Comic News Recap: Jim Lee is President of DC Comics, Frank Miller's cover art sparks debate, and Amazing Spider-Man #26 leaks online

Badr and Ed are joined by longtime friend of the show, Greg Hopkins (Boom Studios), to discuss and recap the latest comic news and headlines from this month. 

TOPICS & TIMESTAMPS: 

• Jim Lee is promoted to President of DC Comics - 06:30
• Massive Publishing is launching three new imprints and a Sean Murphy flagship title! - 15:36
• Frank Miller's Wolverine variant cover sparks online debate (Does Miller still got it?) - 24:36
• Amazing Spider-Man #26 leaks online revealing a MAJOR character's death - 34:06 (SPOILER WARNING!)
• Gold Key Comic's submission process goes viral and starts a conversation about comic book submissions - 47:38
• Ben's Top 3 Comic Picks (Wilds End #1, Svengoolie: Lost in Time #1, Murder by Mail #1 ) - 56:25
• BOOM Studios comics giveaway! (Write in and tell us your favorite comic series from BOOM Studios, and automatically be entered) - 01:07:55

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Transcript

The Short Box Ep. 391: Comic News Recap: Jim Lee is President of DC Comics, Frank Miller's cover art sparks debate, and Amazing Spider-Man #26 leaks online

[00:00:00] Intro music plays

[00:00:21] Badr: Yoo, Short Box Nation. Welcome back to the podcast. How's everyone doing today? All right. I hope, I hope the answer, I hope the unanimous answer to that question is we're all in good spirits, cuz I sure am. If you're new to the show, welcome. This is the Short Box Podcast, the comic book talk show that brings you the best conversations about comic books and pop culture inspired by them.

[00:00:42] Badr: My name is Badr and this is episode 391. I think it's safe to say the road to 400 begins. Now. I gotta figure out something to do for 400. I'm already stressing out about it. We decided this week would be a catch up week to talk about and recap all the different kinds of comic book news headlines, rumors, announcements, et cetera, et cetera, that have transpired this month.

[00:01:05] Badr: And spoiler warning to the surprise of no one, there is a lot to cover today. We've got things to talk about, so if you're looking for a specific talking point or topic, check the timestamps listed in this episode showing us. There'll also be hyperlinks to the, the articles we'll talk about. There might be some visual references as well.

[00:01:23] Badr: And you heard me write. I did say we, because I got a small but mighty panel with me today. Joining me in the studio on mic number two is the return of a short box. All-star. Let's go ahead and give it up for the special Edmund Dansart. What's up? So nice to have you. Was fired. I was like, oh

[00:01:45] Greg Hopkins: man.

[00:01:46] Ed: Oh, it's a good run.

[00:01:48] Ed: I was expecting a severance package. It was

[00:01:50] Badr: just a look. No offense to you, man. It was just a good run of interviews that I, I had to take advantage. It's Jeff, it's good. I was a little worried that you forgot the address, so I'm, I'm, I was really happy to see you pull up in the car. You locked me on all the accounts.

[00:02:01] Ed: I was like, man, this is, sounds weird. That's not a good sign.

[00:02:04] Badr: False flag. Not true. That's fake news right there. All right. And joining us via phone from another part of Sunny Florida is a longtime friend of the show who honestly shares a lot of history with just about everyone involved in this podcast.

[00:02:18] Badr: And if I'm keeping it a buck with ya, all right. If I'm, I'm, if I'm being a hundred percent real with you. The this guy is, is a major influence and, and a plays a big role into the inspiration for the start of the Short Box podcast. He had one of the first comic book podcasts before I really even got into podcasts.

[00:02:36] Badr: All right. He was like the second comic podcast I knew behind, um, Fatman on Batman, which I think says a lot. And the career this man has had in comics is not only impressive, but insanely inspiring for a hometown kid like myself. He's owned a comic shop, he's run conventions. He was art Germs right-hand man at one point.

[00:02:54] Badr: And now he's in the big leagues Ed, he's the retail sales coordinator at Boom Wow Studios Short Box Nation. Let's welcome Greg Hopkins to the show. Man. It's so nice to have you again, brother. How you

[00:03:07] Greg Hopkins: doing? Thanks for having me on. Uh, doing great. Doing great. I listened to my first appearance. This morning on the, uh, the short box episode

[00:03:16] Badr: 1717.

[00:03:17] Greg Hopkins: Holy shit. We were playing with action figures. I was trying to think about it, but I was like, let me find that. Um, so yeah, no, it's cool to be back on. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:03:25] Badr: I think you might be in the upper echelon of like, returning guests and, and you know, special guest co-host. I know we did a episode.

[00:03:31] Badr: Me, you and Drew did, uh, I think it was a Patreon, um, exclusive of before you ended up moving it and going all Hollywood and mainstream on us.

[00:03:40] Greg Hopkins: I, I got lucky. It was luck,

[00:03:42] Badr: Greg, real quick. Is there a little lag? I think there might be a little lag between us, right? It's West

[00:03:46] Greg Hopkins: Florida, man. The, the Internet's horrible

[00:03:47] Ed: over here.

[00:03:48] Ed: Oh, so where are you at now? I don't even know. Uh, near

[00:03:50] Greg Hopkins: Pensacola. Pensacola, okay. Kinda like, like, uh, pretty close to the Destin

[00:03:54] Badr: area, you know. Okay, cool. I know you've been with Boom Studios for a a minute now. Uh, but I, I, you know, officially wanna say congrats on the platform, on the short box.

[00:04:02] Badr: Congratulations. Um, and in layman's terms, like what do you do, what does a retail sales coordinator do?

[00:04:09] Greg Hopkins: So I work on the specialty side where I work more with conventions and retailers to set up, uh, retailer exclusive covers. And then, um, fan expo coming up with some of their fan expo, Dallas something, skill Children, Penn and Inc.

[00:04:22] Greg Hopkins: Covers. They'll have debuting there. So, uh, more just specialty side of of covers and then showing out our previews each month on the video side and kind of doing like live presentations. So kind of everything within the sales realm of just making sure each month we're pushing the books we need to, and, uh, hitting f o c numbers and then working on creating new partnerships like with whatnot and, and just conventions, ranger, stop.

[00:04:44] Greg Hopkins: Anything like

[00:04:44] Badr: that. God damn, that sounds like a hyper important. That was like a lot of shit that you do. Greg, congratulations brother. And you foolishly agreed to be our industry expert, insider correspondent for this episode as well. So you can put that on your resume as well. All right. Maybe it tours the bottom, you'll be like, what the hell is Short Box Podcast?

[00:05:03] Badr: Appreciate it. And one last thing to do before we get this show off the ground. Let's say thanks to the people that help us keep the lights on, like our incredible sponsor, Gotham City Limit, Jacksonville's premier location for comic books, collectibles, toys, and more. You'll hear more about them later on in the show, but do me a favor and check out their online store@gothamcitylimit.com.

[00:05:25] Badr: You'll find exclusive variants that no one else has. And other killer deals on comics and merch. Once again, it's gotham city limit.com and of course, none of what we do would be possible without the continued support of our short box. Patron Saints, a k a, the Short Box family that makes up our Patreon community.

[00:05:43] Badr: We got big love for all of you. If you're someone that's been enjoying the show lately and want to support us in the best way possible, consider joining the short box fam over on patreon.com/the short box. Outside of, of feeling good about supporting an indie podcast, you'll also be treated to your very own private podcast feed.

[00:06:00] Badr: You'll get early access to all of our content for anyone else, and you'll get access to a bunch of bonus episodes that should keep you plenty entertained. If any of that sounds enticing to you, which I imagine probably does, please consider joining our Patreon community@patreon.com slash the short box.

[00:06:16] Badr: You can sign up for a month, see if it's a good fit for you. If not all good. We'd appreciate it and thanks again to everyone supporting us already. We are now ready for liftoff. Let's get into the show. Let's get into these topics. Let's start off positive. You know, I'm looking at our list of topics and it might get a little dicey a maybe a little heated, controversial maybe.

[00:06:36] Badr: But let's start off with, uh, some good news. Let's celebrate some recent wins in comics. Yeah, man. Longtime listeners know that the short box is basically a Jim Lee Stan podcast. Mm-hmm. All right. That's what we, uh, moonlight as. So your headline is a good place to start. Kick it off. So

[00:06:50] Ed: early May DC announces that Jim Lee is got a promotion or at least a new title cuz I think he's been doing a lot of this stuff already.

[00:06:58] Ed: So he is officially the president of dc. He's heading all creative teams and he is, uh, integrating publishing portfolios and basically merging them with all different media. So it's more unified. With the animation, kind of like what James Gunn was saying when he took over. They kind of want to unify the, the movie division, the animation division, and the comics division to be little more cohesively put together.

[00:07:23] Ed: He still answers to Pam Lipford and hold on this title, and she's the president of Global Brands franchises, experiences and experiences at Warner Brothers Discovery. So that's a hell of

[00:07:34] Badr: a business card. That sounds like Greg's entire resume right there in a title.

[00:07:39] Ed: So just from history, Pam, watch out. Jim Lee's gonna be in that chair soon.

[00:07:44] Ed: Oh, come

[00:07:45] Badr: on man.

[00:07:48] Ed: So he's been at DC since, I believe, 1999. So he's been there close to 25 years. 23, 25 years. He's his tenure man. He's smart. As talented as an artist. He is. He, he knew that there's a shelf life for that, right? So he navigated his way, he leaves. Marvel when he has no beef. Like the other guys, the his start image creates his own company, essentially his own lines, three or four different lines under wild Storm, like Cliff Hanger, uh, ABC Comics.

[00:08:21] Ed: Basically goes to DC with all these ips to offer, gets a position in DC and just consistently moves up the ladder. So he was like the cco, chief creative officer, um, Jeff, John, cia, I'm now that guy. He was co publisher. The first victim co-publisher with Dan Dillo. I was like, nah, I don't want to, no, I'm not co nothing.

[00:08:42] Ed: I'm Jim Lee.

[00:08:43] Badr: Second the victim. Get outta here.

[00:08:45] Ed: Soul Publisher. That's not enough. That's not enough for Jim. So he's moved up to president and like I said, he's survived all the cuts with all the turmoil that that Warner Brothers in DC has been going through. Like basically different big corporations selling them and selling 'em off, selling 'em on like cutting everybody.

[00:09:02] Ed: He has survived. He's the guy you want if he, even if he doesn't sell you one more issue of comics, you want the guy with the cred, you know what I'm saying? You want the guy with mm-hmm. Close to 40 years in the industry. You want the guy that has drawn the best selling comics of all time, X-Men one 7 million comics.

[00:09:22] Ed: Everyone loves this guy. You know, he's, and I'm, and I joke, but I'm sure he's a, he's a great guy. Seems like a great guy.

[00:09:28] Badr: And I've sat in on a couple of his streams. And, you know, he's got thousands of people on there and he reads comments, he'll answer questions. Um, I've never gotten any like shady or like, you know, uh, uh, bad characteristics from him.

