EPISODE 18: DEMON WARS

WELCOME BACK!

After an unplanned break (health issues and new kittens), we're back!

This week we're looking at DEMON WARS from MARVEL COMICS. Written and drawn by Japanese superstar PEACH MOMOKO, this is a bold retelling of Marvel characters in Japanese folklore and settings. I really love the way Peach draws, using watercolour and ink washes to create a very unique voice in today's e comic world.

We discuss Peach's meteoric rise to comic superstardom and look at the differences between Japanese and American comics - and look for guest appearances from our new kittens, Oberon and Ophelia. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh, welcome back to Morgan Talks Comics. We are back after a little bit of a break, which Eliza Mariah is going to explain.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Well, just health problems and life, really. We've learned to listen. So many apologies for missing the time, but we've learned to lessen. We're quite new to this, as you probably realise, and that is to have a couple of backup for when the emergencies happen. So we'll try it. Sorry, we'll try and do better in the future. And if we don't do better in the future, you can write in comments an opinion.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Absolutely. So yeah, we've had yeah, we've had a few health issues, and we've we've got two new additions to the house. We have we have kittens again after a very long time.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

People might think I've had twins. That ship sailed.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, so we've actually got a couple of little kittens running around the house. We don't know if they're going to make an appearance here.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

And if they make too much of an appearance, they're getting into their room, they've got a whole room.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah, they're gonna get put away and they can amuse themselves during our room. So, welcome back. Um, this time round we are looking at Demon Wars number one by Peach Mamoko. I'm very pleased to see it's a number one.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Quite alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

I couldn't help myself, but it's actually logically started in the beginning. I don't like things which are not logical. Is that um a Japanese name?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, so Peach is a it's her pen name. Um not exactly sure what her real name is, but everyone knows her as Pete Mamoko, she's a Japanese artist.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Does Momoko mean something in Japanese? Have you looked it up?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

I couldn't find a translation for it, no. Right. But uh Peach sort of burst onto the scene, I think, about about 10 years ago. Uh not that long ago. Um, she has this beautiful sort of painted style, uh, and was I think when she sort of started out, she was very popular for doing uh variant covers, doing covers for other people. She's worked with um Stan Sakai on Yusagio Yimbo that we've talked about. It's it's popular, but I'll I'll get into that in a little bit a little bit more detail.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah, I can I well I've started off realising it's a she, it's like a woman. And how long has she been working? In other words, is she very, very young or she is she is quite she is quite young.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I think she's in her early thirties. She is quite young.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Um depends how old you are, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

But young to me. Yeah. Um young to me as well. But Peach, um it kind of almost seems a little bit like she's become an overnight success because she got picked up by Marvel, who are one of the bigger, biggest publishers. She got picked up by Marvel quite early, and she's done a lot of this retelling of like Marvel Universe stories in a Japanese style. So she she wrote she dives into Japanese folklore and literature, you know, with spirits and so on. Um and this this it this uh series, Demon Wars, is from believe it's actually four years from four years ago. I thought it was more recent than that, but anyway, this is kind of a retelling of like Japanese folklore, but using Marvel superheroes, and you will see you will see if you can guess who they are as they go along. Oh look, that's one of our kittens. Yeah, it is one of our kittens.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Am I allowed to ask who or do we get to that later?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

We get to that later. We get to that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

And what do you know what that says down there?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

No, I don't, so I I unfortunately I I don't I don't actually know an awful lot of Japanese.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

No, I thought you might have looked it up already. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. It could be something really, really rude, could be.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Well, it could just be demon wars. Or her name. Or her name. Um I think Page does sign in uh sign in Kanji, which is Japanese uh letters. Um I think she she signs in both. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

I'd vote for her name, I think.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

So let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Oh, nice bright page. Is that advertising?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So that was advertising for the fourth Thor film that came out. Uh yeah, that was out. Gosh, boy, we would have been 2022 because that's when this comic came out.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Is this saying the same thing as on the front?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Um yes, so I'm assuming that this translates to Demon Wars.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

