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With Great Power #270... 22 Panels with Gilbert Hernandez · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good afternoon, everybody! Welcome back to 22 Panels, and returning for the third time, which I can't believe I'm saying that, is.
• 0:10
  Gilbert Hernandez: Beto Hernandez, how's it going? It's going alright, it's going all right.
• 0:16
  Tad Eggleston: Alright. I need to start with, I forgot to email you, I watched Good Humor Man, and I loved it. I loved it.
• 0:24
  Tad Eggleston: And I watched the other one that I can't remember the, the, the…
• 0:29
  Tad Eggleston: What is the one with the monsters on the island?
• 0:35
  Tad Eggleston: You and Natalia recommended it last time, too.
• 0:39
  Gilbert Hernandez: And I actually watched that, like, literally the same afternoon.
• 0:45
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah, your movie recs continue to, to, to be fantastic.
• 0:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, it's the good humor men's, you know, once people discover it, you know, it's gonna be…
• 0:58
  Tad Eggleston: I had to… I had to find it on YouTube. I'm really, really frustrated that it's not, like…
• 1:05
  Tad Eggleston: Readily available, because it was… Like, to manage to put such a…
• 1:13
  Tad Eggleston: It's like a screwball comedy and a noir all at once.
• 1:17
  Tad Eggleston: You don't realize it's a noir until you're, like, halfway through it, and you're like, oh, wow.
• 1:24
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't know, maybe it's not in the circulation because Marvel owns the name now, so…
• 1:29
  Tad Eggleston: Do they?
• 1:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: And Marvel.
• 1:30
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 1:32
  Gilbert Hernandez: the name. So, we're looking at, in the movie, we're looking at the real Captain Marvel, right?
• 1:36
  Tad Eggleston: That's right.
• 1:37
  Gilbert Hernandez: That's… that's… that's old. They have to change it to Shazam.
• 1:40
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 1:41
  Gilbert Hernandez: Ew.
• 1:43
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:44
  Tad Eggleston: So, the new book is…
• 1:48
  Gilbert Hernandez: Is it Lovers and Haters? I have it right here.
• 1:52
  Tad Eggleston: And I did, like, the upside of the fact that we had our,
• 1:57
  Tad Eggleston: time zones mixed up is, is, like, since I… since I logged in at 2 o'clock my time and went, he's not here.
• 2:06
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, did he mean 2 o'clock his time? I got to finish my reread. I'd read it all in single-issue forms, but I hadn't read it in the…
• 2:16
  Tad Eggleston: Collection. Collection, and like…
• 2:23
  Tad Eggleston: one of the first times we talked, I talked to you about how, like.
• 2:29
  Tad Eggleston: You were so serious early on, and, and, and, and…
• 2:34
  Tad Eggleston: and Jaime less so, and he had gotten serious, and you had your characters get older and sillier.
• 2:42
  Tad Eggleston: This… it's, like, one part soap opera, one part…
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: I don't even know what, except that it's fun and I love it. Where… where do you…
• 2:57
  Tad Eggleston: for those who haven't read it yet or didn't read that, Fritz, who was a therapist and became a movie star, now is an international sensation movie star, so that, like, everybody under the sun is…
• 3:12
  Tad Eggleston: imitating her.
• 3:14
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, like, how, how does that progression happen?
• 3:20
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, sorry. Well, just part of it was, where I kind of started with the idea is that my characters started to look the same after a while.
• 3:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right. I was drawing… I was creating new characters for certain scenes, that's what I do, you know, I need a certain character to do something that the other ones can't. So I started making new characters, but it tended to start to look the same.
• 3:42
  Gilbert Hernandez: So I started the gimmick of, oh, well, that's her cousin, or that's her sister, or that's… and then I thought, no, that's pushing it. So I just go, oh, it's cosmetic advancements. That I just went crazy with that, and I thought, you know what?
• 3:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: if… you know, you can watch these documentaries on YouTube, on TV, you know, the Learning Channel and stuff, I think it's all about the craziness of plastic surgery these days, like, it's just gone completely nuts.
• 4:08
  Gilbert Hernandez: And I thought, well, you know, it's nuts enough, but what if it was non-evasive? What if it wasn't with a scalpel?
• 4:17
  Gilbert Hernandez: Because that's one of the reasons people don't go to the doctor. They don't want to get a shot.
• 4:21
  Gilbert Hernandez: They don't want to get the pricked, the finger pricked. It's simple as that. They don't want to do that.
• 4:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: So they'll put it off, unless they get… have to. So I thought, yeah, you know, like, plastic surgery, or cosmetic surgery, or whatever you want to call it.
• 4:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: That's gonna… that would go crazy if it was non-invasive. It would be a bazillion trillion dollar industry. Everybody would just start… instead of this surrogate stuff, they would just start transforming
• 4:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: their body to chemicals, you know, and I thought… and the simple beginnings would be strippers, you know, just distorting their bodies. That's, to me, that's what… that's sort of where they came from.
• 5:00
  Tad Eggleston: I… Makes perfect… I mean, it both makes perfect sense, and it's like… Yeah.
• 5:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's hard to sell, let me tell you.
• 5:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:25
  Tad Eggleston: I also like it… Because as you get deeper into the book, it becomes harder and harder to know
• 5:36
  Tad Eggleston: know what's real and what's not. I mean, you've got… you've got the plast… well, the non-invasive plastic surgery, whatever aspect of it, but… but, like.
• 5:49
  Tad Eggleston: they're the ones that claimed that they were Fritz's kids. You have hints now that maybe she does have a
• 5:56
  Tad Eggleston: kid…
• 5:57
  Tad Eggleston: But it was through his surrogate. All of this is stuff that we didn't have on screen. And by the way, spoiler, spoiler, for people silly enough that they're not reading Love & Rockets when it comes out, and, like, we're waiting for the trade. I apologize.
• 6:12
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, well, not to you, I apologize to the listeners. I mean, I apologize to you if you didn't want me to spoil anything, but if you want me to change things, we edit it. To the listeners, I'll apologize.
• 6:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: You go ahead.
• 6:26
  Tad Eggleston: Like, first of all, in your head, what's happening? Does she have kids? Does she not have kids?
• 6:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, those two girls are hers, but she just… she's just selfish, she doesn't care about them, she's just…
• 6:41
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 6:41
  Gilbert Hernandez: they're there. I mean, she likes the second daughter that she didn't know she had, because she didn't, you know, but she's in fierce competition with the first daughter, about, you know, an exploitation area. So I just wanted to play with that, as in…
• 6:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: She doesn't even care that her daughter's in porn and all this stuff. It's just that she's competition.
• 7:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, it doesn't matter, so that's playing in the psychology angle of it.
• 7:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 7:10
  Gilbert Hernandez: I'll do that. Go ahead.
• 7:12
  Tad Eggleston: did I, like, miss her having kids, or was that something that… that… that we… that you added in when…
• 7:19
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, oh, I see, I see. You know what? That's…
• 7:22
  Tad Eggleston: From, like, a continuity standpoint, like, like…
• 7:26
  Gilbert Hernandez: What we're talking about isn't in this collection.
• 7:29
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I know it's not in this collection, but, but, but…
• 7:32
  Tad Eggleston: I've read all of your work multiple times, and, you know, also in so many different orders that, like, I can have completely forgotten something. I just don't remember having the kids.
• 7:46
  Gilbert Hernandez: First, this collection here introduces her daughter, the one that she's known about, but just completely ignored.
• 7:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: and her raising, you know, because she was busy making movies and stuff. So the girl lived with her mom, so she's very resentful of her, and then she becomes her mom, literally, physically, literally, and so that freaks Fritz out, and that's what that's about, what that is about.
• 8:12
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 8:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: We haven't introduced
• 8:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: the mystery twin of the girl, because nobody knew about her, and that didn't fit in the book, so… Okay. I have an entire collection that's about that half, the other half of the book, the story.
• 8:28
  Tad Eggleston: I am so looking… I mean, because, like, I know you may remember, we have a… not quite weekly, because, you know, there are lives, and it's hard to get all of us together weekly, but we've been reading
• 8:43
  Tad Eggleston: through Love & Rockets, issue by issue, for the podcast, and we just started…
• 8:50
  Tad Eggleston: Volume 2, after getting through all of the stuff you guys did in between the volumes, well, not quite all of it. We're not done with your stuff, because you did a lot more than Jaime did during the years in between the two volumes, and…
• 9:03
  Tad Eggleston: We like to talk about both of you at the same time. We haven't given you your own episodes yet. One day, we're gonna have to. That's the advantage of being more… So I'm looking forward to, like.
• 9:16
  Tad Eggleston: getting… because most of your later work, I've only read as it came out, and then re-read as the collections came out. So, like, it's not as…
• 9:26
  Tad Eggleston: ingrained in my head yet.
• 9:29
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, but, but it's, it's, like… I don't… he's…
• 9:36
  Tad Eggleston: You got me on a weird day.
• 9:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's always a weird day.
• 9:41
  Tad Eggleston: That's true. And it, like…
• 9:46
  Tad Eggleston: it's also weird to… to… to having been… having, like, recently read Human Diastrophism, and… and…
• 9:57
  Tad Eggleston: Poison River, and then the beginnings of Luba in America, and whatnot, and now be re… be reading this, and like…
• 10:06
  Tad Eggleston: Knowing that they're the same characters, knowing that there's a through-line, knowing that it all does tie together, and when I read it in real time, I didn't even realize that we were, like, going from this…
• 10:19
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 10:20
  Tad Eggleston: Much more serious, grounded to… it…
• 10:25
  Tad Eggleston: And I wonder, is it just…
• 10:28
  Tad Eggleston: Is it just you having fun? Is it commentary on the world? I mean, because there's an element of it where it's like, oh, this is like loving rockets for the…
• 10:37
  Tad Eggleston: the TikTok generation. This is Loving Rockets for the… you know, we've got a thousand different Fritzes, because we don't have superstars anymore. We have superstars to their…
• 10:51
  Tad Eggleston: Select group of viewers that are completely unknown to… everybody else.
• 10:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: Sure, yeah, that's… I mean, a character like Fritz would never be a really popular Kardashian-type person, no.
• 11:06
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 11:06
  Gilbert Hernandez: too crazy. So she's a cult character that, you know, but now we have cult people that are just… have millions of followers, you know, but nobody… the rest of the world doesn't know about them, you know? I'm hearing about influences… influencers, you know, die every day, and I go, I never heard of this person, and they're
• 11:24
  Gilbert Hernandez: I have so many followers.
• 11:26
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 11:27
  Gilbert Hernandez: Never even heard of them, but…
• 11:28
  Gilbert Hernandez: They're out there, everybody's out there.
• 11:30
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, just in terms of real time.
• 11:34
  Tad Eggleston: not… well, not real time. As I think about when… because this is from what?
• 11:40
  Tad Eggleston: The end of… news stories?
• 11:43
  Tad Eggleston: Is when most of these came out, the collection? This collection was, yeah, the annual, the last annual is most of the… Right, right.
• 11:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: And then a couple of,
• 11:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, how was it.
• 11:56
  Tad Eggleston: Couple of Volume 4.
• 11:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, and Psychedromic illustrated.
• 12:00
  Tad Eggleston: Psycho Drama Illustrator, right. So, like, you're at the cutting edge of this. Like, at least… at least… I mean, I'm younger than you, and I feel like I'm just… just getting the idea… not a lot younger than you, my daughter just got married, yours is younger than mine, so, you know.
• 12:19
  Tad Eggleston: So, but, how… how… what's the…
• 12:29
  Tad Eggleston: I'm trying to figure out what I'm asking. What's the, the, the research or the, the, like.