[00:09:41] Badr: He's,

[00:09:42] Ed: he keeps, I mean, he never says anything clean. He's very controversial. He's not like Uncle Todd who goes off. Even Uncle Robin, uncle Todd, who tend to run their mouth every once in a while to, to our entertainment. But he's very even keel. He's survived this industry. He's navigated his way. He can draw a comic right now.

[00:10:00] Ed: It'll sell a ton because, and he still has the skills and he's. And he's one of those guys who hasn't stayed stagnant. Like every time you see his art, it's like, man, he just keeps getting, when's it gonna stop getting

[00:10:11] Badr: better? I mean, I'm to the point now where I'm, where I'd rather see a Jim Lee book where, cuz he started experimenting with like watercolor.

[00:10:18] Badr: Mm-hmm. Like during the pandemic when he was doing a lot of like, live streams. Oh yeah. It almost feels like the more refined that his artwork gets, like when it gets to, uh, the inking stage and coloring stage, you lose some of that rawness. And I've thoroughly started to enjoy just his, like, you know, his sketches that are, are strictly him, where it's like him doing the inking, the water color, it's just his hand.

[00:10:38] Badr: It's

[00:10:38] Ed: not a inker. There's not a colorist. It's, you just see that raw talent that's, that's been there and it just, he seems to want to improve. For a guy who doesn't need to, he could just stop drawing 20 years ago. Yeah. And no one would say nothing cuz he's, you know, running DC He's the face

[00:10:54] Badr: of DC. Greg as our, uh, industry insider correspondent, special, super awesome guy.

[00:11:00] Badr: What do you think about this news, man? I know that you're a big Jim Lee fan, and as someone that's now in the industry yourself, uh, is this inspiring to you? Oh, yeah. No, I

[00:11:08] Greg Hopkins: mean, Jim Lee is, uh, it's a, you know, the face of DC like I, I'd argue maybe the face of comics like took over for Stanley. He's not as, as, you know, boisterous as Stan as far as like a cheerleader, but I mean, definitely I think just with the legacy and, and can really like, carry comics forward with the ideas he has and stuff like that.

[00:11:26] Greg Hopkins: So it was awesome to see. Um, and then, yeah, he had a Titans number one, uh, with the new Tom Taylor, uh, series cover for that, uh, recently. So, uh, I mean gorgeous cover, like still has it, and I heard this was a long time coming too. Like some of this was done back like when Warner Brothers had the cuts, um, earlier in the year and they're just kind of announcing more of it now.

[00:11:46] Greg Hopkins: But the structure has been happening and. Stuff like that. So I think there's just probably

[00:11:51] Ed: more news coming out in like the next few months. Yeah. Plus he's still good looking dude, for all these years. Oh yes. This was Asian jeans, bro. And don't crack man,

[00:11:59] Badr: don't crack. Jim Lee to me, has always been like, I've always compared him to like the Jay-Z of like comics, Jay-Z being someone that earned a lot of credibility in, in the streets, in rap.

[00:12:12] Badr: You know, an entrepreneur from the get-go. Someone that started his own record label, sold millions of records, highly respected by like, you know, commercial, you know, pop radio, also underground rap. Like there's no one that doubts his like ability in rapping. So whenever he transitions to, you know, uh, running, uh, for president of Def Jam, it was like, oh, that makes sense.

[00:12:33] Badr: Like, he's the guy, he's the guy, he's already proven himself, so this is like the next step. There's no way that he would've just continued making records and just being your route, even though he still does now. He's on the bigger and better things. And I, and I look at Jim Lee and it's like a lot of similarities there, where it's earned the credibility.

[00:12:49] Badr: He did the groundwork being a comic artist. Mm-hmm. Into Ed's point. He proven himself, right? Like millions of comic books sold, still holds, you know, a a, a record, I think. Right? Like he still still holds a records to this day.

[00:13:00] Ed: Anyone that comes up to, he just goes 7 million and just walks

[00:13:03] Badr: off 7 million. So now to watch him climb this corporate ladder, it's like, well, well, yeah, there's no way that we could have contained him.

[00:13:09] Badr: Like, he's already done it all. Like this is the next big step. You look back at his resume, it's like, yeah, this dude's been like business focused and minded since he started, did I say 7

[00:13:18] Ed: million? I'm sorry, 8.2 million. My bad. Sorry, Jim. My

[00:13:22] Badr: bad, Jim, you better watch shot Ed. All right. 8.2 million.

[00:13:25] Ed: You come for you next man.

[00:13:27] Ed: Plus you don't wanna lose this guy, right? Like Joe Cassada just got signed up by Amazon. They're, a lot of these companies are taking these comic guys to basically develop new ips for shows, whether they print a comic or not. They want to kind of basically set up like this farm system for our ips for, for um, content.

[00:13:47] Ed: So you don't wanna lose this guy too, you know, that's a big, if you lose this guy, what does that say? Like big business? Why is it, what does that say to like the stockholders and stuff like that? If we want to go that direction, we, you, oh, you had this guy for 20 so years, 20 something years. Legend couldn't lock him up.

[00:14:03] Ed: You lose a lot of faith

[00:14:04] Badr: and I think, we'll, we'll probably all agree that when New 52 came on board, He's single. I don't know if it was all single-handedly, but he gets a lot of credit for designing and re-imagining like the more contemporary suits that we're used to. Mm-hmm. For like your Batman and your Superman and your Wonder Woman.

[00:14:19] Badr: Right. He is kinda like the house style. Yeah. Now, maybe not, uh, not a lot of one-on-one direct interpretations, but I think his influence is still apparent. I think it's not crazy to make a connection artistically to Jim Lee's style. And I would say manga too. I think Mangas probably been a big influence on this newer crop of um, artists, but I think it's safe.

[00:14:39] Badr: It's really safe to say a majority of the new artists at DC are Lee's children. But you can

[00:14:44] Ed: artist Mango was an influence to those nineties guys too. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. It wasn't as blatant, I guess, you know, more. More than others. You can even go back to like John Burn and like Art Adams, and you can see like that manga influence.

[00:14:57] Ed: That's fair.

[00:14:58] Badr: But that's fair. But I, I think what I'm getting at is the comic books are basically, he developed like this new house style for DC that I think we're still seeing, uh, to this day ever since new 52. I guess I, I, I'm curious to see where he goes after this. Yeah. And it's, I'm curious to see, well, his appetite for power ever.

[00:15:14] Badr: Oh, never

[00:15:15] Ed: fulfilled, Pam. I'm telling you, start packing up that desk. Pam's gonna be curious to see now what is he going to do and what he has as actual hands-on and whether, is he just a spokesman or is he going to be in the trenches with a creative teams, like they say? So it'll be interesting to see.

[00:15:32] Ed: Big congrats to

[00:15:33] Badr: Mr. Lee. Oh yeah. Big congrats. All right. It seems that every time we do these kind of, uh, these episodes and catch up and, and recap on, on comic news, Lately what not has been mentioned or connected in some way. And I'll take full blame on that. I feel like I'm always kind of bringing them up or I brought them up, your last couple of short box news episodes.

[00:15:52] Badr: But today is also no different. This piece of news is about what not publishing's parent company, though massive publishing. The headline comes from I c V two who I think broke the news. Uh, the headline reads, uh, exclusive massive announces three new imprints flagship Line launch Title, massive Publishing was founded like in 2022.

[00:16:13] Badr: Uh, I interviewed one of the founders of the company, Kevin Elli, uh, earlier this year in episode three. I think it was, uh, 87 or 3 77, 1 of those. Um, and he had hinted at some big things that the company was, you know, working on. And I think this is it. So they're launching two new imprints. One is called Overlook, uh, and the other one is called Kingwood Comics.

[00:16:32] Badr: I'll, I'll tell you a little more about those here in a second. And then they announced. Uh, the first title in this new flagship line, which is a Sean Gordon Murphy five issue limited series called the Plot Holes. Me and Drew were literally talking about Sean Murphy, you know, being, uh, just doing strictly, uh, the Batman White Knight stuff and how we both really wanna see, like, we both were like, man, I really kinda wanna see Chm Murphy get back to creator own and stuff.

[00:16:57] Badr: I think the Comic God's heard me and they're like, BA, I got you, I got you. Wait until you hear this. So, uh, fiveish limited series called the Plot Holes. The, um, solicitation sounds pretty cool. It's a story about fictional characters who move into other books who alter the plot. It was originally a, uh, uh, Indiegogo crowdfunded project.

[00:17:15] Badr: Obviously Sean Murphy people wanted to fund that. Uh, he got 200, almost $267,000 in pledges from over 3000 backers. And this will actually be the first retail release of the series through, uh, massive publishing. I'm gonna go tell you right now, I cosign anything that gives me more Sean Murphy, like original comic.

[00:17:36] Badr: Goodness. Greg, I see you smiling over there cuz I know you're a big Sean Murphy fan. What do you think about this news so far? I,

[00:17:41] Greg Hopkins: I pulled it out like I, I, so I did back the indiego, holy, holy shit that the plot holes and, uh, such a, a good book. Uh uh, yeah, no, I mean, like, it's, it's, it's awesome to see this come in print.

[00:17:53] Greg Hopkins: Oh shit. Um, and, and kind of get more of a mass, uh, uh, thing at this point. Cause I, I think it is probably a little bit hard to get. So, um, awesome news. And then, uh, for what not to, or, or massive at this point to, um, expand like that. I mean, we're seeing a lot of that in the market now, so it's pretty cool to see them taking on stuff like that.

[00:18:11] Greg Hopkins: And Sean Murphy's such a solid base to start with, with, with that line. And then hopefully we do get a Murphy verse

[00:18:16] Badr: and, and stuff like that. Greg, do you want my nerd card mailed to you or do you just want me to drive to you and deliver it? Because that was a fucking mic drop right there. You already had the damn book?

[00:18:26] Greg Hopkins: Yeah. Oh, I, I pulled it when I saw was on the thing.

[00:18:28] Badr: So obviously it's Sean Murphy. I know the art's going to be fantastic. I've always thought he's always had pretty interesting ideas for creator own stuff. Is it as good as his other stuff? Oh, definitely, definitely.

[00:18:38] Greg Hopkins: Yeah. It's, I mean, story-wise it's amazing.

[00:18:41] Greg Hopkins: And, and then art, super detailed, beautiful. Like, he took his time. It, it came out a little late because of that, but it

[00:18:46] Badr: was well worth it. Such a good book. So that'll be the first, uh, massive publishings, um, flagship title that they're gonna, uh, kick things off with a retail, uh, release of, uh, the plot hole series that was backed earlier.

[00:18:58] Badr: Uh, but back to the two new imprints that massive, um, publishing also announced. So you got overlook. Which will focus on horror and will be helm by writer Colin Bun, who, you know, obviously is one of the hardest working guys on everything in comics. Exactly, exactly. Hardest working guys in comics. Uh, that'll feature work by film and TV writers as well as comic creators, which I'm pretty excited about.

[00:19:19] Badr: Right? Like you're getting writers from different mediums that translate to comic books pretty well and it's being, you know, run by Cullen Bunn. I think that's you're, you'll be in safe hands. I'm happy for him. He is like,

[00:19:28] Ed: man, I have to write 30 books a month now and just do this sweet gig.