I'm assuming it translate I'll still assume it's adds up to a name, but that might be a name, might it.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah. Um so there's a bit of introductory text here to explain what's going on, and it's saying that this is Marvel Universe like you've never seen it before. Because this is Peach retelling. Um is it from a woman's point of view? I guess I guess, yeah, because yeah, Peach tends to have um female protagonists, which I think is a really good thing, you know, because comics still tends to be quite male dominated.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yes, and we were talking the the other day about when they're female that they're over sort of sexualised.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah, but you said you hadn't ever got we hadn't bought any of those, so that's rather handy. Yeah, yeah. So we don't have to discuss it, but yeah, yeah. So she's doing it properly, like normal people.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

She's doing it, yeah. Yeah. So it starts off with really lovely bright watercolor. She tends to use quite bright tones of colours. So she works in in in brush and ink. Is it is this words or is it so? I think what she's doing here, what Peach is doing here with the lettering, the let uh comics use lettering for sound effects, so you know, like smack and bonk and Japanese versions. So it's the Japanese versions. There's I think we're supposed to understand from the way these words are coming, coming up, but dumb. I think it's like a heartbeat. So uh there's a kanji, you know, Japanese letters there, and then there's the English next to it, which is quite common that you'll see in in manga as well in Japanese in Japanese comics.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Except I can't read any of it, might as well all be Japanese.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

But you can read those.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So could you read them too?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

So it says bedum badum. It's like I think it's a heartbeat. I suppose Oh, it's all a heartbeat. Yeah, it's supposed to be a heartbeat. So we see two mountains, and then we come across a uh Torrey gate. What?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Oh there's a dog moving the um microphone, but now that she's very still again, I think we can just ignore it. Yeah, she's leaning on it.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

So we see a Tory gate with a flight of stairs leading up through some woodland, and we come into a cave, and there's some kind of spirit creature uh resting in the cave. And as we see, Peach has quite has she die delves into like horror and fantasy a lot as well, so there's more or more like slightly horrific images in here as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

I can't understand the top left.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

So she's seeing a spirit sort of hanging over a bot uh hanging over a uh female character. But it's making blood, isn't it? I think so, yeah. And then there's a there's a part of a mask, there's a mouthpiece of a m of a mask, which looks like Japanese you know, samurai armour.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Does it look is it supposed to be suggesting that that thingy goes on to her and then it makes those things?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

It could be, yeah. And then we come into the following page and it and it's it sort of makes sense now that they had these slightly surreal images because it was it was actually a dream to have it isn't it always yeah, thanks you know what strikes me to begin with?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, I can't even see whether it's a low upper or lowercase, but it's so tiddly.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

It is lowercase, it is uppercase.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So it's tiddly and uppercase, tiddly and uppercase.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

So yeah, all the lost a couple of points there. The the narration to the story is is all in uppercase. Um, but if we introduce the main character, Mariko Yeshida, so Mariko, and she finds out that she's a child of an Oni, which is a demon or ogre in Japanese mythology.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Right. What's this about a fate?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

I think what she's doing is she's talking about how she discovered that she was um strange. She's got a strange background, and we see her the next scene it the next panel is them sitting there, I think, eating breakfast, and there's an emergency broadcast for an earthquake. Japan has a lot of earthquakes.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Why is it what's a feet doing? So this is looks like a pedestrian crossing. Um, and we've just got a pair of feet.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Oh, I thought uh you know what? I thought that was steps.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

No, it's a pedestrian crossing. You see a lot of crossings, especially in in in Japanese cities, they have big like squares of crossings. That's what you do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Um as a pelicans, though, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