• 12:35
  Tad Eggleston: How are you tapped into, oh…
• 12:40
  Tad Eggleston: This is… you know, because that's something that, like, a lot of people our ages, like.
• 12:46
  Gilbert Hernandez: are only aware that they're influencers when one of them dies, and they're like, well, what's an influencer? Right.
• 12:54
  Tad Eggleston: So the fact that, I mean, you started writing this stuff 5, 6, 7 years ago.
• 12:59
  Tad Eggleston: You know, a lot of this… a lot of the stuff in this book isn't, you know, it's not… not collected stuff from last week, it's…
• 13:07
  Tad Eggleston: It's collected stuff from…
• 13:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: many years ago now, what, what, what…
• 13:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: Part of… well, it was… Keeps you in the l.
• 13:13
  Tad Eggleston: Loop, what?
• 13:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, I just kept, like I said, I was looking at… I would just,
• 13:18
  Gilbert Hernandez: scroll channels, you know, like the learning channel and things like that, and okay. But yeah, right away, I could tell they were exploitation, kind of like, well, you want to see this 600-pound person, you know, and…
• 13:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: you want to see this person, or this guy who, you know, took drugs and made his muscles so large that they blew up, and just creepy shit like that. And that started to become the norm in, like, say, YouTube?
• 13:44
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, because I scroll YouTube for music, but then a lot of stuff pops up, and you go, like, this bodybuilder's real. I go, no, that's AI. And they go, oh, he's real. You know, weird… and then I realized it was a trend of people just distorting themselves.
• 13:56
  Tad Eggleston: Fantastic.
• 13:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: Started about fives… 10 years ago?
• 14:00
  Gilbert Hernandez: And I just noticed, oh, they're just, you know, changing their bodies for, you know, personal reasons, because you can't sell it. I mean, you can't go anywhere with it, you know, you're not going to be a movie star or anything.
• 14:11
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right. It's that, OnlyFans thing where they're the star, they're the, you know.
• 14:16
  Gilbert Hernandez: whatever they are, whatever their specialties are, and they make a living doing that. So anyway, I just kind of got rid of it, and I just thought that was really interesting. It reminded me of superheroes, where you get superpowers, and you have big muscles, and you do all kinds of stuff.
• 14:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: But that's accepted. You do it with real people.
• 14:33
  Gilbert Hernandez: like, how I'm doing it is, like.
• 14:34
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 14:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: This is sinful. This is… oh, you're going to hell for this. Well, I already am. So.
• 14:39
  Tad Eggleston: No. No, but anyway…
• 14:41
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, it's.
• 14:42
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna… I'm going on the record right now, God has a sense of humor, and He loves your work.
• 14:47
  Tad Eggleston: You said you were going to hell already, so I'm going on the record right now. God has a sense of humor, and she loves your work.
• 14:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: I hope so. We'll find out. You'll do fine.
• 15:03
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's just… it just… and it was also… it just triggered me to do, like… like, because I was doing blubber, and I thought, this isn't enough, I gotta do more crazy shit, except…
• 15:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: How about not lumber? You know, because people look at it and go, this is a joke. Well, you have to invest.
• 15:17
  Tad Eggleston: I like the flubber.
• 15:19
  Gilbert Hernandez: I had a great time, and this is what's weird. People are more scratching their head about, like, lovers and the haters and the recent psychedelic illustrators more than they are with Blubber. See, because you see Blubber, and I think they just go, oh, this is just crazy, wild stuff. This is not. But this other stuff has characterization, and it has, you know, a thread.
• 15:38
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and characters that you already know.
• 15:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: I mean, that…
• 15:41
  Tad Eggleston: That's the part where it's like, you know, because…
• 15:46
  Tad Eggleston: I'm still thinking about therapist Fritz. I was still… I was still… I was still wrapping my head around Fritz the B-movie star, and… and even to the extent that I thought of her as the B-movie star, like.
• 15:59
  Tad Eggleston: like, in my head, it was like she did that on her spare… you know, she'd take two weeks off from her practice and go do a B-movie.
• 16:09
  Tad Eggleston: and come back to it. Like, this is where, in the storytelling, it's like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Does she give up all of those years of study and whatnot to be a therapist, to…
• 16:22
  Tad Eggleston: To go do this now? And with this schmuck that's…
• 16:28
  Gilbert Hernandez: There's nothing good about.
• 16:30
  Tad Eggleston: I mean… I mean, I know that she's got mediocre taste in men, but she's generally… she's generally, like…
• 16:39
  Tad Eggleston: You, you, you create strong women.
• 16:43
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, like, like, even when they have bad taste in men, they're generally not let around by the men, so, I mean…
• 16:51
  Tad Eggleston: There's… and, like…
• 16:54
  Tad Eggleston: if you've already addressed it in the comics, don't remind me, because I'll get to it again, and if it's still coming, then…
• 17:01
  Tad Eggleston: I can't wait. Like, I keep waiting for him to, like, get his… you know, she's… it feels like she's in some sort of thrall to him that, like…
• 17:11
  Tad Eggleston: This is the occasionally gun-toting in the most uncomfortable way possible.
• 17:19
  Tad Eggleston: badass… Fritz?
• 17:23
  Gilbert Hernandez: I mean…
• 17:24
  Tad Eggleston: the somehow heir apparent to hammer-carrying Luba, even though they didn't meet until
• 17:32
  Tad Eggleston: what, Luba was in her 30s, and…
• 17:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Tad Eggleston: Fritz was in her mid to late 20s, you know, Fritz was already a doctor when they met.
• 17:43
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, I mean, like, the ex… it's…
• 17:46
  Tad Eggleston: To me, it's like the example that the…
• 17:50
  Tad Eggleston: That some of it was just genetic.
• 17:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, upper.
• 17:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's, hereditary in some people, yeah. Right.
• 17:57
  Tad Eggleston: That the badassery is just completely genetic between them.
• 18:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: In their case, yeah, yeah. But also… Well, anyway, just…
• 18:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, Fritz is just basically it, she's with the worst guy in the world because she doesn't.
• 18:11
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 18:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: better. She doesn't feel she deserves better. She… and she… she can… and she knows that she's the one that they look at as, like.
• 18:18
  Gilbert Hernandez: She's the cool.
• 18:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right. It's…
• 18:21
  Gilbert Hernandez: And the guy hates it, and he doesn't want to be that, you know.
• 18:24
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 18:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: So, yeah, but he gets to sleep with her, you know? He's like most guys. Oh, man, she doesn't treat me well. Don't you sleep with her? Yeah? So?
• 18:36
  Gilbert Hernandez: I like to make fun of guys that way, you know?
• 18:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yo, you do. You do. Yeah.
• 18:44
  Tad Eggleston: I just… Yeah, it's, like… It is… it is some of the weirdest…
• 18:52
  Tad Eggleston: I keep using that word, I, I feel like…
• 19:00
  Tad Eggleston: 10 years from now, when you're on to whatever
• 19:03
  Tad Eggleston: comes next. When Fritz shows up the way Luba shows up now, and you're writing more about Killer.
• 19:13
  Tad Eggleston: and the whole story is there, it's gonna be one of your masterpieces. But I'm still looking at it and going, oh god, what are you doing to my friend?
• 19:23
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, just… there's only a couple books left about that subject, so…
• 19:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 19:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: Start leaning toward different characters and different.
• 19:33
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly. Right now.
• 19:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: This is so loaded with all this crazy stuff that it's…
• 19:38
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 19:39
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't get through it.
• 19:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Well, and you, you still do some other stuff. I, I, I, I loved Roy. So, you know, hat tip to Natalia, too. You guys were…
• 19:53
  Tad Eggleston: Among… the two of you together, by the way, among my favorite guests, and we get… we get many compliments on that episode, at least from the handful of people that know me and also listen, because you guys were just adorable.
• 20:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: Thank you, thank you. I haven't thought of myself as adorable, ever, so.
• 20:13
  Tad Eggleston: Well, you know, as a dad.
• 20:16
  Tad Eggleston: with your daughter there, adorable definitely came through, you know? Like, every once in a while, you see, you know, I hope that every once in a while, people see it with me and my kids. Like, you just look at people interacting with their kids, and you go, okay.
• 20:31
  Tad Eggleston: No idea what you did, and I'm certain there were ups and downs, but you clearly did a good job, because…
• 20:38
  Tad Eggleston: People just don't have this rapport with their kids without managing to… to do…
• 20:44
  Tad Eggleston: do well, and I guess… I started thinking about that, because I was… I was still, like…
• 20:51
  Tad Eggleston: going over what you were talking about, Fritz, in terms of, like, knowing that she has kids, but just completely ignoring them. That's so not you as a father, very clearly. What's it like…
• 21:04
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, how do you…
• 21:06
  Gilbert Hernandez: Work that out.
• 21:08
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, because remember, Maria was the same way, Luba.
• 21:11
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 21:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: mother was the same way. She was actually more brutal about.
• 21:15
  Tad Eggleston: Some of the most disturbing strips you've ever written are when Fritz and Petra were young, and Maria was passed out in her room, or not present at all.
• 21:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, yeah, that was… I decided to… well, because there's…
• 21:33
  Gilbert Hernandez: you know, I can't make all the characters me, you know?
• 21:36
  Tad Eggleston: Right, no, I understand.
• 21:38
  Gilbert Hernandez: But at the same time, we can look at people that we don't like how they treat their family or anything, but they do have a certain personality that, you know, compelling. You know, you do want to know what this person's doing, even if you know they're kind of crappy. Yeah, that's the trick, to make a readable character
• 21:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: was actually kind of a jerk. As a matter of fact, this is not a spoiler, I guess maybe it is an upcoming issue.
• 22:03
  Tad Eggleston: as it is, you're a legend, you're allowed to spoil anything you want.
• 22:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's an issue, probably the last 11 rockets that's gonna feature Maria, you know, in it, just as a… to connect the characters together. And the twin girls, you know, have never met her, and this and that.
• 22:18
  Gilbert Hernandez: the new, the second twin girl who's just going, boy, all these stories about my grandmother, he goes, I don't think I like her. I think she's a jerk. And the other one goes, oh, she was a total jerk. But they're just saying hearsay, you know, they're just repeating what they…
• 22:33
  Gilbert Hernandez: what… because they heard stories, and they're like… and then I'm going like, yeah, she would be seen as a jerk, and I just never mention it in the stories, you know? So, I do… that's what's good about having characters that aren't in that loop, where they're just sort of looking at it like we are, going…
• 22:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, that person's a jerk, or that person's a… You know, so anyway.
• 22:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, I'm aware that Maria was in trouble, and Fritz is too, but that's the…
• 22:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: anti-hero thing, you know? Right.
• 23:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: They, they, they, they have good… they're good qualities.
• 23:06
  Tad Eggleston: do?
• 23:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: But, you know, there you go.
• 23:08
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, they're definitely heroes that you want to see redeemed, or anti-heroes that you want to see redeemed. You don't…
• 23:15
  Tad Eggleston: You don't want to think of them as irredeemably horrible.
• 23:18
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, great, so that's, that's that. I mean, I don't want to…
• 23:21
  Gilbert Hernandez: Make them, you know, villains, you know?
