Latest / 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast / 22 Panels Episode #225 - Something, something, America

Transcript

22 Panels Episode #225 - Something, something, America · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody! Welcome back to 22 panels across the interwebs.
• 0:10
  Phil: Where is Phil?
• 0:12
  Phil: Stuck to the wall.
• 0:14
  Tad Eggleston: Tyler's gonna play this weekend, so, so, so we're, we're Tyler-less again.
• 0:20
  Tad Eggleston: He's so funny.
• 0:21
  Phil: It's left us for a, life of acting and celebrity.
• 0:25
  Tad Eggleston: But Eddie's here.
• 0:27
  Phil: Oh, there we go! We've got at least… oh, and that actually made my little boy Leo walk away, so…
• 0:35
  Phil: He's like, okay, if I can't be the only cat.
• 0:37
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, but only one cat on screen allowed, apparently?
• 0:41
  Phil: They just… they know how to take turns, so at least.
• 0:43
  Tad Eggleston: And they can talk over distances, because, like.
• 0:47
  Phil: Well.
• 0:48
  Tad Eggleston: Eddie never has to look at the screen to know that there's another cat on it.
• 0:52
  Phil: You know, they're, they're little, their little whiskers on their, on their forehead, those are like alien antennae that let them.
• 0:57
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 0:58
  Phil: Technically with each other.
• 0:59
  Tad Eggleston: That makes sense.
• 0:59
  Phil: I swear, I haven't been able to find it again, but when I was a kid, I remember, in class, us being read a book called Space Cats that was about, hey, turns out all cats are just space aliens. And, yeah, it's a weird memory that I haven't been able to follow up on.
• 1:15
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 1:17
  Tad Eggleston: So, anyway.
• 1:21
  Phil: It's a great way to start the morning.
• 1:23
  Tad Eggleston: What a week.
• 1:25
  Tad Eggleston: Netflix has bowed out of the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding.
• 1:31
  Tad Eggleston: Mixture of the price becoming too high, and worries that…
• 1:39
  Tad Eggleston: the regime, who would much prefer to have their buddies who will destroy CNN.
• 1:46
  Phil: Well… More than it's already been shot in the knee.
• 1:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, like, I think it's important to understand that there's a difference between where CNN is right now.
• 1:59
  Phil: Yeah. And… and where's… where… where ABC is right now.
• 2:03
  Phil: God.
• 2:03
  Tad Eggleston: to CBS.
• 2:05
  Phil: I'm not…
• 2:06
  Tad Eggleston: Everyone's Barry Weiss running.
• 2:07
  Phil: I thought CNN was Barry Weiss.
• 2:10
  Tad Eggleston: No, not yet.
• 2:11
  Phil: Not yet? Okay. Oh, so it was… she was CBS then, it must have been?
• 2:14
  Tad Eggleston: She is the one that works for Paramount.
• 2:19
  Tad Eggleston: CBS.
• 2:20
  Phil: CBS, I see, okay. Well, that's… Yeah, yeah. There is…
• 2:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, th-thir- there-there are… are…
• 2:29
  Tad Eggleston: whatever my frustrations with CNN over the last
• 2:33
  Tad Eggleston: Decade. Not the least of which is they continue to call
• 2:37
  Tad Eggleston: Our third news point, a preemptive war, rather than just a… an aggressive strike.
• 2:44
  Phil: How… how much more preemptive? Oh, God.
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: Preemptive implies a threat.
• 2:51
  Phil: Yeah, that's what I mean. It implies that we're doing this to stop a war. No, that is the war, y'all. Right. That is indeed the war.
• 3:00
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, there's no credit pool.
• 3:05
  Tad Eggleston: Brett.
• 3:08
  Tad Eggleston: But that's the third news point. But yeah, so, I mean, they'll also inherit DC Comics. The short-term upside is that,
• 3:17
  Tad Eggleston: They're probably gonna be too busy destroying CNN to pay any attention for a while.
• 3:23
  Phil: We can only hope.
• 3:27
  Phil: You know, if the last two, shakeups from the parent company being sold are any indication, it might take a little while for, you know, the long arms of the higher-ups to reach down there, so there might be some time, but we'll… we'll be paying attention.
• 3:41
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and, and, like… In a lot of ways, the last shakeup was a good one.
• 3:49
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. So whoever, whoever looked at it actually saw some of the toxic environments and said.
• 3:54
  Tad Eggleston: Like, let's take care of this.
• 3:56
  Phil: Yeah.
• 3:57
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if I trust… the Ellisons to do that.
• 4:03
  Phil: Absolutely.
• 4:06
  Tad Eggleston: But, I mean, it's kind of like…
• 4:10
  Tad Eggleston: I don't remember whether it was on-air or off-air yesterday, so we're gonna leave it off-air in terms of… but Alex talking about a company who's
• 4:21
  Tad Eggleston: run by a right-winger who… who hires a lot of left-wingers. So, you know, when it… when it takes… when it comes to… to…
• 4:30
  Tad Eggleston: Business… a lot of these guys aren't actually ideological. They'll take the profits to their ideology.
• 4:40
  Tad Eggleston: They'll do whatever makes the business best.
• 4:43
  Tad Eggleston: And I don't think comics are high enough on the radar to mess with ideology.
• 4:54
  Phil: I mean, we're…
• 4:55
  Tad Eggleston: Running them as, as, as a…
• 4:58
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, on the movie side, it'll be interesting to see what happens with James Gunn.
• 5:03
  Phil: Yes, that's what I was about to mention and say, is that it honestly will probably see more of an effect on their film output.
• 5:10
  Tad Eggleston: Though, again, you know what?
• 5:13
  Phil: It was successful, so they might leave it alone. You never know.
• 5:15
  Tad Eggleston: Between the profitability and the fact that it's a useful foil.
• 5:23
  Phil: Yeah.
• 5:25
  Phil: Yeah. I mean, it's…
• 5:27
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, if they can make a movie and then have their guys on TV blasting the movie for its unpatrioticness.
• 5:35
  Tad Eggleston: That doesn't… that doesn't actually…
• 5:38
  Phil: The ultimate sock puppet.
• 5:40
  Tad Eggleston: very, very rarely does it wind up hurting the movie's money-making ability. Often it rises it.
• 5:48
  Phil: Yeah, it's weird.
• 5:51
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, you know that they won't be honest enough to, on TV, like, say, this un-American movie made by our parent company.
• 6:02
  Phil: Right, right.
• 6:04
  Phil: Oh, goodness. Yeah, I mean, it… so, usually when you have regime changes in, entertainment companies, a lot of times the previous projects, whether they're doing well or not, will get
• 6:18
  Phil: canceled, because the idea is, oh, okay, if… if we carry it over and it succeeds, it's not ours, so… so…
• 6:26
  Tad Eggleston: It's actually… it's actually not that simple.
• 6:32
  Tad Eggleston: there are sometimes elements of that, but, like, if you're talking about the previous Warner Discovery and, like.
• 6:40
  Tad Eggleston: Batgirl, etc.
• 6:43
  Tad Eggleston: They were able… they were able to include it in the debt, On the purchase, and therefore.
• 6:51
  Tad Eggleston: In ways that it would have had to be absurdly, absurdly profitable.
• 6:58
  Tad Eggleston: To be worth more to them as a movie than it was in a tax write-off.
• 7:03
  Phil: Yeah, and that was a uniquely bizarre situation that WB.
• 7:07
  Tad Eggleston: Mmm.
• 7:08
  Phil: for the last.
• 7:09
  Tad Eggleston: So, so again, it's, it's not nearly as simple as… as just… Like…
• 7:22
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I mean, because nobody actually pays enough attention to this shit to go, oh, that was the old people that made it. And I'm not saying that egos don't create
• 7:35
  Tad Eggleston: Imaginary audiences on a regular basis, but, you know… I'm pretty certain that… like…
• 7:46
  Tad Eggleston: The Ellisons, this is about CNN.
• 7:49
  Phil: Yeah.
• 7:50
  Phil: Yeah, I think the meat.
• 7:52
  Tad Eggleston: I think they can give a damn about the rest of it.
• 7:54
  Phil: especially with, I imagine WB Studios, like, you know, it's another movie studio pushing together, so that's… that's more reach on that front too, but…
• 8:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 8:03
  Phil: I think it is largely news-based, more than… They're.
• 8:07
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I think the rest of it is about making profits, which is why, like, every time they talk about movies not being profitable, like…
• 8:17
  Tad Eggleston: Show me your accounting.
• 8:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well… And show me the accounting of all of the companies that you paid.
• 8:26
  Tad Eggleston: so that I know that they're not subsidiaries of you.
• 8:30
  Phil: And that's where I… you know, I think that…
• 8:36
  Phil: It's hard… it's hard for me to… to believe that it's…
• 8:40
  Phil: purely profit-motivated. I think that, you know, the cultural influence is high on the radar there, too.
• 8:47
  Phil: Especially given that, you know.
• 8:51
  Tad Eggleston: For the art stuff?
• 8:53
  Phil: No, for, for, for news, news and…
• 8:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, the news has nothing to do with profits. They don't give a damn about making profits on the news.
• 9:02
  Phil: I guess what I… what I mean?
• 9:03
  Tad Eggleston: It's a write-off that they can use to shape the world.
• 9:08
  Tad Eggleston: to, like… Every dollar they lose on the news, they make tenfold in favorable policies.
• 9:16
  Phil: Right, and that's what I was thinking, is that, you know, as we're seeing this administration do, is that a lot of the profit is, you know, insider info-based.
• 9:29
  Phil: So, you know, it's kind of like…
• 9:33
  Tad Eggleston: Well, most of it's just grifting.
• 9:36
  Phil: Yeah.
• 9:37
  Phil: Yeah.
• 9:37
  Tad Eggleston: Most of it's just scrifting.
• 9:39
  Phil: Yeah.
• 9:40
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, before we go too far down that rabbit hole, because we get to go define it more with what kind of week has it been.
• 9:46
  Phil: Right, right.
• 9:47
  Tad Eggleston: Why don't you tell us about this new Neon Genesis Evangeline?
• 9:51
  Phil: Yes, Evangelion, Neon Genesis Evangelion, which.
• 9:56
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, that's… that's a weird…
• 9:58
  Phil: It is. It is a weird one.
• 10:00
  Phil: It's, it's anime. It is the legendary series. There's gonna be a new series after it had been announced that Hideki Ano was, you know, shutting it down, saying, hey, I'm done with Evangelion. And this new series, it was one of those where, wow, you know, without the original creator, where are they gonna go? But this is being helmed by Yoko Taro, the, writer of acclaimed video games such as Nier Automata and Drakengard, so I am personally very excited
• 10:25
  Phil: for this. It's one of those where…
• 10:27
  Phil: I never would have guessed Yoko Taro to take over Evangelion, but it's easily the only possible person that could do it, so I'm pumped, I'm excited, I'm hyped. I don't know when this is coming out, but it's on my radar now.
• 10:42
  Phil: So,
• 10:43
  Tad Eggleston: That's right.
• 10:43
  Phil: What kind of week has it been?
• 10:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, we blew up some schools in Iran.
• 10:49
  Phil: We killed the Ayatollah.
• 10:52
  Phil: Yeah.
• 10:53
  Tad Eggleston: Rachel Maddow was kind enough to point out that, like,
• 10:59
  Tad Eggleston: the regional rivalries slash enemies like Saudi Arabia and their sphere have been…
• 11:17
  Tad Eggleston: geographic enemies of Iran and their sphere for longer than Israel-Palestine has existed.
• 11:25
  Phil: Wow.
• 11:26
  Tad Eggleston: And you know, the Saudis have given…
• 11:29
  Tad Eggleston: money to Trump and his people. I mean, I'm certain it doesn't hurt that, like, they can kill two birds with one stone. They can get paid by the UAE and Qatar and the Saudis, and…
• 11:43
  Tad Eggleston: and, you know, support Israel, etc, though I really wonder what… what Israel…
• 11:52
  Tad Eggleston: Is thinking, putting themselves in the middle Whoa.
• 11:57
  Phil: I mean… 2.
• 11:59
  Tad Eggleston: warring factions.
• 12:02
  Phil: Yeah,
• 12:04
  Phil: it seems, like, clear that they have a side, you know? I mean, I don't know if they're in the middle as much as they're on the side of the Saudis.
• 12:16
  Phil: Or, or potentially…
• 12:17
  Tad Eggleston: But are the Saudis on their side?
• 12:20
  Tad Eggleston: That's… that is always the question. That's… that's what I mean in terms of the middle. I'm talking strict… I'm speaking strictly geographically.
• 12:27
  Phil: I see, I see. Okay.
• 12:29
  Tad Eggleston: Their care… they're, they're, they're… they're… They're essentially, like, Publicly instigating a war that…
• 12:37
  Phil: That…
• 12:39
  Tad Eggleston: Geographically puts them in the middle of… fighting.
• 12:48
  Tad Eggleston: Between two people that,
• 12:53
  Tad Eggleston: At best, don't give a damn about their existence, and at worst, like, would prefer they not be there.
• 13:00
  Phil: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Phil: Yeah. I mean, I think the only reading of it that makes sense is seeing Israel as a military outpost for the Imperial U.S.
• 13:10
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, yeah, there's a ton of that, but I mean…
• 13:14
  Tad Eggleston: as much as, like, Donald Trump is playing at imperialist, like, his people don't seem to be behind him.
• 13:23
  Tad Eggleston: Including in the military.
