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Pulp Blotter Book Club #17 - Jonah Hex part 2 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:02
Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels, and the…
0:07
Tad Eggleston: Pulp Blotter Book Club, where we will continue our, our discussion of, Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiati and a cast of all-stars, mostly,
0:19
Tad Eggleston: Phil Nodo… Noto and… Jordy Bernay, I think, in this…
0:25
Tad Eggleston: In this series of stuff that we managed to read this week… this month.
0:29
Tad Eggleston: Of, Jonah Hex. Which…
0:35
Tad Eggleston: Those who, who will listen to the, the, the…
0:41
Tad Eggleston: new episode that… that I recorded yesterday that will drop later tonight.
0:47
Tad Eggleston: may know, because I think I mentioned, has its omnibus coming out this week, which we did not plan, but it is a wonderful, happy accident.
0:57
Mark Pracht: I do have to ask, because I'm… I hadn't seen that, is it the… is it the All-Star Western omnibus, or is it Jones Hack's?
1:04
Sean Harklerode: It's the All-Star Western.
1:05
Mark Pracht: Oh, it's the All-Star Western, okay.
1:07
Tad Eggleston: All-Star Western was the follow-up series when they moved to New 52. Oh, okay.
1:13
Mark Pracht: I…
1:15
Tad Eggleston: I didn't like that as much.
1:16
Mark Pracht: I didn't like it as much, mainly because, like, you could tell very much that editorial was like, you need to…
1:24
Mark Pracht: Hook this into…
1:26
Mark Pracht: New 52. Yeah, and, you know, and they took… they took Jonah out of the… out of the old… out of the west, and moved him to.
1:35
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:36
Mark Pracht: Gotham City, and he was like.
1:37
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:37
Mark Pracht: Court of Owls and all that.
1:39
Tad Eggleston: Well, then, then I won't plug it quite as much, except that we do have the same creative team, and…
1:45
Tad Eggleston: And DC does give some residual-type stuff.
1:50
Tad Eggleston: I forget how their structure is, but certainly with Palmiati, he's got enough clout.
1:55
Tad Eggleston: Speaking of which, I did a little of… actual reporting.
2:00
Tad Eggleston: I mean, not really, because I was just texting with a buddy about baseball and remembered that we had a question.
2:06
Tad Eggleston: Jimmy did most of his own finding of…
2:11
Tad Eggleston: various artists, which isn't hugely surprisingly, seeing as he had done that sort of thing at Marvel before this. Though Mark Chiarello did turn him onto and hook him up with Jordy Bernay.
2:24
Tad Eggleston: Who?
2:25
Tad Eggleston: Had done one of the issues of solo.
2:29
Tad Eggleston: Which… have you guys ever read Solo?
2:33
Mark Pracht: The DC solo book.
2:35
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, the DC solo book. Yeah.
2:37
Mark Pracht: that. I… I read a few of the… I was always… Whoever the artist was.
2:41
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
2:42
Mark Pracht: I would… I would… it wasn't, like, a regular read for me, so…
2:46
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, exactly.
2:46
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think it was only 8 issues, but… I, I read it all.
2:51
Tad Eggleston: I mean, obviously, who the artist was mattered, but, like…
2:57
Tad Eggleston: There was a lot of cool stuff in that.
2:59
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
3:01
Mark Pracht: Well, speaking of a lot of cool stuff…
3:03
Tad Eggleston: Let's talk some Jonah Hex.
3:05
Mark Pracht: That's…
3:06
Tad Eggleston: Let's talk some Jonah Hex, starting with, and I talked about it some last month, but you guys hadn't gotten into it. We lead off with his origin story, don't we?
3:15
Mark Pracht: That's certainly the name of the…
3:18
Tad Eggleston: The name of the…
3:19
Sean Harklerode: Right.
3:20
Mark Pracht: I mean, I… I feel like it's… it's an origin, but it also leaves a lot of…
3:27
Tad Eggleston: space for… I think… I think as it should for this character. I mean, it's kind of like… it's kind of like the Joker. I don't actually want to know too much…
3:37
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I… About the…
3:38
Tad Eggleston: The origin, I think it takes away from the character, if you know too much.
3:44
Mark Pracht: Absolutely. I mean, I think that,
3:52
Mark Pracht: One of the things I've… we've talked… I think we talked about this last month, was that I always loved that, very early on, they sort of revealed
3:59
Mark Pracht: the… the horrible end that Jonah was…
4:03
Mark Pracht: was heading towards, but we never really knew where he came from, and I always found that really…
4:11
Mark Pracht: A, because the end is so…
4:14
Mark Pracht: EC Comics creepy, but it's also,
4:20
Mark Pracht: It… it… it… like, he came out of nowhere, and then he went… someplace terrible. So, anyway…
4:28
Mark Pracht: But, yeah, no, I think that,
4:32
Mark Pracht: I… I vaguely remember the origin tale as it's presented here, but I… I didn't remember the details of it. I…
4:42
Mark Pracht: I, you know, I remembered the axe to the face with the hot axe, and that's how he gets his scar, and all of that stuff. But yeah, it was… it was just enough to make you go, like, okay, here's some…
4:58
Mark Pracht: Dots to connect, but it didn't feel like it was saying, okay, here's the whole reason, you know?
5:05
Sean Harklerode: Right.
5:12
Mark Pracht: Well, that was great. Good talking with you. See you next month.
5:14
Tad Eggleston: I mean…
5:16
Sean Harklerode: You know, burned in the face.
5:19
Sean Harklerode: Crucified and set on a raft.
5:22
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
5:23
Sean Harklerode: float down the Mississippi. I mean… That sucks.
5:26
Mark Pracht: wrapped… wrapped in a Confederate flag, let's let… let's not, you know, it's… it's… there is,
5:36
Mark Pracht: you know, I don't want to revisit the conversation we had last time, but I mean, there is a lot of Josie Wales in this origin as they laid it out.
5:45
Tad Eggleston: Death.
5:47
Mark Pracht: But yeah, no, I…
5:51
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I love the origin story, but I will tell you that my favorite story in this, and I know you guys haven't read this series, and I have.
5:59
Mark Pracht: But my favorite story in this particular volume is the Tallulah Black one.
6:06
Mark Pracht: And, I don't think I… I don't think I'm spoiling anything terribly to let you know that Tallulah
6:14
Mark Pracht: is revisited quite a few times during the course of the series. Which, you know, we basically…
6:22
Mark Pracht: in grand comic book fashion, it's like, well, what if we had a female version of Jodie Hags?
6:30
Mark Pracht: But I… I… yeah, I don't know, I mean, like, yeah.
6:34
Sean Harklerode: I mean, SheHEX ran for a long time.
6:37
Sean Harklerode: And.
6:39
Mark Pracht: She hacks.
6:42
Mark Pracht: Just in case CBS decided to do a TV show.
6:44
Sean Harklerode: Right.
6:45
Mark Pracht: Anyway, no, I think,
6:50
Mark Pracht: Now, I… yeah, I'm gonna let you guys talk, because I could blather on for hours.
6:55
Tad Eggleston: I want you to blather for a second, because I'm having to update people that are texting me about, like, my wife in the hospital, so, like, your blathering is good. You and Sean need to go for a while.
7:06
Tad Eggleston: For listeners, Kelly is mostly okay, but it's been a journey.
7:15
Mark Pracht: I'm sorry, man.
7:15
Tad Eggleston: Hi, Mom.
7:17
Sean Harklerode: Hi, Brother Adam.
7:22
Tad Eggleston: Hi, Brit.
7:23
Tad Eggleston: John.
7:25
Sean Harklerode: So, I, I, I have to be honest, I, I have not, gotten,
7:30
Sean Harklerode: to the, Tallulah Hex.
7:33
Sean Harklerode: I did see the…
7:35
Tad Eggleston: and…
7:35
Sean Harklerode: Look at the.
7:36
Tad Eggleston: Volume 4?
7:38
Sean Harklerode: And it's…
7:38
Mark Pracht: No, that's.
7:40
Tad Eggleston: is the…
7:41
Mark Pracht: That's in the Origins book.
7:44
Tad Eggleston: Oh, okay.
7:45
Sean Harklerode: The art is very interesting.
7:48
Mark Pracht: Yes.
7:48
Tad Eggleston: So you haven't even gotten as far as me, Sean. What's your excuse?
7:53
Tad Eggleston: Job hunting and tryouts?
7:57
Sean Harklerode: Right?
7:59
Sean Harklerode: Getting shot every 3 days.
8:05
Sean Harklerode: In the back.
8:07
Sean Harklerode: Spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen my play.
8:09
Tad Eggleston: You're getting shot?
8:12
Tad Eggleston: Oh, oh, okay, okay. I, I, I, I, I, I, I thought…
8:17
Mark Pracht: And loving it.
8:19
Tad Eggleston: You were playing into the whole Chicago hellscape thing, and you were actually getting shot every 3 days.
8:27
Sean Harklerode: No, no, I just hear the helicopters overhead.
8:30
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
8:33
Sean Harklerode: So, but yeah, I, I got to that, and I did… I was like, wow, so I assume,
8:39
Sean Harklerode: just a whole different art style for that story. I don't know how long that continues, but it was very interesting.
8:45
Mark Pracht: That's pretty much.
8:46
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, this is…
8:47
Sean Harklerode: that one.
8:48
Tad Eggleston: This is…
8:50
Mark Pracht: But, I mean, that's sort of.
8:51
Tad Eggleston: Definitely. Definitely where we…
8:54
Mark Pracht: the.
8:55
Tad Eggleston: Start the, what's the word I'm looking for?