• 23:24
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 23:28
  Tad Eggleston: you have this… I mean, like, what makes Lovin' Rockets…
• 23:32
  Tad Eggleston: From both of your perspectives, so amazing is, like…
• 23:39
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, people take… talk about worldbuilding in superhero books, or in fantasy, you know, you hear about George R.R. Martin's worldbuilding, and you hear about the New York of Marvel,
• 23:53
  Tad Eggleston: the world of Luba is pretty fucking impressive. Like, the number of different characters, the number of different generations, like…
• 24:03
  Tad Eggleston: are they all going on in your head at once, or do you sit down and say, I haven't thought of somebody in a while, let's look at this? I mean…
• 24:13
  Tad Eggleston: How do they age? How do they…
• 24:16
  Tad Eggleston: grow and multiply, you know? I mean, this is all coming up because, like.
• 24:21
  Tad Eggleston: as you were talking about that, I suddenly found myself going.
• 24:25
  Tad Eggleston: I wonder what Venus and Casimira are up to.
• 24:28
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, well, actually, in the next few issues, I'm going to be reintroducing characters I've ignored for a while. But what always happens is, like, I would like to… let's say I would like to do an entire… one issue of just Casimira, just her story, and that would be it, or her final story, or final in an issue.
• 24:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: in a whole issue, but it ends up being two pages, and then the rest comes all crashing down. So there's just so much more with the other characters. I can't really single out characters at the moment.
• 24:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: Because I have so many. And, you know, not… you know, it's, you know, this ain't lasting forever. I have to start thinking, some of these stories are ending.
• 25:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: So I'm actually picking stars.
• 25:11
  Tad Eggleston: I don't like… I don't like thinking that way. You need to… you have cartoonists in your family, just make detailed notes, pass it on, keep them going. Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, I know that you won't live forever, but… but they're… cartoonists will.
• 25:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well… Yeah, yeah.
• 25:31
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, how old are the guys from Gasoline Alley now?
• 25:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, yeah, God, I think the main guy finally died, I think.
• 25:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, at, like, 104.
• 25:42
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, something like that, and the baby, founding baby now is, like, 80s, I guess?
• 25:48
  Tad Eggleston: Something, yeah.
• 25:49
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah.
• 25:51
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, that's crazy. I don't know, man.
• 25:56
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, but you answered a little bit of how you make it. You didn't answer as much about how you think about them. I mean, are the stories going on in your head? Do you have an idea?
• 26:07
  Tad Eggleston: of what Venus is up to, and, like, yeah, you start to write about it, and it winds up being all sorts of other things, but… but, like…
• 26:17
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, again.
• 26:18
  Tad Eggleston: Oh my god, Venus… Venus is probably close to high school now, isn't she?
• 26:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, no, she's, no, she's in her mid-30s.
• 26:25
  Tad Eggleston: See? This is what I'm saying.
• 26:27
  Gilbert Hernandez: several, yeah, she's in her… and she's got a whole family, and now she's the mom. But the fun part about writing her, this is stuff in the future, you haven't seen it yet, but this is stuff I'm working on. And basically, she's got a pretty big family, and they all like her when she was little. They're all crazy and neurotic and yelling at each other, and Venus is kind of the same…
• 26:47
  Tad Eggleston: Can't wait to see this book.
• 26:48
  Gilbert Hernandez: But Venus is, is, like, basically the same person. She's in her 30s, but she's the same person. And that's… I did that for fun.
• 26:55
  Tad Eggleston: Surrounded by a bunch of… yeah, that…
• 26:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: Versions of herself, you know?
• 27:00
  Tad Eggleston: that.
• 27:02
  Tad Eggleston: Sounds actually amazing.
• 27:04
  Tad Eggleston: And I would love to have it going on in my head, and now it kinda is, so thank you for that.
• 27:10
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, that'll be coming out. I'm not sure which comic, but .
• 27:13
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah. But, but again, like…
• 27:19
  Tad Eggleston: And you've said previously, like, we talked about it around music, and you said, like, not all of the stuff that we put in there is stuff I like, sometimes it's the stuff that…
• 27:30
  Tad Eggleston: Venus likes, or the stuff that…
• 27:32
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, right.
• 27:33
  Tad Eggleston: that Fritz, like, you know, because the characters have their own will, so, like, when you're sitting down.
• 27:39
  Tad Eggleston: to work? Is that sometimes how it works? You sit down, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna…
• 27:44
  Tad Eggleston: gonna… I don't know if I've even asked you before, what is… what is your daily work process? How do you go about…
• 27:54
  Gilbert Hernandez: I get up, pretty early, because I have to, you know, get my daughter, help her out, get to school, so she's going to college, and I just.
• 28:02
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 28:03
  Gilbert Hernandez: I just,
• 28:05
  Gilbert Hernandez: start, you know, after breakfast and all that, it's just… I just start to work. You know, which comic? Like, right now, I'm trying to finish A Loving Rockets, because I want to get to a graphic novel. That's another thing we should talk about. I'm working on a new graphic novel.
• 28:19
  Gilbert Hernandez: And…
• 28:19
  Tad Eggleston: In the universe, or different.
• 28:20
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, just a cold.
• 28:22
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 28:23
  Gilbert Hernandez: Big Mo.
• 28:23
  Tad Eggleston: Whoa.
• 28:24
  Gilbert Hernandez: Cold reading… oh, brand new characters.
• 28:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: The characters disappear after the book is gone, you know, that kind of thing, just like a novel.
• 28:32
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, so, like, so, like…
• 28:35
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm trying to think of how many times you've done that. You've done that a couple of times, but…
• 28:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, that aren't in the Palomar world, the ones would be, Julio's Day and Marble Season.
• 28:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: Okay, I thought Hulu.
• 28:48
  Tad Eggleston: Julio's day was technically considered in the Palomar world.
• 28:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's not, no.
• 28:53
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 28:54
  Gilbert Hernandez: And I know that wasn't planned. I mean, if you find something in there, that's fine.
• 28:57
  Tad Eggleston: No, I just know, I thought it got collected with the Lovin' Rockets stuff, and…
• 29:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, it did! They… they got this… it's there. They got this.
• 29:06
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 29:06
  Gilbert Hernandez: about where they have to reprint everything, even if it wasn't Love Rockets. Gotcha. Like the, old, New Tales of Old Palomar, those three… Right. That was put out in a book. That wasn't Love Rockets. So…
• 29:19
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 29:19
  Gilbert Hernandez: They just want to use… they just want to stuff it with as much of my stuff as they can.
• 29:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and from a marketing standpoint, and, like, paying your bills in Natalia's college and whatnot, that's probably the smart thing to do, but sometimes it makes it harder for us to know where to place things.
• 29:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:36
  Tad Eggleston: for that matter, some of your Dark Horse stuff, I'm like…
• 29:39
  Tad Eggleston: This isn't officially Levin Rockets, but it feels like it's Palomar.
• 29:42
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right.
• 29:43
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, I went up to Dark Horse stuff, and we took a break from them, rockets for a little while, we just… and then we started doing the comic book size one.
• 29:51
  Tad Eggleston: The Speak of the Devil always felt like the first… Fritz movie to me.
• 29:56
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, it, it… Okay, here's the technicality, this is just for fun, this is not.
• 30:01
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 30:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's actually the story that inspired the Fritz movie.
• 30:06
  Gilbert Hernandez: Okay. It's the true story of what inspired the Fritz book, so I don't really need to do the Fritz book.
• 30:12
  Tad Eggleston: Because… There you go. Because you did the…
• 30:15
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, I did that. I love it. Because some of the books I did, they were because they were for different…
• 30:20
  Tad Eggleston: Or just different, universes. Different books, right, right, right.
• 30:26
  Gilbert Hernandez: And I just said, oh, I can't use this story for this right now, I can't… I'll use it for this.
• 30:31
  Tad Eggleston: So, Fatima and the blood spinners, where does that fit in?
• 30:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: That was a Fritz book called Tame, about a super spy named Johnny Tame, and he was the cool guy, and it was about that, and this was his origin story. Like, he was working, doing the drugs and zombies and all that stuff, then he was gonna go out solo and be a badass James Bond-type character. Well…
• 30:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: I threw that out, and just changed it into this adventure story for a… as a woman.
• 30:57
  Tad Eggleston: That, that, that suddenly reminded me, when,
• 31:04
  Tad Eggleston: when we were reading Venus stories in the book club, we noticed that you were plugging grip
• 31:11
  Tad Eggleston: In the… in the music shop a lot.
• 31:15
  Gilbert Hernandez: That's right, it was terr… and then I have Venus looking at the comic, and obviously it's an adult comic, you know.
• 31:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 31:21
  Gilbert Hernandez: And that was pushing it. I used to push it quite a bit in those days with the kids and the stories. I look at it going, oh, why did I do that? That looks too bad.
• 31:31
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but it's also real.
• 31:32
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, I don't mind that part, that, oh, it's real, this is what kids are doing, but not everybody takes it that way.
• 31:38
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I know. I just…
• 31:41
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not gonna recount the circumstances, because they're… they're… they're not hugely fun, and they're tangential, but I… I was once in a green room.
• 31:54
  Tad Eggleston: With a brilliant, brilliant psychologist.
• 31:57
  Tad Eggleston: You know, world-renowned psychologists.
• 32:00
  Tad Eggleston: who was sitting watching Kill Bill.
• 32:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: Cool.
• 32:04
  Tad Eggleston: On his laptop with his 9-year-old.
• 32:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: 9-year-old now.
• 32:10
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and he got asked about it.
• 32:12
  Tad Eggleston: But by one of the other people in the green room, and he's like, no, same.
• 32:16
  Tad Eggleston: I know my son.
• 32:19
  Tad Eggleston: And I know that he knows the difference between pretend violence and… Real violence.
• 32:26
  Tad Eggleston: And what's more is, we're watching it together, so if he has moments where he doesn't understand the difference between pretend violence or real violence, or if he has questions that he wants to ask me.
• 32:39
  Tad Eggleston: He can.
• 32:40
  Tad Eggleston: You know, what's more is, you know, he's a young black boy. Unfortunately, there will probably be violence around his life. I don't want him to ever be afraid to talk to me about it.
• 32:51
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right.
• 32:52
  Tad Eggleston: You know? And that's always sunk into me, because I… I…
• 32:57
  Tad Eggleston: I already had kids at the time, and, and… Some of them were even…
• 33:06
  Tad Eggleston: At the age where, like, they were starting to like the movies, that some parents would go, oh my god, there's a nude scene, they can't possibly watch it.
• 33:14
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm sitting there going… I mean, I watched Love Actually with my daughter when she was probably younger than most
• 33:21
  Tad Eggleston: parents would have been comfortable because of the simulated. I'm sitting there going.
• 33:26
  Tad Eggleston: She's gonna have sex in her life.
• 33:30
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I actually…
• 33:32
  Tad Eggleston: kinda don't want to imagine a life where she never has sex. That seems kinda mean.
• 33:38
  Gilbert Hernandez: So… so…
• 33:40
  Tad Eggleston: I don't want her to feel like this is taboo. I want her to feel like this is something that's open to talk about. So, like, in some senses, though your parents have gone back and forth on how they've talked about it. I've always kind of appreciated that part of Love & Rockets, that you showed kids that were very much like kids, and
• 33:58
  Tad Eggleston: Interested in learning about the things
• 34:00
  Tad Eggleston: that they may… I mean, that was back when, like…
• 34:04
  Tad Eggleston: That's one of the reasons I have so much trouble with Fritz now, because Fritz then was a brilliant aunt.
• 34:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 34:10
  Tad Eggleston: you know, she was sitting there going, yeah, Venus, she doesn't want to talk about it because she's scared, blah blah blah, but… and then she'd talk about it with the girl.