So she's just everybody else is running away and she's just standing still in the middle of the road.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah. Right, why? I don't know. We'll find out more as we go along. Okay. Okay. So we turn over the page and um Mariko is going to catch the train. Obviously, you know, in Japan they use the trains to get around a lot more between cities and um schools and stuff like that. Yeah, as do we. As do we, yeah. Yeah, it's more akin to the the London Underground that we have. It seems to be that they use trains as as a more common use common form of transport than than we would.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Well, in London, where we've the only well that's the only s is that the only city we've got with the tube, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

It is actually.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah, yeah. Well, most people, certainly people live there use the tube. Yeah. Mather than anything else. We use the buses as well, of course. Few relatively few people drive into London because there's so many people that live there and drive, yeah. And lobbies and all the rest of it going in. Yeah. So she's now in somewhere. Well, I can't see what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

So she's got onto the train to go to either school or work. I think I think she's going to school from the way that she's dressed, she's dressed in quite a traditional Japanese uh female school uniform.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Right. Well, everybody else is leaving because there's an earthquake and she's still going to school.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Well, I don't I don't know what happened with that, whether I don't know what happened with that. Missed a bit then. Missed a bit. Um but she's sitting there on the train and she can she said, I've been seeing weird stuff lately, and there's lots of like yokai which are spirits or ghosts appearing.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

All over the place. And bits of them by looks of it. Yeah, so she's walking along, walking along a uh a typical resurrection street. Excuse me. And yeah, she's as the the way that the it sort of um picks picks apart the two worlds, the with the where it's where it's more like the real world, it's done in like greys and muted tones, but then the the spirit world is shown in much brighter, vibrant more vibrant colours.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Total opposite as I would do, so I'll just do it there.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Well you do vibrant for the real world.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yes, I'd do real world improper colours, and the spirit world would be would be less clear, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

I think the reason Peach has chosen to do this, and it's it's it's a it's quite a common way of doing it. When you have characters that are sort of like experiencing two different worlds, the so-called normal world that they're in tends to be very drab and grey and and sort of quite plain, whereas the fantasy world, where they kind of in which is where they would really like to be, is more bright and vibrant and inviting. So it's it's it's used it, it's used in film, it's used in TV, or any kind of visual storytelling. It's kind of a a device that's used, so you know you would see a character coming out of a black and white piece of film into colour, like in The Wizard of Oz.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Oh no, I was thinking of the Spielberg, remember that that little girl in the coat.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

In Shingler's list, yeah, with the red coat, yeah. But I mean, yeah, it it's um The Wizard of Oz did it, it started in black and white, and then when Dorothy goes on come arising Oz, everything becomes full colour, and I think it was the the first film that was made in full colour, the first full colour film. And then we see Mariko at school doing her work. There's other people there, you can see other students sitting in the classroom. Which is obviously very um distracted. She's probably yeah, she probably is bored. She's bored at school, you know, it's quite typical for kids to be bored at school. Yep. So we've still got some of the spirit creatures. There's a cat trying to and here comes the first appearance of one of our little kittens.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

A bit of luck, she'll just walk around, not knock anything down.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

She's actually been very good. Good girl, Ophelia.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yes. Yeah. Right, so she's bored at school and then she m makes up or sees these weird things.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

She's imagining these yeah, yokai or spirits.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Right, is this going home?

SPEAKER_00 14:03

So this is this is later in the day when she's returned home.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Um she has a lovely bath, no bubbles.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah, so she has a big slope. Here comes Oberon. He's gonna be do that. He's gonna be a little bit more hello.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

So she would she's having her nice bath. What she's got toys in there.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

No, she's um she's she says that I don't have a strange little creature s sailing in my bathtub. So she's seeing these little creatures, the the the omni and everything all over the place. And then she goes to bed. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