9:03
Tad Eggleston: This is definitely where we start the serious rotating cast of…
9:07
Tad Eggleston: artists. It didn't… doesn't… doesn't quite get to… What it'll be later, where… It's…
9:18
Tad Eggleston: Like, a different artist almost every… Yeah. Issue. Yeah.
9:22
Mark Pracht: I mean, yeah, I think right now we're looking at… it's mostly, a different artist every arc.
9:28
Tad Eggleston: arc.
9:29
Tad Eggleston: Right. I mean… And sometimes even a couple one-shots in a row by the same artist?
9:35
Tad Eggleston: But that was Val Simix, so, like, Retribution was Jordy Burnett.
9:41
Mark Pracht: The Ballad at Tallulah Black is Phil Notto, and then I Walk Alone.
9:45
Tad Eggleston: at the end is Valsamax.
9:48
Tad Eggleston: So you've got 3 different artists in this… In this book.
9:54
Tad Eggleston: And, and 3 pretty distinct… artist.
9:58
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, I mean, that's… that's… that's always been the strength of one… one of… one of the strengths. I mean, obviously, I think that,
10:08
Mark Pracht: Gray and Palmiati just have a,
10:10
Mark Pracht: chokehold on what a good Jonah Heck story is. Yeah.
10:16
Tad Eggleston: Right.
10:17
Mark Pracht: And… can… can inter… you know, I think last month I talked about how
10:25
Mark Pracht: one of the things that frustrates me about people who do Jonah Hex is that they always want to really lean into the,
10:33
Mark Pracht: the mystical aspects of it, and the supernatural aspects, and I always feel like that's a mistake.
10:40
Mark Pracht: I think that, Palmiati and Gray just know how to touch enough of it
10:45
Mark Pracht: And then let it be, you know? And… So…
10:50
Mark Pracht: Okay, I just want to make sure, because I don't want to start talking about something that you guys haven't read yet, you guys just basically got through the origin tale?
10:59
Sean Harklerode: Yeah, that's…
11:00
Mark Pracht: Okay.
11:01
Sean Harklerode: I mean, I still had some reading to do to catch up.
11:04
Tad Eggleston: Well, I got through Tallula.
11:07
Mark Pracht: Okay.
11:07
Sean Harklerode: Okay. Yeah.
11:09
Tad Eggleston: I got through Toledo… I got through, like, the first hundred pages of the… of the book 5.
11:16
Sean Harklerode: Oh, yeah, you got…
11:18
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
11:19
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I think… I almost finished the two books that I was hoping to read.
11:23
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I got, I mean, I got really excited about reading these, and I got through, Volume 6, so.
11:30
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
11:31
Mark Pracht: Or wait.
11:33
Tad Eggleston: So you're ahead, we'll catch up.
11:35
Mark Pracht: Am I wrong? No. No, I got through Volume 5.
11:39
Mark Pracht: That's what I got through.
11:42
Mark Pracht: Cause we were gonna read…
11:44
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, and I got… so, luck runs out?
11:45
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
11:46
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, and I'm… Right, I'm 80% through only the good… Die Young.
11:54
Mark Pracht: Yes.
11:56
Mark Pracht: The one that, weirdly… on, Comixology. Don't hate me, I use Comixology.
12:05
Mark Pracht: Weirdly… I do.
12:06
Mark Pracht: only the good die young on my Comixology, library?
12:13
Mark Pracht: Does not lump it in with the rest of the series.
12:16
Tad Eggleston: That's always fun.
12:17
Mark Pracht: Yeah, it's strange. But, no, I… like, just to speak on the Tallulah Black story, I love the fact there's that little girl… like, this is a really good example of what I'm talking about, about just touching on the supernatural and then leaving it be, is that, you know, he meets that little girl.
12:36
Mark Pracht: At the top of that story, when he's chasing that guy down and he has him hanging.
12:41
Mark Pracht: And she comes up and, like, breaks his neck.
12:45
Mark Pracht: And, I…
12:49
Mark Pracht: But then… and you get that sense that maybe that girl is a little something more than what we think.
12:54
Mark Pracht: And then she revisits and she speaks with Tallulah as well, but we never get any explanation for it, or there's no revelation of what… who that girl is, or… I… I love that, you know?
13:11
Mark Pracht: And that idea… Thank you. That… like…
13:14
Tad Eggleston: Well, and…
13:15
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
13:16
Tad Eggleston: I was gonna say, Noto's… and Noto's one of those artists that can do a lot… he…
13:23
Tad Eggleston: Doesn't have quite as an established style as some other artists with as recognizable… What's the name of it?
13:33
Tad Eggleston: Fiz.
13:34
Tad Eggleston: Like, I think this looks different from his Star Wars stuff, his Star Wars stuff looks different from some of his other superhero stuff, that sort of thing. But the kind of surreal nature, particularly to the scenes with the little girl, you know, the lighting, the…
13:53
Tad Eggleston: the… Just adds to the… Is this… is this a real girl? Is this a… A.
14:05
Mark Pracht: Spectre…
14:06
Tad Eggleston: specter of her… her lost innocence? Is this a…
14:10
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
14:14
Tad Eggleston: like, some other type of ghost is, you know, you know, particularly because, like, it gets… it's all the more fun, the way that Tallulah gets lit elsewhere, she often has a similar…
14:28
Tad Eggleston: Almost spectral-like appearance.
14:34
Mark Pracht: Sure.
14:36
Tad Eggleston: Particularly when she's… like… In the midst of, or thinking of doing…
14:46
Tad Eggleston: I mean, like, I'm looking at page 84 here, or really… The sequence that starts… on page 82,
14:57
Tad Eggleston: And, like, she goes back and forth from spectral to real, and she's most real when she's getting her ass kicked.
15:04
Mark Pracht: Like…
15:07
Tad Eggleston: But… but when she's…
15:13
Tad Eggleston: Trying to take revenge, or further dreaming of revenge, she takes on this more…
15:18
Tad Eggleston: with real quality.
15:20
Tad Eggleston: Which I think is just some really fascinating…
15:27
Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is another place that I just love comics. There's so many different…
15:33
Tad Eggleston: Moods that you can create in… in…
15:36
Tad Eggleston: you know, through line work, through coloring, through whatever, you know, I don't… I don't think you're supposed to think that she's supernatural.
15:46
Mark Pracht: Oh, no, I mean…
15:47
Tad Eggleston: But I think you're allowed to.
15:49
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
15:51
Mark Pracht: Well, and I think that the more,
15:56
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, like, look, I'm not even gonna… I'm not even gonna… she returns quite a few times. She and, you know, it… it… it is kind of,
16:10
Mark Pracht: She is the… the… Female equivalent of who… Jonah is, and…
16:17
Mark Pracht: even though you don't… like, I think that in that origin story, we sort of get that idea that Jonah, from… essentially from birth.
16:26
Mark Pracht: Was sort of, like, beaten into the, you know, sort of, like, What's the…
16:32
Mark Pracht: What's that line? You know, one man tempers another, like…
16:36
Sean Harklerode: like, steel, you know?
16:38
Tad Eggleston: Right.
16:39
Mark Pracht: And I think that even starting with Woodson Hex, his father, you know, just…
16:46
Mark Pracht: beat him into something that was unyielding, and… and obviously, Tallulah goes through a similar thing, but it's also much later in life, and that's why she reaches out to Jonah to teach her how to…
17:01
Tad Eggleston: Right.
17:01
Mark Pracht: Be like him, and…
17:03
Tad Eggleston: Right. You know, and… Well, I mean… From a…
17:05
Mark Pracht: The reaction to that is also really cool, you know? He's like, you don't want to do this.
17:09
Tad Eggleston: From a cinematic standpoint, I… I… I…
17:15
Tad Eggleston: I was just thinking of Tombstone, where… like…
17:20
Tad Eggleston: Wyatt Earp, when they're locked down in the river area, just goes off, and suddenly, for the rest of the movie, is all but superhuman.
17:32
Mark Pracht: Right.
17:33
Tad Eggleston: But they have no way…
17:35
Mark Pracht: And hell's coming with me.
17:36
Tad Eggleston: Right.
17:36
Mark Pracht: about it.
17:37
Tad Eggleston: Right. It's about as much as Jonah's line as you can imagine. Totally, totally is, but… but one of the, one of the reasons that I feel like
17:47
Tad Eggleston: I love the brilliance of kind of changing the lighting and whatnot with Tallulah in this book.
17:53
Tad Eggleston: Is that, like…
17:57
Tad Eggleston: I think of that as the point in the movie where you very much go into legend rather than…
18:04
Tad Eggleston: history. You know, I think the movie is a mixture of the two, but, like, that's… that's the point where it's like.
18:13
Tad Eggleston: This next sequence is legend. Yes, this is…
18:18
Tad Eggleston: Jonah Hex slash Saint of Killers, whatever, Wyatt Earp, for the next 5 minutes, right? Right. But you don't have the same visual cue that what you're seeing
18:32
Tad Eggleston: is…
18:34
Tad Eggleston: I mean, you have some acting… I'm not saying that they miss it entirely, but I… like, with people who… who…
18:41
Tad Eggleston: I've argued with about that movie. One of the biggest things is, like.
18:45
Tad Eggleston: they continue to think of the movie very literally, and they're like, it's just completely unrealistic that he'd do all these things, and I'm like…
18:53
Tad Eggleston: You're not supposed to be looking at it realistically during those scenes.
18:59
Mark Pracht: Well, you know, look, the Western genre is… is, steeped in… Ian…
19:09
Mark Pracht: these larger-than-life legends, right? Like, that's… that… it… it… you know, I think there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of talk about superheroes being the American mythology, but I… I really think that in a lot of ways.