• 34:20
  Tad Eggleston: You know,
• 34:23
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, I guess I kind of get the point of the parents that are like, oh my god, you're encouraging people to…
• 34:31
  Gilbert Hernandez: do things that they're not ready to do, but I also, like…
• 34:33
  Tad Eggleston: We have such weird standards on what… Kids can and can't handle.
• 34:38
  Gilbert Hernandez: Generally.
• 34:38
  Tad Eggleston: It's more to do with our own comfort.
• 34:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: I was about to say that. Like, that guy deciding to show a 9-year-old's Kill Bill, that's pushing it for me. For me, personally.
• 34:46
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 34:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: Because it's so violent and so out of control, but it's because the guy, the dad, wanted to watch it.
• 34:54
  Gilbert Hernandez: No!
• 34:54
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, actually…
• 34:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, really, kid picked.
• 34:57
  Tad Eggleston: The kid wanted to watch it.
• 34:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: Okay.
• 34:59
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that was one of the things he explained, is like, he wants to watch it, he has friends, like…
• 35:05
  Tad Eggleston: I am… I am aware enough that if he sets in that he's gonna watch this movie, he's gonna find a way to watch it, whether he watches.
• 35:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: with you.
• 35:14
  Tad Eggleston: or not.
• 35:15
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah.
• 35:16
  Tad Eggleston: So, he's gonna watch it with me.
• 35:19
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, okay, that's… that makes more sense. See, I thought the dad was.
• 35:22
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, the dad was actually, like, less engaged. The dad was doing work. I mean, this was how he was, you know, the kid was there because…
• 35:37
  Tad Eggleston: the dad was gonna be on TV in a few minutes, and, like, there wasn't another place for the kid to be. Kill Bill was being watched, because it was what the kid wanted to watch, and would, like, help him get through the evening.
• 35:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: Sure, sure.
• 35:54
  Tad Eggleston: And again, like, it all comes down… you know, I wasn't comfortable with that level of violence when my kids were that age, but I had different kids, and I was a different parent. Sure, sure. You know, and that was part of his big point, is like…
• 36:11
  Tad Eggleston: What kids can handle is unique to the kids, and unique to the people working with them, and…
• 36:17
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, go.
• 36:18
  Tad Eggleston: You know, it's not the stuff, it's how it's presented.
• 36:23
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 36:23
  Tad Eggleston: more than anything, you know?
• 36:27
  Tad Eggleston: And that's something that's always kind of stuck with me, because it was something that I felt intuitively, but it was…
• 36:33
  Tad Eggleston: Kinda nice hearing it from somebody who…
• 36:39
  Tad Eggleston: Had a lot of experience studying exactly that sort of thing.
• 36:44
  Tad Eggleston: You know, we're not just talking to dad, we're talking
• 36:47
  Tad Eggleston: dad slash psychologist slash multiple PhDs, multiple books on exactly this sort of thing.
• 36:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: Good.
• 36:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah. Well, I remember saying things that were inappropriate for my daughter, and then I was like, what do I do, stop it, or do I just keep watching it?
• 37:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right. Because you don't… and I thought, I'd just keep watching it and act calmly, you know, don't… don't act weird.
• 37:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, pick up on whether or not they have questions. Answer them if they do.
• 37:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 37:15
  Tad Eggleston: You know, if they seem weirded out, you say things like, are you okay? Do you want me to change the channel? Do you have any questions? You know?
• 37:24
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I was never a horror guy, so I was always deeply…
• 37:28
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't want my son getting into horror. His mom was more of a horror person, so, like, when he got to that age where he was gonna do it with or without us, I'm kinda glad that she not only approved it, but, like, they started watching certain things together that I would never have wanted to watch, period, because…
• 37:46
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right.
• 37:47
  Tad Eggleston: Because, like…
• 37:49
  Tad Eggleston: My son wound up a father early, too, and I was scared to death, because the, the, the…
• 37:56
  Tad Eggleston: Who he was before the kids were born, and who he became almost immediately.
• 38:02
  Tad Eggleston: like, as the first child is born, and all the more so by the time the second child is, like, like, we're almost night and day. I, I, I…
• 38:10
  Tad Eggleston: I cannot tell you how proud of my son I am, in terms of how great of a father he became, almost on a dime. And it makes me wonder sometimes, it's like…
• 38:21
  Tad Eggleston: Because, like, horror was his release. It's not my release!
• 38:26
  Tad Eggleston: But it was his release, so, you know, how much do little things like that that, like, I never would have been able to do for him…
• 38:37
  Tad Eggleston: because of how uncomfortable I am with it.
• 38:41
  Tad Eggleston: And vice versa, like, because again, like…
• 38:44
  Tad Eggleston: My ex would have been less than…
• 38:48
  Tad Eggleston: would have been and or was less than thrilled with some of the R-rated movies that I…
• 38:54
  Gilbert Hernandez: Would allow the kids to watch, because she's like…
• 38:57
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm like, come on, they're gonna have sex. Let's have the talks be… I'm not watching pornography with them, I'm not watching movies where that's the point, and I'm not, like, picking out the movie. Oh, I'm just, like, when they pick out the movie, I'm not saying no.
• 39:13
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm watching it with them.
• 39:17
  Tad Eggleston: And they both seem pretty rounded. So, like…
• 39:21
  Tad Eggleston: We did lots of things wrong.
• 39:24
  Tad Eggleston: But we must have done a few things right, and I feel like that was one of them.
• 39:29
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know, I'm off on a weird tangent now, and I want to get back to your characters, because they're so much more fun.
• 39:43
  Tad Eggleston: You do, you go back, I mean, as we've talked, and I'm thinking more…
• 39:51
  Tad Eggleston: about this story, and what you were saying about Fritz…
• 39:55
  Tad Eggleston: Certainly right now, being just kind of a horrible person.
• 40:00
  Tad Eggleston: in this weird, horrible world, like, I realize that it has…
• 40:05
  Tad Eggleston: Way more in common with a,
• 40:10
  Tad Eggleston: a human diastrophism, or a poison river, then… Then you feel like…
• 40:17
  Tad Eggleston: When you're reading it, in part because you put it in… in this now segmented.
• 40:24
  Tad Eggleston: Everybody has their own media, like.
• 40:28
  Tad Eggleston: we're living in a sci-fi world. You know? But… like, the Venus stories… some of the Casimira stories.
• 40:41
  Tad Eggleston: Even some of the hard times during…
• 40:45
  Tad Eggleston: during that… that shift to America, like, those stories are almost unequivocally…
• 40:52
  Tad Eggleston: hopeful, and not all the people are, are, are…
• 40:55
  Tad Eggleston: are always good, you know. Luba has her ups and downs. Ophelia has way more ups than downs.
• 41:04
  Tad Eggleston: That sort of thing.
• 41:09
  Tad Eggleston: how do you feel when you're making the different types of stories? Do you ever… do you ever have a story where you get in there, you're going, God…
• 41:17
  Tad Eggleston: This is painful to draw. I need to go do something else. I mean, does a blubber come out of… you're working on a really hard thing over here, and it's like, I need to do something silly?
• 41:29
  Tad Eggleston: How does that work?
• 41:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: It could be, yeah. Like, okay, let's say that the breakup of Luba and Ophelia was basically Ophelia just got tired of Luba shenanigans or whatever. Luba wasn't doing anything. Ophelia just saw everything as, oh, you're doing this, you're the worst, and this and that.
• 41:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: Lou was like, oh, screw you, and this and that. So they just, basically, they just lived together too long. You know, they should be apart. So that was that, but as far as, yeah, like.
• 41:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, I can't think about that. I have written and drawn things that…
• 42:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: I dreaded doing… doing that, just because it's gotta… I have to do it. It's part of the story. I have to do it. Right. I can change my mind, throw the page out.
• 42:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: But I always end up using it, because I'm thinking, it's… I think it came out really well. But then again, sometimes when things come out really well.
• 42:21
  Gilbert Hernandez: You've already done it.
• 42:23
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Years ago.
• 42:24
  Gilbert Hernandez: And I realized a lot of times I just sit on it and go, okay, I'm gonna do this thing that's very difficult for me and the readers.
• 42:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: Then I stopped, but I let it… let it sit, because I want to remember, oh, that happened.
• 42:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: in this story, or that had something similar in this story, and that affected readers as in, oh, it was a surprise. Well, after a while, you're not going to be surprised by that stuff after a while. You know, you're going to be, oh, here's another Gilbert Hernandez twist on some crazy violence or something. That's okay, but it's not where I want to continue.
• 42:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: To be recognized for, you know, just partly, but not, not… Not the main thing.
• 42:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: And that's why this new graphic novel is just going to be about young people, and no, weird…
• 43:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: Stuff going on, other than…
• 43:06
  Tad Eggleston: What can you tell us about the new graphic novel?
• 43:08
  Gilbert Hernandez: Simply, it's more like a Marvel… okay, it's across… it'll be like Marvel season and Julio's Day, mostly Marvel season, except it's during… I did a couple of stories, and…
• 43:18
  Gilbert Hernandez: human… psychodrama and Illustrator that kind of were on the same subject. That was about building the wall.
• 43:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, into Mexico and the U.S. Well, now, the ice problem.
• 43:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, I'm gonna deal with that, how characters are dealing with ice. But as a mysterious alien force, I mean, it's still ice, but they see it as, like, who are these people dressed like this, and who's doing this, and why are they doing it to us? They don't know, these are kids.
• 43:46
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 43:46
  Gilbert Hernandez: But the adults are trying to scramble, go like, oh, we have to go here, here, take the papers over here and over here, because he was arrested, and the kids don't know what any of this means. So anyway, that's what the story's about.
• 43:58
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, so you're doing… you're working from a kid's perspective.
• 44:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah.
• 44:03
  Tad Eggleston: but otherwise… Oh, this is… that's brilliant, I can't wait to see this.
• 44:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: I'm just, actually looking for a publisher, and then, just get going on it, because I got, I got time. I finished last two issues of Roy, and Little Rockets I'm finishing, so I actually have a couple of months free, so I'm thinking to try to…
• 44:23
  Tad Eggleston: Right, so you said Love & Rockets is finishing. Does that mean that we're hitting another Love & Rockets
• 44:29
  Tad Eggleston: hiatus, or does it just mean you're in a hiatus? No, no, I meant the issue. Okay, I just wanted to make certain…
• 44:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, no, no, no, I just…
• 44:37
  Tad Eggleston: finishes.
• 44:38
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, because I can imagine, just from what I've heard, you know, I can imagine you being multiple issues ahead of Jaime in terms of Love & Rockets content.
• 44:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: Sort of. Some, some, some things, yeah.
• 44:50
  Tad Eggleston: But, so, talk to me about,
• 45:00
  Tad Eggleston: What's most fun?
• 45:02
  Tad Eggleston: are hardest to… to… to create or draw? Do you… do you script on the page? Do you… do you…
• 45:10
  Tad Eggleston: Right ahead of time.
• 45:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, what kind of stories make you love to be at work, and what kinds of stories make you go, why did I choose this career again?
• 45:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, I haven't felt that way in a while. I used to feel that one day. That's good. You know, it was just on my shoulders, and now it's more like, I'm just gonna draw the characters I feel like drawing, and then put a story to them. I mean, it's literally that, you know. I haven't done this character, and I haven't emphasized this part of their life, so I'll start with that. It can change.
• 45:39
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 45:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: But it's mostly just, well, I haven't drawn them in the snow for a while, and then I come up with a story about them being in the snow. But you have to come up with all the…
• 45:49
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, the details to make it…
• 45:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: make it so, you know? So anyway, that's… that's… I, I,
• 45:56
  Gilbert Hernandez: These days, I sketch out the…
• 45:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: outlining border, and then I just start to mix squares, and sometimes I'll use scratch paper and plan it out that way, you know, just…
• 46:06
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Some mails, and then put a little bit of dialogue on them.