And oh, this is at night time, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, goes to sleep. Um we have a big panel dreams. Yeah, it's with dreams with spirits being seen all over the place. And here we go, Ophelia's decided to sit on top of the uh comic just about That's uh what cats do. That's what cats do.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Right actually something these dreams, something with lots of eyes.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yeah, I mean that's quite typical in um in sort of fairy tales and especially in in Japanese like mythology that they'll have creatures with lots of eyes in. I watch a lot of um Japanese old Japanese TV and there's lots of fights with monsters in there, and usually quite a lot of them have like multiple eyes and stuff like that. Right, well this one's got eyes on its what looks like it's hay, yeah, yeah. So you can see all these things. There's a it the bottom of the panel is like done in in almost black, it's in a very dark grey, and then all of the spirit creat spirits that are above Marico are prank picked out in colour.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Now she's awake and it looks like they're in the cold.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah, and then they're going off, they're wandering down the hall, but she's she fought she goes to follow them, she follows the spirits.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Ow! I've been attacked by kitty claws.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Oh dear, the claws are out.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Right. Can't get me now.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

And we see Mariko running, and then there's a what looks like a priest from from from the way that the character is dressed. And then on the following page you'll see us standing outside a Tory gate. A Tory gate is a kind of gate that are quite very often at Japanese temples or at places that have spiritual significance. They're kind they're sort of a tall, very tall gate, you know, almost sometimes as tall as a house with uh two bars going across the top of it.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

I thought you had something like a priest standing there.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

You have got a priest standing here standing there here at the bottom. Have you? Yeah, just the priest character that we see here. But yeah, you're standing by the Tory gate, and you can see a flight of stairs with these lanterns up in the distance. And then Mariko walks past the priest character and goes and decides to go through the gate. As she does, it's almost like there's a frame of her putting her hand down, it's almost like she's putting her putting her hand through water. I said, Oh, I've got a kitten curled up next to me now.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Oh upside down for something. Upside down, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

You're an upside down kitten, aren't you, Oberon? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

No time to play with kittens at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

And then we burst we come back into we come into full colour and we see Mariko and she's dressed very much more in traditional Japanese dress, kind of a a short kimono jacket. We can see all these paper lanterns everywhere around. And she comes across this little character called Um O Ami? O Ami. She'd be waiting for it. O-A-M-I.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

O-A-M-I. O-Ami. O-M I.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I suppose it's nothing like that. So she says, Come on, Princess Mariko, this way, and they start wandering off and she goes up goes up the stairs and then they come across coming to like what is like a market. This is quite traditional um Japanese like with temples at so at at uh at times of feast days and stuff, ain't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah, sort of.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, when there's when there's uh I can't think of the right word. My words are failing me today a bit.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Come back to if you could think of it. The thing that strikes me is she's beautifully coloured now, does well?

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah. So the name that we're fully immersed in the dream, the colours are much brighter. There's lots of lovely reds being seen. Hang on.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

We're in the dream now.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

We're in the dream now. I thought she was in real life now because we saw her in real life, and then the creatures came then. She saw the she imagined the creatures coming over her, and then she followed them, and that's then entered into she's entered into the dream world.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Oh right. I'd be waving something really clavorous if I was in the dream world.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

So yeah, um there's all these stalls here for the festival, and she's wants to wants to sample through. There's always they always sell lots of like delicious sweets and and stuff like delicious food.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

And then bottom of the page, they're gonna go into a cave, but like Mariko says, You want me to go in there? 'Cause it's a tiny little hole, but Wami says, Don't worry, it's much bigger on the inside. Oh, it's a target. So it's a target. Yesterday. And then she come and then we we come back on to come into the next page, and there's a large character dressed in like traditional hello, Oberon. Keep going, mate. Thank you. Um, yeah, so there's a character dressed in traditional Japanese, like samurai armour. So this is this is a reimagining of a Marvel character. I don't know if you can guess who it is. Let me see. By the colours, might give it away.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

No.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

So red and yellow, red and yellow armour. I think this is supposed to be a re- it's Peach's interpretation of Iron Man. Iron Man's armour is is red. I have no idea. Red and yellow.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I don't know anything about Iron Man. Have you seen any of these films? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Anyway. So she's gonna stand up against this uh big armour bound creature.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

And you go supposed to be both are they supposed to be both of them goodies?