19:23
Mark Pracht: Westerns are far more that, because it is about the American experience of, you know, moving west, and we can talk about the morality of that, but that that was the,
19:36
Mark Pracht: that was so much a part of what America was all through the 19th, or the 17th, or the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, you know, of…
19:48
Mark Pracht: reaching… reaching out into the unknown, you know? And, I think…
19:57
Mark Pracht: that there's these figures that rise up, you know, and some of them come from the movies, some of them come from actual history, and certainly Wyatt Earp is…
20:06
Mark Pracht: you know, he's a historical figure, and you know, having read a lot about, you know, we talk about Tombstone, read a lot about that movie, you know, there's a lot of stuff in there that is actually based on historical fact. Obviously, it's blown up into…
20:20
Tad Eggleston: a more cinematic sort of… Oh, yeah.
20:22
Mark Pracht: But, I mean, that, like, there's been a lot of people that have said that that gunfight at the OK Corral is the most historically accurate one that's.
20:32
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yes, it is.
20:33
Mark Pracht: It's definitely…
20:34
Tad Eggleston: is, in part because, unlike some of the other ones, it isn't as Clear cut of, they just…
20:42
Tad Eggleston: we're never in danger.
20:45
Mark Pracht: I mean, you know, it's just like, you know, and .
20:49
Sean Harklerode: They completely cut check off, Al.
20:59
Mark Pracht: Oh, leave it to… leave it to Sean to bring in Star Trek. Now, let's talk about Star Trek. Anyway, no.
21:06
Sean Harklerode: the specter of Star Trek.
21:08
Mark Pracht: The gun. Yeah. The specter of Star Trek. It's everywhere.
21:14
Mark Pracht: But, no, I mean, I think, I think that…
21:17
Mark Pracht: what… what… what is fucking great… like, I think in a lot of what you're talking about, about the artwork.
21:23
Mark Pracht: And I think that having the artists change over the course of the series, it also feeds into that. They've created this sort of mythic figure of Jonah Hex, and I love… you know, one of the things I love about this series is every time somebody finds out that this is Jonah Hex.
21:42
Mark Pracht: They either get terrified, Or they… they…
21:46
Mark Pracht: they don't know, and somebody else is like, oh, you, you don't… you don't want to do this, you know?
21:55
Mark Pracht: actually, it's in, Volume 5, where there's the, they do kind of a, like, they do kind of a… I'm sorry, I'm gonna talk ahead, fine, whatever.
22:08
Tad Eggleston: That's okay.
22:09
Mark Pracht: In Volume 5, they do that, that it's sort of a riff on Bush Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Lucky, who has his gang.
22:19
Mark Pracht: And they come into this… they rob a train, and they run the train into town, and he's gonna blow up the safe on the train with this dynamite.
22:29
Mark Pracht: And they're asking everybody, how many horses you have in this town? And the guy's like, well, there's got old, old, old Smith's, nag is over there, but I mean, they're about… that horse is about dead. And then there's the drunk that's up in the… up in the saloon, and you know…
22:44
Mark Pracht: The drunk up in the saloon.
22:47
Mark Pracht: You know, and… but the guy, the main guy in this gang, Lucky.
22:54
Mark Pracht: is just a moron, and doesn't know who Hex is. And the best part is, is near the end, when he has, like, killed his own gang, and he's like, oh, I'm gonna kill you, and… and his girlfriend is like, oh god, Lucky, no, no.
23:14
Mark Pracht: It's the best I just… I don't know, I just… I… I… but,
23:21
Mark Pracht: Sorry, I gotta… kinda got off on a track there, but they've created this mythic figure of Jonah Hex, right? And that every time a new artist comes in, you get a new…
23:34
Mark Pracht: Look into the, the spectrum of
23:40
Mark Pracht: the image of Hex, you know? Sometimes it's very realistic, and sometimes it's very cartoony. Like, we haven't… like, one of my favorite issues are the Darwin Cook ones.
23:52
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
23:53
Mark Pracht: are, you know, it's Darwin Cook, so there's this whole kind of, like.
23:58
Mark Pracht: almost cartoony aspect to it, you know? And,
24:06
Mark Pracht: Yeah, no, I love it. I mean, and…
24:08
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Well, I got distracted, but I was gonna say earlier that one of the things that I think is special about this series, makes it work, makes it more about the character in a weird way, is that there's not, like.
24:24
Tad Eggleston: Not really a house style.
24:26
Mark Pracht: No. You know, I mean, like, it makes me… it makes me think of, like, the antithesis of the How to Draw the Marvel way.
24:36
Tad Eggleston: you know, it was essentially like, his hat looks like this, his scar is on this side, everything else, do what you like. If you need… if you need…
24:47
Tad Eggleston: Some sort of guidance?
24:49
Tad Eggleston: think Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven.
24:52
Mark Pracht: Right.
24:53
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and I think even, like, even the smaller details that I'm always sort of fascinated by is, like, some people draw his, the eye… like, there was one issue in the first two where they…
25:06
Mark Pracht: They basically said that he's blind in that eye, right?
25:09
Tad Eggleston: Right.
25:10
Mark Pracht: And, you know, sometimes… The artist draws it just as this white orb.
25:16
Mark Pracht: And sometimes it's like… it's almost like Two-Face with a really enlarged.
25:21
Tad Eggleston: Right.
25:22
Mark Pracht: I need… Right.
25:23
Mark Pracht: And, I'm all… like, I love all of that. I love… but the other genius thing, I think, is that I think Palmiati and Gray, or Gray and Palmiati, I don't… you know…
25:34
Mark Pracht: I think every time They… they have such…
25:41
Mark Pracht: a specific handle on who Jonah is, that it allows them to then take that specific character and put that character into a situation that plays to the strengths of whatever artist they're working with.
25:56
Mark Pracht: And, like, I think that that is what is super exciting. Like, it excites me every time when you open it up and you see, okay, oh, it's a new artist. It's not, like, I love Geordi Bernay.
26:10
Tad Eggleston: But…
26:12
Mark Pracht: you, you kinda… I think I always know what kind of a story it's gonna be when…
26:18
Mark Pracht: it's a Geordi Brene drawn one, because I think they have a handle on what Geordi does really well, and they just play right to it.
26:26
Mark Pracht: But when a new artist shows up, you're like, okay, what's it gonna be? What's this gonna be about, you know?
26:37
Tad Eggleston: We're gonna go major spoiler for… for Sean here.
26:43
Tad Eggleston: Because I do want to talk some, I walk alone.
26:47
Sean Harklerode: Books came out almost 20 years ago, so…
26:49
Mark Pracht: Right, right. It's your own fault you weren't writing… reading them then.
26:53
Tad Eggleston: Which, first of all, that Sienkiewicz cover, holy shit.
26:57
Mark Pracht: Yes.
27:00
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, this story is amazing.
27:03
Tad Eggleston: Well, and as I flipped and got to it, like, where I was about to turn us is, I really like the way, in both of these volumes, strong women are centered, but this one is like,
27:19
Tad Eggleston: a weird perversion of that. Perversion's not quite the right word, but like… Because…
27:27
Tad Eggleston: Like, you have another strong woman.
27:32
Tad Eggleston: that, that, like, both takes care of herself, and… and makes Hex want to take care of her, and…
27:41
Tad Eggleston: And… And there's that awful.
27:47
Mark Pracht: And then she's insane.
27:49
Tad Eggleston: Awful, awful twist.
27:52
Mark Pracht: Well, I don't… have you gotten… have you gotten to the pig story yet?
27:59
Mark Pracht: You want to talk about… I think it's in the last…
28:05
Mark Pracht: You may not have gotten to it.
28:06
Tad Eggleston: Might be.
28:08
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's, it's probably in one of the two stories after…
28:13
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I think it's either the second or the last story in Volume 5.
28:18
Mark Pracht: You want to talk… it's kind of a, it's a… It's, it's… It's… it's kind of similar.
28:27
Tad Eggleston: Are we talking, like, the, the, the, the pigs in… have you ever seen Hell on Wheels?
28:37
Mark Pracht: I have not seen… Or for that matter, Deadwood, I think, uses pigs, too. Oh, no, no. No, no, no.
28:43
Tad Eggleston: No, it's different.
28:44
Mark Pracht: No, it's…
28:44
Tad Eggleston: It's not, it's not a, let's get rid of the bodies pigs.
28:48
Mark Pracht: No, it's, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
28:52
Sean Harklerode: You've got me thinking of a John Constantine Hellblazer that I read.
28:58
Sean Harklerode: 20-some years ago.
28:59
Mark Pracht: I mean, do you want me to spoil.
29:02
Tad Eggleston: Go ahead, go ahead. I mean, again, 20-year comics, and we were supposed to have read more.
29:08
Mark Pracht: Yeah, so.
29:10
Tad Eggleston: I have an excuse, and Sean's, like, unemployed, which you'd think would be not an excuse, but…
29:17
Mark Pracht: Well, and, and I…
29:18
Tad Eggleston: Or, I should actually… I haven't talked to you about that. How's the job hunt coming? Are… are you employed, and I just, like, class dispersions?
29:27
Sean Harklerode: I, I, I am not.
29:29
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
29:30
Mark Pracht: But very employable… let's not talk about this.
29:33
Tad Eggleston: Very, very employable to anybody listening. Sean Hargel wrote, give him lots of your money.
29:39
Mark Pracht: He is… Top notch.
29:42
Sean Harklerode: Yep.
29:43
Mark Pracht: Top man.
29:45
Tad Eggleston: man.
29:45
Sean Harklerode: Top men.
29:47
Sean Harklerode: Who, you know.
29:48
Mark Pracht: Recently passed away, yes.
29:49
Sean Harklerode: William Plifkins.
29:50
Mark Pracht: Captain.
29:52
Mark Pracht: One of the… I… look, I do not like to speak ill of the dead. One of the most arrogant people I've ever seen at a convention.