[00:19:32] Badr: I feel like Colin Bun purposely is like, nah, how many more I can write five now.

[00:19:37] Badr: Gimme that and run this label too. Yeah. And the other imprint is Kingwood Comics, which will focus on black creators. And characters, it'll kick off in September. The first, um, uh, offerings from this imprint will be a retail distribution of Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer by David Croson. Uh, this is another Crowdfunded property, uh, that is apparently also being adapted into a live action series on Disney plus Disney Plus.

[00:20:02] Badr: Oh, wow. Yeah. Now, granted, I don't know if that was Harriet Tubman, Demus Slayer or two separate things. I, I, I gotta double check that, but, uh, a Harriet Tubman Demus Slayer comic sounds pretty badass. Once again, that second imprint was Kingwood Comics, a focus on black creators and characters. Um, and the third part, you know, if that wasn't already like big news for massive publishing, they're also, they also entered a distribution agreement with Samian Comics, which was originally Behem of comics before Behem of, uh, became the publishing arm of Sumerian Records.

[00:20:34] Badr: Um, so with the help of massive publishing, uh, Sumerian is gonna be shifting towards more like licensed tv, film, and music properties. Uh, starting with, uh, the first comic will be a bad omens, concrete jungle, number one. And if that wasn't enough, Massive is also joining the likes of after shot comics, Titan Comics, a Blaze Publishing and Frank Miller presents as part of like diamonds, uh, diamond Comic distributors Deluxe here of publishers, which means that they're gonna get like preferred coverage in the previews catalog.

[00:21:04] Badr: So you'll probably see more of their titles and offerings catalog up front. Yeah, exactly. You won't have to flip to where they're like in page like 400 now or something. Uh, and they'll also get like ex uh, you'll probably see them also more on the previous World website. So I wouldn't be surprised if good friend of the show Troy, Jeffrey Allen is talking to more people at, uh, massive and covering that as well and they get like distribution perks.

[00:21:24] Badr: So I guess like that's the, the positive of being a part of like this upper echelon. Yeah. And that's good

[00:21:28] Ed: for Diamond too, cuz how many people have left Diamond the last two

[00:21:32] Badr: years? Shit, I think, uh, I was in the shop today and I forgot what publisher Ben mentioned, but they moved to like Lunar or something and I, I'm drawing a blank here, but I mean, you

[00:21:42] Ed: have like big indies, you know, like I D W Dark Horse and.

[00:21:48] Ed: Greg, correct me if I'm wrong, at least in the US boom is not distributed by Diamond. Yeah. Fill

[00:21:53] us

[00:21:53] Badr: in. Greg. What's going on over there?

[00:21:55] Greg Hopkins: We are Diamond exclusive right now. Really? Oh, okay. That everything's through Diamond. Okay, cool.

[00:21:59] Badr: My bad, Greg. Save any, uh, save, save all your shit talking for later. Right?

[00:22:03] Badr: Hey, cut this out. Cut this out. Um,

[00:22:06] Ed: but like, you know, a W Vault, you know, DC was, DC kind of started the whole Exodus almost when they left. So you have like different vendors in the, in the game like Penguin, Simon and Schuster. So it's good to, for Diamond to have like another new hot publisher in that list to kind of make up for all these other companies leaving so they kind of, you know, improve things.

[00:22:28] Ed: You know, I'm, I haven't worked in a store in a while, but I know there's consistent, you know, issues with Diamond over the years. Mm-hmm. So, but it's good, it's good for both parties for sure. And like I said, they're killing it. They're, whatever they're doing, like they're doing those video game homage covers.

[00:22:42] Ed: Variant covers, they're just killing. They'll get, like, each title

[00:22:46] Badr: seems to sell more. Greg, what'd you think about it, man? What do you think about the, uh, uh, growth of massive publishing in such a short time?

[00:22:52] Greg Hopkins: Oh no. I, I love it. It's, it's definitely, it's the, the opportunities that we're seeing are, I mean, around the industry in general too.

[00:22:57] Greg Hopkins: Um, you know, whether it be Dark Horse taking on the Snyder stuff, uh, the imprint he had through ck. Um, we took on Sirens of the City at Boom, uh, from Carrie Randolph, which published via CK and it's a digital comic we're printing for the first time. So, yeah, it's cool to see massive taking on those things cuz we are seeing more and more crowdfunded books these days that aren't traditionally published that maybe, you know, not all publishers can take on at once.

[00:23:21] Greg Hopkins: Uh, but, you know, there's more creators than we've ever seen. And then exclusives have brought on more artists. You know, Alan Qua ke you, people like them that have kind of gotten, uh, I, I mean, Nate Zdi, you know, was, uh, who we all know kind of, you know, was doing exclusives and then has led to what DC covers and stuff like that too.

[00:23:37] Greg Hopkins: So it's, it's the, I mean, everything is expanding, so it's definitely great to see some of these, these hits getting. Wider audience that maybe don't pay attention to crowdfunding, but maybe hit comic shops. So it's, it's kind of a, a coolest thing to see more of eyes getting on on these

[00:23:52] Badr: things that maybe didn't get it before.

[00:23:54] Badr: Well said. And is there any, I guess, risk for someone like Ash Sean Murphy going through with like, you know, teaming up with Mash of publishing to do a retail release of this, um, of plot holes? Like, I, I don't see any negative, right? It's like I've already gotten my money from the crowdfunding and now you're telling me I can get like a piece of the pie from the retail side.

[00:24:13] Badr: Yeah. I'm guessing

[00:24:14] Ed: he'll get a percentage of sales and he, he'll, his book will be distributed in more places. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a win for him. And plus he made the Disney Go-Go or Kickstarter money. Mm-hmm. They may pick up a part of the printing costs and stuff like that, but getting your book in more stores, that's huge.

[00:24:32] Ed: And a percentage of each book sold

[00:24:34] Badr: huge. Big time. All right. It's been pretty positive news so far. Now we're about to answer the, the spicy territory. We got some spicy takes. Quote unquote controversy that was kind of going on. Uh, I feel like this week in general was kind of interesting to be on comic, uh, Twitter.

[00:24:51] Badr: Uh, ed, how about you? You lead us off, man. You got some news of some Frank Miller cover art

[00:24:55] Ed: controversy. So I believe this was this last week, but Twitter went crazy. Like they showed these, uh, Frank Miller covers he's doing for Marvel, for especially the Ghost Riders, Wolverine, weapons of vengeance cover, and people are divisive.

[00:25:12] Ed: I'll say that They're really divided on, on this and it, and it could be an age thing. So for someone who's lived through and read through Prime Frank Miller to see like what his art has become, and it doesn't bother me as much as some people, I guess he's close to 70 years old at this point. He's 66. I believe.

[00:25:29] Ed: It's, it's one of those things where his, his impact has been so big on the industry, personal stuff aside. He's, he's kind of went off the deep end a few times over the years, but like I said, he's been in the spotlight for so long. Does the impact that he's made in his career, does this affect his overall legacy as an artist?

[00:25:49] Ed: Is it, should he be even doing this? Does he need to put his stuff out there? He's kind of been drawing like this for, I would say the last 10 years or so. This has kind of been his, his style, his like minimalist, really bizarre, proportioned figures. It's not 86 a Miller, you know what I'm saying? It's not gonna be, those days are long gone.

[00:26:11] Ed: This is Guy's Bush in 70. And like I said, for me, Miller, I don't ever consider him the best artist, but as far as the best storyteller, the best person to lay out a page kind, I guess artist, writer combination, if you wanna put those two together. But I don't put him in the category of like a top tier artist.

[00:26:30] Ed: So this kind of bizarre version of his artwork now doesn't really. Bother me, you know, cuz I've seen a lot of older artists simplify their work to varying success. Does he get a pass?

[00:26:43] Badr: Greg, do you want to take that first before I, I give my long-winded response.

[00:26:46] Greg Hopkins: So for me, I, I think you know what you're getting with Frank Miller to begin with.

[00:26:49] Greg Hopkins: So anybody that maybe had a negative thing, and it is Twitter to begin with. So I think most things in there are negative anyway. You know, what you're getting. Like, it wasn't like, I mean, if, if you're a Raphael grandpa fan, you know what you're getting there, like kind of a blocky style. And, and comics have always had art that's not always streamlined or, you know, it's like we went from Frank Miller being like Jim Lee to what we saw there on the cover now.

[00:27:10] Greg Hopkins: So it's not some drastic change in style. It's, it's his style. It's just, it's evolved a little bit over time to. What he's capable of now. I mean, it wasn't a horrible cover by any means. I, I thought it was, it was nice. But I mean, going back to like Dark Knight Strikes again and stuff like that, or strikes back, um, I mean, there are times where you can see Miller cares about the art and you get beautiful pages and sometimes it's just he's drawing it to draw it, and that's kind of what you get.

[00:27:34] Greg Hopkins: But I mean, that's part of his style too. And yeah, I mean it's, it's just a legend doing a cover and if there's a Frank Miller fan, like I think people should enjoy it. Not every cover's for everybody

[00:27:43] Ed: either. Yeah. You have to take it for what it is. And it's a variant cover too, so you don't have to get it, you know, and it's funny, I saw some people put the fm, you know, his logos, the fm and it's like, is his, is it, is that Frank Miller or is it Stand For Fuck Marvel.

[00:27:59] Badr: You purposely giving bad covers to Marvel.

[00:28:00] Ed: Yeah. He's like, he's like tanking it on purpose. It's

[00:28:03] Badr: like that's a hell of a long game right there. That's a hell of a long game.

[00:28:06] Ed: 66 years olds. I can finally tell him how I feel. Yeah,

[00:28:09] Badr: that's like a scorched earth

[00:28:10] Ed: strategy right there. Like Frank Miller never spoke his mind.

[00:28:13] Ed: His career,

[00:28:14] Badr: but he was like, I've been waiting for this moment to do variant covers of Marvel and I'll give them the shittiest covers. Not that I think they're shitty for the record, not to throw, you know, friends of the show underneath the bus, but they know who they are and I think they would agree to some of this conversation that was happening online, on, on Twitter might have started with someone that we've had on the show, ed Lex from the Wednesday Poll List podcast.

[00:28:38] Badr: Okay. On, uh, uh, the 13th, May 13th posted a tweet that wrote that said, it's time to let Frank Miller retire Sister. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, that is the Wednesday poll list for you. They know how to go ahead and, and stir some shit, you know, get, get people talking. You know, they, they're good at that.

[00:28:55] Badr: Not, and I don't think they ever mean it in like a negative No, they just want a conversation. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They just like kind of poking the bear. But, uh, he posted four of these, uh, uh, Marvel variants by Frank Miller. One was a fantastic four, one of the thing. There was a blade one, he did a really badass moon night cover.

[00:29:12] Badr: That's cool. That I liked a lot. And then obviously this Wolverine cover for this ghost writer, Wolverine One shot, and I think his tweet. I see, I, I saw it circulating among Comic Twitter and people referencing it and talking about it. So congratulations at Wednesday poll for having a very viral, uh, moment or, or, you know, kickstarting this conversation here.