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I don't know. I think the the the Iron Man character is kind of guarding the way through to something and and Mariko's gonna have to get past him.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

But um Well you've seen the films, so d is he a goodie or a baddie?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Oh he's a goodie in films, yeah. Iron Man is a is a good character, he's a he's part of the Avengers, so he's a good guy. He's been interpreted here as a guard to somewhere that that Mariko has got to go.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

So he might let if he's a goodie and she's a goodie, he'd let her through, wouldn't he?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, probably. So we see we have a nice page of Mariko and the and the Iron Man character in in combat. Uh she reaches into his belt and grabs and grabs another one of his swords, so she has a sword to fight with him.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

What's happening now?

SPEAKER_00 21:39

She's looking yeah, she's looking a bit fair. Um the Iron Man characters grabbed a floating orb and he gets a bow and arrow and goes to shooter with a bow and arrow. But then a bird bird like character on the appears on the next page and wraps his. Wings around Marikote, protect her. Right. So I think this is supposed to be Hawkeye, who is the character in the Marvel universe who who uses a bow and arrow. A bit like Green Arrow we've been watching lately.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Hmm. I'm just trying to think Hawkeye wasn't it that a character in a um sort of American comedy of the old world.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

You're thinking of Mash. Yeah. Yeah. Hawkeye was a character in in MASH.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

I don't know how I know that because actually I don't I've never watched Yeah, I used to watch it when I was little. Well that must be how I know it.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Okay. So he was he was named after that, was he, the character?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

I don't know if it was I don't know if there's a connection there. I know that the whether it was I'd have to look it up to be honest. Hawkeye is a is another part of one of the Avengers.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Um So he's telling Iron Man, pack it in, you've got the wrong person here to basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

What do you think you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah. It's talking to Mariko. So this is this is the Birdman character. This is the hawkeye. You know, because it's it's like it's wearing a mask like a hawk. But again, very much in the Japanese style, the way that like the armour is is set up and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Right. What's that face at the top? Is she looking upset?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Marico? I don't know, she's kind of got quite a neutral expression on her face. Really.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, no personnel, I'd say.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah. I think she's still because she's found out that she's you know, she's not just human, um she's a little bit bewildered by by this new information.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Yes, as would I be.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Yeah, yeah. But then they so the hawk the hawk hawkeye character talks to the Iron Man character and um the Iron Man the he he bows down to her and gives her apologies for attacking her and trying to trying to get her. Yeah. Um so they sort that out.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

So he is a goodie, you just make a little mistake there.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah, and then the following pages we have uh a feast of lots of traditional Japanese food as lots of rice and sushi and and fresh fruits and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah. And then they're all having lychee there, but not the big one.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

They might be lychee, you know. Do you get a big lychee?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I'm not sure. I haven't had a flayche, it's one of my favourites.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

So there she is. Is she eating?

SPEAKER_00 24:49

She's eating, yeah, she's having some some rice balls and stuff like that. And then another character appears who's like based on Japanese mythology. I mean the whole thing is based on Japanese mythology, but this is a character, you know, more directly from mythology. So Ibugani, who comes to talk to Mariko and starts talking about um what's happened with this sort of demon character that we saw at the very beginning of the comic. So he's telling the telling the story. And then we see another character who's introduced who's who is a re an interpretation of the Black Panther character. I think you need an interpreter. I think I do need an interpreter. I'm not doing very well today. Yeah. But it's it's clear here that the people are trying to capture this sort of evil spirit, um, and the Black Panther character is there to to help with this.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Mm-hmm. Is that enough for something else?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Right. Okay, we can ignore that then.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

We can ignore that, yeah, yeah. This is fairly conventional that they'll advertise their own their own titles in there.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