30:02
Mark Pracht: Sorry. Sorry.
30:05
Sean Harklerode: Sorry, Bill.
30:10
Mark Pracht: no, so, Jonah is chasing this gang, right?
30:16
Mark Pracht: And he's tracking them, and he tracks them to this farmhouse. And there's a woman there.
30:22
Mark Pracht: And she's like, I gotta take care of my pigs. And she's like, my deadbeat husband ran off, and she keeps quoting Bible verses.
30:32
Mark Pracht: And, asked him to come in to dinner, and they're talking, and, you know, Jonah is being Jonah, and he's drinking, and then he passes out.
30:44
Mark Pracht: And when he wakes up, He's in the barn.
30:49
Mark Pracht: And the guy's… he looks over at the wall, and there's a bunch of severed tongues pinned to the wall.
30:57
Mark Pracht: And then here's all the guys he's been chasing. They've had their arms and legs cut off.
31:03
Mark Pracht: And they're all crawling around, and she's coming in and throwing slop on them like they're the pigs. And then her sister shows up. So it's like…
31:11
Mark Pracht: It's… it's… it is.
31:14
Mark Pracht: way out there, and I was like.
31:17
Tad Eggleston: Is it the All Hallows' Eve story?
31:20
Mark Pracht: I don't think so, I think it's called, like, Pigs, a Grindhouse Tale, or something like that?
31:25
Tad Eggleston: Well, that makes me wonder if it's in Volume 6, then.
31:29
Mark Pracht: No, I don't.
31:31
Tad Eggleston: 5, rather.
31:36
Mark Pracht: Maybe, I don't know.
31:40
Mark Pracht: Anyway, it's… it was… it was… like, it's… it's the kind of thing that if I saw it in a movie, I'd be totally turned off, but, in a comic book with Joan in the middle of it, I just… I… there's something about that that I just…
31:54
Mark Pracht: get really…
31:58
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, I have long said that comics are the medium that I can handle horror in, because I have more control over the parts
32:09
Tad Eggleston: that…
32:10
Mark Pracht: Yes.
32:11
Tad Eggleston: I might not otherwise want to deal with.
32:14
Tad Eggleston: you know, I can look at a couple of pages and go.
32:18
Tad Eggleston: Now, Four Little Pigs at Grindhouse Western. Oh, Giuseppe Comancouli, and Stefano Landini?
32:25
Mark Pracht: Yup.
32:28
Tad Eggleston: Oh…
32:30
Tad Eggleston: It's the second one in Volume 5. I'm, like, almost afraid to go look at it right now, because I am just thinking of…
32:40
Tad Eggleston: what I know of those… two artists.
32:44
Mark Pracht: Yep.
32:46
Tad Eggleston: And what they're capable of, and now thinking of them together on… on layouts and finishes and…
32:52
Mark Pracht: Yep.
32:54
Tad Eggleston: And… and… It is…
32:55
Mark Pracht: It is, it is a… a little slide.
33:00
Tad Eggleston: Oh, great, yeah.
33:00
Mark Pracht: It did remind me of that story we were just talking about, where it…
33:06
Tad Eggleston: That wretched, wretched twist.
33:09
Mark Pracht: Yep.
33:10
Mark Pracht: No, but I mean, I think that… it… it… it…
33:19
Mark Pracht: I… it's just so good. I… I… I… I don't even know what else to say. I'm just like, it's so good.
33:25
Mark Pracht: And it's… it is, like, there is one story in Volume 5, it's the one right before that one, where, no, it's not right before, it's right after that story, where it starts out with Hex in New York City.
33:41
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
33:43
Mark Pracht: And…
33:44
Mark Pracht: I was like, oh god, no, no, because I was having these flashbacks to the All-Star Western, and him running around Gotham City, and I was like… and then it… it does…
33:57
Mark Pracht: It does some… Pretty great stuff. It's basically a…
34:06
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, it's basically abuse of, abusive, immigrant story, and of course, that takes a… like, I love how… I love how…
34:21
Mark Pracht: And the story I'm talking about is a really great example. It's like, it's set… they always set up this really horrible event.
34:29
Mark Pracht: And then somebody… decides… they need to have revenge. And then they go too far.
34:40
Mark Pracht: And then Jonah is like, nope, you went too far.
34:46
Tad Eggleston: What did you think of the… the… Tesla?
34:53
Tad Eggleston: Edison story.
34:58
Mark Pracht: I… I mean, I liked it, because I like all of this.
35:03
Tad Eggleston: Right.
35:07
Mark Pracht: I don't know, I mean, I think that…
35:10
Mark Pracht: There is a certain point, I can't even remember which one that's in, I remember I thought…
35:14
Tad Eggleston: I just read it, so it's… it's…
35:17
Tad Eggleston: It's in Only the Good Die Young.
35:19
Mark Pracht: Right, okay.
35:22
Tad Eggleston: It's the last story I finished.
35:25
Mark Pracht: Yes.
35:27
Mark Pracht: Oh yeah, it's right before we get the return of.
35:30
Sean Harklerode: Only the good die.
35:33
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I think that's the last story before…
35:40
Mark Pracht: No, no, I'm wrong. Sorry.
35:43
Mark Pracht: Apologies to the audience, I'm flipping through my…
35:49
Tad Eggleston: The one after it is who Lives and Who Dies.
35:52
Tad Eggleston: Right. And it's, it's Jordy Burnett again.
35:54
Mark Pracht: Right.
35:58
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, like… Again, I think that this has this whole…
36:09
Mark Pracht: that somehow, through the character of Jonah Hex, they're really able to really talk about a lot of different things, and what the West means, and what the Western experience was, and… I mean, and obviously, you know.
36:23
Mark Pracht: We know that Edison… expanded some ideas, and… and… but I mean, it…
36:31
Mark Pracht: I don't know, like, the same thing, it's this… in… I… okay.
36:39
Mark Pracht: when I read something like this.
36:46
Mark Pracht: I get real antsy when you start putting, like, sci-fi into something.
36:53
Tad Eggleston: Right.
36:53
Mark Pracht: That is so hardcore. Because, you know, they got the robots, and they got the, you know…
36:58
Tad Eggleston: And, like, that, that, that made me a little bit antsy, though. I actually, I loved, jonah's…
37:07
Tad Eggleston: Like, take on the future.
37:10
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
37:10
Tad Eggleston: You're telling me that there's gonna be some future that I wouldn't understand, and they will have completely forgotten about me? That sounds about right. Sounds like… sounds like Romans! Right. So he's already got this perspective.
37:28
Tad Eggleston: I think I was… just because I'm enough of… the science…
37:35
Tad Eggleston: etc. was a little bothered by the oversimplification of the Edison Tesla… Everything going on.
37:47
Tad Eggleston: On with them, and had to remind myself that this is a fictional pulp.
37:52
Mark Pracht: Yeah. Whatever.
37:53
Tad Eggleston: Oh.
37:54
Mark Pracht: Mr.
37:55
Mark Pracht: That conflict is really…
37:58
Tad Eggleston: per… per… Particularly in an era of…
38:05
Tad Eggleston: Sane washing things going on in real time, and a… A desire to…
38:13
Tad Eggleston: Whitewash isn't even quite the right word. glory wash all of our history.
38:20
Tad Eggleston: Like, the fact that it starts off by, like.
38:27
Tad Eggleston: portraying some of the issues with Edison in, like.
38:32
Tad Eggleston: Taking credit for all the work, stealing stuff from people who worked for him, blah blah blah. But then, like.
38:39
Tad Eggleston: Allows him to, like, hand-wave it and go, oh, well, he really stole that from me, because he worked for me, and…
38:49
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, that's a… that's a, look.
38:52
Tad Eggleston: It's a perspective.
38:53
Mark Pracht: It's a perspective, but it's also a statement about, like, look, I don't think that…
39:01
Tad Eggleston: It's a statement about work for hire, but then… then it bought… I mean, it… I guess it…
39:06
Mark Pracht: It's relevant to comics.
39:07
Tad Eggleston: Right. Right. I guess… I guess I wanted… I wanted Hex to push back more on it.
39:14
Tad Eggleston: It bothered me that he didn't.
39:17
Mark Pracht: And again, I don't know that it's in character for him, too. Like, I fully acknowledge that it's one of the things that it's a… it's…
39:27
Tad Eggleston: it's more of a me thing than I think, strictly a story thing. Unless…
39:35
Tad Eggleston: and this is one of the reasons it's a me thing, it just smacks so much of the… the editorial comment. I mean, I… I… I did…
39:48
Tad Eggleston: some serious study… God, decades ago, into textbooks, and how they were… and, like.
39:55
Tad Eggleston: some of the editorial comments that get made because they want the book to sell in both California and Texas are insane. You know, the California side, it's like, you must say handwriting, because penmanship is sexist, and…
40:10
Tad Eggleston: and the Texas side, it's like, there's an inset box that's about Matthew Shepard, and it's like, great piece, well researched, blah blah blah, can you not mention that he's gay? And it's like, well, but, like, why would we put something about a kid being pulled
40:28
Tad Eggleston: Behind a truck until he died.
40:31
Tad Eggleston: In a history book, Because he was gay, if we don't tell him that he's gay.
40:39
Tad Eggleston: So, in my head, there's that mild warning bell that's like.
40:46
Tad Eggleston: did this take more of a side, and they were told not to take a side, or did it just not take a side? And to me, those are different things.
40:56
Mark Pracht: I also think it's valid to just dis… just…
41:00
Mark Pracht: I mean, I don't think that this story ha- like…
41:04
Mark Pracht: Edison says, you know, he worked for me and he created it.
41:08
Tad Eggleston: Right.
41:09
Mark Pracht: That's a point of view.