[00:29:31] Badr: And I read a really good, uh, writeup on, uh, C B R by senior writer Brian Cronan, who basically to save you a, a, a read. But it was a really good read. I do recommend, I'll put a link to it in the, uh, show notes. He was talking about how the default for fandom and comic book art is realism. And he points to like, people like Neil Adams maybe one of the most premier names when you think of like realistic drawing in comic books.

[00:29:56] Badr: But then he goes on to talk about how a lot of artists that started out that way that were influenced, whether influenced by Neil Adams or went the realistic route cuz it was the house style for, you know, these companies and the way to break in and, and the, the standard and then eventually, you know, developed their own style.

[00:30:11] Badr: And he uses people like David Mazza Kelly as an example, right? You look at Daredevil Born again and the artwork in that is so mm-hmm. Very like, realistic, you know, uh, it follows the house style, um, you know, which you would kind of maybe come to expect from books at that time. And then you look at his later stuff and David Madison Kelly doesn't have a major, like a, a huge bibliography.

[00:30:32] Badr: I think it's like. Really think it might be born again. And then his, um, indie work on, help Me out here. Is it Astro Pop? I know

[00:30:39] Ed: Mazzella. He's kind of, I think he's went into the fine

[00:30:41] Badr: arts. Well, he went into like the fine arts and the, um, and, and ended up like teaching too, and academia Hold up. I kind of wanted see what, okay.

[00:30:49] Badr: Astro's pulp. Something like that. Okay. So yeah, you look at David Mazza Kelly from Daredevil Born again, and then his, you know, other like magnum opus, uh, it was a creator own thing called Astros Poly. I think that's how you say Astros Poly. Those two styles are vastly different. They look nothing alike.

[00:31:07] Badr: And if you didn't know it was Dave, Matt Kelly, you'd probably think it was like a graphic designer or someone that works in, uh, like, uh, newspaper illustration, stuff like that. And then you also got people like Bills and Kevi, right? Like, oh yeah, that's his early stuff, hyperrealistic. And now you've got electric Seon is like 20 different

[00:31:22] Ed: styles,

[00:31:22] Badr: dude.

[00:31:23] Badr: Yeah. Right. So I, I say all that we're just saying Frank Miller's like, this is Frank Miller's style. It's nothing like what it was with like Dark Knight Returns or, you know, even his own stuff in Daredevil. Like this is his new style. And it might not be for everyone, but there's still the signs of like classic Miller, right?

[00:31:40] Badr: Like the attention to detail and like things like the hair, you know, the, the heavy, uh, uh, uh, shading and, and inking, you know, the very heavy lines that he draws. Yeah. And I think he's kind

[00:31:49] Ed: of doing his kind of Kirby Kirby type stuff where he is kind of simplifying things. Yeah. And maybe trying to emulate that more or simplify.

[00:32:00] Ed: His work more, but there's a certain charm to some of the stuff, like even from like DK two where you see that kind of change Yeah. To now. But you've seen this kind of change happening from Sin City up. Yeah. And that's 92 guys. That's a long time meaning, so it's one thing for someone to just see this now and like if this was done by another artist, what would the reaction be?

[00:32:22] Ed: If this was some new artist, it's like, oh, that's weird. But Frank Miller has that history. That is a curse too, and a boon. Like, you know, he's, he's gonna be compared to his prime artwork and he's never been Neil Adams. He's never been that guy. His impact, I think is his, the way he lays out a page and the way he tells a story.

[00:32:42] Ed: Like I said, I don't think it's going to harm his legacy in, in the grand scheme of things. Like I said, I think more of his. His personal shenanigans might do that more than his artwork. That was well

[00:32:54] Badr: said. I agree. I really liked what you said that we've kind of been watching him lean towards and refine this particular style.

[00:33:01] Badr: And I think this is like, this is where we're at with it, right? Yeah. Like we've seen hints of it throughout, uh, throughout his career and I think this is where we're at.

[00:33:08] Ed: And to be fair, he is not drawing a lot. It's not like he's pushed, you know, Trying to put a book out every month. He'll do the occasional cover like this, or maybe like a two or three page story.

[00:33:19] Ed: He will still write. But,

[00:33:20] Badr: and to your point, these are variant covers, right? Like they, they're not in context to anything. Yeah. They're not in context to a, a story or a, a previous panel or, yeah. Variant covers

[00:33:29] Ed: can be whatever. They can have characters that aren't even in the book or, yeah, tangentially

[00:33:33] Badr: related.

[00:33:34] Badr: I've always viewed him as like an auteur, right? Like someone that writes draws and, you know, just shy of like maybe inking or, or coloring. He pretty much does it all, and I think his style now is suited for his work. Yeah. So I think it's a little different now when you look at, um, maybe like these characters that you're used to in a different house style currently, like he just doesn't follow any house style at the moment.

[00:33:54] Badr: Like there is, I don't think there's any house style or artist doing something like Frank Miller. No. And I think it, it just, it still stands out, uh, for better or worse I guess, depending on your taste. Yeah. Speaking of topics that riled up the online comic community and had a lot of them seeing red this week.

[00:34:12] Badr: Current amazing Spider-Man writer Zeb Wells, and the Marvel editorial team in general made a lot of enemies this week when amazing Spider-Man number 26 leaked online revealing the death of a major Marvel character. I wouldn't call it a PR crisis nightmare, but the reception and backlash to the leak online kind of forced Marvel to get ahead of the situation and they actually ended up adding to the spoilers.

[00:34:40] Badr: I'm gonna start off by giving some background and context so you get the bigger story. Uh, maybe you haven't been following along with the current amazing Spider-Man run in the, uh, reception, I'll say to that series. Uh, so this might be helpful. So for the last couple of months, Marvel has been teasing that amazing Spider-Man number 25 would be a pivotal issue.

[00:34:59] Badr: And that issue 26 would be a key turning point in Wells and Ram Ramirez run one that will send shockwaves throughout the Marvel universe and quote. And if you look at the cover of issue 26, it features a cover. Hom. The iconic, amazing Spider-Man, number 1 21 from 1973 is the iconic and infamous issue where they kill off.

[00:35:19] Badr: Gwen, Stacy Peter Parker's girlfriend at that time. Fun fact that issue was drawn by John Romita Jr's Father John Romita. And now we're seeing Romita, you know, getting a chance to not only pay homage to that cover, but also draw the interiors of a yet another, you know, supposedly iconic and watershed moment.

[00:35:38] Badr: So there's an interesting tie in there, and they were promoting these two books like as early as April, and it seems that the attitude regarding these issues is that Marvel was kind of expecting some sort of strong backlash. Even the writer of the current series, Zeb Wells, was teasing and hinting at the outrage that he was expecting for these issues.

[00:35:58] Badr: Matter of fact, in April he told the pop verse in an interview quote, I can tease that. Many people will be very mad at me. I can tease that editor. Nick Lowe told me not to do any comic conventions after this issue comes out and quote, it sounds like he was expecting some strong backlash. From, uh, these issues and we're talking about a comic series, this current Amazing Spider-Man run that's already been pretty polarizing for fans and people collecting the series.

[00:36:26] Badr: I've seen conversations in regards to the quality of writing, you know, the quality of the artwork, uh, some of the decisions being made by editorial and things like that. And when you consider that earlier this month, they were really kind of dealing with some backlash in regards to the events of amazing Spiderman number 25, which was released, uh, I believe May 10th, so earlier this month.

[00:36:47] Badr: And it concluded a long, drawn out plot point involving the status of Peter and Mary Jane's relationship status. And spoiler warning, that didn't go too well. Mary Jane got a new man, and the Internets are not happy about it. So tensions and attitudes towards this current run towards the creative team and editorial were already pretty high.

[00:37:07] Badr: I don't think things had really gotten a chance to cool off before this leak happened, which brings me to the actual leak in what it's all about. So, in the interest of our listeners and just extending a courtesy to anyone listening that doesn't want the events of amazing Spiderman number 26, spoiled or ruined for them, or if you're someone that's collecting the series and you have no idea of what's going on, kudos to you.

[00:37:28] Badr: I mean, it's, it's kind of been all over the news. I know. Uh, entertainment Weekly has reported on it. Um, comic Beat, it's all over Twitter. It was all over Reddit. But regardless, if you want to avoid those spoilers, go ahead and pause the episode. Take a look at the timestamps in the show notes. Amazing.

[00:37:44] Badr: Spiderman number 26 does hit shops on May 31st. For anyone that's patient enough to wait now for everyone that's still here, let's go ahead and proceed on Tuesday, May 16th. Grainy photos of the last page of Amazing Spiderman number 26 found their way online via a Reddit post. And of course, you know, that was shared on Twitter and, and everywhere else.

[00:38:04] Badr: And that got everyone talking and also very upset. It revealed that the stories actual victim was Miss Marvel, a k Kamala Khan. Uh, the page, which is super grainy, uh, shows a, which I think now you can find like a pretty high res version, uh, cuz Marvel had to do like, you know, had to get on top of it. But at the time, the, uh, the leak showed a massless Spider-Man.

[00:38:26] Badr: So Peter Parker holding Kamala in his arms as she takes her last breath. You can't really make out the dialogue of what's being said, but it's obvious that, you know, she's passing away in his arms. Obviously this sparked some very strong opinions on Twitter and, and a bunch of different comic spaces. Um, at least on Twitter alone, uh, amazing Spider-Man, miss Marvel and Zeb Wells were all trending, uh, Zeb Wells more so for the, on the negative.

[00:38:48] Badr: I think he was even getting like, you know, death threats and obviously like a lot of hateful words were being shared. Feeling Dan Slot hate who, I don't know if dance lot, you know what, uh, it's, I think Zeb Wells is now. He might, oh no, it'd be interesting to look at this in retrospect and, and figure out if he kind of, uh, eclipses dance like slot hate for Spider-Man Zeb Wells now, I think, you know, he's getting a lot of hate for Spider-Man, but also now he's got, you know, the, the Miss Marvel army against them as well.

[00:39:16] Badr: Mm-hmm. And that's a very dedicated fan base. Mm-hmm. Marvel had to do some damage control, and I think they eventually even shared like some solicitations and promotions for future comics centered around the death of Miss Marvel. But it wasn't enough to like, you know, basically stop the forest fire. That was, you know, uh, this quote controversy.

[00:39:33] Badr: You guys know as well as I do. My first reaction was, oh, well it's a major Marvel character dying. This is not gonna be permanent. There is a nope. You know, Mar Mis, there's a Marvels movie coming out in November. Yeah. It was, you know, just

[00:39:48] Ed: a a a Disney

[00:39:49] Badr: plus show. Yeah. Like a really successful one. Uh, uh, Iman, uh, Ney, right?

[00:39:54] Badr: Yeah. She brought, she bring, she's, well, beloved, I think like that Disney Plus show, even though I hadn't watched it, I had, I saw a lot of positive things about it. You know, like it's kind of, she's kind of become a beloved character. Yeah. Kamala Khan has been a beloved character since her like introduction.