But in the middle of a story is a bit odd, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Bit pushy. I'll tell you what, it's like YouTube. It is a bit like YouTube. I mean it's weird. I think we'd have to look at older comics, but it's it's quite trad it's quite normal to have adverts for their own titles within the top within a title.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Um yes, but not in the middle of a story.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Well, no, uh they it was more prevalent, especially if you looked at comics in the 80s, especially Marvel and DC comics in the 80s, that you would have adverts you know part way through a story. Um, you wouldn't have the story self-contained and then adverts, which is more common now. Because it's sensible. Yeah, if you look at a lot of pub publishers, a lot more the more independent publishers like Dark Horse or uh Image tend to allow the story to run as a full 20 pages or whatever it is, and then put the adverts in afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

In my opinion, that's quite right.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah, I think that's kind of the way it should be. Yeah. So Ibu Gami is still talk is is wrapping up the end of his story, and Mariko is is sitting there with Oami and and the Hawkeye character. So they're all friends now. They're all friends now.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

And then what's going on? I can't make it not tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

They're trying they I think that the Iron Man character is is quite wary of the Hawkeye character. Oh, right, they're not feeling accuses him of being a traitor. Um harsh. Yeah, a bit harsh. And flies off as the Iron Man character. I ironically, shoot him with a bow and arrow. Um shooting the the bird character.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yeah. I mean he's bird, he almost left that taken away from him. He got his he left somebody's eye out with that, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

But it's clear that that Mariko has been brought into this into this world to try and sort out the problems that are going on there. She's a princess, she's a like a a a royalty within that world. So she's been brought into uh sort stuff out. And then the very bottom panel of this page here we see it's sort of a bit it's a bit surreal, but clearly what's happened is that Mariko has broken up, has woken up, and she's there's a dream, she's she's fallen asleep on the train. She was in her bed five minutes ago. But it could be that this is all still part of the dream. Oh dear. She's woken up on the train. He does not look well. No, but you've got another kind of priest character. It's quite common for you in Japan to see priests that there's he's sweeping the stairs here. And no, shaved heads, yeah. Shaved heads very, yeah, very traditional.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Or even shaved heads with a little bobbly bit on the top.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

What's going on now?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

The uh the the last page of this story, so this is the f the end of the first chapter, I guess you would call it. Um, you see a Tory gate, one of a Tory gate there, and Marico just peering through it. You can just see the little the little sort of sacred ribbons that they have up there.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

And that was was the one she was dreaming about. And look, there's a doodar.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah, so there's little bits of colour here, so there's there's bits of the dream world poke pe poking through.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Yeah. And then one of the lovely things that um that they do quite often with with a lot of Peach's comics because because she reinterprets western stories with eastern characters, there's a lovely um d setup at the back here that it's called the yokai files, and it's it's giving descriptions of the main characters that we see in the story and telling you who they are in in Japanese mythology, sort of like so in the history.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Wouldn't it have been sensible to have that at the beginning?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Well, yeah, but it's just it it it would make more sense to have it at the beginning, but again, it's quite common. Stan Sakai does this quite often with Yusagi. He'll, after the story's been told, he'll give the background to it, whether it's you know, if it's from history and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Right. Does it assume that people aren't like me? I would never look at the end of a comic before I'd what read the project. Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

I think other people do. I think you're slightly unusual in that. I'm logical. Yeah. See, the logical thing to me is to read it through first and then read the background information afterwards. So it deepens the um your understanding of the story after you've read it.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah, well, deepen it before you read it, give you tell you what to look at.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

So that's because you've got a logical brain, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, logical and art and and a and a visual. Anyway, so and then there's an ad and then the the the last page of the actual comic is um this is the the painting that's for the cover of the next issue for so for part two of the story.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

That Ms. Marvel, that's uh rings a bell, but I don't know what.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Yeah, Ms. Marvel was a TV series they did um on Disney Plus, which I watched. That's really good, really good fun. I wouldn't know about that necessarily, you've not really watched a lot of the Marvel stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

So but I still remember that must be advertised somewhere, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah. But um anyway, so yeah, that's Demon Wars issue one. Um Peach yeah, works in this lovely sort of watercolour style, she works with watercolours and inks and so on, and has or obviously is has much more of a Japanese aesthetic, sort of a manga aesthetic to her artwork as opposed to more Western American style artwork.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, can I can I give it um oh so you've got more to say about it?