41:11
Mark Pracht: That is,
41:17
Mark Pracht: you know, I think that you can take
41:20
Mark Pracht: You can make up your mind about what you think about that, right?
41:24
Tad Eggleston: Right.
41:24
Mark Pracht: And I think that, in a lot of ways, the whole story functions in that way, right?
41:30
Tad Eggleston: Though I do love the last line. We'll both be dead by then, Edison, and better for it.
41:35
Mark Pracht: Right.
41:37
Mark Pracht: I mean, but I also think… I… I think that's what Jonah thinks about every human being on the planet. Right.
41:42
Tad Eggleston: Right.
41:43
Mark Pracht: You know, I think that… I think that, in a way, it almost feels like…
41:50
Mark Pracht: It almost feels like too much for this series, right?
41:54
Mark Pracht: like, I think that… I, you know, I think that…
42:00
Sean Harklerode: This thing…
42:01
Mark Pracht: Something is strongest when it's a direct morality tale.
42:05
Tad Eggleston: Right. About…
42:06
Mark Pracht: people doing terrible things to each other, you know? And then…
42:13
Mark Pracht: Y-you know, what was it,
42:17
Mark Pracht: somebody used to refer… Elmore Leonard.
42:19
Mark Pracht: I always say.
42:20
Tad Eggleston: I love Elmore Water.
42:21
Mark Pracht: I remember people used to say, it's almost always about a bad man versus worse man, you know?
42:28
Tad Eggleston: I just re-read the first two Raylan Givens books, like, literally in the last week.
42:33
Mark Pracht: I mean, and that's… that's… that's Hex in a nutshell. I mean, like… and the thing is, is, like, he knows… he knows he's going to hell, he knows he's gonna pay for all these things he's done, but…
42:45
Tad Eggleston: Alright.
42:46
Mark Pracht: He… he also can't stand to watch
42:52
Mark Pracht: you know, it's like the Tallulah Blast.
42:53
Tad Eggleston: So that…
42:54
Mark Pracht: You know, it's like, when he sees injustice, he knows it.
42:58
Tad Eggleston: How about the… I loved the story, which one was it, where, he got sent…
43:05
Tad Eggleston: To… to get the, the, the rich guy's two sons…
43:10
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, yeah.
43:10
Tad Eggleston: Who had been abducted, and to bring them back.
43:14
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
43:15
Tad Eggleston: It turns out there were bounties on them, so, like…
43:19
Tad Eggleston: He killed them, collected the bounties, and then brought them back for the money.
43:24
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
43:25
Mark Pracht: And the guy's like, I wanted them back alive, and he's like, you didn't… you didn't say that.
43:29
Tad Eggleston: You didn't… A, you didn't specify that. B, no.
43:34
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
43:35
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, A, and it was,
43:38
Mark Pracht: Like, it's what they're so good at here. I mean, they always have a good twist, right?
43:43
Tad Eggleston: Right.
43:44
Mark Pracht: like.
43:45
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it… it… it owes some to old…
43:50
Tad Eggleston: I think EC Comics, for some of its twists. 100%.
43:54
Mark Pracht: Right, I think you mentioned that last time. But I mean, like, I was thinking about, like, in the origin story, like, I think that…
44:01
Mark Pracht: From our modern perspective, for the most part.
44:07
Mark Pracht: You know, we've… we've come to… to expect
44:12
Mark Pracht: a certain portrayal of Native Americans, right? And, you know, and I think that story hews to that in some level, but then at the same time, the son of the chief
44:24
Mark Pracht: is… Just not a good person, you know?
44:28
Tad Eggleston: Well, and that's, like… I mean…
44:31
Mark Pracht: I mean, I think that that's… but I think that that.
44:33
Tad Eggleston: There are a lot of Native Americans that are as upset with the magical Indian…
44:39
Mark Pracht: Oh, shit.
44:39
Tad Eggleston: And noble savage than… than… as they are with… with… with, like, just the lesser being narrative, with the problem being that, like.
44:53
Mark Pracht: But…
44:53
Tad Eggleston: really, the problem is painting them all the same, so, I mean, I loved that about that story, was…
44:59
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I think that… I 100% agree, I'm just saying that the way they set it up…
45:05
Mark Pracht: was like, you know, Woodson, who's just a rat bastard, and we know he's a rat bastard, you know, basically sells his son to the Indians, right?
45:14
Tad Eggleston: Right.
45:14
Mark Pracht: And then, as a slave, let's, like, that's what he's doing, and then he earns his place, and you're like, oh, okay, now he's gonna… he's gonna learn all these skills from the Indians, which he does.
45:28
Mark Pracht: But then at the same… then they switch it again, and they're like, yeah, but…
45:34
Tad Eggleston: Gear protector isn't here anymore.
45:38
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
45:39
Mark Pracht: No, I think that, like, constantly there's that shifting back and forth, you know?
45:43
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
45:44
Mark Pracht: And, you know, as you get further along, you know, you get to see like,
45:53
Mark Pracht: I guess you probably haven't read it.
45:56
Mark Pracht: the story right after the Edison story, the… the…
46:00
Tad Eggleston: I just started it, but yeah.
46:02
Mark Pracht: Yeah, the who lives and who dies.
46:04
Tad Eggleston: Right.
46:05
Mark Pracht: I… love.
46:08
Mark Pracht: That story, the framing, where it's the school teacher
46:13
Mark Pracht: Telling his students about his experience.
46:16
Tad Eggleston: Right.
46:17
Mark Pracht: with Hex, and how he lost his arm, you know?
46:19
Tad Eggleston: Right.
46:20
Mark Pracht: And it's like, I think that… that…
46:25
Mark Pracht: that choice goes into a lot of the way I feel about storytelling and drama now, which is, like, that…
46:35
Mark Pracht: there's all… Points of view in this world, and that…
46:41
Mark Pracht: Everybody's gotta learn how to find a way to live within other people's points of view, you know?
46:47
Tad Eggleston: Right.
46:48
Mark Pracht: And, this, this teacher…
46:52
Mark Pracht: you know, clearly, he's not a big fan of Jonah, but at the same time, at the end of the day, Jonah saved his life, you know?
46:59
Tad Eggleston: Right.
47:00
Mark Pracht: And.
47:02
Tad Eggleston: Well, I was just… Just thinking about, like…
47:10
Tad Eggleston: How often it's, the powerful that are bad is one thing, but,
47:18
Tad Eggleston: Going back to the origin story, and, like, the playing with…
47:23
Tad Eggleston: the noble savage versus the magical Indian versus the bad guy versus everything, like, it's…
47:33
Tad Eggleston: On a level, an allegory for how fragile systems can be.
47:38
Mark Pracht: Oh, of course.
47:39
Tad Eggleston: How systems are incredibly important, but… but so is… Personal accountability and… Morals?
47:54
Tad Eggleston: I mean, because I think we often struggle with that as human beings. We either… we either want to throw out the systems entirely because sometimes the system doesn't work, particularly when the wrong people are in the wrong places in it, or…
48:10
Tad Eggleston: You know, we will justify the most horrible, unethical, inhuman behavior in the name of
48:20
Tad Eggleston: Preserving or creating some sort of system.
48:25
Tad Eggleston: Ed…
48:26
Mark Pracht: Well, and that… and that cruelty and humanity can come from anywhere.
48:31
Tad Eggleston: Right. You know.
48:32
Mark Pracht: that…
48:32
Tad Eggleston: And the reality is that it requires both. It requires good systems and good people. It requires looking out for yourself and looking out for the people around you.
48:46
Tad Eggleston: there's very little that's zero-sum. It's more, if you do this and that, better. If you do one or the other, maybe you survive.
48:56
Mark Pracht: If you do neither, you got problems. To me, the world is incredibly complicated.
49:02
Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And…
49:05
Mark Pracht: that… Part of the power of a character like Jonah and stories like these.
49:13
Mark Pracht: is that it kind of brings everything down… because I… I truly think that… that Justin and Gray
49:21
Mark Pracht: or Paul Miotti and Gray, embrace the complexity.
49:28
Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely.
49:29
Mark Pracht: the West as an environment, and the West as a period. But at the same time, they bring it down to this elemental thing, and they've created… they… they haven't created this character. I have to keep reminding myself of that. They didn't create Jonah, but they.
49:47
Tad Eggleston: I mean, in some ways…
49:48
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I haven't read enough of the early Jonah Hex, but in some ways, they almost might as well have.
49:55
Mark Pracht: I… I think that… I think that…
49:58
Mark Pracht: I have read some of the early ones, I don't like them as much as this.
50:03
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I feel like, you know, from what little I know of Jonah from before this, he was a much…
50:12
Tad Eggleston: Less nuanced character, and not always recognizable in any way, except… visually, to this one.
50:22
Mark Pracht: I think that the, I think, you know, it's interesting you say he's nuanced, because in a lot of ways, I don't think he is.
50:30
Tad Eggleston: I mean…
50:31
Mark Pracht: I think… I think that there's a line, and it may be… there's a line in one of the books, I can't remember where it was, but,
50:40
Mark Pracht: And it may be after… Where you stopped.
50:43
Mark Pracht: Where it said that He was defined by his hatred of everyone.
50:51
Tad Eggleston: Well, I think there's an element to that, but he doesn't kill everybody.
50:55
Mark Pracht: Oh, no.
50:56
Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, that's… that's the thing, like, I know people who don't like Parker because they think that the character is…
51:06
Tad Eggleston: 2…
51:07
Tad Eggleston: lacks too much emotion, lacks too much empathy, has no growth. And, like, to the first two, I say, you gotta pay a lot more attention.
51:19
Mark Pracht: You know, he doesn't want to have empathy. He doesn't…
51:24
Tad Eggleston: WANT?
