together and like you know what inspired him and stuff like that, and other projects he's worked on because he's worked on he's worked on film and TV, he's done, you know, he's done design for television and video games and stuff like that as well. So he's done a lot of work outside of comics, and he's writing about that there, and he's writing about that there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

You know what I would call that showing off, yes. If somebody else wrote about it, it'd be fine. Is this a different comic?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

No, uh, this is so this is um Jim. I don't know if this is still running, but they used to be because this comic's from I think three or four years ago, I'm trying to remember. Um let me just check the date. This is from 2021, so five years ago. Didn't realise it was.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

The dates on the front, like have a magazine.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

No, some do. Some do. Um, but one of like as I say, Jim's is a music is a big part of his his life, and he had this thing called School Funk Radio, which is on Spotify, and it'd be playlists, and it would go up. I I can't remember if he was doing a weekly or monthly, but there's a lot of them. This is like volume 34 here, so there's been like you know, 30 shows. Um, but it'd be it would be playlists and especially stuff that he was listening to while he was making the comics. Okay. So you know, the fact I mean I more self-obsession. I I guess it's just sharing more of the creative process, really. So at the end of the day, um artists are there to to make a living from what they do, so that you know, there's lots of merchandise, there's page pages here of like uh other merchandise that uh Mafuda's got out there talking about like being you know offering commissions and stuff like that. And then there's a cover gallery on the inside back cover because as we've talked about earlier in other shows, markets employed market employed. Yeah, there's a lot of variant covers, so it but there's been some really great artists working on working on this. I like this one. Yeah, zoo or zoo. That's really nice. It's like a fully painted one. That's really nice. I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Come to that, that's quite I can't quite table that is.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah. Well that's that's the Dio Dio and Gordy characters. Just like a close-up of them. That's one that's done by Scotty Young, who I think we've got to we've got to look at at some point. Right. Because again, he's another another uh you know, writer artist I really like.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

A lot of the people doesn't that look similar.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Is it the same person?

SPEAKER_00 29:07

No, so that was done by Scotty Young, who who at the moment is right is draw is writing logo for DC comics. Right. Um but I know there's sort of certain sort of almost like clumps of artists that that work closely together. So I know that like Jim McHoo does a lot of uh variant covers as well as storytelling. You feeling a bit tired?

SPEAKER_01 29:32

How do you tell?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Somebody's starting to rest her head on my shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

I wish I could say if you could give the game away. I think I like you. Yeah, heaven forbid.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Um you've got lost now, haven't you? No, but uh a lot of a lot of like comic book artists, especially sort support each other, and that's why you know they they are friends and they'll do covers for each other and stuff like that, you know. So you you will see a certain group of people will be working together.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Is that that one finished now?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, so and then on the back so on the back here there's a uh there's an advert for one of uh Jim's art books. He does a lot of because he's a very prolific artist, he draws like all the time. He had he'll there's a quite a lot of books of just his pure artwork. We've got loads of those, yeah. Yeah, but um he publishes, does a lot of like self-publishing and sells through his website and stuff like that. But he's he's um he's been a big influence on my work for like a for a very long time. Um I I got into him like quite early on in his career. Um when his style was very different. You can still tell it's him on underneath it all, but yeah, because he's gone to this more sort of like loose, scratchy style, and it's uh kind of a little bit more abstract and a bit more um psychedelic, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

I don't think it's got enough cover colours for psychedelic. Yeah, I I always think loads and loads of colours like um yellow submarine.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, yellow, yeah, the so yeah, the Beatles film, because that's like loads of colours. But um it was weird because to start off with, I when I'd seen that his style had sort of shifted, I was a bit hesitant because I really liked his sort of more clean drawing style. It was a bit more like the guys, uh Jamie Hewlett, who does Gorillas, the pop the band. And I I know from again from being a fan, I know that Jim McHoo was influenced by Jamie Hewlett when he started out. I think as well, because Jamie Hewlett created a character called Tank Girl. I've seen that character, yeah. Um Jamie was the original creator and artist of of Tank Girl, and I I'm pretty certain Jim McFood has done some Tank Girl comics. What's can what's carried on is as Hewlett's moved away from comics and gone more into sort of like movie production and storyboarding and and the virtual band Gorillas. Um other artists have come in with the other co-creator of of Tank Girl, Alan Martin, and the his the other artists have come in and done um tank girl stories. Ashley Wood, who we talked about last week, has done some has done quite a lot of tank girl comics.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Picture a woman every time you say that. What's that actress, Ashley? Ashley Jensen? Yes, that's right. That's that's the picture that comes into my mind. Can I give it a nice?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah, yeah, please do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Alright. I thought the sculpt story's good. It is a proper story and it's got depths.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