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Yeah, I um I was gonna say because like so the the latest she's returned, she's done a lot of work for Marvel. We've got a very comfortable little kitten here getting some fuss. Um Peach seems to have found a a home at Marvel and she's done a lot, she's just finished a run, uh her reinterpretation of the X-Men, which are an another group of uh, I've seen that that I think. Yeah, yeah, the X-Men films were a lot were originally.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Is that that where they wear bore suits and sunglasses, and one of them was we're all thingy.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Gosh, I got it right.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

I think I've once I've seen one.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Yeah, um, anyway, um, I'm losing my thread a lot today. So yeah, Peach works in the in in in much more of a Japanese, sort of like almost like a manga style. Um she has said that she was originally more influenced by Western art, but over time that the her own um culture has seeped back in. So she's very and she's very sought after as a as a a variant cover artist.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

You know, she's I can see why, because I very much like the colours and that. Sorry, yeah. No, no, no, absolutely. I'm I'm itching to give my points.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Okay. But I don't want to stop you. Well, she's just finished uh a series called uh Cy Dimension Cai is a character she introduced, I think, later in the Demon Wars series. So it's another strong female character, and she goes through lots of alternate uh multiple universes within the Marvel within the Marvel world. But this one was really brilliant because even though she wrote and drew some of it, she's had some really great artists come in and do chapters within the story. So when when the character, when Cy goes into a different dimension, it's drawn by a different artist. So Stan Sakai, who we've talked about before, Jim Food, we've talked about before, Jim and Peach are good friends, and as well as Stan and Peach are good friends as well. They've worked together quite a lot. So and she has actually won awards for her cover work. So she's won Eisner and Ringo Awards, which get you know, like we said before, kind of like the Oscars.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Well, the comic book Eisner, I've never heard of Ringo, apart from the drama in the Beatles, of course.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Yeah, Ringo, I believe, is a um derived from Mike Warringo, who was a comic writer, I think. I'd have to double check that, but it there are awards that are uh uh given every year. Um but yeah, uh I really like the way Peach does stuff. Uh I I love her storytelling. I'm really into Japanese culture and and and sort of TV and films and and so on and mythology, so I really enjoyed this series. It was really nice, and it's it's fun trying to work out who the characters are as you as you read through it, trying to work out you know which which characters from the Marvel Universe they are, which superhero they are. Yeah. So now I'll hand over to Elizabeth because she's itching to give her scores.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Um I've lost my train of thought now. Sorry, that's because I I'd bought it in, didn't I? Well, the colours I on the whole, I really like the colours, so that uh it's good. The writing though, not only uppercase, but I could honestly I'd need a magnifying glass for that. It was tiddly and with no good reason because there was space for it to be more. So I don't know. And yeah, also there's this big Japanese bits which are you know they're big and clear to see, and the our writing was tiddly tiddly. Um fighting, there wasn't much of it, there was just that bit, and it was part of the story, it wasn't just a great big barney with everybody getting in and spending three pages with everybody's knocking seven bells out of each other.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

So I thought that was the right amount of fighting. But it was part of the story, it was properly part of the story. So I think this gets quite a lot, really. It loses a lot for for that little bit of writing, but the rest of it, so it's got to be eight, it could have got ten if it had done the the what's the word for it, the text.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

It's text to be an upper and lower case and larger. Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

So but I th that's one of the best ones I've seen.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