• 46:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: And then I'll start on the paper, and then put the dialogue on the end.
• 46:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: Borders.
• 46:15
  Gilbert Hernandez: And that's how, pretty much, so I'll forget dialogue. And sometimes I'm doing a drawing, and I have the characters, and I put the dialogue above their head, and I realize.
• 46:24
  Gilbert Hernandez: I gotta write over this dialogue, so sometimes I'm… I'm doing double… double duty, whereas it's pencil, the dialogue, and then I gotta straighten it out, and I gotta know which words are what. And that's my own fault, though, that's because I'm lazy. I just don't,
• 46:37
  Gilbert Hernandez: Make them separate, you know, put the dollar up here.
• 46:40
  Tad Eggleston: I think we can call you a lot of things, but lazy doesn't seem like one of them.
• 46:46
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you're both prolific for a long time, and, like, you're doing all of the jobs. You pencil, you ink, you write, you letter, you answer your letters pages. You still have a letters page.
• 47:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: Not lately, but .
• 47:03
  Tad Eggleston: Well, you know what I mean. He'd take time out to talk to me for an hour every 6 months or so, you know, that sort of thing. Lazy doesn't strike me as a good word for you.
• 47:20
  Tad Eggleston: You make choices. People make choices. That's allowed. Not automatically lazy.
• 47:27
  Tad Eggleston: Wow. Where… Where do you see things going next?
• 47:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, again, it's been this… this… this fritz-heavy run of both…
• 47:42
  Tad Eggleston: both Love and Rockets and Psychodrama Illustrated,
• 47:48
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I don't want you to spoil the ending, though please, please have her redeemed in some way.
• 47:55
  Tad Eggleston: I don't want… I don't want to wind up hating Fritz, you know?
• 47:59
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I worried for a little bit with Luba.
• 48:03
  Gilbert Hernandez: But, like.
• 48:03
  Tad Eggleston: Luba came to… coming to America… like, when she…
• 48:07
  Tad Eggleston: was having her daughters leave, and just acting like she didn't care. I'm like, no, please, you've always been a mediocre parent, but I was willing to toss that up to you being young, and having way too much on your shoulders, and you worked at it, and you were trying to also… but no!
• 48:26
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well.
• 48:28
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you're… if you haven't noticed, your characters bring out a very… Very emotional reaction in me.
• 48:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, that's… that's nice. Nice, I'm doing something. Yeah, Lupa… there was a period, and Jaime admits this about his own character, Hopi. There's a period where they had it too good as far as their characterizations were, and they started to get kind of…
• 48:51
  Gilbert Hernandez: kind of unpleasant, you know. And Luba got very unpleasant, and I just stopped.
• 48:56
  Gilbert Hernandez: she's just becoming the bad guy now. Now she's gonna be stuck with this, and I go, that's not who Luba is.
• 49:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 49:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: I pulled back, and I just made it that she was basically just immature. We'd never seen that part of her, but it came out when her ex-husband, Kamal, the guy, the burn guy, was gonna leave her and stuff, so she just started to freak out, but like a child.
• 49:16
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, and so I was able to wrap… bring that back down, and now she's just kind of her age, you know, she's in her 60s, 70s, and she's just kind of…
• 49:26
  Gilbert Hernandez: She's just around. That's why… She's…
• 49:30
  Tad Eggleston: It's just still a… it's just still a badass in her 60s.
• 49:32
  Gilbert Hernandez: Ruba. She still runs.
• 49:33
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 49:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: but she's just not in your face and, you know, yelling at you and that kind of stuff. Oh, maybe there will be a story coming up. Who knows? It calls for it. I don't know. But Fritz, she's gonna kind of clear up herself, but she doesn't know how to be a good person, because she's not a bad person. She doesn't know what kind of person she is. She's just so indulgent.
• 49:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: And so jealous of her sister.
• 49:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: and her daughter now, that she just will do anything to get the attention from them. You know, Fritz is 50, but she acts like she's, you know, 25, you know, and everything, because she can, you know, she's the person.
• 50:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: it's… she's not a bad person, she's just…
• 50:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: unthinking, un… you know, I don't want to say uncaring, but…
• 50:18
  Gilbert Hernandez: She just doesn't think that, being… being so indulgent is hurting people. You know, like, oh, I just love myself. I'm great.
• 50:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 50:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: And she doesn't know how much that hurts people, you know.
• 50:28
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I also think that she doesn't always… Realize that she…
• 50:33
  Tad Eggleston: to me, her actions are actually screaming, I don't love myself.
• 50:38
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right, right.
• 50:39
  Gilbert Hernandez: Anyways…
• 50:41
  Tad Eggleston: As great of a therapist as she sometimes was, as is so often the case, like.
• 50:46
  Tad Eggleston: She needs her own therapist, because just because you can help other people doesn't mean you can actually, like, be self-reflective enough to help yourself without
• 50:55
  Tad Eggleston: Somebody to talk to.
• 50:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: Sure, sure. I know, I've heard that a lot of therapists have therapists.
• 51:01
  Tad Eggleston: Most therapists have therapists, at least most of the ones I know. You know, it's actually encouraged, you know,
• 51:09
  Tad Eggleston: Because they have to deal with…
• 51:11
  Tad Eggleston: not only their own stuff, but often some heavy stuff from their clients. So, like, to be able to…
• 51:19
  Tad Eggleston: To do it all themselves is like asking for a level of superpower that…
• 51:24
  Tad Eggleston: Is it really fair to ask of people?
• 51:26
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, for me, the Fritz thing with her becoming a therapist, it was the same reason so many women become strippers and such, is to control. She wants… she loves to control people. But like I said, she doesn't really realize that about herself. She just loved the control, she just loved…
• 51:43
  Gilbert Hernandez: And after a while, she got turned on… off by it, because people were so emotional. Because they're telling their, you know, their private lives, and they're telling all the stuff, and they've got… and it just wore her out. She goes, it's… this is not about me anymore.
• 51:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: So she quit therapy to be a B-movie star because she knows people will look at her.
• 52:01
  Tad Eggleston: See, we almost had one of my favorite therapists join us today, because he's on a lot of the podcasts.
• 52:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: So I so wish that he'd been here for that. I would love to hear his take on…
• 52:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't know, it clobber me, I don't know.
• 52:15
  Tad Eggleston: No, he certainly wouldn't. He was late to the Love & Rockets game, but I brought him in hard.
• 52:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, Dr. Ramos is a big fan of your work. He wouldn't be clubbing you, he would be.
• 52:28
  Gilbert Hernandez: It was great.
• 52:29
  Tad Eggleston: He would probably be more going.
• 52:32
  Tad Eggleston: Please hope I don't do that.
• 52:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, that was just a dramatic device for Fritz. I mean.
• 52:39
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 52:39
  Gilbert Hernandez: I'm sure they're just fine therapists, you know what I mean? I just… I just used that for her, because it fit in her tradition.
• 52:45
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I understand, yeah.
• 52:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: He's just super jealous, and I'm gonna be the… I'm gonna be the attention, not you.
• 52:53
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that… I mean, even, like, the teenage Fritz that we meet in, what, Love & Rockets 10, right?
• 53:00
  Gilbert Hernandez: I guess, yeah.
• 53:02
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, the one with the band, and Steve.
• 53:06
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, right, right, cheers.
• 53:07
  Tad Eggleston: You know, even, even teenagers, like…
• 53:13
  Tad Eggleston: Brits has always, to me, been defined by what an utter badass she is, and how, in her own head, she's anything but.
• 53:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 53:23
  Tad Eggleston: She's capable of anything. When she's doing it for somebody else, or because she's angry or jealous, she shows you that she's capable of anything, but in her head.
• 53:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 53:36
  Tad Eggleston: She's useless.
• 53:39
  Tad Eggleston: you know, she just has it in her head that she's not any of the things that she is. She's not beautiful, she's not…
• 53:46
  Tad Eggleston: Smarch is not… you know, and I feel like the lisp kind of comes and it gets heavier the more…
• 53:52
  Tad Eggleston: The lower her self-esteem is.
• 53:55
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know.
• 53:56
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 53:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: The thing is, she's… well, she's the type that doesn't see it. Also, that's where neurosis comes in. She… she's, you know, she's plenty attractive, but she doesn't think she is. She thinks her sister is. Right. She's,
• 54:11
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, she's got a genius IQ up the roof.
• 54:15
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, her sister doesn't.
• 54:17
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 54:17
  Gilbert Hernandez: it doesn't matter to her, because she was born with it. So, a lot of times, if you'll notice, a lot of people
• 54:23
  Gilbert Hernandez: athletes, good-looking men, good-looking women, they're born that way, so it's not an issue for them. They're used to being looked at. They're used to being, oh, look at that person, or… I used to know guys that were, like.
• 54:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Like, all those guys in middle school and stuff, we were like.
• 54:39
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, man, the girls don't look at us and stuff, you know? And these guys, there would be one guy that all the girls liked.
• 54:45
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, and… but he didn't… but he didn't like it, because he was still a boy. You know, he was all like, oh, dude, let's come on, let's go play ball, let's go play ball, and they go, oh, here comes somebody, be cool.
• 54:54
  Gilbert Hernandez: she… she likes you! That's… so-and-so, you know? Anyway, I just kind of played with that, that they're just… that Fritz is actually, you know, an attractive woman, and desirable to a lot of men, but she doesn't see it. She's like, no, no, I gotta go get that. I gotta go grab it.
• 55:10
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 55:10
  Gilbert Hernandez: It… for her, it just brings her more attention. It's all about attention.
• 55:14
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 55:15
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, yep.
• 55:16
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 55:19
  Tad Eggleston: I, I have, I have, I have…
• 55:22
  Tad Eggleston: taken a big chunk of your time, and I'm having a blast, but I'm also running out of good questions, so unless you have other things that you want to plug, I'm going to shift into the… I gotta get more recommendations from Beto stage of the conversation.
• 55:41
  Tad Eggleston: and before I get to the standard, you know, tell me something you love that not enough people know about, I'm just gonna ask for some movie recommendations, because all the movie recommendations you have given me have been fantastic. What have you been watching lately? What was the last movie that…
• 55:56
  Gilbert Hernandez: We just watched a horror movie, it's brand new, called Weapons.
• 56:00
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's a brand.
• 56:02
  Tad Eggleston: I've heard about this one.
• 56:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: What… for me, because I've seen so many movies, so many horror movies, I'm not surprised at what happens anymore.
• 56:11
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 56:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: it depends on where they put it, where it's emphasized, what director's doing it, you know, and all that kind of stuff. So I just noticed that the technology and the…
• 56:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: The science behind making a… Movies now is more evident. It's more different now.
• 56:27
  Tad Eggleston: It is.
• 56:28
  Gilbert Hernandez: They look strange, they look like they're HD,
• 56:31
  Gilbert Hernandez: in this weird 3D way, they just have this weird look to it. Editing's weird.
• 56:37
  Gilbert Hernandez: for me, if you know what I mean? And all this stuff is going on.
• 56:42
  Gilbert Hernandez: is… it's all… it's all, like, almost fanfiction now. Movies are like fanfiction. They're just so absurd and so wacky that they're throwing stuff in, but they're allowing themselves to do that.
• 56:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, it's like, oh, okay, I get it, they're not restraining, you know.