• 13:26
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, it sounds like most of the people.
• 13:31
  Phil: working in the administration, have been trying to talk him out of this for the last month. Yeah.
• 13:37
  Tad Eggleston: Which, you know, also leads us to, in both his and Netanyahu's case, you know.
• 13:43
  Tad Eggleston: If they didn't have wars to conveniently point at, they'd have, like, Trials.
• 13:53
  Tad Eggleston: and or… pedophilia charges to have to deal with. So, I mean…
• 14:01
  Tad Eggleston: it's really possible that, that, like, we're plunging into World War III, because, mind you.
• 14:08
  Tad Eggleston: Where do Russia and China get their oil from?
• 14:13
  Phil: I mean, I'm not sure which country in the Middle East specifically.
• 14:16
  Tad Eggleston: Iran.
• 14:20
  Phil: There you go.
• 14:23
  Phil: So, so yeah.
• 14:24
  Tad Eggleston: We have all of the powder laid, to start World War III.
• 14:30
  Tad Eggleston: in the Mideast right now.
• 14:32
  Tad Eggleston: because the president likes his airplanes, and… and Jared Kushner, who was supposed to be…
• 14:41
  Tad Eggleston: out of Washington! That's why it didn't matter when he was given $2 billion for nothing.
• 14:47
  Tad Eggleston: Saudis.
• 14:52
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, I hope?
• 14:56
  Tad Eggleston: that when I listen to this a year from now… I won't really listen to this a year from now, but if I listen to this a year from now, it will turn out that I was seeing the worst case scenario, and we avoided it by miles.
• 15:11
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, there's, like… There's no reading of this that makes sense.
• 15:16
  Tad Eggleston: Iran does not have intercontinental ballistic missiles. They're not particularly close or even really trying.
• 15:25
  Tad Eggleston: to create them. So they cannot… hit the US.
• 15:30
  Tad Eggleston: Not only does the White House website still say that they obliterated Iran's nuclear program.
• 15:38
  Tad Eggleston: And anybody who says otherwise is fake news.
• 15:46
  Tad Eggleston: like, iran's… there's no real evidence that Iran's nuclear program was ever anything other than for domestic power.
• 15:55
  Phil: Right. And so, very importantly, I think that we're gonna have.
• 16:01
  Tad Eggleston: And by power, I mean electricity. Yes.
• 16:03
  Phil: Yes.
• 16:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I just… clearing it up for anybody listening.
• 16:07
  Phil: It's always good, always good, but…
• 16:09
  Phil: what I was thinking is that I think we're gonna…
• 16:12
  Phil: We're gonna be struggling to make sense out of…
• 16:16
  Phil: this administration for a while, because they're… I mean, I don't know if you saw the headlines about how, on… on PolyMarket, the, you know, betting site, some… a few million dollars were made from 6 wallets.
• 16:33
  Phil: That were created the, you know, day before, and all.
• 16:38
  Tad Eggleston: Of course.
• 16:38
  Phil: on attacks landing on Iran on the 28th.
• 16:41
  Tad Eggleston: Of course.
• 16:42
  Phil: Yeah, so, so, that's what I mean, is that when you said it's all a grift, it's like, well, I mean, this is a pretty high-stakes grift, you know, to literally bet on
• 16:52
  Phil: To insider trade on the war that you yourself are surprising the world with.
• 16:56
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, as much as I, I, I, like, hate the, the whole existence of Polymarket, etc, did you see the guy that, like, made a crap ton of money because he bet that, that,
• 17:10
  Tad Eggleston: Doge would not save the government any money?
• 17:15
  Phil: I did not see that. That is amazing.
• 17:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, somebody bet his entire… his entire savings, like $300,000, something like that.
• 17:23
  Phil: Wow.
• 17:23
  Tad Eggleston: on Doge, not… Saving the government any money, and just got paid out.
• 17:30
  Tad Eggleston: God-awful large amount of money.
• 17:32
  Phil: You know, let's… let's hope… let's hope he's got a decent head on his shoulders.
• 17:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it sounds like… I mean, I just skimmed, like, an article, but it sounds like one of the reasons his wife let him do it was that, like, he never gambled.
• 17:47
  Tad Eggleston: He's not a gambler. This is… he just… he saw this, and he's like, this is so dumb, I want to put my money where my mouth is.
• 17:54
  Phil: Alright, you know? Good for him, then.
• 17:59
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I want to say he's an accountant, like, like…
• 18:03
  Phil: That, you know, this is all… this is adding up. This is adding up for a success story, that's for sure. I mean, I have to imagine anyone that's an accountant would look at Elon Musk's political efforts and say, that's gonna be a waste of time, money, intelligence.
• 18:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 18:21
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, what I would have been most worried about is managing to…
• 18:27
  Tad Eggleston: Prove it to be able to collect on the bet.
• 18:30
  Phil: That's fair.
• 18:31
  Phil: That is indeed fair.
• 18:33
  Tad Eggleston: Because you know that the government is not beyond.
• 18:37
  Phil: Just…
• 18:38
  Tad Eggleston: Saying something that's not true.
• 18:41
  Phil: It's true.
• 18:41
  Tad Eggleston: Or even putting out a report on something that is not true.
• 18:45
  Phil: Why, it's false information.
• 18:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I… I… I… I really, really…
• 18:53
  Phil: really, like…
• 18:58
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, the first thing is we need to get Trump and his cronies out of power, and the second thing is we need to actually punish them, because, like, the reason that this keeps escalating is there are… there is no accountability.
• 19:12
  Tad Eggleston: You know, there was no accountability for the people who took us to the war in the Middle East on false pretenses the last time.
• 19:20
  Tad Eggleston: Which was in my lifetime.
• 19:22
  Phil: Yeah. 20 years ago.
• 19:24
  Tad Eggleston: 23, but…
• 19:28
  Phil: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:31
  Tad Eggleston: 25, depending on how you count.
• 19:35
  Tad Eggleston: But also no accountability for the time before that. Yeah. Also, in my lifetime.
• 19:44
  Tad Eggleston: Hell.
• 19:47
  Tad Eggleston: One of the big reasons that Reagan won so big in 1980 is the secret deal he made to NOT release the hostages until he was president.
• 20:00
  Phil: Yeah.
• 20:03
  Tad Eggleston: Kinda like Kissinger back in, what, 72… er, 68?
• 20:09
  Tad Eggleston: And the deal to NOT end the Vietnam War before Nixon was president.
• 20:16
  Phil: Jeez.
• 20:18
  Phil: Yeah, it's… It's… it's almost like we've got a history of, shady dealings, around…
• 20:27
  Phil: War and profit, you know?
• 20:29
  Tad Eggleston: You know, the Democrats aren't perfect, but there are… there are 3 things that you can count on any Republican president to do.
• 20:42
  Phil: Taxes on the rich.
• 20:45
  Tad Eggleston: Cut benefits for the poor.
• 20:48
  Tad Eggleston: and start a war in the Mideast.
• 20:51
  Phil: Yep.
• 20:52
  Phil: I mean, it's… Keith Knight had a… had a political cartoon that I saw recently. It was, like, a.
• 20:57
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 20:57
  Phil: circular track.
• 20:59
  Phil: It was like that, where, hey, we're at the point where the GOP is starting a war over oil in the Middle East, and then we're gonna head to the Democrats taking power, and they're gonna raise taxes, and then the GOP's gonna run on cutting taxes, and then they're gonna take over, and…
• 21:12
  Phil: Yeah, it was just… it was basically the track of, oh yeah, no, I'm familiar… I'm familiar with that circle, I realize I was… I was born into it.
• 21:19
  Tad Eggleston: Welcome to Groundhog Day!
• 21:20
  Phil: Yep. More or less.
• 21:22
  Tad Eggleston: So anyway, we, we, we have a,
• 21:26
  Tad Eggleston: Brand new catalog. Oh, yeah. Initial orders are due on March 26th.
• 21:34
  Phil: As I update our…
• 21:36
  Tad Eggleston: Or, rundown here. Lot of cool new books coming out, we got a full slate.
• 21:45
  Tad Eggleston: We're gonna be highlighting 37 new series.
• 21:50
  Tad Eggleston: 29 new graphic novels, and 21…
• 21:57
  Tad Eggleston: collections, for the full Road and Downs…
• 22:02
  Tad Eggleston: End of the episode for the next page, but let's talk… some specific highlights. Hill.
• 22:09
  Tad Eggleston: My first one is,
• 22:12
  Tad Eggleston: Mark Russell is teaming up with fantastic 2000AD, artist,
• 22:22
  Tad Eggleston: partner with Garth Ennis on a couple of war comics, P.J. Holden.
• 22:28
  Tad Eggleston: on a story called Dog Tag, a fictional story about a very real war. It follows the life and thoughts of Corporal Tom Fuller through the final year of World War II, as his service takes him from the invasion of Normandy to the surrender of Japan. Borrowed from real-world stories and little-known events of the war, Dog Tag
• 22:47
  Tad Eggleston: asks…
• 22:48
  Tad Eggleston: big questions about the war while focusing on the heroism of the ordinary people who lived and died during the conflict. This is from Mark Russell and P.J. Holden at Mad Cave Comics.
• 23:00
  Tad Eggleston: Final order cutoff is April 13th, in stores.
• 23:05
  Tad Eggleston: on May 6th.
• 23:09
  Phil: interesting seeing Mark Russell do a book that doesn't have some obvious satirical bite to it, you know?
• 23:15
  Tad Eggleston: He does it every once in a while.
• 23:16
  Phil: That's a shifter, yeah, it'll be interesting.
• 23:18
  Phil: Next up, we've got a new miniseries called Odin from James Tynan IV, Marguerite Bennett, Letizia Catanici, Geordie Belair, Green Room meets Midsummer in James Tynan's most relentless horror story yet. Adela will do anything for the perfect story, including going undercover with neo-Nazi punks headed to the frozen forests of Norway under the misbegotten belief
• 23:43
  Phil: that they can summon Odin and achieve their promised white destiny. But what awaits them in the woods is far older and stranger than any of them can comprehend, and no gods are coming to answer their prayers for help. Multiple Eisner Award-winning creator James Tynan IV, no-holds-bar writer Marguerite Bennett, and rising star artist Letizia Katanici, and Eisner Award-winning colorist Geordie Belair.
• 24:07
  Phil: Continue a hallucin… or conjure a
• 24:10
  Phil: horror story that leaves absolutely no taboo unbroken. It's gonna have a final order cutoff of April 27th in stores May 20th from good ol' Image Comics.
• 24:23
  Tad Eggleston: Also from Image Comics.
• 24:26
  Tad Eggleston: And, and of course.
• 24:27
  Phil: And from… from…
• 24:30
  Tad Eggleston: Good friend Chris Condon, along with Andrew Eric, on writing and art from Charlie Adlard.
• 24:40
  Tad Eggleston: of the Earth.
• 24:42
  Tad Eggleston: his…
• 24:44
  Tad Eggleston: Neo-noir-tinged eco-horror miniseries that is blood simple meets John Carpenter's The Thing. Tabitha Tabby Black flees a sordid life for her quiet hometown of Solitude, Texas, in the comfort of her grandma's home where she was raised. Only home.
• 25:03
  Tad Eggleston: isn't what it once was, and neither is grandma.
• 25:07
  Tad Eggleston: Final word cutoff is April 27th, in stores on May 20th. This looks beautiful. Chris Condon continues to… to be the rising rock star of comics. Yeah.
• 25:20
  Tad Eggleston: Fantastic.
• 25:23
  Phil: Alrighty, next up, we've got 7 Wives, over at IDW Crime from Zoe Tunnel and V. Gagnon. That one is gonna be,
• 25:36
  Phil: 49 witnesses, 7 wives, 1 dead husband. On Monday, April 17th, at 9.04am, two police detectives are dispatched to investigate the deaths on a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints compound in remote Arizona. Matthew Dunn, the patriarch of the Dunn family, has been found stabbed on the pulpit of his temple.
• 25:57
  Phil: Basting in the blood-soaked glaze of his savior. Detectives Aguilar and Hallwell begin the arduous task of questioning each of Matthew's seven wives, and quickly encounter a brick wall of memorized scripture, canned platitudes, and locked lips. It becomes clear that the woman's intricately braided hair, voices with sweet affectations and modest clothing aren't just signs of Matthew's brainwashing.
• 26:22
  Phil: but armor they use to protect their family. But with each interrogation, the cracks begin to show. The abuse, the truth of living and surviving in this cult, and the detectives uncover the unholy gospel of Matthew Dunn.
• 26:34
  Phil: That one's gonna have a final word cutoff of April 13th in stores May 20th, again, from IDW Crime.
• 26:43
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, some, graphic novels, you wanna lead this one?
• 26:48
  Phil: First steel.
• 26:49
  Tad Eggleston: and one that I'm excited for.
• 26:50
  Phil: Yeah, you know, it's… it's when Tilly Walden puts out a new book, I… I perk up.
• 26:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:58
  Phil: Incredible. This is Charity and Sylvia. An openly lesbian couple survives and thrives in 19th century Vermont. A true story, as told by Tilly Walden. The month is February, the year is 1807. The place is Weybridge, Vermont.
• 27:12
  Phil: Small, cold, lonely, and beautiful. Sylvia Drake is exhausted. As an unwed woman with few prospects, she is residing with and caring for her sister's rambunctious family. Today, the house is abuzz, awaiting a guest. Charity Bryant.