51:25
Tad Eggleston: 2…
51:28
Tad Eggleston: have emotion. He thinks that those are antithetical to being the man that he thinks he wants to be.
51:36
Mark Pracht: But there is a struggle there.
51:39
Tad Eggleston: All through the books.
51:41
Tad Eggleston: And if you read them all, there is also growth all through the books. You just generally don't see it
51:51
Tad Eggleston: In the span of a single caper.
51:54
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, I mean, and I also think, you know, it's interesting we're doing this in this Pulp Fiction series, because I do think that Jonah has a lot of similarities to some of those,
52:08
Mark Pracht: you know, Pulp Fiction detective kind of characters, you know? I think, you know, the fact that he… the fact that he is…
52:16
Mark Pracht: There's, there's, again, this might be after you guys stopped reading, but, there's a point where somebody refers to him as a bounty hunter and private detective.
52:26
Mark Pracht: And I was like, okay, I don't necessarily think that's right, but… It, it, I was like.
52:34
Tad Eggleston: Well, it…
52:35
Mark Pracht: like…
52:36
Tad Eggleston: In the Edison one, the guy does say, like.
52:40
Tad Eggleston: explains what he wants, and Hex is like, you want Sherlock Holmes, and the guy's like, well, except that Sherlock Holmes is a physical or fictional character, and you're not, and I think you guys actually have some of the same skills, whether you fully realize it or not.
52:58
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, he's certainly… like, one of the… one of the great things about Jonah is that he has this… this incredible insight into human nature. And is that because he hates everyone? You know?
53:10
Tad Eggleston: Well, and, and like… Unfortunately… well, no, actually, maybe we'll have to do, like, one of the… the… the…
53:19
Tad Eggleston: self-made hero homes adaptations sometimes, because, like, in some ways, I think that there's almost no… better…
53:31
Tad Eggleston: definition of… of a noir character, even though Holmes isn't generally considered noir, then when Watson finds
53:43
Tad Eggleston: the, the list…
53:45
Tad Eggleston: in… well, makes the list in a study in Scarlet about what Holmes knows and doesn't know.
53:53
Tad Eggleston: You know, where it becomes clear that Holmes, for reasons not entirely known, has decided that this is what he wants to do, and he wants to be the best at it. So.
54:05
Tad Eggleston: he knows…
54:07
Tad Eggleston: botany, backwards and forwards. He… he can… he can write, dissertations on the different kinds of cigarette ash. He can, you know, chemistry, blah blah blah. No knowledge of pulp culture. Pop culture. Almost no knowledge of international relations.
54:26
Mark Pracht: You know, and the thing about it is, is, like, it's,
54:31
Mark Pracht: when you really think about somebody who functions like Sherlock Holmes, you would think that that information?
54:39
Mark Pracht: Would be important as well, you know?
54:42
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, and, like, throughout the stories, you discover that, like, he… he… it's not that he doesn't glean that information, it's that, like, he has so little interest in it that it wasn't what Watson…
54:54
Mark Pracht: Yeah. I mean, and every once in a while, you'll have him say things like.
54:58
Tad Eggleston: No, I didn't know that, and now that I do, I will do my best to forget it, because I don't see how it will ever be useful again. Right.
55:06
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean…
55:07
Tad Eggleston: And I feel like there's elements of that in a Jonah Hex, in a Sam Spade, in so many of these characters, where it's like they're so driven to be one thing that isn't even always clearly defined.
55:21
Tad Eggleston: Except through figuring out
55:23
Tad Eggleston: what they're great at, what they're not, and what they're deeply uncomfortable with even being a part of… Hex is deeply uncomfortable anytime he feels… I mean, like, one of the things that makes the Tallulah story so good…
55:43
Tad Eggleston: is that, like, when she offers himself… herself to him, he, like, goes out of his way, nope, nope, nope, I don't have those needs, I don't care about that, I…
55:55
Mark Pracht: Gee, that's similar to, Denny O'Neill's thoughts on Batman.
56:03
Tad Eggleston: Yeah?
56:05
Mark Pracht: Which I've always agreed with. I always… you know, because Denny O'Neill famously was like, Batman has no sex life. There's no room in his world for that, you know? And that's what makes Catwoman a great villain.
56:19
Tad Eggleston: Right. Because she triggers…
56:21
Mark Pracht: those feelings, and, you know, like, all of… all of the great Batman villains and the important Batman villains all relate to how Batman sees himself, right?
56:33
Tad Eggleston: Yep, absolutely.
56:34
Mark Pracht: the Joker is the opposite. He's chaos instead of order. Two-Face is the, the, the…
56:42
Tad Eggleston: duality of, of…
56:43
Mark Pracht: The quality, but also the, the… twisting of…
56:49
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
56:50
Mark Pracht: of…
56:51
Mark Pracht: the… the man who seeks justice into someone who is self-loathing, or whatever. Right. And then Catwoman is, you know, all the women that Bruce Wayne should have had over his life now come…
57:04
Tad Eggleston: Well, and it's… and it's also… it's also why I love Tom King's run so much, is because Catwoman is also…
57:14
Tad Eggleston: Are you willing to trade All semblance of normal life and happiness for… Batman.
57:24
Tad Eggleston: Can both exist at the same time.
57:27
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, and I… I… I like that run a lot. I read all of it. I just… every once in a while, when people really get into that, I'm always like, you know at the end of the day.
57:44
Mark Pracht: he's not gonna give up being Batman.
57:46
Mark Pracht: You know?
57:47
Tad Eggleston: No, but, but… But, I mean, like…
57:51
Tad Eggleston: I don't think it was ever…
57:53
Tad Eggleston: does he have to give up being Batman? It's like, can you change enough of how you are Batman to allow yourself to also
58:03
Tad Eggleston: find… Happiness.
58:07
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
58:07
Mark Pracht: Oh, again, that would actually…
58:09
Sean Harklerode: In Venice.
58:10
Mark Pracht: What?
58:11
Sean Harklerode: In a cafe in Venice, right?
58:14
Tad Eggleston: Well, that's the movies, man.
58:17
Mark Pracht: I… and you know what? I will go to bat for that. That is the greatest end.
58:22
Tad Eggleston: It is, it is, it is. I, I…
58:24
Mark Pracht: I… like, I don't… I probably have told this story, but the… like, the second time I saw that movie, it was the first time Colleen went and saw it.
58:33
Mark Pracht: We came out to the car, and
58:37
Mark Pracht: I start… we started talking about the ending, and I just started sobbing, because I was like…
58:43
Mark Pracht: That was, like, I ex… I was prepared for him to kill him. I was, you know, I was prepared for it to be an end.
58:51
Mark Pracht: And the audacity And the… the… the audacity of giving Batman a happy ending?
58:59
Mark Pracht: Like, my… like, no one thought that would happen, and the,
59:05
Mark Pracht: the, the emotional release that I had thinking about that. I… it was… it was…
59:12
Mark Pracht: huge, and it always made me so mad that everybody's like, well, that's not what happens in the comics, and why would you.
59:19
Tad Eggleston: Well, but it's also… it's also why I love the… the… the Batman-Catwoman… Not strictly continuity.
59:28
Mark Pracht: Right.
59:29
Tad Eggleston: maxiseries.
59:31
Tad Eggleston: Because while we don't know the hows and the whys and wherefores yet.
59:39
Tad Eggleston: It establishes, at least in one reality,
59:45
Tad Eggleston: That they figure out a way to do it.
59:47
Mark Pracht: I mean, like, look… Go ahead.
59:50
Sean Harklerode: I just love that it always comes back to how difficult it is to get rid of a bomb.
1:00:01
Mark Pracht: And… I must believe that that was an intentional choice.
1:00:09
Mark Pracht: But… you know, I don't know, I think about, like, part of the…
1:00:14
Mark Pracht: And, you know, it's funny, because we talk about Batman and Jonah and…
1:00:21
Mark Pracht: Part of me… part of me was like, when they were talking about…
1:00:24
Mark Pracht: I have a couple of thoughts here, let me get them out, and then we can discuss. When he's talking to… and they say that, oh, well, Sherlock Holmes is fictional, and then I was like, isn't Sherlock Holmes real in the DC Universe? Didn't, like, Batman team up with him on a couple of occasions? Anyway.
1:00:42
Sean Harklerode: Batman 400, right?
1:00:43
Mark Pracht: That's right. And, here's… here's another thing. I… and,
1:00:54
Mark Pracht: I also, when I'm taught… okay, I'm gonna… let's take this Dark Knight trilogy out of the equation, because I think that that, as a three-part story, is beautiful, and perfect, and ends exactly the way I think it should, and it was awesome.
1:01:10
Mark Pracht: But if we're gonna take those characters as recurring characters, right? Like, as a,
1:01:18
Mark Pracht: As a serialized adventure, right? Where, you know, every month you're gonna come back and get them.
1:01:24
Mark Pracht: I much prefer a character like this to be like Jonah, where he just sort of floats into the story, and never, like, doesn't really have any connection to anybody.
1:01:36
Mark Pracht: Except Tallulah, which, well, no, she can't… like, I've already let that go, that she comes back.
1:01:41
Mark Pracht: Whereas now, like.
1:01:45
Mark Pracht: One of the things that I'm frustrated by by Batman anymore these days is, like, the 45,000 members of the Bat family.
1:01:52
Mark Pracht: You know?
1:01:52
Tad Eggleston: I love and hate it.
1:01:55
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, because I'm like, I, you know, I understand what you're doing, and there's characters that I, you know, I… I… I thought Barbara Gordon was so much more interesting as Oracle than as…
1:02:08
Tad Eggleston: Yes.
1:02:08
Mark Pracht: Batgirl, I think that.
1:02:11
Tad Eggleston: Well, and she's kinda… Oracle again?