[00:40:08] Badr: Yeah. In first

[00:40:09] Ed: appearance. I love that character. Like when I think Adam's recommended it to me, And I was like, she's awesome cuz you know, she's, there's a reason why she has the, the amiss Marvel name is cuz she's a fan of Captain Marvel. And the whole, that first arc, the first two or three arcs were, they were really, really good.

[00:40:27] Ed: And she's, she's a great character that we have like a young person that kind of takes that place or alongside of Miles Morales or to kind of take the place of an aging Peter Parker, that young kid responsibility, superhero balance, you know, trying to figure it out while being a teenager for younger audience, Marvel

[00:40:48] Badr: basically struck lightning twice.

[00:40:49] Badr: Yeah. In regards to like new legacy characters. Once of Miles Morales. And then they came, they came with it with, uh, Kamala K, miss Marvel. Mm-hmm. Right. Like it, that's what it felt like to me when she debuted was like, oh shit. They managed to introduce a new young character. And it like stick. Yeah. But they

[00:41:07] Ed: kept her kind of like in her own world with a few guest stars.

[00:41:11] Ed: So they didn't really push her with like, oh, she's with the Avengers right away. You know, it's like they gave her her own world to kind of figure it out. And I think this is, like I said, no one stays dead in comics and this is going to be, you know, without sounding too cold. This is just gonna be a rebrand for the character.

[00:41:28] Ed: They're gonna probably make her more similar to the MCU version, or you know, where she's, okay. Mutants are okay now. So she's, she's not an inhuman anymore. She's gonna be a mutant or something, or they're gonna just change her slightly. Maybe they'll probably keep the Miss Marvel name since it's been so established, but they'll probably do a reset on the character is what I'm

[00:41:49] Badr: thinking.

[00:41:49] Badr: Yeah. And I think that was, that was shared too. Um, I think that was the general consensus, right? Like, Chances of her staying dead are, are slim to none. They're probably using this to better align her to the M c u version of, of Ms. Marvel. I think there's like a, a difference in power set and origin of their powers.

[00:42:05] Badr: Because I think that was a kind of an understanding among a lot of comic fans, right? Is that like the, the chances of her staying dead are slim to none. I think the outrage for the most part in this, you know, quote unquote controversy came from fans that felt like the deaf was even more. Meaningless. Hmm.

[00:42:20] Badr: You know, it, it's a comic book of death. It's meaningless off the bat, but it, it was even more meaningless since Miss Marvel played a very small supporting role in the series. Some people felt like they only put her in the Spider-Man series just to kill her off, which is kind of like, you know, it's not even in her own book.

[00:42:35] Badr: It's like, yeah, it's trash. Right? It's like, what the fuck? You killed Miss Marvel in a Spider-Man book? That's where a lot of the uh, uh, off panel, they wouldn't

[00:42:43] Ed: even see it. That'd be terrible.

[00:42:46] Badr: Imagine if that was the, the page that leaked, uh, miss Marvel's dead. It's like some, you know, uh, NPC don't even see it in the comic.

[00:42:52] Badr: Yeah. We joke. But if they wanted her death to have any meaning to be, felt like it was a big deal, it wouldn't have been in some random numbered issue. Expired. It wasn't even issue like, you know, it wasn't like a Yeah. Issue 50 or issue a hundred. Yeah. It was like issue 26. Uh, you know, overall I think a lot of people and fans felt like she was being treated like fodder just to advance Peter's story.

[00:43:13] Badr: Mm-hmm. When she's, you know, worthy of standing on her own, she's worthy of going out. Yeah. Like so many other, you know, um, Marvel heroes that have died in the comics, you know, whether it be, you know, in a major event or at least in her own series. And then, you know, when you really start drilling down, I thought there was some interesting perspective being shared in regards to, you know, when you have so few positive representations of like Muslim characters, you know, it, it makes sense that fans want to hold on to the few that you do have.

[00:43:42] Badr: Right. You know, I think she's like probably the most popular Muslim superhero in comics period, but especially for Marvel. And when you've only got so few, you know, I think it means so much more when they. Killer off in this way. Right? Like it, it should mean it should have more, it should mean more. I agree.

[00:44:01] Badr: Yeah. There should be more gravitas to it. Yeah. And I think the hope is that the publisher would've understood like what she means and the weight of her representation and what she means to fans and, you know, treat them somewhat of like some sort of dignity. I know that's like a pipe dream, but I think that was like the dream.

[00:44:17] Badr: I think that's what rub people off. Greg, what, what, what are some of your thoughts on this man? What, what do you think when you hear this news? Uh, it was definitely

[00:44:23] Greg Hopkins: sad to see from a, a couple aspects. I mean the, I mean the whole initiative of, of like that line, uh, building from number one was to kind of build off of what happened last and then that whole rift between MJ and Peter and the time traveling stuff.

[00:44:37] Greg Hopkins: And it just, like I said, I mean it really felt shoot in at the end after like this big event of the first 25 issues being geared towards like what happened to Peter and MJ and then all of a sudden like 26 is death mis the marvel.

[00:44:48] Ed: Like it just

[00:44:49] Greg Hopkins: really didn't feel right story-wise for amazing Spider-Man.

[00:44:53] Greg Hopkins: And then for the character of, of Kamala k. And then secondly, um, I've seen shops complaining too cuz Marvel did try to like, let shops know ahead of time, like, Hey, something big's gonna happen. You might wanna order more, but they weren't willing to sh willing to share it and then it kind of came out, you know, and then stuff like that.

[00:45:08] Greg Hopkins: So shops aren't necessarily excited about the second print compared to being able to order more of the first print and stuff like that. So I think there was some retailers on, on that side or two that were just not necessarily happy with how things were kind of ran

[00:45:20] Badr: with, with that issue. Interesting.

[00:45:22] Badr: See, that's the type of insight we can get. Mm-hmm. Only from an industry insider like Greg. Well said. I, I hadn't even thought about it from the, from the retail side. Um, and you bring up a good point just a few weeks prior with the release of, um, amazing Spider-Man 25. That also was like another big, kind of sparked the conversation about like the quality of writing going on in the book and people questioning, you know, I feel like the Spider-Man and MJ conversation that was brought up, like, should they be together?

[00:45:47] Badr: Should they be separate? You know, why are they teasing us? Um, I know to Greg's point, For 25 issues. That was kind of like the question that, you know, they were gonna try to answer. Um, you know, spoiler warning, that is not the case. They decided to keep them separate and that the reaction to that issue hadn't even really cooled off before this, you know, came out.

[00:46:09] Badr: So it's been one hell of a time for, uh, Zeb Wells, the creative team over at SP with Spider-Man and just fans of that series. I'm not reading it personally, so I can't like, you know, comment on the quality. I'm just kind of reporting on what I've seen in regards to the topics and con uh, conversation being had around the series.

[00:46:26] Badr: But there's not a lot of people happy with Zeb Wells at the moment. Um, and you can read it for yourself and form your own opinion. Um, amazing Spider Man. Number 26, like I said, lands and comic shops. And digitally on Wednesday, May 31st. And then they also have already announced a, a special issue called Fallen Friend, the Death of Miss Marvel, which comes out July 2nd.

[00:46:46] Badr: That was announced by Marvel, I think, because they just had to, you know, it was being talked about. It was trending, so they, you know, had to kind of get ahead of it. Um, so they announced this fallen friend, the Deaf Miss Marvel issue, which comes out July 12th. Even that got critiqued because it's, it doesn't really feel about Miss Marvel, like Spiderman's at the center of it.

[00:47:05] Badr: You know, there's characters on the cover that Miss Marvel's never really interacted with. So people just feel like, you know, they're, they're seeing, I think that, you know, some people are finally kind of seeing death and big two comics like that for what they are. Right. Just like kind of sometimes, you know, a, a fucking cash grab.

[00:47:21] Badr: A cash grab, and, and I think in Marvel's case, maybe even a possible setup and promotion to get people talking about Miss Marvel and maybe even seeing the movies. Right. Yeah, that was, uh, it was a hell of a time to be on Twitter, uh, comic Twitter this week. All right. Last but not least, I have, I have one more topic.

[00:47:40] Badr: I wanna, uh, I wanna recap and talk about, uh, before we go into our next segment. And this topic relates to, uh, the submission process when it comes to, you know, working with a comic publisher. And I think it's a topic that we haven't really talked about before. Uh, the headline for this news piece is, does the new Gold Key comics really ask for 200 page submissions?

[00:48:02] Badr: It comes from Comic beat.com. Just some context around this. Uh, gold Key Comics is the iconic publisher of TV and movie tie-in comics, uh, especially in the sixties and seventies when they, um, when you know, they reign Supreme. Mm-hmm. Uh, they have recently announced their return with the launch of a Kickstarter.

[00:48:19] Badr: So to kind of. Go back. That seems to be kinda like the, um, uh, uh, recurring theme for all these stories is just the rise of independent p um, projects and Kickstarter. Uh, in this case, a publisher using Kickstarter to reboot one of their most popular legacy titles in this case, uh, gold Key Comics was rebooting Boris Carlo's Gold Key Mysteries, which like I said, is one of their most popular legacy titles.

[00:48:43] Badr: Uh, this particular project of feature works from the creators, um, including, uh, Michael Conrad, Steve Orlando, and there's a few other names attached to this. It looks like it's gonna be like an anthology comic that they got funded, but in addition to, you know, a successful Kickstarter, you know, coming back into the world of, of publishing Gold Key had opened up, has also opened up submissions, uh, to take in new work and their guidelines for submitting work.

[00:49:09] Badr: Was shared on, um, was shared online, which kind of got, you know, elicited a response from a few people, especially folks working in comics. I'm gonna read some of this submission. First of all, they start off by saying gold key respect creators in their work submissions should have at least six issues, which is around 200 comic pages completed, uh, not have been previously published unless digital small press.

[00:49:31] Badr: And you own the rights, uh, you have to have a full creative team in place. You have to be opened edits from Gold Key, you have to maintain a pace of one issue. So around 32 page, I was thought it was 22 pages for comics, but they're asking for, uh, a pace of 32 pages per month. Wow. And then you have to be open to a long-term relationship with gold Key.

[00:49:50] Badr: Some of that stuff doesn't sound, um huh. You know, out the norm. Uh, but I think a lot of people honed in on the 200 pages already completed the full creative team in place, and then edits, and then, uh, further along in the submission, they also have a questionnaire in regards to project submissions. They asked, do you have at least six issues developed?

[00:50:10] Badr: Do you have a creative team established? Basically, kind of, you know, referencing the, the bullet points I mentioned earlier, but the response from people online and like I said, primarily people who already work in industry, a lot of independent publishers, a lot of people that have worked for other publishers as well.

[00:50:24] Badr: The overwhelming response was that it was a little outrageous for some of the things that Gold Key was asking to have your own creative team already assembled. Uh, for starters, all right, like you, you're saying, I need to have like my own, like a writer, a artist, you know, all like, why do I need you guys?