• 27:26
  Phil: A friend of the family, she is most known for her elegant letters, with their swoopy and evocative penmanship and carefully chosen prose. But Charity's visit is a guise. She is coming to Vermont to start over after heartbreak and rumors, so many rumors, that have
• 27:42
  Phil: grown too loud back in Massachusetts. The true, exceptional story of these remarkable women is brought to life with humor and passion by the unparalleled and award-winning Tilly Walden. We see America grow alongside these women over a period that brings about the railroad, many novels, 14 presidents, riots, rebellion, plagues, and poetry. Based on extensive archives of their writing, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking
• 28:06
  Phil: biography that is also the story of 19th century America. Gonna have a final order cut off of April 6th, in stores June 17th, and it looks absolutely breathtaking.
• 28:18
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 28:20
  Tad Eggleston: The Children of Light by Gene Plyers, translated by Luke Burns, from New York Review Comics.
• 28:32
  Tad Eggleston: An advanced alien race attempts to escape oblivion with the help of a world-sized spaceship, an omniscient supercomputer, and a mysterious group of godlike creatures in this eye-popping illustrated sci-fi adventure.
• 28:45
  Tad Eggleston: In the far reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy, a supernova obliterates the homeworld of Zors, an advanced alien race, but the Zors
• 28:55
  Tad Eggleston: knew this particular apocalypse was coming. To escape destruction, they built a world-sized spaceship run by an omniscient supercomputer. They reach for a new home, but the odds are bleak. Aboard the ship, major unrest amongst the crew and passengers endangers the mission of survival. Outside, in the cold of space, the enemies of Zors gather to destroy them. Watching over the Zors are the beings of Light, mysterious god-like creatures.
• 29:20
  Tad Eggleston: able to intervene in the affairs of others, but will they be able to save the Zors? Written and drawn by Belgian cartoonist Jean Pliers.
• 29:30
  Tad Eggleston: In the early 1980s, The Children of Light is his awe-inspiring vision of a universe completely different from our own, intricately drawn and laser-blasted with radiant color. This is the first time The Children of Light has been collected and translated into English. The new edition features an interview with pliers conducted by Tom Oldham of Breakdown Press, which sheds light on the creation of this holy arrive.
• 29:54
  Tad Eggleston: regional work.
• 29:56
  Tad Eggleston: This is a final order cutoff of April 13th in stores on June 23rd.
• 30:04
  Phil: Cover of that looks stellar.
• 30:06
  Tad Eggleston: It really does.
• 30:07
  Phil: Alright, next up, we've got a fun little book called Dogs on Dates by Luke Healy. If Brad's the balloon, Bernie's the string. Love is real, and Luke Healy will prove it, one joke at a time.
• 30:20
  Phil: Bernie, a confident, chill, and worldwise gay, trans, short Seth Rogen type, is fresh from telling his college advisor that he's dropping out of art school.
• 30:31
  Phil: Absent-mindedly, he walks into a plate glass window, bashing his face. Before he can even formulate gratitude for the window not breaking, Brad, a sweet-natured, kind-hearted romantic who is not cool, but nice, which is actually better, arrives at the school for a gig to teach students about the merits of caring for the environment.
• 30:51
  Phil: Dressed as an Earth mascot, Earthy, he walks into the glass from the other side, but this time, it smashes. In totality.
• 30:58
  Phil: With Bernie and Brad off to the hospital together. Is the… is the gay dog meet-cute we've all been searching for?
• 31:05
  Phil: Of course, dating is never so simple. Hilariousness and awkwardness ensure as our two love dogs face misadventures, mishaps, and missteps, but also flowers, pasta, sandwiches, and maybe even love. In Luke Healy's wonderfully precise yet loose line and careful wit, Dogs on Dates will quickly become your favorite comics rom-com.
• 31:26
  Phil: We have a final order cut off of April 20th, in stores, June 24th, from Drawn and Quarterly.
• 31:36
  Tad Eggleston: Record Journey from Ryoshiro Kazuka.
• 31:40
  Tad Eggleston: Captivating collection of short stories by Riochero Kazuka that explores the quiet, powerful intersections of music, memory, and everyday life. At the heart of these stories is a young woman working in a small record store in Tokyo. Each story introduces a new visitor to the shop, each with a unique past, a specific record in mind, and an emotional thread waiting to be uncovered. As the needle drops, so do the walls between strangers.
• 32:05
  Tad Eggleston: Revealing bittersweet moments, long-lost connections, and the smooth healing of sound. This is from Titan Comics?
• 32:14
  Tad Eggleston: Final order cutoff, April 4th, in stores on April 27th.
• 32:20
  Phil: Because May.
• 32:21
  Tad Eggleston: May 4th, May 27th. May 4th, May 27th, sorry, thank you.
• 32:26
  Phil: That's okay.
• 32:28
  Tad Eggleston: Couple of collections coming out of Node.
• 32:31
  Phil: Of note indeed, first up is Die Loaded Volume 1, Zero Sessions. Die returns for an epic new story of a dark fantasy adventure game gone horrifically right or wonderfully wrong. A year after their return from the hellish game world, the players gather for Chuck's Wake. They've finished with the game, but the game isn't finished with them. The three-time Hugo Award-nominated series from
• 32:55
  Phil: Kieran Gillen and Stephanie Hans is back. Get ready to roll initiative. Who's going to die this time? Collects die loaded 1 through 6, final order cut off March 30th, in stores May 6th from Image Comics.
• 33:08
  Phil: Kieran Gillen and Stephanie Hans, absolutely fantastic. Probably gonna read Issue 4 in between this and when we play Die, later today.
• 33:19
  Tad Eggleston: Where does the Rainbow End? From Francesca Perillo and Stefano Cardicelli. Gilda has been abandoned by her parents, but fortunately, she has been discovered by Cassassi Brothers Robot Dump. And…
• 33:31
  Tad Eggleston: has been raised by the robots who discovered her. She was lucky to be found in the Rainbow Sector by robots that cared for her. However, she has also been shielded from the outside world, other humans, and from a dangerous section of their robot world called the Dark Cage.
• 33:45
  Tad Eggleston: Where the most hostile of robots live. Word has spread of her ability to fix robots, though, and one vicious robot from the Dark Cage wants her to repair all of the violent robots that live there, and nothing will stop him.
• 34:02
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I didn't even realize this is apparently an exciting prequel to their hit, Love Me a Romance Story, which I also adored.
• 34:11
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I guess…
• 34:14
  Tad Eggleston: particularly their stories that involve robots, which is most of them feel like they could be in a world, but I'd never seen it explicitly said that way. So that's kind of cool, too. This is from Mad Cave. Final order cutoff is April 20th, and in stores.
• 34:31
  Tad Eggleston: on May 13th.
• 34:35
  Tad Eggleston: I've been loving this series.
• 34:38
  Tad Eggleston: One of my favorite things on the shelf.
• 34:41
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah. Right. And then…
• 34:42
  Phil: The cover art looks very intriguing, like a little crunchy, familiarity to it, so…
• 34:48
  Tad Eggleston: I gave you your subscription to, to…
• 34:52
  Phil: Yeah, cool.
• 34:53
  Tad Eggleston: global comics. Absolutely, yeah. Mad Cave comes out day and day out.
• 34:57
  Phil: I do, I do remember, I do remember, so I'll just check that out.
• 34:59
  Tad Eggleston: Which is why you also have, like, no excuse for, for, oh, I didn't make it to the comic shop, so I didn't read any new comics this week.
• 35:06
  Phil: That's fair. Oh, man.
• 35:10
  Phil: I did manage to read some new comics.
• 35:12
  Tad Eggleston: I know, I know, I know.
• 35:14
  Phil: But let's come.
• 35:15
  Tad Eggleston: I just meant in a general, general sense.
• 35:17
  Phil: That's a good point.
• 35:18
  Tad Eggleston: You have access to all new Mad Cave releases.
• 35:21
  Phil: Yeah.
• 35:22
  Tad Eggleston: Generally, Maverick as well.
• 35:25
  Phil: That's probably the best… the best part of Global Comics, to be honest, is… is the wealth of Bad Cave to go through.
• 35:31
  Tad Eggleston: Right, and sometimes the Oni is day and date?
• 35:35
  Phil: Oh, okay, I'll have to keep an eye out.
• 35:36
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes the image is day and day, those aren't, like… neither of those are consistent, so I think it's up to the creators.
• 35:45
  Phil: Interesting.
• 35:47
  Tad Eggleston: That sort of thing. So, like…
• 35:50
  Tad Eggleston: You should look at their new releases on Wednesdays. For sure. For that matter, there's a lot of day and date stuff on Hoopla.
• 35:57
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've, I've definitely taken advantage of that here and there.
• 36:01
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So, anyway, some, final order cutoff for this week. Orders due by Monday, March 9th.
• 36:09
  Tad Eggleston: Batman Volume 1, Daylight, from Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez at DC Comics, out on June 2nd. Bizarro, Year None, number 1, from Kevin Smith, Eric Carrasco, and Nick Patara at DC, out on April 1st.
• 36:27
  Tad Eggleston: Breakthrough, Life on the Brink from Christopher Fink at Fanagraphics, out on April 22nd. The complete Charles Dana Gibson, A Widow and Her Friends, Living the Line, out on April 8th. Grandpa from Travis Robermein at Silver Sprocket, out on April 29th. Hide and Seek by Nano Yoshiko at Living the Line, out on April 8th.
• 36:50
  Tad Eggleston: Justice League, Cheetah and Cheshire, Rob the Watchtower.
• 36:54
  Tad Eggleston: From Greg Rucka and Nicholas Scott at DC Comics, out on May 19th. Oddballs Odyssey, a one-shot from Tony Millionaire, out at Bad Idea on April 8th. The Robagu Race by Gresh, out from Uncivilized on April 8th. Space Scouts from Matt Kent and David Rubin, out from Dark Horse on June 9th. That collects one of the… my early favorite series
• 37:19
  Tad Eggleston: of the year. That was fantastic. And then Was That Normal from Alex Potts out from Avery Hill.
• 37:27
  Tad Eggleston: on April 1st.
• 37:30
  Tad Eggleston: We got some, some…
• 37:33
  Tad Eggleston: Pretty impressive, crowdfunding out right now. We have, Slay and the Girlfriend Survives, a double first issue flipbook from Jeremy Whitley, Alex Smith, and Luke Nakashoshoshi at Zoop through March 5th. Check out my conversation with Jeremy from, like, a week and a half ago.
• 37:53
  Tad Eggleston: Inheritance, number 1 by Doug Wood, Brandon Albetski, Travis James on Kickstarter through March 12th. This is… this is one that you put on there, anything?
• 38:02
  Phil: Yeah.
• 38:02
  Tad Eggleston: to say about it?
• 38:03
  Phil: Yeah, so that is, from Doug Wood, who, you know, is a very great guy in the Unique Comics community. It's about, a… a guy who inherits his, I believe his father's supervillain empire.
• 38:17
  Tad Eggleston: You can try it.
• 38:18
  Phil: to do something good with it. So it sounds… sounds pretty interesting, you know? Yeah, go support Doug, he's a good guy.
• 38:24
  Tad Eggleston: These next two are yours, too? You wanna… Yeah, sure. The Hectic Love Lives of the Mythical has, you know, that is sort of a rom-com fantasy.
• 38:33
  Phil: sort of anthology. It's got so many good artists. Laura Helsby, Jawstone, Felhound, Jonah Walker, Len Gogos, Matt H. Taylor, and that's on Backerkit through March 21st.
• 38:46
  Phil: Next up is Even the Stars Will Fall number 1 from Florian Akinmade. So sorry about that pronunciation if it's wrong, and .
• 38:56
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's… I think it's Faloren.
• 38:59
  Phil: for Lauren, thank you. I, I…
• 39:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 39:02
  Phil: I in the wrong place.
• 39:03
  Tad Eggleston: And the O. I did. And the A.
• 39:06
  Phil: Yeah.
• 39:08
  Phil: It's… I clearly haven't had enough copy. And, Bimpei Aliyu and Hassan Atzmin El-Hau, lettering, that's on Kickstarter through March 25th. That, that one I actually heard about in Kieran Gillen's newsletter. It sounds like it's high concept, you know, heady.
• 39:25
  Phil: psychedelic, sci-fi sort of stuff. And it's also totally completed, so the kickstarting is just for the print run.
• 39:34
  Tad Eggleston: Cool, cool.
• 39:34
  Phil: Yeah, so that's always, always good news to… to hear. And then, this.
• 39:38
  Tad Eggleston: And then, yeah, friend of the podcast, Jonathan Bayliss, continues his journey of being the Harvey P. Carr of this generation with so buttons, who's my daddy, and what does he do?
• 39:54
  Tad Eggleston: on Kickstarter through March 28th.
• 39:57
  Tad Eggleston: Wow.
• 39:58
  Tad Eggleston: Big, big time for Humble Bundles. We still have the massive verse from Image Comics, $18 for 24 books to support the book industry charitable Foundation through March 3rd. The Witcher X Cyberpunk 2077 collection from Dark Horse, $16 for 28 books to support Special Effect, a UK charity to help disabled people enjoy video games through March 4th.
• 40:22
  Tad Eggleston: The MBM 50th Anniversary Collection, $18 for 40. Graphic novels to support the Starlight Children's Foundation, delivers happiness to seriously ill children and their families, has been extended to March 5th.