No, yeah, I'm I'm glad I thought you'd like Peach's work. It is a re she has a really lovely style style of of drawing. Um she's very very in demand, you know. Nearly if there's a new series launching, it's quite common for her to do a variant cover for stuff, but she still does her own stuff as well. Um as I say, she seems to have found a home at Marvel, and they're they're quite happy for her to do her interpretation of their characters, you know. Um, it's only good only good um advertisements for them, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Um, I mean I've got I've got some graphic novels waiting for me, which is her take on the X-Men, which I'm really looking forward to reading, because I I do quite like the X-Men as a group of characters. So I'm looking forward to seeing how she does it. She's done a the covers for those are really great, they're very much set in. I think she's literally taken them and set it in Japan. So it's lots of they you'd have characters outside storefronts and stuff like that, and you'd have like motorbikes and things like that. Very more Japanese architecture and that sort of stuff, which to me is is really cool. I really like that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

And I probably wouldn't notice to see what they were doing to the end of it.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

No, but you said that uh yeah, there's but there's me watching Godzilla films and Japanese TV shows and stuff like that. So I guess I'm watching the arrow, watching Supergirl, and we watched what was that?

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Flash, was it?

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Watching we started on Supergirl, then we went to Flash. Now we're what now we're working on working our way through Arrow at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Which on the whole I thought was much better than all of them, except Arrow's got a bit peculiar at the moment, and it yeah, it keeps going back in time, and I I can't be bothered to work with the way it's flashing backwards and forwards is yeah, very com is very confusing, yeah. But on the whole, still enjoying it. So and going to going to X-Men, you said that she's got a take on X-Men. Do they look the same with their nice suits and sunglasses and whatever?

SPEAKER_00 38:57

I think she's picked up on like the colours, but I believe she's put them more into like street clothes. It there's the clothes echo the the the costumes of the of the X-Men characters, but I think she's set done more of an urban setting. It seems to be a bit of her thing. She she she likes to put characters more into even though she draws fantastical stuff, she puts it more, she centres it more around the real world.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Well, wasn't the X-Men the films? They were you know, presumably happy in. Yeah, yeah. Oh absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

It wasn't, yeah. Even though, you know, it is a it is a fantasy because we know superheroes aren't real. It's like saying Santa's novel.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

No, it's obvious nonsense, of course they are. Well, I'm quite happy with the arrow being real, but no care about the rest.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Yeah, not too bothered. No. And I'm very impressed that our kittens have been very well behaved while I've been doing all of this.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

They're tired.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

They're they're they're they're all tuckered out. I've got a a young Oberon fast sleep on me at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, and um breeze the dog. Breeze.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Breeze Breeze our dog is crashed out as well, so I think we've tired.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

They were running round together earlier.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

We found that having kittens is very good for breeze because it gets she's she's got a lot, she's a lot more active now.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

But also she w went downhill when we had about six months ago, we had to have our how old was she? Lady Arabella Cat. Yeah, 20-year-old Lady Arabella Cat put down, and Breeze really, really missed her. So now that we're in kitten season, somebody offered us these ones. They needed a home. So we're taking into kittens. Uh to begin with, it was a bit chaotic with the dog and they were in the cage, but they've worked it out together now.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Yeah, they seem to get on really well. We have got pictures of them all curved up together, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah, so I think m that um bees pretty much puts up with them. I think so. Yeah. You're either ch chasing around when she feels like running around, or she just puts up with them.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Anyway, this has been really good. Good. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

I I I like Peach's work a lot. Uh I'm I'm I'm definitely a fan. Um I just think she's yeah, it's a beautiful style. I love the way she tells stories, and yeah, it's just really great stuff. Um and I hope she continues to be successful. You know, she still is incredibly popular. Why wouldn't she? Yeah. With all that talent. Absolutely. So we go, there's Demon Wars number one, the Iron Samurai. So it gives it alludes to uh the cat the red armoured character being Iron Man, and so it's all Oh yeah, I did I'd forgotten it was the Iron Samurai.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Sam Samurai.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Yeah. Well there you go.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Okay then. Well I'm gonna get them first then. Have a good week. Bye. Bye