[00:50:39] Badr: That's, that's beat me to the point. But yeah, essentially that then, you know, to also to come to them with six issues, 200 pages of comics already done. Okay, so I'm giving you the finished product in total and then to be open edits to the existing work, which means that I you, no, which could be like more tedious rework for you and your team.

[00:50:57] Badr: Mm-hmm. Like if you're telling me that like, you know, I've gotta edit something, you know, an issue three. Well what if that has impacts to issues one and two or you know, tie, you know what I'm saying? Like it's fully done,

[00:51:05] Ed: then that's

[00:51:06] Badr: harder to change. Exactly. Ex. Especially if it's like a pivotal like story plot point or something like that, you know, it's just, it's kind of crazy to ask that.

[00:51:14] Badr: Ugh. To Gold Key's credit though, they did walk back to submissions and I think they said, you know, it was an outdated guideline. Obviously they're in the middle of like coming back into the publishing side. They're gonna revamp the website and update the submission process. But I thought it was just an interesting look at.

[00:51:28] Badr: You know, the submission process period. I don't know if I've ever seen anything from Marvel, DC I've heard stories about like the submissions and you know, how to, how to, uh, uh, approach those. But to see detailed submission guidelines like this, to edit your point, why would you go to an independent publisher?

[00:51:45] Badr: It seems like I

[00:51:45] Ed: got things handled. I mean, not, I need to get the, you, I just need you to print it. Yeah, I

[00:51:49] Badr: don't gotta print, print it. I don't gotta print it at home. Um, so I'm

[00:51:53] Ed: gonna join you so you can change my story, my finished story, and I gotta sign a long-term

[00:51:58] Badr: contract. I guess that's why it was interesting to see the responses from other people that have actually done this submission process, that this seemed a little crazy and a little out there.

[00:52:08] Badr: I think I

[00:52:08] Ed: read something a Jim Lee says, like, a submission to DC was like maybe four or five drawn pages, just so you can tell

[00:52:16] Badr: a story. We've had hundreds of artists on the show, and I feel like the common advice they give when it comes to submissions is usually either make your own comic so they can see that, you know, you're capable of creating your own comic, one that you own.

[00:52:28] Badr: I don't think they've ever said anything as far as like six issues, 200 pages, but you know, even having like a, a one shot, complete a full trade

[00:52:34] Ed: paper back, just hand it to them, Hey, you like this, you gonna hire me now? I got, uh, inker Rider. You don't need to find me.

[00:52:42] Badr: Any of these people that you need to come like, uh, you gotta be George rmr and

[00:52:45] Ed: all.

[00:52:45] Ed: They're trying to staff their company too. Yeah. With this submission.

[00:52:49] Badr: But Greg, as, as our man on the inside in industry correspondent does boom require

[00:52:54] Ed: 200

[00:52:54] Badr: pages. What does Boom require? Ed? I'm sorry, what is Boom

[00:52:57] Greg Hopkins: required Greg? So I'm not a hundred percent sure on, on what they require. A lot of that, uh, I mean just a lot of titles we do, we're pretty curated.

[00:53:05] Greg Hopkins: So, um, I know with like Mosley Landing this year, like that was something where like Bryce, one of our, um, editors, one of the higher up editors, like just calls Rob Gill about once a year and is like, Hey, do you wanna do something with us? And like that year Rob was like, oh yeah, I have an idea. Let, let's go forward.

[00:53:22] Greg Hopkins: You know, where like Culin BUN is doing go slower with us right now and, and, um, had bass lists before. So it's, it's kind of like I, I think a lot of ours just come back with creators we've worked with and, and occasionally we get a new one in the door. Um, but yeah, we do have like an acquisitions editor that hears pitches and stuff like that, but I'm not too sure on, I it's definitely not this, maybe this is their sixties requirements for Gold Key before they shut down and, and came back, or they

[00:53:45] Ed: said outdated.

[00:53:46] Ed: It's like, when was this the date? Yeah. When was this outdated from, I don't know which is,

[00:53:50] Badr: which would be even fucking crazier. Yeah. Back in the sixties. Well, I guess let's be real Ed. You know, if we're talking about the, um, historically bad treatment of That's true, you know, artists and creatives, I guess this would be in line.

[00:54:01] Badr: Yeah, that is true. Oh, but it is fucking wild to think they were asking for this in the sixties,

[00:54:05] Ed: seventies. So the guy who drew Tok, dinosaur Hunter had all that shit drawn out, ready

[00:54:10] Greg Hopkins: to go.

[00:54:11] Badr: Yeah. Like I said, I, I mean obviously it sounds like an error on, on their part, something outdated, old, but I, I guess it still raises the question, like

[00:54:19] Ed: 200 pages I can kind of see as a writing submission, but that's even, seems like a lot.

[00:54:25] Ed: But the fact that they have like creative team and all the other, it's not like they just cut and pasted that from Yeah, somebody, if you

[00:54:31] Badr: have all of these submissions, you might as well just go to Kickstarter and do it on your own, you know, and then wait for massive publishing to kick your shit up. Not pick you up.

[00:54:40] Badr: Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. This one was, um, obviously this one wasn't like some major, you know, conversation and, and people sharing their opinions like the Kamala k or maybe the Frank Miller one. Um, this one was interesting to me in regards to some, uh, a sneak peek into the submission process, which, you know, we all know varies from a publisher to publisher, but with this one being kind of a, a, a niche publisher, right?

[00:55:03] Badr: Like they, they are very specialized in, you know, their brand and, and what they put out. So they're basically

[00:55:08] Ed: saying, we want unsigned talent that has a full trade's worth of books and creative team ready to go. That. But we want to, we want to edit, we want full editorial control. And, um, you need to sign long-term deal that's not really creator friendly.

[00:55:25] Badr: That's a, and we're, uh, only gonna sign, uh, pay and sign you all right? You gotta figure out how you gonna pay. Yeah. You gotta pay your guys, you know, we don't pay for everybody. Yeah, it's wild. It's wild. Yeah. I don't know. I'm curious to see what the, what the update updated guidelines are. I wonder if like this was on purpose, like, all right, clearly they didn't like the 200 pages guys cut that shit in half.

[00:55:43] Greg Hopkins: Uh, it just, it does seem weird, especially with where we're at now with creators moving the CK Patriot on everything else too self-published, that you would try to put these, these hurdles up in that regard when you're trying to maybe bring creators back to a publishing arm and not self-publish themselves.

[00:55:58] Greg Hopkins: So it, it does seem weird that that hurdle was put in place to, to do that.

[00:56:03] Ed: They're really weeding out a lot of applicants

[00:56:05] Badr: though, that's for sure. All right. That was the last headline we'll be talking about today. Hope everyone enjoyed our recap of this month's major comic headlines. Chime into the conversation if we missed anything.

[00:56:16] Badr: All right. Obviously we can't get to every single piece of news and headlines, and there was a lot. Uh, from this month alone. Those were just some of our favorite ones, the ones that stuck out to us. Regardless, it's a perfect time to shift gears into our next topic and look to the future of comics overall and see what new titles will be hitting shops next month.

[00:56:34] Badr: Let's go and grab a fist full of comics.

[00:56:40] Badr: You can either have a mouthful of tea or a fist full of comics.

[00:56:47] Badr: Fist Full of comics is a segment dedicated to helping all you comic curious newbies and loyal Wednesday warriors. Find the best new comics, find the best starting points and creative teams that you can't afford to miss out on. And to help us accomplish that, we've called on our friend Ben Kingsbury, owner of Jacksonville's Premier Comic Shop, Gotham City Limit.

[00:57:07] Badr: He's personally gonna give us his top three comic picks of the week. So let's get some music going and let's kick things off. So I feel like Ben's got a sixth sense for comics and this show in particular. Uh, like I, I, I swear to God I did not tell him what we, we talking about. I didn't tell him who was gonna be on this show.

[00:57:25] Badr: I was like, Ben, I need your, uh, your picks for this week. Uh, so we had no idea of like what was going to, you know, be discussed on this episode. We somehow managed to pick very topical and related comics, uh, for this week. And, and right out the gate, I think is a perfect example of his like just keen sense of short box and, and comic books.

[00:57:44] Badr: Let's kick things off of his first pick of the week like this. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, short box listener. I'm Ben K representing Gotham City Limit in Jacksonville, Florida. And these are my three final order cutoff comics you should add to your poll list asap. First up, boom Studios, presents Wilds, and number one of six part series.

[00:58:07] Badr: Embark on this extraordinary adventure that transports you to an alien occupied Interwar England. Join a unique crew of characters as they navigate the perils of a world turned upside down. They're once idyllic. Seaside home now under the control of an extraterrestrial invader sec. Remember a short box, listeners, the truth is out there.

[00:58:30] Badr: I nominate Ben to uh, be the host of the next reading Rainbow. Uh, iteration. He read that whole solicitation perfectly. Boom, boom. All right. That was Wilds and number one of six that comes out, June 21st is being published by Boom Studios. And that's what I'm saying. Oh, that's what I'm saying. Ben didn't know Greg was gonna be on the show.

[00:58:50] Badr: Ben didn't know about Greg's ties to Boom Studios, and his first pick of the week is a, is a new boom. CDOs number one. Hmm. The dude's the short box whisper, I'm telling you. All right. Next up on Ben's list, if you thought that first pick was a fluke, here's his K. Pick number two for you. Next up Frank Miller presents Spend GOI lost in Time number one of a two-part series, strap on your horror loving hats, and get ready for the most spooktacular comic adventure of the century.

[00:59:20] Badr: In this epic saga spend GOI himself takes center stage as he battles his evil doppelganger, the diabolical fbo in a time traveling showdown that'll leave you screaming for more spend. Go's first full length comic book debut is a must have for fans of the delightfully weird. So grab a copy at your local comic shop.

[00:59:42] Badr: But remember, no personal checks allowed spend goi doesn't take funny money. Finn Gok is a funny ass word to say. It's,

[00:59:51] Ed: yeah, it's funny cuz he's been a long time, I'm not sure what station, but he's one of, from a lost line of like horror hosts that basically like Elvira, what she did before she got big, basically like someone from a news station would dress up at night and then basically, oh, tonight we're gonna watch whatever, you know, movies they had rights to like old horror movies or bee movies.

[01:00:13] Ed: Like I said, he's been around forever. I think he's a Midwest guy, but I'm not sure. But he's a real guy. He's a real guy that's basically done this kind of character forever. Kind of like I said, it's not to the level of Elvira of course, but he's kind of in that vein where he was like a TV show host, like a, almost like a Joe Bob Briggs, but a character and yeah, it's cool.

[01:00:33] Ed: He is getting the comic. Frank Miller must be a fan of that guy.

[01:00:36] Badr: Ben somehow knew the boom connection. Frank Miller somehow knew the Frank Miller connection. Uh, either guy cameras in here, I gotta double check. I gotta sweep display for cameras. All right. Once again, that was Spin Goi lost in time, number one.

[01:00:48] Badr: That comes out June 7th. And last but not least. All right. The last comic pick on this list, uh, comes from another non big two publisher doing exciting things. I think the overall, that's, that's been today's theme, well, not really. I guess we did talk Marvel in dc but today's theme for this fist bowl of comic segment is, you know, independent publishers doing kick ass things, indie Comic

[01:01:09] Ed: Sensation, Jim Lee.