• 40:35
  Tad Eggleston: Terry Pratchett's Discworld, $16 for 36 novels. HFC, is a group to care for families impacted by Alzheimer's. This is through March 10th. The Indie Comics United, a super bundle of awesome stuff, and it truly is a super bundle of awesome stuff.
• 40:54
  Tad Eggleston: $18 for 60 items.
• 40:58
  Tad Eggleston: to fund the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund through March 12th.
• 41:01
  Tad Eggleston: Ultimate Top Cow Science Fiction and Fantasy Comics. $18 for 41 items for the Book Industry Charitable Foundation through March 13th.
• 41:10
  Tad Eggleston: Dive into Vertigo, a bunch of Vertigo… Historic Vertigo Volume 1s. $18 for 26 items, a book industry charitable fund through March 20th, and the one that really caught my eye that just started, Protest Power Zines and Lits.
• 41:27
  Tad Eggleston: from Michael Krausum Publishing, $18 for 38 items, proceeds
• 41:33
  Tad Eggleston: will benefit the ACLU, or some of the proceeds will benefit the ACLU. That's available through March 20th.
• 41:45
  Phil: That's a lot, that's a lot. That's a big section now.
• 41:47
  Tad Eggleston: Eight of them. Eight of them this time.
• 41:49
  Tad Eggleston: 3 amazing books this week. This was a tough one. There were a lot of good books this week. But I am going with… and… and this, this is an example of you, you have…
• 42:04
  Tad Eggleston: Global Comics, so if you haven't read this one, you should…
• 42:09
  Phil: I… it's looked very…
• 42:10
  Tad Eggleston: Right after the Power Fantasy.
• 42:12
  Phil: Yeah, there we go.
• 42:14
  Tad Eggleston: I would actually argue right before the power fantasy, but I know how much you love The Power Fantasy.
• 42:18
  Phil: Oh, I read that one already, so we don't have to…
• 42:20
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, right after die, but I would, I would actually… argue right before die, but…
• 42:26
  Phil: Okay, alright.
• 42:30
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah, is Ted OK from Dave Chisholm and Mad Cave? I don't even want to say anything about this. If you… other than the fact that, like, I have many, many times said that Dave Chisholm is…
• 42:42
  Phil: Oh, yeah.
• 42:43
  Tad Eggleston: Like, among the best… Artists and comics right now.
• 42:49
  Tad Eggleston: This is just… A weird and wonderful story that,
• 42:58
  Tad Eggleston: Curious to see where it goes. Apparently, like, in the writing at the end, he, he,
• 43:06
  Tad Eggleston: he said that he got approved for oversized issues for everything, so I think it's, like, 28, 40, 40, 40.
• 43:15
  Phil: Wow.
• 43:17
  Phil: I do, I do like big issues, that's for sure.
• 43:19
  Phil: I will also say, I don't think I will ever be able to read the title of the series as anything but is Tad Okay?
• 43:27
  Tad Eggleston: And… I get it. Yeah, no, and like, I can't emphasize enough how good it had to be to put the next two in the 2 and 3 spots.
• 43:40
  Phil: Yeah, wow, I didn't even…
• 43:41
  Tad Eggleston: We had the peril of the brutal dark.
• 43:43
  Tad Eggleston: An Ezra Kane Mystery number 1 from Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips at DC Vertigo.
• 43:49
  Tad Eggleston: I… love.
• 43:51
  Tad Eggleston: Brutal dark.
• 43:53
  Tad Eggleston: and Ezra Kane. Like, they started this…
• 43:59
  Tad Eggleston: on their Patreon, when… when pencils went down on That Texas Blood, and, like, one of the frustrating things about how successful they have been for all of this time in between is that, like, there have been a couple installments and, like, nothing more for ages.
• 44:20
  Tad Eggleston: So I'm so happy that this is being shared with the world now.
• 44:27
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't even gone back to look at the Patreon installments and figure out if they're actually the same story, or if they're.
• 44:33
  Phil: Different story. I know that they have a number of things.
• 44:38
  Tad Eggleston: Percolating in this world?
• 44:42
  Tad Eggleston: And, and, yeah, they came out running. And then,
• 44:46
  Tad Eggleston: Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man, number 3, from Mike Mignola and Jesse Lonergan at Dark Horse.
• 44:53
  Tad Eggleston: like… I love that Jesse goes back.
• 44:58
  Tad Eggleston: I love that Jesse goes back and forth between
• 45:02
  Tad Eggleston: doing his own stuff, and working with other people, and he seems pretty good at finding people that he works well with.
• 45:08
  Phil: 50.
• 45:09
  Tad Eggleston: The… the only…
• 45:13
  Tad Eggleston: The only person that he works so well with that it gives, like, his solo comics a run for their money in terms of…
• 45:21
  Tad Eggleston: How good the… It is Mike and Yoli.
• 45:27
  Tad Eggleston: And I say that with all respect to Porn Sack Peacht Show, because… because, I can't remember that.
• 45:35
  Phil: Man's bad?
• 45:35
  Tad Eggleston: Men's Best was… was outstanding.
• 45:40
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and again, like, I say this really with all due respect to everybody he works with, but… but, like, Drone is such a special book, like, Hedra and some of his other stuff are just such special books.
• 45:57
  Phil: Oh, yeah.
• 45:57
  Tad Eggleston: To, to really approach those…
• 46:04
  Tad Eggleston: Take something else, and miss Truesdale continues to be one of those… those something-elses.
• 46:11
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah.
• 46:13
  Tad Eggleston: That's how good his TED OK is.
• 46:16
  Phil: Oh, good offline.
• 46:16
  Tad Eggleston: Three of those are Absolute Martian Manhunter, Absolute Wonder Woman, Barbaric, Power Fantasy, Red Book, Save Now, Temporal, Uncle Scrooge, and Wrestle Heist.
• 46:27
  Phil: Yeah, that's a pretty.
• 46:28
  Tad Eggleston: Are my honorable mentions.
• 46:30
  Phil: Damn, yeah.
• 46:32
  Tad Eggleston: How often do I feel the need to read the titles of ALL?
• 46:38
  Phil: Oh my god.
• 46:38
  Tad Eggleston: Honorable mentions.
• 46:39
  Phil: I think it's been a while since you've called out all the honorable mentions, because yeah, that really does…
• 46:44
  Tad Eggleston: No, I generally feel comfortable just listing a couple that were…
• 46:48
  Tad Eggleston: in the running, but like… Yeah.
• 46:50
  Phil: It's…
• 46:51
  Tad Eggleston: A couple of these I haven't read yet, but I know that they belong seriously in the running.
• 46:55
  Phil: Naturally, yeah, yeah. I mean, I… again, While we do.
• 47:00
  Tad Eggleston: And, and like…
• 47:01
  Phil: different taste. All of these, yeah, I'm like, oh yeah, I would expect to see any of these in your top three any given week.
• 47:06
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, if I had to… if we were a top 4 rather than a top 3…
• 47:12
  Phil: Whew.
• 47:13
  Tad Eggleston: It was actually an easy list to make this week, because that's how far the top three…
• 47:18
  Phil: Wow.
• 47:18
  Tad Eggleston: are above everything else.
• 47:21
  Tad Eggleston: But if we… I mean, choosing an order for the top… well, choosing an order between Brutal Dark and Miss Truesdale was hard.
• 47:28
  Tad Eggleston: Is Ted OK won the week for me.
• 47:33
  Tad Eggleston: But, like… Choosing a fourth?
• 47:39
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's, like, hilarious, but, like…
• 47:47
  Tad Eggleston: The easiest one to cross off the list, just because it's not generally my huge cup of tea, as beautiful as is, would be Redbook.
• 47:55
  Phil: Mmm, okay.
• 47:56
  Tad Eggleston: And then it'd get a lot harder. I see.
• 48:01
  Phil: Yeah, still, it's pretty… pretty hard to narrow down from, what, 9 different… 9 different books?
• 48:09
  Phil: That's quite…
• 48:09
  Tad Eggleston: It would get, like, a lot, lot harder.
• 48:12
  Phil: Yeah.
• 48:13
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Russell Heist 3 was amazing. Absolute Marsh Manhunter 9 was amazing.
• 48:21
  Phil: That's been, like, your… the number one for most of the times it came out. I was a little surprised it didn't hit it again.
• 48:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 48:28
  Tad Eggleston: See, it has had the advantage of many of the weeks that it comes out. Right. It's the 2-4.
• 48:34
  Phil: Right, right, right, the assorted crisis… And when you have both absolute… Yay!
• 48:38
  Tad Eggleston: Manhunter, AND!
• 48:41
  Tad Eggleston: assorted crisis events come out together.
• 48:44
  Phil: Right, yeah, that's a… Talk about… talk about your double features there, that's… that's a… that's a good sign.
• 48:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, to a certain extent, it gets the one spot because, like.
• 48:55
  Tad Eggleston: Otherwise, it's gonna take 2 of the top three spots, no matter what, so… Right, right, right. Like, like, I decide to give it the one spot because I had to complain it.
• 49:06
  Phil: That's the, the acceptable and beneficial double-dipping, that's for sure. Right. Yeah.
• 49:12
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, it was a really, really, really fantastic week in comics.
• 49:17
  Tad Eggleston: And you could have read
• 49:21
  Tad Eggleston: It… is TED OK and temporal?
• 49:23
  Tad Eggleston: They were both on Global Conference.
• 49:26
  Phil: So, yeah, I should go, I should go.
• 49:28
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, frankly, as many amazing things are on Global Comics, like, they are worth the monthly subscription just for Mad Cave.
• 49:36
  Phil: Oh, yeah, easily. Like, being able to have Mad Cave at your fingertips digitally is, yeah, well worth the.
• 49:43
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, between having the Mad Cave catalog and having the day and date on Mad Cave…
• 49:48
  Phil: Right, right.
• 49:51
  Tad Eggleston: Global Comics is a steal, just for Mad Cave.
• 49:55
  Phil: That's for sure. That is for sure. And there's tons of other stuff on there, too.
• 49:59
  Tad Eggleston: Now, that being said.
• 50:01
  Tad Eggleston: since, like, Mad Cave gets a cut based on how much you read, and I'm not encouraging you to stop reading on Global Comics when you're done with the Mad Cave. If you really like it from Mad Cave, make certain you're buying it in some way, or supporting the artist's Patreons, or whatever, because this is some really phenomenal work, and Mad Cave seems to have a sound business strategy, but…
• 50:24
  Tad Eggleston: Nobody in comics is getting rich, and if you wanna, like…
• 50:29
  Tad Eggleston: Really, really make certain that you continue to get the stuff that you love.
• 50:34
  Tad Eggleston: You gotta find the ways to support the creators as you're able. As you're able. Obviously, those of you who are paraprofessionals don't need to spend what I spend, but those of you who are, like…
• 50:48
  Tad Eggleston: Executives or whatever.
• 50:50
  Phil: Right.
• 50:52
  Phil: Toss it, also…
• 50:53
  Tad Eggleston: 100 bucks a month towards your comics habits. Do it in a targeted way to the people that you really care about their stuff.
• 51:01
  Phil: The more directly you can get the money to the creatives, the bigger impact it has, too, for sure. I'd also say that sometimes that support can be as easy as just telling people about a series they.
• 51:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Word of mouth is amazingly important, too. I'm just thinking.
• 51:18
  Phil: Oh, yeah!
• 51:19
  Tad Eggleston: Like, how much would the industry change?
• 51:22
  Tad Eggleston: If every time somebody decided to spend more than $100 on a comic, they very targetedly tried to match that
• 51:34
  Tad Eggleston: indirect Patreon, Ko-Fi, whatever, payments to…
• 51:41
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly the younger artists, or the less established artists, or sometimes even the person whose artwork they just bought.
• 51:49
  Phil: Right, right, yeah, or as well as…
• 51:51
  Tad Eggleston: They didn't buy it from the person.
• 51:53
  Phil: Right, those sorts of things. And the other one I'd point out, and I actually did this yesterday, was, if there's a book that you love.
• 52:00
  Phil: check with your local library. If they don't have an.
• 52:03
  Tad Eggleston: Make sure whom they have it.
• 52:04
  Phil: put in a purchase? I did that for reversal, just yesterday. I was like, oh, we don't have a physical copy.
• 52:09
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:09
  Phil: at the Nashville Library, purchase request. They would be stupid not to buy it, you know? Seriously, when I worked there, there… I could think of at least a dozen kids that would eat this book up. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 52:22
  Phil: So, it's… yeah, it's a great way where I'm like, man, if only I could… if I could support the s'more, get… throw that library money at them.
• 52:30
  Tad Eggleston: You know, when and where you can.
• 52:34
  Tad Eggleston: Anyway, Phil, you wanna take a walk?
• 52:36
  Phil: Sure.
• 52:38
  Phil: As I encourage the throwing of library money, I contemplate… contemplate so many things. I did read, you know, the one… well, not the one new comic, because I did… I did read some manga, but…
• 52:51
  Phil: The big one for me this week was Power of Fantasy XVI. It was delightful, incredible,
• 52:59
  Phil: don't want to say too much more than that, because it's… as with so many issues of The Power of Fantasy, it was an absolute game-changer of an issue. Still gotta read those other couple ones, but I did pick up, Die Loaded and Bleeding Hearts. I'm excited for Bleeding Hearts, having recently reread,
• 53:16
  Phil: 20th century men, so… That one is, you know, I am ready to be…
• 53:23
  Phil: beyond pumped for another, Dennis Camp series. Speaking of camp, we actually just talked to Alex DeCampi, about reversal and Dan Dare… Dan Dare, I don't know why I said that word, Dan Dare. And, you know, lots of other fun comics-related stuff, creativity, all that jazz.