1:02:15
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I don't know. I… I can't.
1:02:18
Tad Eggleston: I mean, she plays that role primarily for Birds of Prey.
1:02:22
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:02:23
Tad Eggleston: I just don't think.
1:02:24
Mark Pracht: But then I think she.
1:02:25
Tad Eggleston: She's paralyzed, so I think she has, like, the option to do either.
1:02:28
Mark Pracht: Yeah, and like… But, but, but…
1:02:30
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I haven't read the story, if there is one where… where, like, it's… it's like, oh, I have more value here.
1:02:42
Tad Eggleston: So maybe I should spend more time here.
1:02:46
Mark Pracht: I have been working so hard to not be involved in canon or continuity, like, I just read what I want to read, and.
1:02:54
Tad Eggleston: Right, and the only reason I know it is I haven't, like, cared a lot about canon and continuity, but Kelly Thompson's Birds of Prey run is amazing.
1:03:04
Mark Pracht: Absolutely.
1:03:04
Tad Eggleston: And she is primarily playing an Oracle role.
1:03:10
Tad Eggleston: in Kelly Thompson's Birds of Prey run.
1:03:13
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, and currently in Batman, she's
1:03:17
Mark Pracht: she's interacting with him as Oracle, and… But anyway.
1:03:22
Tad Eggleston: Which Batman? Because right now, there's actually two Batman.
1:03:25
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, it's the new one, the one that just restarted.
1:03:28
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:03:28
Tad Eggleston: The fraction, yes. Oh, the fraction is so good.
1:03:31
Mark Pracht: I actually am enjoying quite a bit. Oh my god. The Detective Comics is kind of…
1:03:37
Tad Eggleston: Well, but also, technically, the last volume of Batman is still going, because Hush 2… Fell behind schedule.
1:03:44
Mark Pracht: Whatever.
1:03:45
Tad Eggleston: No, but that's what I mean, is that's why I had to ask which Batman.
1:03:48
Mark Pracht: Hush 2. I haven't read.
1:03:50
Tad Eggleston: it yet. Is it, is it good? Bad?
1:03:53
Mark Pracht: I just… it's nothing.
1:03:55
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:03:56
Mark Pracht: Like, there's, like… Quite honestly, like you say, it's been delayed.
1:04:01
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:04:02
Mark Pracht: I… I couldn't… Like, I… didn't care.
1:04:07
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I…
1:04:07
Mark Pracht: I'll read it when it comes out.
1:04:08
Tad Eggleston: I haven't… I haven't read any of it, because I just made the decision that I was dropping Batman from my pole, and, you know, when Zdarsky was done, and…
1:04:18
Tad Eggleston: that lasted until Fractions started talking about doing one-and-done issues.
1:04:23
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:04:25
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and the thing, you know.
1:04:26
Tad Eggleston: But I skipped an arc, except that then I'm like, wait a minute, fractions coming out? I didn't realize Hush was done, so I went and looked, I'm like, oh, Hush isn't done.
1:04:36
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, you know, look, I'm… I can…
1:04:40
Mark Pracht: We're getting way off of Jonah, but that's okay. You know, I think that I'm always sort of ta- like, look.
1:04:48
Mark Pracht: every time Jim Lee is supposed to be doing a monthly book, It always suddenly is… Months?
1:04:59
Mark Pracht: Months?
1:05:00
Tad Eggleston: And this is… this is… I said… I said this, like, I said this huge with Doomsday Clock, particularly because they built, like, two years' worth of other stories around Doomsday Clock. Why the fuck did you not have the entire thing in the can?
1:05:19
Tad Eggleston: Before you solicited it.
1:05:24
Tad Eggleston: You can't tell me it's money.
1:05:27
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, yeah, no, I, I…
1:05:30
Tad Eggleston: At least you can't tell me convincingly it's because Warner Bros. couldn't afford to take that risk.
1:05:37
Mark Pracht: Well
1:05:38
Mark Pracht: Look, I mean, I think it probably also has to do with, like, well, we got these other books out that led up to it, we better start… Well, but my point is, don't start leading up to it until it's done. I know, I know, I mean…
1:05:53
Mark Pracht: And sorry, this gets into a much larger conversation. Like, the only…
1:05:57
Mark Pracht: I've been reading, the Mark Waid, Justice… because I love Mark Waid. So I've been reading the Justice League Unlimited, which…
1:06:05
Tad Eggleston: I've heard good things.
1:06:06
Mark Pracht: It can't… wait, it's good.
1:06:09
Tad Eggleston: I want… I need to read more of the… the… world's…
1:06:14
Mark Pracht: Bull's Finest is better.
1:06:15
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:06:17
Mark Pracht: World's Finest is a better book. But, you know, there's this continuity going in there, but now they're so caught up in this DCKO thing, whatever the hell that is, and I'm like, I don't care. I don't care about any of this. Nope. But I mean, like, one of my big problems with that Unlimited book,
1:06:36
Mark Pracht: That is internally frustrating to me is that it… The pitch on that book
1:06:44
Mark Pracht: Had to have been. Hey, remember that Justice League Unlimited cartoon series?
1:06:49
Tad Eggleston: Right. Let's just do that.
1:06:51
Mark Pracht: Everybody is a member of the Justice League. Okay.
1:06:55
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:06:55
Mark Pracht: I mean, like, it's just… it feels… and I hate, like, I love Mark Waid, and he writes every character really well, and, you know, he's got this encyclopedic knowledge, but it felt like…
1:07:09
Mark Pracht: a… editorial… decision that he was like, oh, I could write that.
1:07:15
Mark Pracht: and…
1:07:16
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, and I guess my answer to when they decide to do something like that is, like.
1:07:22
Tad Eggleston: You have the book that's like that. If you want to do it, just have A Legion book.
1:07:33
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, except, you know, the Legion is in the 30th century.
1:07:36
Tad Eggleston: I get it, I get it.
1:07:39
Mark Pracht: But I mean, all I'm saying…
1:07:40
Tad Eggleston: But, like, whatever you do to try to make a Justice League Unlimited work…
1:07:45
Tad Eggleston: you could do with a Legion without, like…
1:07:50
Tad Eggleston: Having to come up with some convoluted reason why they decided to have, on one planet, all of the superheroes all together.
1:08:01
Tad Eggleston: And try to, like, one of the advantages of the 30th century, and it is, like, it's interplanetary, and there's time travel. So, like, you have different ways to use all the characters, and you know what? If you want.
1:08:17
Tad Eggleston: to use Martian Manhunter from the 20th century?
1:08:21
Tad Eggleston: It's the 30th century, and there's time travel!
1:08:25
Mark Pracht: Well, look, but I mean, I just think that, like, and I think this is true even of Legion, is that if you have…
1:08:32
Mark Pracht: Because, you know, I think every writer that comes into Legion kind of picks their…
1:08:37
Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely. Legion. Absolutely. And it's also why Legion is such a hard book. I guess my argument is, you already have the large, hard book that… that…
1:08:50
Tad Eggleston: never does great over time, but has a ridiculously rabid and dedicated fanbase. Right. Why not, if you want to do something big and crazy like that, make it a Legion book, rather than risking the possibility of breaking the Justice League?
1:09:09
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, look, I will say this. I don't think they're gonna break the Justice League. I mean, I don't think that that show broke the Justice League, but I mean, like, when you're doing a cartoon series, right, that I understand that idea of, like, oh, okay, whatever character we want to use this week, we'll just throw it in, but I'm reading a monthly comic book where
1:09:29
Mark Pracht: like, the best parts of every time there's a really good run on Justice League is they get this team, and you see…
1:09:36
Mark Pracht: How they interact together.
1:09:38
Mark Pracht: And…
1:09:40
Mark Pracht: Now that book is so obsessed… like, it's… it's a book that feels like it's just set up for crossovers.
1:09:47
Mark Pracht: Right? It's like, okay.
1:09:49
Tad Eggleston: Well, but my question becomes, in terms of, you don't think they'll break the Justice League, when was the last truly relevant Justice League?
1:09:59
Tad Eggleston: And at that point, like, if you do stuff to make it.
1:10:04
Mark Pracht: It's probably more so. At what point is it the George Clooney.
1:10:08
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, so at what point is it the George Clooney that broke the back that, that, that, Val Kilmer had jumped up and down on?
1:10:18
Mark Pracht: Okay.
1:10:20
Mark Pracht: Sorry.
1:10:21
Sean Harklerode: I don't get that.
1:10:23
Mark Pracht: Sh- sean really likes Val Kilmer and George Clooney.
1:10:30
Sean Harklerode: I like that.
1:10:31
Mark Pracht: Batman, it's a Batman. It's a Batman movie reference.
1:10:34
Tad Eggleston: I like them both as apps.
1:10:37
Tad Eggleston: What?
1:10:38
Mark Pracht: I was trying to think of a movie with them together, and I was like, I don't know.
1:10:42
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no.
1:10:43
Mark Pracht: You know…
1:10:44
Tad Eggleston: I like both actors themselves, and I actually thought Kilmer made a pretty good Bruce Wayne.
1:10:54
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, I think that, just totally offset it, but I think, I think, George Clooney
1:11:02
Mark Pracht: could have been the greatest Batman of all time.
1:11:04
Tad Eggleston: I do, too. I mean, really, I think… weren't those both… were those both Donner movies?
1:11:10
Mark Pracht: No, they were not, they were…
1:11:12
Tad Eggleston: No, not Donner.
1:11:15
Mark Pracht: No, they were, they were, schumacher.
1:11:20
Sean Harklerode: Two months.
1:11:20
Tad Eggleston: Schumacher, yeah. No, really, Schumacher killed Batman. But…
1:11:25
Tad Eggleston: Most people don't know their directors as well as their actors, so they think of the… the… the Kilmer Batman, and then the Clooney Batman.