[01:01:13] Badr: Here's Comic Pick number three for you. And last but not least, source Point Press presents murder by mail. Number one, step into the shoes of a skilled private investigator and murder by mail. The thrilling, interactive role playing experience. As a member of illicit investigations, you'll immerse yourself in the dark and mysterious world of Cleaver County cast with solving a series of murders.

[01:01:41] Badr: With every page, you'll gather evidence, interview suspects, and unravel the twisted web of secrets. Get ready for an immersive heart-pounding experience where you become the detective in this gripping murder mystery. Another week is Coming, gone, and I'm still Ben K representing Gotham City Limit in Jacksonville, Florida.

[01:02:02] Badr: Remember, with great power comes great responsibility and always take it to the limit. There we go. All right. Once again, that was murdered by mail number one. That comes out June 7th as well. Gentlemen, of the three options presented today, which one are you most interested in? Which one are you adding to your poll list?

[01:02:19] Badr: Greg, how about you kick us off, man. I mean, I have to choose wild then,

[01:02:22] Greg Hopkins: just because it's, I

[01:02:23] Ed: mean, it's, I have to It's company man. I respect that.

[01:02:26] Badr: Exactly.

[01:02:27] Greg Hopkins: Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, whenever I got into comics I'm be like, you know, Dan Dio was my hero at the time. Like, I have to be the cheerleader there. So Wild Zend all the way.

[01:02:34] Greg Hopkins: It's, it's one, it's Dan Abnet too. Like, I mean, one of the greatest writers of all time Legion superheroes run was awesome. Uh, hyper Naturals at Boom was awesome, but if, if I can't choose a boom, then I love Garrett Gunn and, and Source Point Press. So, uh, the Murder by Mel would be my other one there, just cuz of how awesome Source Point Press is, you can pick two.

[01:02:54] Ed: I

[01:02:54] Badr: appreciate it. Um, I'm gonna go ahead and echo your choice though, with Wild's end and not, because I'm hoping for maybe a potential, uh, boom studio sponsorship deal. Oh. But mainly because it's, uh, we'll talk the, yeah, Greg, let me afterwards. Um, remember that promise you made me

[01:03:14] Badr: wild. And number one, um, looks exciting. To your credit, is Dan Abnet, who can do no wrong, uh, in my eyes. Um, he's a great writer and I feel like anthropomorphic centered, uh, comic books. I've been on fire lately, like I'm thinking of like Animal Castle. You guys haven't heard that title. That shit is amazing.

[01:03:32] Badr: Um, and I've, I've been recently like reading Black Sad, so I'm all on board for this, like anthropomorphic, uh, uh, led, um, you know, centered comic books. All right. Hashtag No furries though. All right. Uh, but Miles N number one, uh, gets my pick. Uh, what about you, man?

[01:03:48] Ed: The spend Goly one seemed interesting, but honestly haven't been too impressed with.

[01:03:54] Ed: Most of the Frank Miller presents titles. Mm. Besides Ronin two. And that's for the art cuz the story is, I have no idea what's going on in that book, but it's beautiful. So I'm gonna choose murder by mail just cuz uh, the concept seems interesting. I wanna see how they pull off an interactive comic. So I was kinda interesting too.

[01:04:14] Ed: Kinda wanna see what that means exactly. And Source Point Press has been putting out some very interesting,

[01:04:19] interesting

[01:04:19] Badr: stuff. You know, how, uh, that comic murder my, my mail's gonna be interactive. They're going to kill mail you those little extreme. I was gonna say, they're going to mail you a cold case that they've been trying to solve and be like, get to work on this one right here.

[01:04:34] Badr: Oh, nice. All right. Just in recap, we've got, uh, wild N number one, Finn Goi lost in Time number one, and murdered by mail number one. Um, I'll have, um, those listed out in these show notes with some hyperlinks. If you wanna take further look, if any of those peak your interest, hit up your local comic shop and get your pre-orders in right now.

[01:04:52] Badr: Big shout to Ben for the list. And remember, even if you don't live in Jack's, you can still take it to Limit. You can shop for comics, collectibles, and exclusive variant covers by going to gotham city limit.com. And that pretty much wraps up this segment. Greg, I want to go ahead and say thank you so much mm-hmm.

[01:05:07] Badr: For the assistance today. You've been great. I'm super proud of what you're doing with Boom Studios and, and your whole career on comics, man has been hella inspiring. Uh, before we officially say goodbye though, would you like the plug, anything you got going on, any projects you're working on for Boom, et cetera, et cetera?

[01:05:21] Greg Hopkins: I just finished up the San Diego Comic-Con, like all the books we're gonna have there for that was kind of like the big thing the past few months. But, um, no check out Wild's End and then, uh, also Sport Short Box and the Patreon. Um, I know I've been doing it for a while. I think it fell off at one point when I left Jacksonville and like I've switched banks and I had to like change some stuff up.

[01:05:41] Greg Hopkins: But, uh, yeah, I mean the Patreon's awesome. It, it helps the podcast and there's extra cool material there that you get to listen to. So always, always make your a short box.

[01:05:50] Badr: I didn't even have to pay him to say that. I know, I, oh man. I didn't even have to pay him to say that. Oh man. I mean, come on guys.

[01:05:55] Badr: Stand up a guy right here guys. Greg was kind enough to donate a one hell of a fucking care package of great boom studio comics. I mean, I've got exclusive variants. I've got like, uh, I got some berserk, like a whole set of Bega comics. I've got a bunch of. Uh, slaughterhouse and, and, um, something is killing the children.

[01:06:15] Badr: We're gonna be doing a giveaway for that, and I'm gonna announce the, uh, that contest, um, right after this

[01:06:20] Ed: music break. Just since you're with the company, um, something is, killing the Children is fantastic. It's been one of my favorites, recent favorites. It's good to hear. No,

[01:06:28] Greg Hopkins: it's, uh, it's an amazing book.

[01:06:30] Badr: Something is, killing the Children is a Fire series. That is a good book and I need to get caught up now that I think about it. And maybe one or two of our listeners can experience the series themselves as well as a bunch of other great boom titles if they win this giveaway, which I'll announce after the music break.

[01:06:47] Badr: So let's go do that right now. Let's hear what our guide Delectable Beats has cooked up for us today, and we'll be right back to announce that giveaway and continue the show. Stay tuned.

[01:07:33] Badr: And we're back. The music you just heard was produced by the newest member of the Short Box Music Team. Delectable Beats. If you enjoy or you want more boomba and chop soul style beats in your life, do yourselves a favor. Check out Delectable Beats on SoundCloud, which I do have linked in the show notes.

[01:07:49] Badr: He just dropped in new beat tape not too long ago. So good timing. Go support good music. Before we get into our next segment, I mentioned the giveaway right before music break. Let's talk about that giveaway. Like I said earlier, Greg, he's a standup guy and he donated a bunch of awesome boom studio comics.

[01:08:06] Badr: Uh, just some variant covers in here, as well as some other exclusives I've never seen before. They all come from Boom Studios. He sent them to me to share of the Short Box Nation, and I won't lie, my first reaction, my, my Better judgment is telling me to keep these for myself. But our emails have been looking a little dry lately and we need content for this segment.

[01:08:25] Badr: And I love hearing from the listeners. I love hearing what you guys are reading, what you're watching. I usually get some good recommendations. Uh, from people that write in. So let's give away some comics to entice some more emails and let's hook someone up with a Boom Studio's care package. Maybe we'll do one or two winners depending on the responses we get.

[01:08:41] Badr: So listen up cause I'm gonna keep this contest short and sweet. All right. Since it is boom centric, since you know our guy Greg was on the show, all you have to do as a listener is tell us what's your favorite comic series that is being put out by BOOM Studios And, and matter of fact, it doesn't even have to be current, right?

[01:08:57] Badr: It can be an old title from Boom or something that's recently come to an end. But I want to hear what's your favorite comic series that's been put out or being put out by Boom Studios? And I've still got a bunch of other exclusive, uh, comics too. I've got a variant cover of Murder Road Number One. It's an Oblivion Bar podcast variant by Christian Ward.

[01:09:15] Badr: I've got some Gotham City limit variants. Let's give away some comics, is what I'm saying. All right, so once again, the prompt is tell us what's your favorite comics series put out by Boom Studios. Write us a short response to that prompt and email it to us at these short box jacks gmail.com or hit us up on Instagram.

[01:09:30] Badr: Just let me know. It's for the contest that you want your email read in the next episode. And like I said, we'll pick one or two winners to win some free comic books. What's better than that? While you guys brainstorm a good response to that very easy, prompt, and very easy question. We're gonna slide into our final segment and tell you about the best entertainment options outside of comics.

[01:09:49] Badr: It's time for Champion Season.

[01:09:55] Badr: It's time.

[01:09:56] Ed: It's time. Champion Champion C Season.

[01:10:00] Badr: Champion Season is a part of the show where we highlight everything else that is consumed our free time. Which include, uh, movies, TV series, books, video games, and other entertainment options that we'd personally recommend to friends just like you, Greg.

[01:10:15] Badr: Sorry, not Greg. Ed. Ed, you always have really good, uh, really good picks, especially after a, a hiatus. Yes. When I haven't seen you for like weeks, you come with like some heat. So what you gotta, uh, champion today? Today? Got a

[01:10:27] Ed: couple. So now I'm starting to catch up on my comics and first one I'm going to recommend is from awa.

[01:10:35] Ed: It's called Black Tape. It is a basically late seventies la it's, uh, Ooh. Damn. Yeah, it's, it's pretty good. It's a, sorry. His name Dan Pin. Yeah. These names forgive me. Dan Penos. And Dbo TA is the artist. And. I've farina, whew. I don't know, I don't know if I've slaughtered those names or not, but that is the creative team takes place in seventies, la um, a kind of Ozzy Osborne type rockstar has passed away and his widow is kind of recovering.

[01:11:08] Ed: They were basically kind of, uh, met and gotten married really quick, and he had a sudden death. She finds a list of names in these weird arcane symbols, found out these are satanic symbols. So I hate when that happens. I know. It's, you think you know somebody. So in the late seventies to probably mid eighties or so, there was a thing called satanic panic where a lot of, you know, rock stars and a lot of things kind of embrace this kind of satanic, whether authentic or not, but it caused a lot of uproar.

[01:11:40] Ed: Satan was being blamed, and satanists were being blamed for all, all kinds of. Of things in the, in the world and it, and like I said, so basically it kind of plays off on that as well. So she finds these names and then the list of names ends up the, all these women were on this, uh, missing persons list. So, and like I said, this is a relationship that they kind of met and fell in love and got married really quick.

[01:12:05] Ed: So she doesn't know how deep this goes with, um, Jack King is kind of the Ozzy Osborne type character. Um, the first issue, it's like she ends up finding this kind of secret passageway to, this almost looks like a torture room with like the pictures of these missing people Oh, wow. On the wall. And then she sees a picture of herself, which is, and that's kind of the, uh, the cliffhanger in the first one.