• 53:41
  Tad Eggleston: Don't forget medieval politics.
• 53:42
  Phil: And medieval politics and the, impact of,
• 53:49
  Tad Eggleston: Christianity becoming a state religion.
• 53:51
  Phil: Yes, yes, I was trying to figure out, yeah, Christianity becoming a state religion and shifting.
• 53:55
  Tad Eggleston: Makes it much harder.
• 53:56
  Phil: murder.
• 53:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it makes it much, much harder for it to.
• 53:59
  Phil: be a release.
• 53:59
  Tad Eggleston: To be the peaceful religion that it was originally designed to be.
• 54:05
  Phil: Exactly, yeah. That was a great little, little info dump nugget.
• 54:09
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is… this is one of the reasons that I love talking to Alex.
• 54:13
  Phil: Yeah!
• 54:14
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. You know, and I felt like I was full of myself on one level when I was saying at the end that, like.
• 54:21
  Tad Eggleston: almost every room I walk into, I feel like I'm among the smartest people in it, except… but it's stuff like that, like, the making… the making the crazy different connections. That's the sort of thing that I'm used to being the person in the room that goes, hey, look at it from this angle.
• 54:37
  Phil: Yep, I know what you mean.
• 54:38
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, like, I try not to be big-headed when I say I'm a smart guy, like, and my intelligence is a very specific intelligence. I'm very good with logic, and I'm very good at taking things that don't particularly look like they're
• 54:54
  Tad Eggleston: Completely tied together, and showing you how they inform each other.
• 55:01
  Tad Eggleston: Or, you know, at the very least inform each other, and sometimes are explicitly tied. Right, right. You know.
• 55:07
  Phil: You've definitely made some… some fascinating connections, you know, it's one of the reasons… So this… this is why I…
• 55:15
  Tad Eggleston: love!
• 55:16
  Tad Eggleston: talking to Alex DeCampi, because she's one of the few people
• 55:22
  Tad Eggleston: that I talk to, that almost every time I talk to, does something like that for me.
• 55:28
  Phil: That's… that's, that's such a wonderful.
• 55:30
  Tad Eggleston: Where I sit there going, oh, I have never…
• 55:34
  Tad Eggleston: Looked at it from that angle.
• 55:37
  Tad Eggleston: That's fascinating, I need to read more, I need to… I'm really frustrated that there's not an audiobook of chivalry, which means I need to find time to actually read it in prose.
• 55:50
  Phil: There you go.
• 55:52
  Tad Eggleston: I wasn't kidding when I said I will likely start a love story this week. I might even start it today in my free time playing video games between podcasts.
• 56:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Because, like, listening to audiobooks or podcasts while I play video games is…
• 56:10
  Tad Eggleston: really common. It's always audiobooks in the car.
• 56:13
  Phil: I was gonna say, at that…
• 56:15
  Tad Eggleston: But when I'm playing baseball, I… like, the only… Well, I mean, I don't hate them, but… but they get repetitive, because there's only so much they can program. There are a couple of lines that are just dumb, that have been in multiple years' worth.
• 56:33
  Phil: That sounds likely.
• 56:35
  Tad Eggleston: And…
• 56:40
  Tad Eggleston: The only, the only real disadvantage to not having the sound is I'm not as good at throwing out bass stealers. But I pitch well enough.
• 56:48
  Tad Eggleston: That it doesn't matter.
• 56:50
  Phil: Yeah.
• 56:51
  Tad Eggleston: You know, because, like, I can't focus on pitching and the box with the guy breaking, so often managing to throw out the baserunner has everything to hear with the… everything to do with hearing the audio saying that he's going.
• 57:06
  Phil: Right, right.
• 57:06
  Tad Eggleston: But that's, like, the only thing. I mean, I kind of wish that there was something to turn on where there was some sort of visual cue.
• 57:14
  Phil: Hmm. Other than the box.
• 57:17
  Tad Eggleston: Other… well, other than the box that's not where you're looking when you're pitching.
• 57:21
  Phil: Yeah.
• 57:22
  Tad Eggleston: You know, the box is up in the corner.
• 57:25
  Tad Eggleston: And the strike zone's down here.
• 57:27
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:28
  Tad Eggleston: You're controlling your cursor in the strike zone.
• 57:32
  Phil: Right. It's almost like you need eyes in the back of your head or something. Right, or, like, ridiculously good peripheral vision. Yeah…
• 57:41
  Tad Eggleston: Even while seriously focusing your hand-eye coordination in front of you. I mean, sometimes, when there's a… a real threat to steal on first, I find myself just throwing down to second every play. But the downside of that is every throw you make is a risk.
• 57:58
  Phil: Yeah.
• 57:59
  Tad Eggleston: of an error.
• 58:00
  Phil: Oh, yeah.
• 58:01
  Tad Eggleston: throw down, and he's not stealing, and it goes into center, I just gave him second. I might as well let him steal second.
• 58:09
  Tad Eggleston: It makes it… it makes it less likely that he winds up on third.
• 58:15
  Tad Eggleston: But, I'm really good at striking out batters, so it doesn't matter a ton.
• 58:20
  Phil: There you go.
• 58:21
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah.
• 58:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 58:25
  Phil: I can imagine why.
• 58:26
  Phil: or, audiobooks going well with that. Yeah, I… I… if there's, a game where I'm grinding, I'll do that sometimes. You know, if I'm just… just mindlessly beating the same enemies to level up. And that's the last little point. This is… I… I have… this is my, quiet, I don't know how long it's gonna last return to, pulling a superhero book. I, I pre-ordered,
• 58:50
  Phil: Greg Rucka and Danny's Batwoman number one. Of course, that was the day before the Paran Mount news broke, so it's like, I hope this… I hope this lasts. I… it's funny because…
• 59:03
  Phil: I had to justify it to myself of, like, well, you're not gonna… it's kind of like a replacement, because I had all of the issues of his Detective Comics wrong with J.H. Williams, but I gave them to a friend, and never got them back, and then.
• 59:16
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 59:16
  Phil: the J.H. Williams series was…
• 59:19
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 59:19
  Phil: unceremoniously canceled, so now I'm like, you know what? I hope we can get a good, solid, happy, healthy, complete run out of this, instead of a.
• 59:29
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, again, this is where I go back to…
• 59:35
  Tad Eggleston: With the exception of when they can use it for tax write-offs.
• 59:39
  Phil: Yeah…
• 59:39
  Tad Eggleston: like… It's surprising how little…
• 59:46
  Tad Eggleston: Most of the billionaire class messes with…
• 59:51
  Tad Eggleston: the arts. It's almost like they realize two things. First, it's a useful foil.
• 59:56
  Phil: And second…
• 1:00:02
  Tad Eggleston: it's… Not actually a great thing to start getting called out directly by artists.
• 1:00:13
  Phil: Yep.
• 1:00:13
  Tad Eggleston: Best way to keep them from doing that?
• 1:00:16
  Tad Eggleston: Is to leave them alone and let them do their thing.
• 1:00:20
  Tad Eggleston: Some of them will still notice you and call you out, right?
• 1:00:24
  Tad Eggleston: But… but, like, not everybody is wired in. Not everybody wants to be wired in. Not everybody, even if they are wired in, has the energy to take on every injustice in the world, particularly when it involves the people who are keeping roofs over their head.
• 1:00:40
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:00:41
  Phil: You know, it's just… it's one of those things where…
• 1:00:46
  Phil: I mean, it… at least this situation has been.
• 1:00:50
  Tad Eggleston: No, I know. But honestly, I think it's way more likely
• 1:00:54
  Tad Eggleston: that they wind up giving Ethan Van Skeiver and some other idiot some completely right-wing title that's only barely connected to the DC Universe.
• 1:01:05
  Phil: Hmm.
• 1:01:07
  Tad Eggleston: And that they cancel anything.
• 1:01:09
  Phil: Yeah, and like… That also, like, both.
• 1:01:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, that's horrible! That's horrible. I'm not saying that's good.
• 1:01:18
  Phil: No, no, no, I didn't think so. I didn't think so at all. It was just one of those, even framed as, like, the lesser of two evils, I still had trouble accepting it, you know?
• 1:01:28
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I don't know that it's the lesser of two evils. I said I think it's the more likely of two evils.
• 1:01:35
  Phil: I do… I do unfortunately… I mean, it's… yeah, there were… I already saw a few speculative jokes on, like, alright, these people are coming back to DC.
• 1:01:42
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I mean, it's not… it's not the lesser of two evils, it's the…
• 1:01:48
  Phil: It's the more likely of two evils.
• 1:01:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, like…
• 1:01:53
  Tad Eggleston: Silencing people doesn't help them with the idea that the idiots who are horrible are just…
• 1:02:01
  Tad Eggleston: Practicing their free speech.
• 1:02:05
  Phil: I mean…
• 1:02:06
  Tad Eggleston: Giving the idiots who are horrible a platform helps them with the idea that the idiots who are horrible are just practicing their free speech.
• 1:02:14
  Phil: Yes, but that's… oddly enough, I do… they do… they do still silence the voices they don't like, though, so that's… that's the…
• 1:02:21
  Tad Eggleston: Part of the issue I have with… I mean, sometimes, but, but, like…
• 1:02:25
  Tad Eggleston: I cannot emphasize enough how much I think that, A,
• 1:02:31
  Tad Eggleston: we sometimes blow that out of proportion, and B, when we're talking about that.
• 1:02:38
  Tad Eggleston: The ones that actually get silenced…
• 1:02:41
  Tad Eggleston: Are the ones where there are a significant number of people
• 1:02:45
  Tad Eggleston: On the left who are pissed off.
• 1:02:49
  Phil: Mmm.
• 1:02:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, just think about the fact that
• 1:02:54
  Tad Eggleston: the most recent one that we've had a discussion on, and I don't… I don't wanna, like…
• 1:03:00
  Phil: Sure, sure.
• 1:03:00
  Tad Eggleston: Use names, because, oh, we're done with, and let's not…
• 1:03:04
  Phil: Right, right, right, right, right.
• 1:03:05
  Tad Eggleston: You and I disagreed vehemently.
• 1:03:08
  Phil: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:09
  Tad Eggleston: And that's why they can get away with it? That's why they almost have to do it.
• 1:03:14
  Phil: Okay. It's interesting because…
• 1:03:15
  Tad Eggleston: I wouldn't have been happy.
• 1:03:17
  Phil: Right, right, right.
• 1:03:18
  Tad Eggleston: I wouldn't have, like, boycotted DC, but I would not have been happy if they'd kept that writer.
• 1:03:25
  Phil: And I guess what I'm thinking of more are, like, book bannings.
• 1:03:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but that's… that's a whole different thing. It is.
• 1:03:34
  Phil: It is.
• 1:03:35
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, particularly because, I mean.
• 1:03:38
  Tad Eggleston: The number of times that, like, you'll find out that, like, the guy funding… The book banning campaign also…
• 1:03:49
  Tad Eggleston: Is an owner of the publisher of the book.
• 1:03:53
  Phil: is really ridiculous. Yeah.
• 1:03:56
  Phil: That's for sure.
• 1:03:58
  Tad Eggleston: They're not a… like… Keeping it out of your library or your classroom is a political move.
• 1:04:06
  Phil: Right, right. As opposed to a businessman.
• 1:04:08
  Tad Eggleston: Publishing it is a business move.
• 1:04:11
  Phil: Right, right, right.
• 1:04:12
  Tad Eggleston: And for that matter, they know
• 1:04:15
  Tad Eggleston: Like, even from a business standpoint.
• 1:04:18
  Tad Eggleston: If you ban it in Alabama.
• 1:04:21
  Tad Eggleston: How many California libraries that didn't have it yet are gonna buy it?
• 1:04:25
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:04:28
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:04:29
  Tad Eggleston: If you ban it in Ohio, how many New York libraries that didn't have it yet are gonna buy it?
• 1:04:36
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:04:39
  Tad Eggleston: Nope.
• 1:04:39
  Tad Eggleston: Look at the number of libraries that expanded their online digital offerings to…
• 1:04:48
  Tad Eggleston: Kids in red states, which means that they had to pay…
• 1:04:51
  Phil: Or for their.
• 1:04:52
  Tad Eggleston: digital offerings.
• 1:04:53
  Phil: Yep, yep.
• 1:04:54
  Tad Eggleston: Like, so from a business standpoint.
• 1:04:57
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:04:59
  Tad Eggleston: If you're not the creator, Bans aren't necessarily bad for business.
• 1:05:07
  Tad Eggleston: They can often be horrible for the creator, but if they wind up being horrible for the creator, like, the creator probably wasn't making any money for you anyway.
• 1:05:18
  Phil: Interesting.
• 1:05:19
  Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I think so. The books… the books that we get upset about are the ones that actually sell, and then get talked about being banned.
• 1:05:28
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:05:29
  Tad Eggleston: How often do we even notice the book that we didn't know before that's on the banned list?
• 1:05:36
  Phil: That's true. That's a good point.
• 1:05:39
  Phil: But I guess… I guess that's kind of… I think… I think what it's coming down to is that… is that, you know, you're… you're of the attitude of, like, alright, yeah, this is bad, but…
• 1:05:48
  Phil: you know, trying to look for silver linings, or wait and see. Oh!