• 56:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't know what I'm really saying about it. It's just, they're just… movies are just different, the brand new ones. And, so movies to recommend? What are we seeing?
• 57:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Because I know you watch a lot of the old ones, too.
• 57:09
  Tad Eggleston: It doesn't have to… it doesn't have to be new stuff.
• 57:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: Here's an obscure science fiction movie I recommend to anybody. It's called… okay, it's called… in America, it's called Enemy from Space, but it's actually called Quater Mass 2.
• 57:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: And it's… Quatermass is a rocket scientist that they always call in because there's alien stuff going on, so he has to come and check on it.
• 57:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: He's kind of a wise… he's kind of a jerk. Dr. Professor Quatermass. But it's basically an aliens, infiltrating the Earth through the means of going through their bodies and stuff, but it's called Quater… Quater Mass, like Quarter Mass, but Quater Mass.
• 57:45
  Gilbert Hernandez: 2.
• 57:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: And it's highly recommended, science fiction action thriller, or whatever you want to call it.
• 57:53
  Tad Eggleston: Quarter Mass 2… there we go.
• 57:56
  Tad Eggleston: 1957…
• 57:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah.
• 58:00
  Tad Eggleston: about gas angel, this does look interesting. And I can find it easier than I found.
• 58:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: Good humor, man.
• 58:10
  Tad Eggleston: Good humor man.
• 58:13
  Tad Eggleston: odd.
• 58:14
  Tad Eggleston: Water mass, too.
• 58:17
  Tad Eggleston: Lunar colonization project, intrigued by mysterious traces that have been showing up. I, yeah?
• 58:23
  Tad Eggleston: That sounds cool.
• 58:25
  Tad Eggleston: And this is totally the type of, like, recommendation I need to get from you, because, again, you manage to watch the old movies that most people have never
• 58:36
  Tad Eggleston: heard of.
• 58:37
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right, right.
• 58:38
  Tad Eggleston: That also wind up being surprisingly good.
• 58:43
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 58:45
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's always hard to sell old stuff to new people, you know?
• 58:48
  Tad Eggleston: No, that's fair. But, like, I mean, how do you go about… I mean, it surprised me when you said that, like, a lot of your research is essentially from channel flipping and going, oh, the world is becoming
• 59:05
  Tad Eggleston: this, I mean, is that how you're also finding good old movies? Is it just channel flipping, or are you.
• 59:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: Sometimes…
• 59:14
  Tad Eggleston: lists, and… It's…
• 59:17
  Gilbert Hernandez: It started with the old monster magazines when I was a kid, because it was the famous one from the 5th…
• 59:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: It was called Famous Monsters of Filmland. And what it was is that the editor, he had so many… he was friends with everybody in the business, so he had so many stills, he didn't know what to do it. From Europe, from Japan, from everywhere, the horror movies would never see or ever hear of.
• 59:38
  Gilbert Hernandez: So he would put them in there, just fill up his magazine, like, this is so-and-so from something from Czechoslovakia, and it would be a Frankenstein you'd never seen, but you've never seen the movie, you can't look them up, you don't know anything, sometimes they had the wrong titles on them. So anyway, I learned that way to be… because I'm curious, I liked monster movies as a kid, but I was curious about
• 59:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: What's the one I haven't seen?
• 59:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: Or what's the one from Austria? Or what's the one from, you know… because, you know, from Japan, you saw Godzilla. You know, from Italy, you saw vampires. From Mexico, you saw vampires. You saw… you know, it was different. England, you know.
• 1:00:12
  Gilbert Hernandez: So… but then, you would get weird stuff from different countries that are experiments, and just weird castles, and…
• 1:00:20
  Gilbert Hernandez: Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, you know? Like, who in the hell's gonna name a movie like that?
• 1:00:24
  Tad Eggleston: Well, as you bring up the weird castle, I just looked up the other movie you recommended last time, was Mad Monster Party.
• 1:00:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, yeah!
• 1:00:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Which was so much fun! Oh yeah, that's one that slipped through the cracks, and now it's finally getting recognition, but…
• 1:00:42
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:00:43
  Tad Eggleston: So, so did you have…
• 1:00:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, because it's one thing to find it in the magazine, but then to track it down, did you have a great, like, video rental place that.
• 1:00:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, this is before that. Growing up, you just watched what they showed you, you know, and they're just filling up Saturdays and Sundays in the day with whatever, you know, stuff they could get. And sometimes they were obscure, weird movies, you know, just.
• 1:01:06
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:01:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: A mad scientist is going around, and he has an assistant, you know.
• 1:01:12
  Tad Eggleston: Right, no, no.
• 1:01:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: just nuts like that, that most kids wouldn't think is cool, because there's no monster, but you watch it, and you go, this is creepy, you know, this is just a creepy world. So anyway, I just watched them like that, and then I started… and then, like I said, I just used to read through,
• 1:01:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: fanzines and magazines, because… and then what came around in the 80s were the…
• 1:01:33
  Gilbert Hernandez: the fanzines, like, cult movies, and psychodrama, and all these different ones, and you'd learn about movies like that. And sometimes they were just foreign movies, they weren't even horror movies, but they were.
• 1:01:44
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, absolutely, I'm just saying that, that, like.
• 1:01:47
  Tad Eggleston: particularly in the 80s, like, reading about it in a magazine and then managing to see it are a different thing, because, like, you read about it in a magazine, you have a list by the bed so that you can pull out the TV listings, oh, wait, that one's gonna be on on Saturday!
• 1:02:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: to watch it. Like, how was the process from going from the magazine of…
• 1:02:07
  Tad Eggleston: oh, this movie looks cool, I want to see it. Like, was there anything that you became obsessed with to go track down, or did you keep a list somewhere? How did that work?
• 1:02:17
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, it was just through time… timing, you know, it just… obviously, you know, like, I'd read a certain magazine, and then luckily… because a lot of times when movies are… are…
• 1:02:27
  Gilbert Hernandez: discovered or rediscovered, all of a sudden, you see them pop up, you know? You see that, you know how they're listing on your phone? You make your favorite movie, it's gonna pop up on YouTube, on your television set, like, how'd that happen? You know?
• 1:02:40
  Tad Eggleston: You're saying there was a natural algorithm before Google got around to it?
• 1:02:44
  Gilbert Hernandez: For me, for me, it was just a natural, I want to know about this. And what was cool…
• 1:02:49
  Tad Eggleston: Suddenly, it was there.
• 1:02:51
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, and then, once you're done with monsters, you just go for the weird movie. You know, the oddball…
• 1:02:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, so,
• 1:02:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: So anyway, that's just it. It was just my curiosity, my passion. You know, I still go turn channels, you know, it's the end of the day, I'm done watching something, you know, with my family or whatever, they go up and do something, and I'll just go, and I'll stop at the monster movie. You know, every time.
• 1:03:14
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, and, and, like…
• 1:03:17
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, aside from the fact that just every movie you've ever recommended, I have watched and loved, no matter what I thought going into it, like…
• 1:03:27
  Tad Eggleston: The B-movie… the Fritz B movies have always been like, oh, wait a minute.
• 1:03:34
  Tad Eggleston: this isn't coming from nowhere. I… I know Beto is… is… A moving nut.
• 1:03:41
  Tad Eggleston: there are movies like this. I need to go find those movies, because I like these comics more than half the movies that people say are great. And maybe they're not the… like, long ago, I became aware that, like.
• 1:03:56
  Tad Eggleston: many of the things that I like aren't necessarily inherently great, they're just more entertaining to me.
• 1:04:03
  Tad Eggleston: You know, there are plenty of things I'm like, yeah, if you make me give it a rating, it's 6 out of 10 stores, but I'll watch it…
• 1:04:11
  Tad Eggleston: I'll watch it way more often than I'll watch most 10-star movies.
• 1:04:16
  Gilbert Hernandez: I hear what you're saying. They're easy to watch, they're just… yeah.
• 1:04:18
  Tad Eggleston: Right, you know, I could see myself watching Mad Monster Party again when we get done.
• 1:04:26
  Tad Eggleston: Because it's… because that's the one that I literally, I found it the day… The day we talked last.
• 1:04:31
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, okay.
• 1:04:32
  Tad Eggleston: And it was on sale, so I just bought it.
• 1:04:35
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, within an hour of getting off with you and Natalia, I started watching Mad Monster Party with my wife, who had actually seen it! She knew the movie! And I'm like, wow! I didn't even know this existed!
• 1:04:49
  Gilbert Hernandez: So, how did the catfight come over?
• 1:04:52
  Tad Eggleston: So it's fine, it went well.
• 1:04:56
  Tad Eggleston: I thought it was hilarious, she thought it was hilarious that I was into it, because it's in many ways more her type of silly, you know, she's an airplane, you know, she likes airplane comedies, I like the West Wing, you know? Right, right.
• 1:05:11
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah. So Weapons is the movie that I may or may not watch, but now enough people have recommended it for different reasons, from different places, that maybe I'll make myself watch it sometime during the day when it won't affect my sleep.
• 1:05:28
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't know, I can't recommend it, but at the same time, if everybody likes it, why not?
• 1:05:34
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, if you don't… see, this is… I want to know if you're recommending it, Beto. I don't care about whether everybody.
• 1:05:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, that one, I'm on a fence. I couldn't…
• 1:05:44
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't want to say no, but I… it's not a movie I thought was very important or special.
• 1:05:49
  Tad Eggleston: Okay. I mean, most of what I've heard about it is like, oh, this is portraying this or that thing in a really well…
• 1:05:57
  Gilbert Hernandez: great way, and I'm sitting there going, well, if it gets through to horror people, great, but I already know those things, so I don't need to…
• 1:06:05
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, I mean, it's okay if you want to see it, you know, it's…
• 1:06:09
  Gilbert Hernandez: I wouldn't say don't see it, but I'm not saying it's a great movie.
• 1:06:12
  Tad Eggleston: No, I… well, I don't even care if you're singing a great movie. I'm saying, like, I want the ones that you like.
• 1:06:19
  Tad Eggleston: The ones that you think are fun, the ones that you see, and they're like, I'm gonna watch that every time I come across it on TV again.
• 1:06:27
  Tad Eggleston: When I'm flipping channels late at night, if I hit that, I'm watching it again, period. I'm gonna be up half an hour late, because quarter masks is on.
• 1:06:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Let me think. I'm just trying… you know, right now I'm blanking out because…
• 1:06:43
  Tad Eggleston: We'll be talking comics for too long.
• 1:06:45
  Tad Eggleston: It puts your head in the wrong space.
• 1:06:48
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah. No, I'm sure… I'm sure that… well, what it is, there's so many that are trying to crowd out, you know, trying to come out of my…
• 1:06:54
  Gilbert Hernandez: come into my mouth, and I can't think of any right now.
• 1:06:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that happens with me in comics sometimes.
• 1:07:00
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, just…
• 1:07:00
  Tad Eggleston: Because I read so many different books. Oh, I'm sure there's tons of movies, too.
• 1:07:05
  Tad Eggleston: then we'll shift gears. Tell me what you're listening to right now.
• 1:07:10
  Gilbert Hernandez: Because you've got great music taste, too. Oh, just, I just,
• 1:07:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: Whatever shows up right now. I'm not listening to anything…
• 1:07:19
  Gilbert Hernandez: I'm listening to music that a 98… a 68… 90… 68-year-old man listens to.
• 1:07:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: Chapel Roan, and
• 1:07:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: And Haim. They're my favorite band, so… and everybody else looks at me like I'm crazy, like, well, those movies, those bands are terrible. I'm like, no, I like them.
• 1:07:37
  Tad Eggleston: I like them.