[01:12:27] Ed: So it's a mystery possible. Like the black tapes are possibly his recording too. Open up this portal to hell to release these demons to hell. It's really almost kind of like a once upon a time in Hollywood type kind of vibe to it. But yeah, definitely recommend that. It's probably on issue. Three or four I think came out in February.

[01:12:48] Ed: Okay. Beginning of February. So yeah, AWA Black tape. The second one is

[01:12:52] Badr: I'm already jealous. Wild. I'm like, Sue, uh, this Nick Wagner, you ready for

[01:12:57] Ed: this? This is death of power. You gotta look at this. Um, it was on the cartoonist kayfabe. They spotlighted it.

[01:13:04] Badr: Nick Wagner hit me up about this, and as soon as I found it, I tried to guy get it.

[01:13:09] Badr: It was sold out. Yeah, he, oh my God, it's so nice.

[01:13:11] Ed: It's like a thick stock paper. Really short. But it's basically how Doomsday and Superman fight is a rated X version of this fight. So a lot of penises getting ripped off and just real holy shit dirty, real dirty. Fighting on both. Combatants parts, but it is basically like a bootleg superman doomsday.

[01:13:33] Ed: The death of Superman fight. Just the fight scene. It's basically, I don't even know if there's any words in this book. Does that penis have teeth? Yeah, it is an alien, dude. I don't know the fuck is, so

[01:13:45] Badr: I, I maybe saw one or two pages from this book and I don't think he shared it in the X-rated shit. Yeah, this is crazy.

[01:13:51] Badr: I saw it

[01:13:52] Ed: on cartoonist's favor. I did see the message from Nick and I was like, I had to get it too. I was like, but it was sold up. But I did, I put my 10 bucks down, put like I'm on that next reorder. So came through, uh, Kurt Burdick, I think he sells it through Etsy. So it's, this is a total like, you know, one man show here.

[01:14:10] Ed: He did everything. It's great material. It's like a, almost like a card stock, really heavy stock. Like when I got it, I thought there was a board, a backing board with it, but that's just the material of the pages. Um, it's a little bit bigger size, almost like a magazine format and it is wild if really gory, vulgar stuff, if you're into that or if that doesn't bother you, definitely check it out.

[01:14:34] Ed: At least check out the cartoonist kfa video to get an idea. It is, it is funny. I know there was one, someone did one with Bain and Batman, weirdly enough. Bain was naked too for some reason. So I don't know if this is some trend with these boot legs, but it is, uh, full color. Well done. It's hard to. To, to verbally describe it without getting too gross.

[01:14:59] Ed: Yeah. Yeah. I, but, uh,

[01:15:00] Badr: an audio form podcast does not do this book justice. It

[01:15:03] Ed: does not do it justice. Definitely check out Death of Power. It is definitely says not for kids on the front. That's good. Oh,

[01:15:09] Badr: no. Very responsible. It might not even be for certain adults. It's not for, it's

[01:15:13] Ed: not for most people. Yeah.

[01:15:15] Ed: It's wild. It's highly recommended.

[01:15:17] Badr: Ed, you did not disappoint me. All right. I've got, uh, I've got, I've got two or three quick ones, right. I'm gonna try to keep this very quick. So first and foremost, my first champion is the graphic novel adaptation of Slaughterhouse five. I've never read, uh, the original novel.

[01:15:32] Badr: I know that there's some people that, that are gasping. They expect better from me. I agree. I agree. But I've been reading the graphic novel adaptation. You waited till the comic came out. Yeah, exactly. It's fine. Yeah. I want pictures of my words, David. Uh, but it's available to read for free on comics ology.

[01:15:47] Badr: I think The Comicology Plus, if you got, uh, one of those accounts is free. Uh, it is the first ever graphic novel adaptation of Kurt v's. Uh, slaughterhouse Five, which obviously, you know, considered an American classic. It's one of the world's greatest anti-war books. Uh, it is, uh, reinterpreted by Eisner award-winning writer Ryan North, who has written How to invent, how to Invent Everything, A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler.

[01:16:10] Badr: And it is drawn illustrated by Eisner Award nominated artist, Albert Montes, um, who's accredited for drawing a book called Universe. I've never, um, I haven't read that, but, and I'm in love with his art. It's, it's, Illustrated so well, and I can't recommend it enough. If you've never read this book or this classic and you want to digest it in a visual form, in a comic book form, I think it'd be well worth your time to check out the graphic novel adaptation.

[01:16:34] Badr: It is awesome. And if anything, it kind of inspires me to go just read the book as well so I can kind of catch the differences. But, um, the art in this is so, so, so good. And I wanna say Ashley might've championed this when it first came out, right? She did. Yep, she did. Okay, so, so I'm on par with my usual, I'm, you know, two years behind, you know, Ashley's picks cuz she picks the best stuff ever.

[01:16:57] Badr: All right. Second thing I wanna champion, and I mentioned this a little bit, uh, in last week's episode of Troy. But I wanna champion the BBO Bounty big band. Oh, they are a 14 piece jazz ensemble they just played here, right? Dude, it was so epic. I know that they've come to Jack's a few times. I think they're based outta Orlando, if I'm not mistaken.

[01:17:15] Badr: Huh. And they tour primarily Florida, cuz they got another show coming up, um, September 15th at Sanford, Florida, if you're in the area. Heads up. Heads up. But, um, I caught them last week at Underbelly. Had such a good time. Um, for anyone that doesn't know, like I was saying, it is a 14 piece Ja jazz ensemble that performs music from the, uh, classic anime, cowboy, bebop along to accompanying scenes on a big screen.

[01:17:39] Badr: So they'll play like certain scenes from the show. This was worth the, the price of admission. It really felt like immersive experience with the video element. And obviously like the live, uh, music element, I'm, if you're a fan of, of cowboy beebo or like live music experiences, highly recommend trying to catch these guys if they, um, you know, if they're in a town near you, once again, that is the Beebo Bounty big band, and they got a show in San F Florida in September.

[01:18:04] Badr: If you're in the area or even like, you know, uh, uh, up to make a little drive or day out of it, it's well worth it. And last but not least, um, you know, I've been on my, uh, my manga kick lately. I have been reading Veland Saga, which is a Japanese historical manga series written in El in illustrated by Makoto Yuca.

[01:18:24] Badr: It is 26 volumes. Um, it is, uh, it, it tells a story and it begins in d uh, Dane controlled England at the start of the 11th century. And it tells the combined and dramatized story of King Canoe, the great's historical rise to power. As well as a revenge plot centered on the historical explorer Orphan, uh, who's the son of a murdered Exiger who now serves under the group of mercenaries responsible for killing, uh, his father.

[01:18:52] Badr: So it's a revenge story. It's a historical, uh, story as well, based on some real shit. And in regards, like Viking history and, and you know, uh, uh, English, uh, history, the art is amazing. It is like breathtaking how well the line work in this, um, in, in this, uh, manga is, uh, the historical element to it Also, you know, I think elevates it as well cuz you know, you're telling stories about some real shit that's happened, you know, obviously in a dramatized way.

[01:19:16] Badr: But, uh, there's that component to it and it's really easy to get into. It's like 26 volumes. You don't need to be a history buff, uh, to like, you know, uh, wrap your head around what's going on. It's, it's fun, it's kind of violent, but it's, it's definitely cool. There's an anime to it as well. I haven't watched it, but I understand that it's only 24, um, episodes and it was like, It was called like one of the best anime series of 2019.

[01:19:40] Badr: So if you're into like, you know, Thor or Vikings or History, or you wanna dive into new manga, check out Finland Saga. Once again, my champions were graphic novel adaptation of Slaughterhouse five beat Bop Bounty, big band in Finland Saga. I don't know how those, uh, stack up against this death of power zine that Ed champion mine or of checking out all right in a different, in a completely different non-AI penis way.

[01:20:04] Badr: Yes, those are my picks for the week. I hope those come in handy for someone looking for anything new to get into. If you are that someone that does try any of the things that we shared today, don't be a stranger. Go ahead and chime into the conversation and let us know what you think or if you got a champion or recommendation that you feel that we in the rest of the Short Box Nation might enjoy.

[01:20:22] Badr: Go ahead and share the wealth, man. Tell us, uh, put us onto some new game. We'd love to hear from you guys. Hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, or email. Besides that, that's pretty much our show for today. Ed, it has been great to have you back on, man. It'll be back Killed it. You were fantastic. Uh, do you got any parting words, words of wisdom or anything of the likes that you'd wanna share?

[01:20:43] Ed: No, I definitely need to keep in touch with, uh, Greg.

[01:20:46] Badr: He doing big things,

[01:20:47] Ed: man. I know outside of like writing and drawing a comic, he's done pretty much everything else he

[01:20:52] Badr: can do on this. Right. Retail side, convention side. Um, yeah, artist, uh, shop convention, hustle. Yeah, he's done it all. Man. I'm, I'm really proud of what he, he's doing and now he's, I

[01:21:01] Ed: guess more or less like a liaison from.

[01:21:04] Ed: Retail too, and he has that experience. Does that make sense?

[01:21:07] Badr: Right. Perfect. It's, it's like the perfect role for him, like someone that genuinely cares about the wealth and wellbeing of, of iconic retailers. Yeah, I'm, I'm really proud of him. All right. Well, there you have a short box nation. Thank you for hanging out.

[01:21:19] Badr: But that's all I got for you today. It's time to wrap up the show. If you enjoy this episode, the only thing I'll ask is that you help us spread the work, share this episode with a friend or someone you know that loves comics as much as we do. And if you're feeling extra generous and if you got like 10 seconds to spare, feel free to leave us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.

[01:21:39] Badr: Leave us a couple of nice words so everyone else that might come across a show knows that this show is worthy of their time and attention. We appreciate that. Next week I got another interview for you. All right, and this time I'll be joined by David Harper, who is the host of the Off Panel podcast, one of the longest running comic book podcast out there.

[01:21:59] Badr: A really phenomenal. Uh, podcast at that. He's, uh, it's an interview show and somehow he's managed to get interview every episode. He's talked to everyone under the sun when it comes to the comic industry, and I'm excited to pick his brain about the podcast, about what he's learned through his years of podcasting and talking with comic professionals.

[01:22:17] Badr: That'll be next Wednesday, so make sure you come back to the, uh, to this feed. And if you want more content from us, in the meantime, head over to our Patreon community. If you want bonus episodes, access to all of the content that we do for anyone else, as well as episode voting and invites to events like our, uh, private, uh, watch party for across the spiders, primarily if you live in Jax, even if you don't, you get a bunch of, uh, awesome perks, uh, when you join our Patreon community.

[01:22:44] Badr: You could do so at patreon.com/the short box. I would recommend joining our short box Elite Tier. That's our most popular tier, and for good reasons. You get a lot in exchange for a measly five bucks a month. Right? It's very affordable. To support what we got going on and we'd appreciate it. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, go read your comic books and continue to make mine and your short box.

[01:23:07] Badr: We'll talk to you next week. Peace.