• 1:05:51
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, please don't take it that way.
• 1:05:55
  Phil: Okay.
• 1:06:01
  Tad Eggleston: Please, please don't take it that way.
• 1:06:05
  Tad Eggleston: like, and I'm now hoping that I kept the notes for last week, because I hadn't changed the title, and normally I do that when I make the copy, so I'm wondering if I copied, or I'll figure that out later.
• 1:06:17
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:06:19
  Tad Eggleston: But, but anyway, no, this is not silver lining, it's understanding motivations.
• 1:06:26
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:06:27
  Phil: Yeah, and I guess… Yeah.
• 1:06:31
  Phil: I literally…
• 1:06:32
  Tad Eggleston: Understanding motivations. The culture war is a useful puppet For the oligarchs.
• 1:06:42
  Phil: Yeah, and I guess it's… it's…
• 1:06:45
  Tad Eggleston: The problem with this, the problem with this is not that Paramount beat out Netflix.
• 1:06:53
  Tad Eggleston: Don't get me wrong, Paramount beating out Netflix is the worst-case scenario.
• 1:06:57
  Phil: Right, right.
• 1:06:58
  Tad Eggleston: But the problem with this… is that…
• 1:07:02
  Tad Eggleston: We have a nation that allows this merger to happen.
• 1:07:05
  Tad Eggleston: Period.
• 1:07:07
  Phil: That's a good point, you know, that's certainly losing the forest for the trees, without keeping that in mind.
• 1:07:13
  Phil: That this… yeah, you're right, this is something that should never even be on the table in the first place.
• 1:07:18
  Phil: And yeah.
• 1:07:19
  Tad Eggleston: Neither should the Paramount… Skydance merger. Neither should the Warner Discovery merger.
• 1:07:25
  Phil: Yeah… Yeah, and then…
• 1:07:29
  Tad Eggleston: Capitalism doesn't work without competition. It ceases to be capitalism.
• 1:07:34
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:07:35
  Tad Eggleston: without competition.
• 1:07:37
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:07:39
  Tad Eggleston: And if we're trying to make any argument for capitalism being part of democracy, and I think there is one.
• 1:07:47
  Tad Eggleston: It needs to be a balanced capitalism. And what we have right now is barely capitalism.
• 1:07:56
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:07:56
  Tad Eggleston: And certainly not balanced. All of this is the trickle down from allowing way too much corporate consolidation.
• 1:08:06
  Phil: Yeah, and it's… I guess the… what I am imminently worried about is that the corporate consolidation has made it easier for, like, a state-based fascist propaganda machine.
• 1:08:20
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, again, the ship has sailed. Look at CBS, look at Fox. Yeah, yeah, no. Well, it's, it's, I guess… I mean, yes, it does. I know it's already been there. But it's getting…
• 1:08:30
  Tad Eggleston: No, that's… absolutely, absolutely, but… but, like…
• 1:08:33
  Tad Eggleston: If I don't seem as upset or whatever, it's because I was angry 3 years ago.
• 1:08:41
  Tad Eggleston: Or 5 years ago, or 10 years ago. And it's like, yes, that thing that some of us have been saying was gonna happen has happened. It's like, it's like, oh, you voted for the leopards Ripping Faces Off party.
• 1:08:57
  Tad Eggleston: And now a leopard has ripped your face off.
• 1:08:59
  Phil: We're… we're… I mean, it's… it's… we're… we're… we're past that, even. I guess it's… it's more of, like.
• 1:09:07
  Phil: It's hard to… I mean… It's… it's also, yeah, it's just… it's tough. It's tough to keep.
• 1:09:16
  Tad Eggleston: It is!
• 1:09:16
  Phil: keep things… Framed, because, yeah, because it's also… yeah, it's… It is. Yeah. Right.
• 1:09:23
  Tad Eggleston: And that's also… that's also part of the point.
• 1:09:26
  Phil: Yeah, that's for sure.
• 1:09:27
  Tad Eggleston: It's the Steve Bannon flood the zone with shit.
• 1:09:30
  Phil: Yeah… yeah.
• 1:09:31
  Tad Eggleston: Which, I mean, I cannot tell you how much I am completely frustrated at the fact.
• 1:09:39
  Phil: that the Democrats.
• 1:09:40
  Tad Eggleston: Didn't learn that lesson.
• 1:09:44
  Tad Eggleston: Because there is an obvious
• 1:09:48
  Tad Eggleston: counter to the flood zone with shit. I can't guarantee that it would work, because I've never seen it… I've never seen it tried.
• 1:09:55
  Phil: Right, right.
• 1:09:55
  Tad Eggleston: But, but it's called… Flood the zone with good stuff.
• 1:10:00
  Tad Eggleston: Flood the zone with truth.
• 1:10:03
  Tad Eggleston: Don't pick one thing and stay on message.
• 1:10:09
  Phil: I mean…
• 1:10:09
  Tad Eggleston: Don't just respond to them. Assume that your audience can handle multiple things, and just…
• 1:10:18
  Tad Eggleston: Why didn't people believe the economy was good under Biden? Because we didn't actually flood them with info.
• 1:10:24
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:10:25
  Tad Eggleston: We would pound on one thing that wasn't directly related to their lives.
• 1:10:32
  Phil: Well, I… not to get us into too deep a tangent, but, like, I think part of the thing there is that when the economy is doing well, typically it's doing well for rich people, and still in Biden's administration, we were feeling those rich people try to squeeze out the small gains that…
• 1:10:51
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 1:10:51
  Phil: That labor and work.
• 1:10:52
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:10:53
  Phil: people had made. And did the Democrats flood the zone with any of that? No, they… well, they… not only did they not flood the zone with any of that, I don't think they wanted to…
• 1:11:01
  Tad Eggleston: They carried water, fish.
• 1:11:02
  Phil: back again. Yeah, exactly. They didn't want to push back, they didn't want to increase the… I know. Yeah. So that's the issue. The issue, the issue for me, I'm at the point where I'm pissed at the Democrats because
• 1:11:12
  Phil: Them being… the party that doesn't do anything has been too true For… for too long.
• 1:11:18
  Tad Eggleston: I mean… Like…
• 1:11:22
  Phil: I know they didn't… I know they did stuff, you know.
• 1:11:24
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, no, I wasn't even going there.
• 1:11:26
  Phil: Oh, sorry, go ahead.
• 1:11:27
  Tad Eggleston: gonna go there. Yeah. Because it's close enough to true.
• 1:11:32
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:11:33
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, they've pulled off a lot of important things, but even those things, they haven't managed to take credit for.
• 1:11:38
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:11:40
  Tad Eggleston: Or they're behind-the-scenes things, because so much of government, you shouldn't notice the victories.
• 1:11:47
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:11:48
  Tad Eggleston: Which is why you need to talk about them.
• 1:11:52
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:11:54
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, Really, the problem is, every billionaire is a policy failure.
• 1:12:01
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:12:01
  Tad Eggleston: And now we have multiple hundred billionaires.
• 1:12:06
  Phil: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:08
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I don't know if you're old enough to remember, like…
• 1:12:12
  Tad Eggleston: Bill Gates was almost the first 100 billionaire. He was worth, like, $96, $98 billion something. You know what he did when he got to that point?
• 1:12:21
  Phil: You started giving away a ton to charity?
• 1:12:23
  Tad Eggleston: He started the Gates Foundation, and he literally, overnight, cut his wealth in half.
• 1:12:29
  Phil: Okay, yeah.
• 1:12:32
  Tad Eggleston: He started the Gates Foundation with.
• 1:12:36
  Tad Eggleston: His overall wealth.
• 1:12:38
  Phil: Wow.
• 1:12:41
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm not saying that that was a great thing, either.
• 1:12:44
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:12:45
  Tad Eggleston: But that's certainly not what's happening now.
• 1:12:47
  Phil: No, absolutely not. Yeah, that's… that is for sure.
• 1:12:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, people are talking about Elon Musk becoming the first Billionaire.
• 1:12:54
  Phil: Which is disgusting, on multiple levels.
• 1:12:57
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:12:58
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:13:00
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:13:01
  Tad Eggleston: And when you've got that kind of money.
• 1:13:06
  Tad Eggleston: like…
• 1:13:07
  Phil: Facetiously, I'm wondering, how much worse can the rich man brain rot get? From billionaire to trillionaire?
• 1:13:17
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, think about the difference between a comfortable millionaire and a billionaire.
• 1:13:25
  Tad Eggleston: In terms of understanding…
• 1:13:28
  Phil: Scale, power, influence.
• 1:13:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. What it means to work for a living.
• 1:13:33
  Phil: That too.
• 1:13:37
  Tad Eggleston: You know…
• 1:13:38
  Phil: It's pretty wild to…
• 1:13:39
  Tad Eggleston: My most common… defense… Or at least explanation for some of the bad actors in comics.
• 1:13:49
  Tad Eggleston: It's been, look, I don't know that they completely understand the position of power they're in.
• 1:13:56
  Tad Eggleston: And that's because, in general, we don't even have millionaires in comics.
• 1:14:01
  Tad Eggleston: Much less billionaires.
• 1:14:06
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so, so, like…
• 1:14:11
  Tad Eggleston: It's easy for a lot of people, including probably some of the bad actors in comics, to look at Harvey Weinstein and go.
• 1:14:19
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, wow, that's horrible. He controls their entire life, and not realize that they have control over people's lives, too.
• 1:14:28
  Tad Eggleston: Because they're struggling on their own. I mean, it's the white privilege thing, where it's like, you think I have white privilege? I've got X number of dollars of debt.
• 1:14:39
  Phil: Sure, sure.
• 1:14:40
  Tad Eggleston: Oh…
• 1:14:40
  Phil: Yeah, I mean, that's…
• 1:14:43
  Tad Eggleston: But that's where, like, and I say this without wanting to stop Me Too, without wanting to stop any of those things, is that, like.
• 1:14:53
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes the harder we go on the culture wars, the more we cannibalize ourselves.
• 1:14:59
  Phil: I mean, so…
• 1:15:02
  Tad Eggleston: And Phil, it's important. I am not saying that we need to stop.
• 1:15:08
  Tad Eggleston: But we also need to be a lot better at noticing when the other side is taking our morality and using it against us.
• 1:15:19
  Phil: I guess, is there a specific example you're thinking of, like, for this.
• 1:15:23
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, the easy one is always Al Franken.
• 1:15:26
  Phil: Okay, yeah, yeah. Well, I was just wondering about comics specifically.
• 1:15:31
  Tad Eggleston: Well, no, no, I'm not actually saying, in terms of comics, that I think anybody shouldn't have been…
• 1:15:38
  Tad Eggleston: canceled, but I think getting…
• 1:15:40
  Tad Eggleston: getting as worked up about it, and or defending the person who did something heinous…
• 1:15:49
  Tad Eggleston: But… something that we liked that was heinous…
• 1:15:53
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is… this is why I dis… this is the… the biggest reason that I disagree with you on the recent DC writer.
• 1:16:00
  Tad Eggleston: is that… If… That had been something…
• 1:16:07
  Tad Eggleston: that we didn't like. If it had been involving somebody that we didn't like.
• 1:16:12
  Tad Eggleston: Nobody would have been arguing that it was a bad decision.
• 1:16:20
  Tad Eggleston: Or, I'm sorry, if it had been referring to somebody that we liked, rather than somebody we didn't like.
• 1:16:25
  Phil: church.
• 1:16:25
  Tad Eggleston: Nobody, nobody would have been arguing that was a bad decision. If that… if that comment had been made about
• 1:16:32
  Tad Eggleston: the Salman Rushdie incident, people would have been calling through the writer's head.
• 1:16:38
  Phil: And I guess… I guess, for me, that incident isn't what I think of when… when you talk about bad actors in comics. Like, I think of… I think of, the people closer to Harvey Weinstein.
• 1:16:52
  Tad Eggleston: No, and I get that, but what I'm saying is…
• 1:16:57
  Tad Eggleston: Once we start taking moral positions at all.
• 1:17:01
  Tad Eggleston: We should be consistent.
• 1:17:07
  Phil: Well, I think that…
• 1:17:09
  Tad Eggleston: And I don't… And I don't mean just… Case by case consistent.
• 1:17:17
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, we should be looking at, okay, If we're willing To say you shouldn't support This person for…
• 1:17:30
  Tad Eggleston: This failing, and we would also say it about the people that we don't like.
• 1:17:37
  Tad Eggleston: And now we have this failing over here, and we can see how people could think that that was bad, but we like the person.
• 1:17:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, again, you just… you have to apply
• 1:17:52
  Tad Eggleston: You have to apply the rules whether you like them or not, whether there's a party of you that agrees with them or not.
• 1:17:59
  Phil: And that's… I mean, my immediate gut response to that is that, to me, that's, like, the societal failing that led to
• 1:18:09
  Phil: dead in.
• 1:18:10
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 1:18:11
  Phil: And…
• 1:18:12
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 1:18:14
  Phil: I think that… Too often.
• 1:18:17
  Tad Eggleston: But you don't… you don't solve… you don't solve fascism by having your own fascism.
• 1:18:22
  Phil: No, and I… well, I don't think… I don't think anything about defending that… that writer would be fascist, you know? Like, it's…
• 1:18:29
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I… I don't… I… I… again, I defend the writer and the writer's ability to continue doing work.