• 1:07:38
  Gilbert Hernandez: They play power pop the way I've always liked it, you know? Melodic pop that just punches, you know?
• 1:07:45
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. And then the final, the question that gets asked every time, and you've given me movies in the past, which is why I did the movies first, tell me something you love, preferably a comic, but we don't have rules. Preferably storytelling, but we don't have rules. But something that you love, that not enough people around you
• 1:08:05
  Tad Eggleston: Have experienced, or know about. And you want them to, because you need more people to talk about with it.
• 1:08:12
  Tad Eggleston: Talk to about it.
• 1:08:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:16
  Gilbert Hernandez: That's usually… well, music gets you too much into too many arguments. Comics is because I just don't…
• 1:08:24
  Gilbert Hernandez: I'm not looking at comics right now, you know, I'm not really…
• 1:08:28
  Tad Eggleston: Well, it doesn't have to be new.
• 1:08:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, even old stuff, this has been so long that it's like, I've talked about this, you know what I mean?
• 1:08:34
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 1:08:36
  Gilbert Hernandez: Movies would be the only thing, but right now I'm blanking out. I'm just,
• 1:08:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: Did we quit or miss, too?
• 1:08:41
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, you can, you can, I mean, you can go literally anywhere. Andrew Iden, the last time he was on, said his tomato garden.
• 1:08:50
  Tad Eggleston: Nate Powell, the last time he was on, said this is gonna sound really, really weird, but I live in the indie comic world, and I started reading Jonathan Hickman's X-Men and became a Wednesday warrior again, so I need people to talk about X-Men with.
• 1:09:07
  Tad Eggleston: So, it doesn't actually have to be, like, completely you've never talked about it. It, like, just…
• 1:09:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: There's so much out there, gosh.
• 1:09:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:09:16
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oof.
• 1:09:17
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and you're… you… you are such a, I mean, it's one of the reasons I love talking to you, it's one of the reasons I love your work. You're… you're…
• 1:09:25
  Tad Eggleston: you are not only a creator of, but an imbiber of, pop culture. You, you… you…
• 1:09:35
  Tad Eggleston: see and evaluate the world a lot through culture in a really cool way, and I love that about you. And you're going, I don't know.
• 1:09:45
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't know, I'm just… I've always been weird. I've always been the outsider, the weirdo, you know?
• 1:09:49
  Tad Eggleston: Me too.
• 1:09:51
  Gilbert Hernandez: No kidding, we're talking.
• 1:09:53
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right. I wasn't cool until I had a comics podcast, and now I'm cool among people who are also not cool.
• 1:10:03
  Gilbert Hernandez: That's cool. That's cool.
• 1:10:04
  Tad Eggleston: But some of them are people like you, so, I mean, I'm cool among… well, I don't know if I'm actually cool to you, I don't want to overstep that bound yet. We might not be there.
• 1:10:14
  Tad Eggleston: But I'm cool among people that, like, 5 years ago, it's like, if you told me that I was going to speak to them, much less be friends with them, I would have been like, -
• 1:10:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: Well, the weird…
• 1:10:30
  Tad Eggleston: So the Weirdo World is my world, Beto. You don't have to worry about it.
• 1:10:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, at times when you're growing up, it can be lonely.
• 1:10:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Because it's… and mostly because you want to talk about it.
• 1:10:43
  Gilbert Hernandez: Exactly. You know, fuck the weird shit.
• 1:10:45
  Tad Eggleston: That's where this question comes from.
• 1:10:47
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10:49
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, it wasn't easy. My brothers, we'd listen to music and movies and comics, and that was it, really. A couple of people here and there. But, whenever I talk to com… about comics, too.
• 1:10:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: regular folks, they were more interested in stuff I wasn't that interested in. Certain models, certain things. I was just, like, okay with it, but I wasn't, you know…
• 1:11:11
  Tad Eggleston: I actually meant to ask earlier, because the Dodgers are in the World Series, are you as much of a baseball guy as your brother?
• 1:11:16
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, no, no.
• 1:11:17
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, so, so you're not even… I need to talk more Dodgers. Show hands!
• 1:11:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, well, you know what? It's because we, this is where Jaime and I differ the most. I don't have a competitive bone in my body.
• 1:11:31
  Gilbert Hernandez: Okay. Competition, to me, is completely alien. So, sports, things like that, politics, all that stuff where everybody's trying to beat the other guy.
• 1:11:39
  Gilbert Hernandez: it's just, like, it gets boring. It's like, I don't… I don't care about that. I just want to look at my shit and, you know, hang out over here. So I've never been that where Heim is real meticulous about sports and…
• 1:11:50
  Gilbert Hernandez: the stats, and this and that he really likes, and he really, you know, and you know how people hate the other teams? You know, they love the.
• 1:11:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, see, I'm not great at hating any team but the Yankees.
• 1:12:01
  Gilbert Hernandez: Okay.
• 1:12:03
  Tad Eggleston: I'm supposed to hate the Dodgers, but they signed Shohei, and my friend Chris's kids, you know, he lives in LA, so his kids are growing up Dodger fans, because they're a local team, and
• 1:12:15
  Tad Eggleston: I love his kids, so, you know, suddenly I find myself a Dodger fan, even though I'm like, I've been a Giants fan all my life. I'm supposed to hate the Dodgers.
• 1:12:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: The weird thing about sports to me, when it gets that com… picky, with people getting picky with teams, is, like, the guys are from different…
• 1:12:32
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no, well…
• 1:12:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: From different cities, and different, you know…
• 1:12:36
  Tad Eggleston: A guy that I know a little, who does a newsletter,
• 1:12:40
  Tad Eggleston: did a whole book on rethinking fandom, where A, he encouraged people, look, you know, if you're turned off by this part of baseball, or this part of whatever, then, like.
• 1:12:51
  Tad Eggleston: Ignore it.
• 1:12:53
  Tad Eggleston: You don't like to think about the politics? Then don't. This is supposed to be fun.
• 1:12:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm, right.
• 1:13:00
  Tad Eggleston: And, and, like, it was also, like, self-reflection for him on, like,
• 1:13:09
  Tad Eggleston: the fact that, like, he wasn't as much of a one-team fan anymore. If anything, he was more of a baseball fan than he'd ever been, but, like, the teams of his childhood he kind of rooted for?
• 1:13:20
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 1:13:21
  Tad Eggleston: Like, if he felt the need to root?
• 1:13:24
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, and, and I feel like that, like.
• 1:13:28
  Tad Eggleston: Growing up, I was a rabid Cubs and Red Sox fan. They've both won the World Series now. I've had that thing.
• 1:13:35
  Tad Eggleston: And now, like, I'll root for the Cubs against another team.
• 1:13:40
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, when they were done for the season, I wasn't crushed, I didn't stop watching baseball. I didn't even know if I was rooting against the team that beat them.
• 1:13:50
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I'm rooting for the Dodgers in the World Series, because I have slightly more connections, and because Shohei is just…
• 1:13:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: Sure. Something to behold.
• 1:13:59
  Tad Eggleston: But, if the Blue Jays win, it'll be a great story, I'll enjoy it. I actually enjoyed when they, like, reeled off the 9-run inning the other night, and it's like, oh wow, you know, they're supposed to be the underdog, and boom! They just… they just made it clear that they belong here.
• 1:14:20
  Tad Eggleston: But, no, I know where you come from, where a lot of people with sports don't manage to look at it that way.
• 1:14:26
  Tad Eggleston: So… I get it.
• 1:14:29
  Tad Eggleston: You get it?
• 1:14:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't know why it skipped me, because all my brothers are all sports fans.
• 1:14:34
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, so it's just…
• 1:14:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, just.
• 1:14:36
  Tad Eggleston: See, for a second there, I thought Jaime was actually the anomaly, because you talked about all of you guys talking about comics and movies and music.
• 1:14:46
  Tad Eggleston: So… so you're just the one that has skipped. That's cool!
• 1:14:49
  Gilbert Hernandez: That's me and my sister, if she doesn't care.
• 1:14:51
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, like, I'm all for all of the sports except baseball skipping you. I don't like any of the other sports.
• 1:15:00
  Gilbert Hernandez: People start talking football or basketball to me, and I'm like.
• 1:15:04
  Tad Eggleston: With the football, it's like, you mean the sport with all the head injuries?
• 1:15:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: And, and…
• 1:15:08
  Tad Eggleston: And the basketball, I'm like, you mean the sport that moves so fast that I never know what's going on?
• 1:15:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, when I see it on TV and stuff, I've seen some crazy goals, you know, in soccer.
• 1:15:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:15:21
  Gilbert Hernandez: Or, you know, that's cool, but I don't.
• 1:15:22
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, yeah, soccer is the one other sport that I could see myself possibly getting into, you know? I've been on the fringes of it.
• 1:15:33
  Tad Eggleston: But I don't think I'd ever…
• 1:15:35
  Tad Eggleston: truly have a team. I think I'd just be rooting for beautiful games.
• 1:15:40
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know.
• 1:15:44
  Tad Eggleston: See, I was just trying to… I was trying to, like, feed you things to get your head going, so we could come up with that one thing that you love, that people need to talk about.
• 1:15:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: I think we've discussed it, you know, it's the comic books I like, the music I like, the movies I like, it's…
• 1:15:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:16:00
  Gilbert Hernandez: It is.
• 1:16:01
  Gilbert Hernandez: Ew.
• 1:16:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: I have nothing new to say, because all I do is, work.
• 1:16:06
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, there's very few new things coming my way.
• 1:16:11
  Tad Eggleston: So Beto loves his next book, To Be Determined.
• 1:16:16
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, my next book that I… and my favorite thing to do is to finish a book.
• 1:16:21
  Tad Eggleston: favorite thing.
• 1:16:21
  Gilbert Hernandez: I agree.
• 1:16:21
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:16:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: Two favorite things. One of them Crumb and I share, is that.
• 1:16:28
  Tad Eggleston: We both love the finished product more than anything else. We love the book itself.
• 1:16:33
  Gilbert Hernandez: He could care less about gallery showings, and that's the same thing for me. I could care less about it. I'll sell my artwork if I can. You know, I don't want it. I want the book that came out. And that's how Chrome feels. He just loves the book.
• 1:16:45
  Tad Eggleston: Well, if that means your artwork's sometimes going cheap, you know, you have my email address.
• 1:16:51
  Gilbert Hernandez: I don't think that's gonna happen right now, just because…
• 1:16:53
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't think so either. But since you don't care, I was…
• 1:16:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, Adam meant no care, like, it's not, like, you know… the most important thing. Well…
• 1:17:03
  Tad Eggleston: I know, I know.
• 1:17:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: No, no.
• 1:17:06
  Tad Eggleston: I, I know.
• 1:17:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: Anyway, the other one was just, I just, I love to finish a book. I love to finish it, and then scan it, send it off, and then just, you relax, and then you get the corrections, and you go back and forth, and finally you get it in the mail, and I'm happy. There's a book out, you know.
• 1:17:23
  Tad Eggleston: finishing the book. That's a great thing to love. That qualifies as an answer for the question, finishing the book.
• 1:17:30
  Gilbert Hernandez: Because it doesn't mean what a lot of people want to think. They also think it's all about how do you get around
• 1:17:36
  Gilbert Hernandez: the hard part. I want to get there the easy part. I go, well, it's all the hard part, if you're any good. So even if I'm just wanting to finish the book, I've got the hard part to do still. I just don't talk about it. I don't say, oh, well, I've got to climb this mountain to get to the end of this book. It's like, no, no, it's just…
• 1:17:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's the work. So it's never like, I'm gonna finish this book no matter what it looks like. Like, you know, it's like that shit.