And well, there really wasn't any silly Barnies in it, were there? There was arguing, which is one thing, but having said two, I didn't see any of that. So that got lots of points of all it. It lost one because oh uppercase. Perhaps I ought to remove five every time there's an uppercase, but one is gone. Um I wondered if the language was appropriate, although if somebody's just shot their something through their head, I suppose uh a rude word would come to mind. And that but uh so that might be okay. I'll I'll leave that one. Um the colour the the artwork I did like mostly.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

But sometimes it confused me. But sometimes it didn't matter if I was confused, did it? No. So it was okay. Yes. But that that that person with the roll neck jumper.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

So it's all neck jones.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Yes. He was supposed to be vicious, and yet he had woman's cat's eye 1960s glasses on and uh a roll-neck jumper. Wasn't he the one that shot himself through the head?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Well we're not gonna bother with him again, will we?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Ah, you'd have to read the rest of the series to find out, which isn't gonna happen from the look on your face.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Well, I'm just wondering how he could recover from that. Or could he become a ghost? Or aren't you gonna tell me?

SPEAKER_00 34:34

I can't remember because I actually dropped when I grabbed this one to do a review of, because it's it's one of the the latest uh Mafood comics I've got. I was actually gonna sit down and reread the story and remind myself of what actually happened. I kind of remember little bits and pieces of what happened, but yeah, I'm gonna I it's it's it's due a a reread. It's something I do quite often, is I'll read stories over again.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Yes. I think that gets about eight mostly because it really had a proper story and it wasn't fluff and it wasn't f all fighting all the time, and and yeah, that that's that gets eight.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Excellent, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

I think that's the highest one I've given these years.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

I think it is actually, I think it might be. So yeah, high pr high high praise for for Jim Mafoo.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

I even like her legs, even though in real life she'd need some surgery on those, wouldn't she?

SPEAKER_00 35:33

She probably would. Um Jim does draw a lot, he draws a lot of female characters, um, but he does quite exaggerate sort of anatomy. So the legs are very long and slender, you know. Like Cindy or Tresses. Yeah, it's got a kind of a yeah, kind of a dull feeling to it.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

But he doesn't I mean I don't remember him drawing them sexually, uh exact um oh, what's the word I want? Exaggeratedly like with the case. Overly sexualised. Thank you very much. That's what I meant with big boobs, yeah, pointlessly.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

I know, I mean he's ne he's never done that. He's he did he just he just female characters really well. Like I say, the original three Girl Scouts are because they're girls, they're all they're all female characters and they work really, really well.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

But we were talking the other day about how uh it was like like page three on the front of some of these thing, pointlessly, yeah. Yeah and out today without a date over here anyway.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Yeah, this trend that still goes on in comics that I despair of of basically having a cover with just naked women on it, and I it's just like what's the point?

SPEAKER_01 36:49

I do that in books as well, yeah. Because um I've read things where the uh the protagonist protagonist, I must be tired, her, she's been described in a particular way, and you look on the picture and there's no way the character that they'd actually the the writer had built inside would wouldn't wear what was on the front of the cover. Um which seems odd to me, but there you go. Yeah. And quite disrespect respectful towards the art the writer.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Oh, yeah, I mean, whereas um, you know, because the the figures are drawn in a in a more exaggerated style, it's it's comic book after all, it's cartoons. Jim's characters tend to be dressed more normally, you know, in normal everyday clothes. Yeah, although you really do see short skirts like that when you go. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, when you yeah, you literally it covers your bum and not a lot else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Well yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Yeah. No, I just want to go to something. So on that, thanks for listening. Let us know what you think.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Yes, give us feedback.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Yeah, we'd love to hear feedback from you guys. And if you think of other comics that we you think we should be looking at, please let us know. And with that, we will see you next Wednesday. Bye. I couldn't say you could have said I was well