• 1:18:36
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:18:37
  Tad Eggleston: I think defending… I think defending the comment, and the idea that the comment shouldn't have had consequences, is essentially saying
• 1:18:48
  Tad Eggleston: I like this person, and…
• 1:18:52
  Tad Eggleston: I wouldn't have said what they said, but I don't completely disagree with it. So, even though, if it was said by somebody that I don't like, in a context that I…
• 1:19:04
  Tad Eggleston: didn't agree with, I would think that there needed to be consequences.
• 1:19:11
  Phil: I don't want there to be consequences here.
• 1:19:16
  Phil: I… I mean, it… it's…
• 1:19:19
  Phil: it's… it's… I think it's… I think it's very much that… that we think about that incident in… in different ways, and that…
• 1:19:26
  Tad Eggleston: That's part of it.
• 1:19:27
  Tad Eggleston: Again, I'm not.
• 1:19:27
  Phil: It's pretty…
• 1:19:28
  Tad Eggleston: Completely take away your position.
• 1:19:31
  Phil: Sure, sure, sure.
• 1:19:31
  Tad Eggleston: But, but again, like… the point that I'm making, the point that I feel like I have to… to…
• 1:19:41
  Tad Eggleston: The point that I sometimes feel like I'm standing more and more alone in a general sense among liberals with is that, like.
• 1:19:49
  Tad Eggleston: I know it hurts that we hold our people accountable.
• 1:19:53
  Tad Eggleston: And… but we have to.
• 1:19:55
  Phil: Sure, and…
• 1:19:56
  Tad Eggleston: Because the second we stop doing so.
• 1:19:59
  Tad Eggleston: But… but that means we have to actually hold them All accountable, not…
• 1:20:06
  Phil: So, I guess… I guess the… so the couple of things.
• 1:20:09
  Tad Eggleston: And build a bigger bench!
• 1:20:11
  Phil: Right, but the… the… so the couple of things that…
• 1:20:14
  Tad Eggleston: And also, accountability isn't always the death penalty.
• 1:20:17
  Phil: Right, and so, so… the…
• 1:20:22
  Phil: I guess the first thing… the first thing that I would say is… is that, you know, like you said, as soon as you take a moral position, people will use your morality against you. Don't let them.
• 1:20:31
  Phil: if you're taking a moral position, it should be correct. You know, it should be as correct as possible, and that… I think that consistent morality that isn't rooted in absolute morality is…
• 1:20:44
  Phil: Gonna be wrong, because it's… it's always going to be shifting.
• 1:20:49
  Phil: also, to… to… at the, the, you know, for the incident that we're dancing around, I guess…
• 1:20:56
  Phil: the problem that I have is that, you know, when you say that, oh, that statement should have had consequences.
• 1:21:04
  Phil: I disagree, primarily because I don't think that the statement like…
• 1:21:10
  Phil: Did harm or shift… would have…
• 1:21:14
  Phil: caused real-life violence, you know? It's the…
• 1:21:20
  Tad Eggleston: Boom.
• 1:21:20
  Phil: That's… that's where… that's where I…
• 1:21:22
  Tad Eggleston: And that's where the severity of the consequences come in.
• 1:21:26
  Phil: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:21:28
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is one of the things that if, like, 4 issues had been out, rather than the first issue was about to come out…
• 1:21:34
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:21:36
  Phil: Maybe it'd be different.
• 1:21:37
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and it should have been.
• 1:21:39
  Phil: And I guess, so, to also compare this to…
• 1:21:44
  Phil: a real life… the stupid idiot who said something like, Greta Thunberg should have been shot with a missile. Like…
• 1:21:53
  Phil: that person… I think that's a… that's a relatively equatable comment. It's… it's not exactly the same.
• 1:22:00
  Tad Eggleston: That's similar enough. I mean, yes, but again, the reason I brought up the Rushdie specifically.
• 1:22:05
  Phil: Yes.
• 1:22:07
  Tad Eggleston: is… like… Again, imagine if, in real time, when we still didn't know what was happening.
• 1:22:20
  Tad Eggleston: Ben Shapiro.
• 1:22:22
  Tad Eggleston: had said, Oh, this thing happened, I hope the knife doesn't get rusted.
• 1:22:30
  Phil: Sure.
• 1:22:33
  Phil: I mean, and so, so, the…
• 1:22:36
  Phil: Here's the thing, that's a bit.
• 1:22:37
  Tad Eggleston: But now, Ben Shapiro doesn't work for… like, add…
• 1:22:41
  Phil: No, no.
• 1:22:42
  Tad Eggleston: say.
• 1:22:42
  Phil: But what I'm…
• 1:22:43
  Tad Eggleston: Ben Shapiro was about to have a Batman book come out.
• 1:22:48
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, yeah, you wouldn't have wanted Ben Shapiro. An even worse timeline has now sprung into existence. No, no, you wouldn't have wanted Ben Shapiro to be able to write the Batman book either.
• 1:22:56
  Phil: No, exactly. No, I'm, I'm.
• 1:22:57
  Tad Eggleston: But, you know, there are a lot of people that didn't…
• 1:23:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you have to understand that, like, this person being on the Nightwing book, or not the Nightwing book, the Red Hood book, was in one part, a stunt on the fact that
• 1:23:14
  Tad Eggleston: It was gonna piss off a certain group of people to begin with.
• 1:23:17
  Phil: Right, and… and I guess… I guess that pulling those kinds of stunts
• 1:23:23
  Phil: And having them purely be stunts of the, oh, we only wanted benefits from this, not consequences. That's where I blame the corporation more than the individual.
• 1:23:32
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but that would have been if one issue had come out, and they went after the person for being trans.
• 1:23:40
  Phil: But that's… that's why people were making… like, that's the thing, is people were making a guff over… online, over her past comments, and, like, she… she was being attacked. She was…
• 1:23:51
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely, and… and they kept going forward.
• 1:23:55
  Tad Eggleston: Until she made a comment about hoping a bullet was okay after hitting a person.
• 1:24:02
  Phil: Right, and I guess what I'm trying to say is that, like.
• 1:24:07
  Phil: on multiple levels, I don't think that… that comment
• 1:24:11
  Phil: caused harm in the world, or would have caused harm in the world if the person had not been fired from their comic book job, you know? That's kind of.
• 1:24:21
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, but, but by that argument…
• 1:24:25
  Phil: So also, back to the Ben Shapiro thing, I feel like that's a… that's a bit of a false equivalency for me, mostly because I'm like.
• 1:24:32
  Tad Eggleston: I just don't know enough people on the right.
• 1:24:35
  Phil: No, that's true.
• 1:24:35
  Tad Eggleston: I would come up with a lower-level person if I could.
• 1:24:38
  Phil: Right, but I guess what I mean is that if…
• 1:24:42
  Phil: it's, like, kind of the… the… in my mind, I'm like, I don't… I don't need another reason to think Ben Shapiro is terrible. I don't think Ben Shapiro should be in the public eye at all. Okay.
• 1:24:51
  Tad Eggleston: How about this?
• 1:24:53
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:24:54
  Tad Eggleston: Ethan Van Skyver's been given a book back.
• 1:24:57
  Phil: Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. One of those situations. I mean, and that's, I guess… And that's… that's kind of…
• 1:25:04
  Phil: The issue to me is that, like.
• 1:25:08
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is… I mean, this… this is actually a legitimate point, and, like, I'm gonna say… I'm gonna say, like.
• 1:25:18
  Tad Eggleston: My apologies to Mike Mignola and Bowling with Corpses, which is great. We're just doing the… this is the great responsibility. Unfortunately, yeah. We've had it for a while.
• 1:25:24
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I think it's an important conversation, and I think you know that I'm not… I'm not, like…
• 1:25:32
  Phil: No, I don't think you're…
• 1:25:33
  Tad Eggleston: Talking details.
• 1:25:34
  Phil: We are.
• 1:25:34
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not… I'm not saying that you have an unsupportable position.
• 1:25:38
  Phil: Sure, sure, sure. I'm not trying to attack you here. No, no, no, I don't think that either, it's just…
• 1:25:43
  Tad Eggleston: I know, I just… I want to make it abundantly clear for you, for anybody else listening, this is… This is what we…
• 1:25:50
  Phil: 2 employees, you pay.
• 1:25:51
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but also, I am a person who thinks that details matter.
• 1:25:55
  Phil: I agree. I agree.
• 1:25:57
  Tad Eggleston: But not necessarily that they matter in that you must agree with me, but that it's worth talking about
• 1:26:06
  Tad Eggleston: the details, and, and, and…
• 1:26:09
  Tad Eggleston: You know, it's through talk about the details that we fine-tune our own positions, whether it brings us closer together, further apart, whatever.
• 1:26:20
  Tad Eggleston: it's through those details. But, like.
• 1:26:24
  Tad Eggleston: If you're a MAGA comic reader.
• 1:26:29
  Tad Eggleston: how many… People do we feel like have been silenced for things that didn't hurt the world?
• 1:26:39
  Phil: And that was kind of where I was trying to mentally lean with, like, the false equivalency eventually, is the idea that, like, unfortunately.
• 1:26:48
  Phil: we live in a world where people are so mentally and politically divided that we each have, you know, different castes and stockpiles of, I don't think this person should be in the public eye. I don't think this person should be in public eye. Whether you apply that to shouldn't exist or just shouldn't be in the public eye.
• 1:27:06
  Phil: differences, but I don't… I don't…
• 1:27:09
  Phil: think that, you know, it's the idea that, yes, there are the MAGA people that have been silenced, or put on the back burner, what have you. They're people that, if they got books, I'd be upset, in the same way that the person who got a book made other people on that camp upset. And I don't think…
• 1:27:28
  Phil: I know this feels weird, but I don't feel like we can continue treating…
• 1:27:38
  Phil: our side, how we want the other side to treat their side. Does that make sense? Like…
• 1:27:44
  Tad Eggleston: No, but what we do need to do?
• 1:27:47
  Tad Eggleston: Is treat our side The way we want our side to be treated.
• 1:27:53
  Phil: Right, and I guess…
• 1:27:54
  Tad Eggleston: Well, by the other side.
• 1:27:58
  Phil: But the problem… the problem… the problem with that is that…
• 1:28:01
  Tad Eggleston: Just because the other side won't treat our side the way that we want.
• 1:28:06
  Tad Eggleston: Them to be treated. Will always be worse.
• 1:28:10
  Tad Eggleston: doesn't mean…
• 1:28:13
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, when we start defending people on our side because they're on our side, that we wouldn't defend if they were on the other side.
• 1:28:23
  Phil: Sure.
• 1:28:24
  Tad Eggleston: For that matter, when we fail to defend people on the other side.
• 1:28:30
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is where Marjorie Taylor Greene has been really difficult to talk about lately.
• 1:28:36
  Phil: Well, I… because I think she's still terrible, and I don't think has done anything redemptive. And nor do I really think she could do anything redemptive, short of, you know, a 180-degree turn towards being pro-trans rights and…
• 1:28:51
  Tad Eggleston: But that's where we're… but that's where we're talking about people…
• 1:28:58
  Tad Eggleston: Do you want people talking about our side?
• 1:29:01
  Tad Eggleston: Strictly as the whole of their work?
• 1:29:06
  Tad Eggleston: Or, if they make a good point on something that they agree on.
• 1:29:13
  Tad Eggleston: Do you want them to agree on it, even though they don't agree on other things?
• 1:29:19
  Phil: Well, the… the problem…
• 1:29:20
  Phil: there is that that would require the other side to be rational people, willing to engage in both debate and, like, change their point of view.
• 1:29:28
  Tad Eggleston: There, there you're talking about results, not process.
• 1:29:32
  Phil: But the… to me, the process doesn't matter when… when the results are what they are, you know? It's… we can… we can talk about…
• 1:29:40
  Tad Eggleston: But the process doesn't matter, we're them.
• 1:29:43
  Phil: No, I mean, I disagree, because the process in general still matters, but, like.
• 1:29:49
  Phil: I'm saying that we can't behave
• 1:29:52
  Phil: overly idealistically. We can't expect them to behave a way other than they are.
• 1:29:58
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not talk- I'm not talking about it.
• 1:30:00
  Tad Eggleston: acting overly idealistic. I'm not talking about expecting them to behave differently.
• 1:30:07
  Tad Eggleston: I'm talking about not allowing them to make us behave differently.
• 1:30:13
  Phil: Right.
• 1:30:13
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, here's my question, here's my question.
• 1:30:18
  Tad Eggleston: Do you think it's a bad thing?
• 1:30:21
  Tad Eggleston: that…
• 1:30:23
  Tad Eggleston: Politicians regularly have to worry about physical violence to themselves and their families because of things that they say.
• 1:30:33
  Phil: I think that's a bad thing.
• 1:30:40
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's a bad thing when, say, AOC has to put out fundraising mails… emails to say… er, Ilhan Omar.
• 1:30:47
  Phil: Really, is the one that's.
• 1:30:48
  Tad Eggleston: put out a number of them to say that part of the reason that she needs more money right now is she needs a bigger security detail.
• 1:30:54
  Phil: Right, right. Yeah, I do think… I do think that is a bad thing, right there.
• 1:30:59
  Tad Eggleston: So… why can't…
• 1:31:04
  Tad Eggleston: we agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene when she says that, while still saying, but I don't agree with you on other things.
• 1:31:12
  Phil: Wait, when she says what?
• 1:31:16
  Tad Eggleston: She listed the biggest reason that she resigned was because they were targeting her family.