• 1:17:59
  Tad Eggleston: throw up pages and just throw in junk, whatever. No, no, I understand.
• 1:18:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: But a lot of people want to do that.
• 1:18:04
  Gilbert Hernandez: There's one thing I will say that
• 1:18:07
  Gilbert Hernandez: young people say, I want to be a cartoonist, I'm thinking.
• 1:18:10
  Gilbert Hernandez: they're already in their 20s, man. Gotta, you know, catch up. And I'm thinking, like, well, have you been drawing since you were a kid? I go, well, I have some. They go, well, I want to know… I want to do it how you do it. How did you do it? And I said…
• 1:18:24
  Tad Eggleston: Well, it's… when I was 5, I was on the floor of the kitchen with…
• 1:18:28
  Gilbert Hernandez: 5. I did my first comic.
• 1:18:30
  Tad Eggleston: But if you're talking about making comics now, that.
• 1:18:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, that's been for 40 years. So, you know, over 40 years now.
• 1:18:40
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I told you that my daughter got married, it was actually yesterday, and I loved it, because I was… I was sitting next to my grandkids, and they were both drawing in notebooks to stay, but I looked down at my 6-year-old grandkid, and he was making panels on his pages.
• 1:18:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: Wow.
• 1:18:59
  Gilbert Hernandez: Cool.
• 1:19:00
  Tad Eggleston: he was numbering his pages. He was, like, telling a story about tornadoes. He's very into tornadoes right now. And I'm just sitting there going, see, this…
• 1:19:12
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, yeah, lots of people are, well, yeah, he drives lots of tornadoes, but they could also be rays. I'm like, yeah, no, that doesn't matter yet, first of all. And second of all, like, in good comics, things can sometimes be multiple things. That isn't…
• 1:19:27
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely a bug.
• 1:19:30
  Tad Eggleston: It's the way his brain is working and putting it onto the page that I'm, like, so excited.
• 1:19:36
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, he's gonna move on to other things, just because his brain is activated, you know, he wants to do this. That's great.
• 1:19:41
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:19:41
  Gilbert Hernandez: Great.
• 1:19:42
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, no, I was… I didn't manage to get my camera up quickly enough.
• 1:19:46
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, but…
• 1:19:46
  Tad Eggleston: when I… when I saw that he was… because, like, initially, when I caught him, like, he was just, like, super diligent, and I could see him making the grid lines, and I'm like.
• 1:19:58
  Tad Eggleston: You're 6.
• 1:20:01
  Gilbert Hernandez: There's nothing cooler than watching a small child working out their art. Working out their donut on the page, and they're just…
• 1:20:07
  Tad Eggleston: Let's see, I'm gonna have a slightly different closing question than I normally have, then, because your daughter is now officially a published cartoonist.
• 1:20:17
  Tad Eggleston: Talk to me about watching her…
• 1:20:22
  Tad Eggleston: start as a cartoonist. Talk to me about the young Natalia. When did she start drawing? What was it like as a dad?
• 1:20:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oops.
• 1:20:29
  Tad Eggleston: How much did you want to dive in, and how much did you want to be… she's gotta come to it on her own.
• 1:20:36
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, that… well, I'm pretty lazy about that, in the sense that I don't follow those rules of, like, well, she's gotta do it on her own.
• 1:20:44
  Gilbert Hernandez: You've got to stand there with your arms folded and not say a word. Fuck it, come on here, draw this. You know, it would help her with stuff that you would get stuck on. Just to get it out, because when she first started doing comics, we made them for Comic-Con.
• 1:20:56
  Gilbert Hernandez: And, you know, a lot of people who don't know how to make comics.
• 1:21:01
  Gilbert Hernandez: you can't do that… do it that fast. So I was there with her in the early days to do her… to help her with her comics. She just saw Daddy in his room working, so she goes, oh, I have to do comics too.
• 1:21:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: You know, and she liked the fact that she would watch me, and the people… Yeah, but how old is… how old is she for this? Because, like, I know that she's only mid-20s now.
• 1:21:20
  Tad Eggleston: We're talking, like, 5-year-old Natalia.
• 1:21:22
  Gilbert Hernandez: 5 or 6, yeah, 5 or 6.
• 1:21:24
  Tad Eggleston: As soon as she could hold a pencil, she's like, I'm doing this.
• 1:21:27
  Gilbert Hernandez: I'm doing this, you thought… well, she just liked how I got attention at the con, and and that she had…
• 1:21:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: Access to sitting with me if you wanted, and, you know, that kind of thing.
• 1:21:37
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, that was definitely one of the fun things from the conversation with you, when she was talking about the books that she liked, and, like, finding out that her friends at school
• 1:21:46
  Tad Eggleston: liked this or that, and going, oh, yeah, Jim? Yeah, he comes over for dinner sometimes.
• 1:21:50
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, right, right, right.
• 1:21:53
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah.
• 1:21:56
  Tad Eggleston: So, Beto, it's always a blast, you know, they're… they're…
• 1:22:03
  Tad Eggleston: There aren't many people who have put
• 1:22:06
  Tad Eggleston: the stamp on comics that you and your brother have, and I love that it's still going, and that it's…
• 1:22:13
  Tad Eggleston: It's still relevant.
• 1:22:15
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's… that's something that I think any… any sort of creative type strives for, is that, that…
• 1:22:25
  Tad Eggleston: Their later work is looked at with as much anticipation and…
• 1:22:32
  Tad Eggleston: Joy is their earlier work, and, like, every new thing you come out with.
• 1:22:39
  Tad Eggleston: For a moment, is my favorite.
• 1:22:42
  Tad Eggleston: Does that make sense?
• 1:22:43
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, thanks, you're a diligent reader, and thank you.
• 1:22:46
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and I, like, I think… I think when it really…
• 1:22:53
  Tad Eggleston: you know, just… just my pop culture thing, when Tom Petty died, one of the things that… that… that a lot of… a lot of news agencies were going with is, like, how odd he was because his best-selling album was his ninth album. And mo… most…
• 1:23:10
  Tad Eggleston: Most bands…
• 1:23:11
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 1:23:12
  Tad Eggleston: Like, those first couple of albums are huge, and they can stick around, but to a certain extent, they're just living off of those first couple of albums. And Damn the Torpedoes was, like, his ninth album. You know, Free Falling was off of his ninth album.
• 1:23:25
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm.
• 1:23:25
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so this idea that, oh, you could still bring in this whole new audience.
• 1:23:32
  Gilbert Hernandez: Hmm,
• 1:23:34
  Gilbert Hernandez: That's weird when a band does that, like, all of a sudden they've been at it for 16, 20 years, and then all of a sudden one record just happens. Right.
• 1:23:41
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and for that matter, like.
• 1:23:44
  Tad Eggleston: And a lot of it is that I was in absolutely the right
• 1:23:49
  Tad Eggleston: emotional space. My favorite band is Pearl Jam, but the reason they're my favorite band is I feel like I've literally grown up with them. It's not just that every new album is for at least a moment my favorite album, it's that…
• 1:24:04
  Tad Eggleston: Every new album?
• 1:24:06
  Tad Eggleston: they've been close enough to the emotional space, the… the maturity space that I was in.
• 1:24:14
  Tad Eggleston: that every new album speaks directly to me. You know, when I was an angsty young person, they were doing angsty young people music. When I started having kids, they were starting to have kids. When my kids were growing up, they were… and their music has always res… you know.
• 1:24:31
  Tad Eggleston: They've never been afraid to have people not like their new album.
• 1:24:35
  Gilbert Hernandez: Right, yeah.
• 1:24:38
  Tad Eggleston: You don't.
• 1:24:38
  Gilbert Hernandez: having money.
• 1:24:40
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes, I mean, definitely, definitely, definitely a huge part of it is having money, but it's also, it's also deciding…
• 1:24:50
  Tad Eggleston: How much money you need.
• 1:24:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
• 1:24:53
  Tad Eggleston: Cause it doesn't always have to be being filthy rich.
• 1:24:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: It can be, like…
• 1:25:01
  Tad Eggleston: And also, like, when you have those first… I mean, because it's funny, at concerts, like.
• 1:25:07
  Tad Eggleston: About half the people are there for… and all they want is stuff after the first 3 albums.
• 1:25:13
  Gilbert Hernandez: Correct.
• 1:25:13
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and they couldn't care. And the other half of the audience Wants their deep cuts.
• 1:25:20
  Gilbert Hernandez: Nothing.
• 1:25:24
  Tad Eggleston: Ivheen.
• 1:25:26
  Tad Eggleston: So… and I think that's… that's something that you and Jaime have pulled off, too, is that, like.
• 1:25:33
  Tad Eggleston: everybody knows… nobody who has gone beyond superheroes doesn't know human diastrophism and death of Speedy.
• 1:25:42
  Tad Eggleston: But… but those of us who've been paying it
• 1:25:45
  Tad Eggleston: tension, I think look at those as your coming-out parties, not your peaks.
• 1:25:52
  Gilbert Hernandez: Oh, I see.
• 1:25:55
  Tad Eggleston: Y-you know what I mean?
• 1:25:56
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yeah.
• 1:25:57
  Tad Eggleston: So, I can't wait to see what's next. I like when you do kids, so I'm really looking to see… looking forward to see how you handle ice.
• 1:26:07
  Tad Eggleston: From a kid's perspective, cause that's gotta be…
• 1:26:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's something I think about.
• 1:26:14
  Gilbert Hernandez: I, I, I teach school.
• 1:26:16
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I live in Chicagoland. We, we, we've, we…
• 1:26:21
  Tad Eggleston: We've been at the center of some of this stuff. You live in LA, you've been at the center of some of this stuff. You've been more at the center because you look more like who they're looking for.
• 1:26:32
  Tad Eggleston: So, thank you so much for all of your work, thank you for spending time with me again.
• 1:26:39
  Gilbert Hernandez: Sure. And, I'm certain that we'll talk again at some point, cause…
• 1:26:43
  Tad Eggleston: I know I have a good time, you seem to have a good time, you haven't stopped returning my emails, so…
• 1:26:50
  Tad Eggleston: And I'll let you know what I think a quarter mask, because it might, it might get watched sooner rather than later.
• 1:26:58
  Gilbert Hernandez: Order masks, too. It's very good.
• 1:27:00
  Tad Eggleston: Cardamass 2. Is there a Cardamass 1?
• 1:27:02
  Gilbert Hernandez: Yes.
• 1:27:03
  Gilbert Hernandez: Okay, okay. It's called the Quarter Mass Experiment.
• 1:27:06
  Tad Eggleston: But with an E. Okay.
• 1:27:08
  Gilbert Hernandez: It's an okay, it's a standard guy turning into a blob movie. It's okay, it's good, but the second one is really… The second one's better. Science fiction-y, and stuff happens in it, and characters, it's really going on. The third one is the most popular. It's called…
• 1:27:22
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:27:23
  Gilbert Hernandez: 5 million years to Earth.
• 1:27:25
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't even… Carter Mass… I see it. Yeah, okay.
• 1:27:29
  Gilbert Hernandez: and it's in color, that's worth seeing too, but you have to see, Quarter Mass 2 first, and then…
• 1:27:35
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:27:36
  Gilbert Hernandez: They're both, they're both terrific sci-fi movies.
• 1:27:40
  Tad Eggleston: I, I will definitely, definitely… And I've had s- well…
• 1:27:44
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's been an interesting time. Thank you so much for Beto Hernandez. This has been 22 Panels, and we will see you after the next page.