1:11:33
Mark Pracht: But…
1:11:34
Sean Harklerode: Well, I… I… at… going back to the time, Clooney.
1:11:39
Sean Harklerode: I thought, always, should have been Britt Reid.
1:11:44
Sean Harklerode: The Green Hornet.
1:11:46
Sean Harklerode: And he would have been a perfect Green Hornet.
1:11:50
Sean Harklerode: And so, when he was announced as Batman, I was like, man, he should be the Green Hornet!
1:11:55
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I can see that.
1:11:56
Sean Harklerode: And, you know, 25-year-old Sean, everyone was like.
1:12:02
Mark Pracht: Who's the Great Hornet?
1:12:02
Sean Harklerode: Green Hornet.
1:12:03
Mark Pracht: Why do you pay?
1:12:05
Sean Harklerode: here.
1:12:09
Mark Pracht: Boy, that's a discussion. That Green Hornet movie. I think I was the only one that kinda liked it.
1:12:15
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I remember seeing it, I'm trying to remember who was in it.
1:12:19
Mark Pracht: Yeah, it was, Seth Rogen.
1:12:21
Tad Eggleston: Oh, wow, that's right.
1:12:22
Sean Harklerode: The green machine looked awesome.
1:12:25
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:12:26
Mark Pracht: I, I, I thought it… it was… anyway, that's… but, like, the point being, like, I think that, like, I do think the last… the last great…
1:12:35
Mark Pracht: justice League run was Morrison's, and that was, what, 25 years ago?
1:12:42
Tad Eggleston: Very much.
1:12:43
Tad Eggleston: Well.
1:12:44
Mark Pracht: Anyway…
1:12:45
Tad Eggleston: Morrison slash Wade. Because Wade took over for him, and Wade is the one that did the, the, like…
1:12:52
Mark Pracht: Ra's al Ghul got…
1:12:54
Tad Eggleston: Batman's secret files, that sort of thing.
1:12:56
Mark Pracht: So, like…
1:12:57
Tad Eggleston: keep…
1:12:58
Mark Pracht: Tower of Babel thing.
1:12:59
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:13:00
Mark Pracht: Right. Yeah, no, and I, but I mean…
1:13:02
Tad Eggleston: that era is, you know, Scott Snyder did a run that was… that was hugely hyped, and kind of wound up…
1:13:13
Mark Pracht: But I mean… And for a while, there actually wasn't a Justice League. Yeah.
1:13:17
Mark Pracht: But, I mean, I think Morrison had the right idea. Like, he was like, look, this is supposed to be the Pantheon.
1:13:22
Tad Eggleston: Right. You know.
1:13:23
Mark Pracht: So he created the Pantheon. And then, you know, obviously there was all sorts of stupid crap that got in the way, the electric Superman and all that shit.
1:13:33
Mark Pracht: But,
1:13:35
Mark Pracht: that's what… that's why it was great. And the thing is, is that you didn't have… it could be continuity light, but it could be character-heavy, because they, you know, you got the… you got the members bouncing off each other, and they're always the same 7, right?
1:13:50
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:13:50
Mark Pracht: Until he started trying to stick in all of his peyote dream stuff. You know.
1:13:56
Mark Pracht: Asriel and all that, you know, whatever it was. Not Asriel, what was that angel character?
1:14:05
Mark Pracht: Like, he couldn't get Hawkman, so he created an angel, a fallen angel or something, and I was like.
1:14:11
Tad Eggleston: Bye.
1:14:12
Mark Pracht: But,
1:14:13
Mark Pracht: But, I mean, that's… to me, that's what that book should be. It should be continuity light, character-heavy.
1:14:20
Mark Pracht: Just come up with a, like, world-shattering thing, send him out.
1:14:25
Mark Pracht: I… because, like, Morrison… Wow, we are really off-topic. But, Morrison is,
1:14:34
Mark Pracht: So hot or cold for me.
1:14:37
Mark Pracht: Like, I… cannot think of a Batman run I was more Bored, or kind of just…
1:14:47
Mark Pracht: pissed off about than when Morrison was running… was doing Batman.
1:14:52
Tad Eggleston: I actually loved his Batman run.
1:14:54
Mark Pracht: I… I…
1:14:56
Tad Eggleston: But, I guess I can see that?
1:14:58
Mark Pracht: I don't blame…
1:15:00
Tad Eggleston: It's a weird…
1:15:01
Mark Pracht: I don't like the hairy-chested love-god version of Batman.
1:15:06
Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
1:15:07
Mark Pracht: I… I don't like… Batman is James Bond white, you know? I don't like… I… I want…
1:15:17
Mark Pracht: gritty crime stories, that's what I want, you know?
1:15:24
Mark Pracht: or… Bat shark repellent.
1:15:29
Mark Pracht: If you go there, I'm fine.
1:15:34
Tad Eggleston: So, why don't we…
1:15:39
Mark Pracht: Why… I think we should probably wrap it up.
1:15:41
Tad Eggleston: We will be talking. Many much… many more Jonah Hex.
1:15:46
Mark Pracht: Let me know…
1:15:47
Sean Harklerode: So where did we get to… so you guys got to the end of the sixth one, or almost to the sixth one?
1:15:52
Mark Pracht: I got to the end of… let's see… I read to Volume 5.
1:15:59
Mark Pracht: Which I think was one past where we were supposed to.
1:16:02
Tad Eggleston: I can certainly almost Volume 4. I think we should shoot for Volume 6, but if anybody gets done with Volume 6 with more than a week to go, text the others, and we will see if we want to try to go for more.
1:16:16
Mark Pracht: Yes.
1:16:17
Mark Pracht: That'll give Sean a chance to catch up, and he's very tired, I can tell.
1:16:21
Tad Eggleston: Give me a little bit of time to catch up, too, and…
1:16:25
Tad Eggleston: I mean, assuming I don't overbook myself.
1:16:28
Tad Eggleston: I'm getting a little bit better.
1:16:31
Mark Pracht: Speaking of booking, I'll just… I'm gonna pitch, since.
1:16:36
Tad Eggleston: Please.
1:16:37
Mark Pracht: And it's… when folks see this, it'll be too late, because it's live tonight, I'm doing the Clutch of Personalities podcast, which is a storytelling podcast.
1:16:49
Tad Eggleston: No, but see, pod… podcasts are forever, so they can.
1:16:53
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:16:54
Tad Eggleston: look for.
1:16:54
Mark Pracht: But it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be live, it's, it's on YouTube, clutch of personalities, it's like Season 3, Episode 7, I'm gonna do a.
1:17:02
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:17:03
Mark Pracht: We're gonna have, clips from the archive video of the shows.
1:17:08
Sean Harklerode: Oh.
1:17:09
Mark Pracht: We're gonna have,
1:17:11
Mark Pracht: a discussion about acting and storytelling and writing and everything else. So, it… they are forever, so you can watch it.
1:17:21
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:17:21
Mark Pracht: After the fact, but if, you know…
1:17:24
Tad Eggleston: And we're all for plugging other podcasts. We are not… we are not a competitive podcast here. If there are podcasts worth listening to, go listen to them. I listen to Word Balloon, I listen to Off Panel.
1:17:37
Mark Pracht: I will be… I will be plugging 22 panels.
1:17:41
Tad Eggleston: Excellent.
1:17:42
Sean Harklerode: Well, if this comes out before Halloween, we've got.
1:17:46
Tad Eggleston: bill.
1:17:46
Sean Harklerode: to more performances of Misery, Stephen King's Misery.
1:17:50
Mark Pracht: There you go.
1:17:50
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, this is…
1:17:53
Mark Pracht: Which is…
1:17:53
Tad Eggleston: will come out tomorrow.
1:17:55
Mark Pracht: Sean is great, I saw it this past Friday night.
1:18:01
Mark Pracht: It's a long drive, but it's worth it.
1:18:04
Sean Harklerode: Right?
1:18:04
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:18:05
Sean Harklerode: But we don't know where people are listening at.
1:18:07
Tad Eggleston: Where is it?
1:18:08
Sean Harklerode: Tim Berwin, or Cicero.
1:18:11
Tad Eggleston: Kind of.
1:18:12
Mark Pracht: That's true.
1:18:13
Sean Harklerode: I'm confused.
1:18:14
Tad Eggleston: pone country.
1:18:15
Sean Harklerode: They have signs up, and then there's the Stickney, water tower is there, so…
1:18:20
Mark Pracht: Like, the name of the theater?
1:18:22
Tad Eggleston: Baby?
1:18:22
Mark Pracht: Arts Center.
1:18:23
Sean Harklerode: I'd like a performing arts center, at Morton College.
1:18:28
Tad Eggleston: Okay. See, these things are important if people want to buy tickets.
1:18:32
Sean Harklerode: Yes.
1:18:33
Tad Eggleston: Bye.
1:18:34
Mark Pracht: I took it.
1:18:35
Tad Eggleston: They're not just gonna drive around Berwyn going, hey, do you know where I can see misery?
1:18:41
Mark Pracht: And people are gonna go…
1:18:43
Tad Eggleston: All over the place! Have you opened your eyes?
1:18:47
Mark Pracht: Everyone should see Sean Car- Sean… Sean Harkkelrode as… Buster.
1:18:53
Sean Harklerode: Sheriff Buster.
1:18:55
Mark Pracht: Chair Fuster. Just one time before the end of the run, Can you say, hey, brother?
1:19:02
Sean Harklerode: Hey, brother.
1:19:07
Tad Eggleston: Mark Pratt and Sean Hunker Road, this has been the Pope Lotter on 22 Panels, and we will see you after the next page.
1:19:15
Sean Harklerode: Alright.