• 1:31:22
  Tad Eggleston: And that politics shouldn't be like this. And yes, I know that it's incredibly hypocritical coming from Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 1:31:29
  Phil: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 1:31:31
  Phil: But… But…
• 1:31:33
  Tad Eggleston: But the fact that she's saying it now means that it's going to an audience that it wasn't going to before. And you don't have to say Marjorie Taylor Greene has redeemed herself. I would never say that.
• 1:31:45
  Phil: Right, right, right.
• 1:31:45
  Tad Eggleston: We don't have to say, oh, Marjorie Taylor Greene has seen the light. I'm not at all convinced that she has.
• 1:31:52
  Phil: Right.
• 1:31:53
  Tad Eggleston: What we can say is, if even Marjorie Taylor Greene knows that this is a problem.
• 1:32:00
  Tad Eggleston: Then we need to take it seriously.
• 1:32:02
  Phil: Yeah, I guess…
• 1:32:04
  Phil: I… yes, it… first of all, I am still a pacifist, I still am not a fan of violence, and do not think it's a good thing when anyone is under threat of violence.
• 1:32:19
  Phil: That being said, I guess, to me, the… I think that there's a difference between
• 1:32:29
  Phil: Making the general statement of…
• 1:32:32
  Phil: it's a bad thing that our politicians are facing threats of… politicians and their families are facing threats of violence. And when I hear Marjorie Taylor Greene say that, what I interpret is her saying, it's a problem that me and my family are under threat of violence, not the general everyone, you know?
• 1:32:49
  Tad Eggleston: And that's… and that's certainly…
• 1:32:54
  Tad Eggleston: It's certainly fair to say that it clearly took that for her to notice the problem.
• 1:32:59
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:33:04
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know her in the head. I can't decide that she only cares about it being a problem to her. I can only say that based on evidence, it seems like it required it being a problem to her.
• 1:33:17
  Tad Eggleston: 4…
• 1:33:19
  Phil: Well, and I think.
• 1:33:20
  Tad Eggleston: It to be worth mentioning.
• 1:33:21
  Phil: Right, and I think to discern
• 1:33:23
  Phil: where she stands on that issue of, oh, is this a problem for everyone, or is this a problem for me, is going to be extrapolated from her behavior.
• 1:33:32
  Tad Eggleston: But what I'm saying is, is why does it matter?
• 1:33:35
  Phil: Because when someone tries to make a general stance of, this is a problem, this is a bad thing for society, but it's coming from that place of, no, this is actually a bad thing.
• 1:33:46
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't say we needed to go vote for it.
• 1:33:48
  Phil: No, no, no, no, no, and I don't think you are. I don't think you're saying that, but I just mean in terms of, like.
• 1:33:53
  Phil: Talking about her as a person is that… I…
• 1:33:58
  Tad Eggleston: But again, I'm not even talk… I'm not saying that we have trouble talking about her as a person. We still have no problem talking about her as a person. What we have problems with is separating the fact that a person that we despise could have some good ideas.
• 1:34:13
  Phil: Well, and that.
• 1:34:13
  Tad Eggleston: We instead try to… we instead try to figure out bad motivations for those good ideas.
• 1:34:21
  Phil: I think that bad motivations are more likely to the truth than the quote-unquote good idea, because again.
• 1:34:27
  Phil: Like, it's one of those where…
• 1:34:31
  Tad Eggleston: But Phil, my question is, what does that help?
• 1:34:35
  Phil: The… the bad motivations? The pointing that out.
• 1:34:38
  Tad Eggleston: Focusing on the bad motivation, rather than the good idea.
• 1:34:43
  Phil: Well, because, again, the… the…
• 1:34:50
  Phil: I… I also hesitate to say that providing more security for politicians is a good idea, because I… I…
• 1:34:59
  Phil: I don't…
• 1:35:00
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, here's…
• 1:35:01
  Phil: Hold on a second, because what I'm thinking of now is, like.
• 1:35:04
  Phil: It, it, it seems like,
• 1:35:08
  Phil: A situation that's feeding into itself, of that…
• 1:35:12
  Phil: you know, okay, our politicians are facing threats of violence. We need to stop that.
• 1:35:17
  Phil: by providing them more security. I think the reason they're facing threats of violence is because they're doing abhorrent shit.
• 1:35:24
  Phil: two people. And I understand that there's a big difference in my mind of important shit. I don't think Ilan Omar or AOC are doing important shit. You know, other people do, unfortunately, and that's… that's their problem, but I don't think we can treat the people who think they're doing important shit the same as…
• 1:35:42
  Phil: people who think Trump is doing important shit, you know? And that's where the false equivalencies come into play, and it's… the saying that rattles through my head is that, like, I don't know if we can behave rationally in irrational times, you know?
• 1:35:58
  Tad Eggleston: It's difficult.
• 1:35:59
  Phil: It's… and… and this idea that… I think that the way you solve the issue of politicians facing threats of violence is by having those politicians
• 1:36:10
  Phil: serve the people, and make life better for the people, as opposed to just themselves, which…
• 1:36:17
  Phil: Strictly speaking, increasing security forces only helps the politicians. That's what my.
• 1:36:22
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you're speaking to the choir. I hate orange… Armed…
• 1:36:28
  Phil: You know.
• 1:36:28
  Tad Eggleston: service officers in schools, I think.
• 1:36:30
  Tad Eggleston: It's… I think it's worse than a solution.
• 1:36:34
  Phil: Right, and so that's where my head is.
• 1:36:36
  Tad Eggleston: But… But, let me try to take your head in a different direction, because that, that, that…
• 1:36:44
  Tad Eggleston: While it's true, I don't actually think it's relevant to… why it matters… That we focus more on
• 1:36:56
  Tad Eggleston: The motivations of… Somebody that we generally don't like, but we agree with on an issue.
• 1:37:05
  Tad Eggleston: Let me… Yeah, that's right. Because I, at this point.
• 1:37:09
  Tad Eggleston: I have two kind of complicated ques… er, one… one relatively easy, and one… one multi-part question. Let me get them both out, because I want you to consider them.
• 1:37:19
  Phil: Okay.
• 1:37:19
  Tad Eggleston: First, when it comes to violence…
• 1:37:24
  Tad Eggleston: Do you think that the people likely to perpetrate violence against left-wing politicians and the people likely to perpetrate violence against right-wing politicians are different people?
• 1:37:38
  Phil: No.
• 1:37:40
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:37:41
  Phil: I think that… I think that the people willing to resort to political violence are all from the same group.
• 1:37:49
  Tad Eggleston: Right, so when Marjorie Taylor Greene is speaking out against it, she is helping Ilhan Omar, or AOC.
• 1:37:59
  Tad Eggleston: Second…
• 1:38:00
  Phil: Okay, okay. I think, I think that's a good point. It's hard to see, but I think it's a good point.
• 1:38:04
  Tad Eggleston: Second, how… many… political groups, would you separate the country into? Sub-question.
• 1:38:16
  Phil: No.
• 1:38:17
  Tad Eggleston: Rough estimate of the percentage of voters that you think Fall into each.
• 1:38:27
  Phil: Wow. Okay, so… I… this… this…
• 1:38:33
  Phil: Answering this question completely would require more diagrams than I am able to provide over audio.
• 1:38:39
  Tad Eggleston: Awesome, that's fair.
• 1:38:40
  Phil: But… We're, we're… Yeah. Let me rephrase… That was kind of a joke, but no, no, no, I want to take that.
• 1:38:46
  Tad Eggleston: Categories of at least 10%.
• 1:38:50
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, yeah. If you're going more than 10 groups, then we're getting too deep in the minutiae.
• 1:38:57
  Phil: I, I was, thankfully… I think… I'm only a 5.
• 1:39:01
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's pretty easy to go 6.
• 1:39:05
  Phil: Okay, okay. I… just to lay out my 5, and then I'd love to hear your six, is that I think of,
• 1:39:14
  Phil: you know… The first and largest group is, the masses, you know, people who…
• 1:39:24
  Phil: don't have a clear sense of what's going on, and are susceptible to a combination of brainwashing and propaganda. And they're able to be swayed back and forth from left to right, red and blue. Anyone who's been.
• 1:39:37
  Tad Eggleston: Oh my god, you have such a politician's view of the masses.
• 1:39:42
  Phil: Well…
• 1:39:43
  Tad Eggleston: But we'll get back to that.
• 1:39:44
  Phil: Yes, that's fair. I say that's the largest group because Again, these are…
• 1:39:50
  Phil: the first thing I recognize is that I actually don't have the best understanding of
• 1:39:56
  Phil: like, our country as a whole, mostly, because I haven't been to most of it, and that a lot of it is mental frameworks more than actual experience. So, I started with my undefined group first. That's why it's the most general and most… and largest.
• 1:40:12
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:40:12
  Phil: Then I think we have, you know, Republican and Democrat. I kind of split each of those into two groups between the, you know, the centrist politicians and right-wing politicians or groups. You know, of the difference between your,
• 1:40:30
  Phil: Oh, the difference between J.D. Vance and Mike Pence.
• 1:40:35
  Phil: You know, then I think there's that same split on the left, where we have our more centrist Democrats and our more left-leaning Democrats, the difference between your AOC and your Joe Biden, you know?
• 1:40:51
  Phil: that's kind of my loose framework. Percentages on each of those, I mean… For the whole country,
• 1:41:00
  Phil: that is… I mean, that's… that's… that's hard. I would put.
• 1:41:04
  Tad Eggleston: Again, ballparks.
• 1:41:06
  Phil: Yeah, ballparks… I would probably put.
• 1:41:10
  Tad Eggleston: Actually, here's the most important one.
• 1:41:13
  Phil: Where would you put the masses?
• 1:41:15
  Phil: I would actually put that at, like, 40%.
• 1:41:19
  Phil: So it's the biggest individual group, but I don't think it's over half the country. And unfortunately, I have left out the group of people who are unable to vote.
• 1:41:30
  Phil: Because, that is a group of people in our country, unfortunately.
• 1:41:34
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:41:35
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:41:36
  Tad Eggleston: And that's why I limited it to voters, because.
• 1:41:39
  Phil: Right, right.
• 1:41:40
  Tad Eggleston: like, voting laws is another thing that Democrat… I mean, because.
• 1:41:43
  Phil: Well, should have been defended.
• 1:41:45
  Tad Eggleston: You know, those people unable to vote.
• 1:41:48
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:41:50
  Tad Eggleston: Tend to skew…
• 1:41:53
  Phil: Progressive. Yeah.
• 1:41:55
  Tad Eggleston: Because that stuff matters to them, in a real sense.
• 1:42:01
  Phil: Very much so.
• 1:42:03
  Tad Eggleston: But I would split it up in a different way. I'm sure. Though very similar.
• 1:42:08
  Phil: Okay.
• 1:42:09
  Tad Eggleston: You have people who Always vote Democratic, no matter what.
• 1:42:17
  Tad Eggleston: And people who always vote Republican, no matter what. And I think that that represents, at most.
• 1:42:27
  Tad Eggleston: 15% of the country for each party.
• 1:42:30
  Phil: Okay.
• 1:42:32
  Tad Eggleston: And the way I get to that is that, like.
• 1:42:36
  Tad Eggleston: In terms of the voting electorate, it works out…
• 1:42:40
  Tad Eggleston: You know, we've got pretty good data that says it's 30% of the country, but we also know that about half the country doesn't vote.
• 1:42:48
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:42:49
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:42:50
  Tad Eggleston: So we've got 15% of the country on either side.
• 1:42:53
  Phil: Uncle.
• 1:42:54
  Tad Eggleston: That are gonna vote with their party, no matter what.
• 1:42:58
  Tad Eggleston: Though both parties have done a number of things to really try to make that number smaller for themselves, though not always the things that they think they're doing.
• 1:43:07
  Phil: Right, right, right.
• 1:43:09
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, like… AOC is not the one making that number smaller.
• 1:43:15
  Tad Eggleston: No. The group of automatic Democratic voters that we lost in the last election were the people who could not vote
• 1:43:24
  Tad Eggleston: For funding a genocide.
• 1:43:26
  Phil: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:43:30
  Tad Eggleston: That wasn't the left-wing part of the party.
• 1:43:36
  Tad Eggleston: Then you have… And this, I think, represents… Mmm… another… 15-20% on either side.
• 1:43:49
  Tad Eggleston: The people who Claim independence, and have some record of being independent.
• 1:43:56
  Tad Eggleston: but generally vote Republican, or generally vote Democrat.
• 1:44:00
  Phil: Yep.
• 1:44:04
  Tad Eggleston: And then, in the middle, you have a small sliver, representing…
• 1:44:22
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe another 10% of the country?
• 1:44:25
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe? I mean, we've got 50% non-voters, so how are we breaking this out? It's probably…
• 1:44:34
  Tad Eggleston: It's probably actually closer to 10% on either side votes for their party, no matter what. 10%…
• 1:44:39
  Tad Eggleston: generally votes for their party, and 10% is truly independent, almost
• 1:44:44
  Tad Eggleston: fanatically so. They try to vote.
• 1:44:48
  Tad Eggleston: both parties.
• 1:44:50
  Phil: Woof. Yeah.
• 1:44:53
  Tad Eggleston: And then 50% of the country doesn't vote.
• 1:44:55
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:44:56
  Tad Eggleston: So, in my mind.
• 1:44:59
  Tad Eggleston: That makes 60% of the country swayable.
• 1:45:05
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:45:06
  Tad Eggleston: Like, seriously swayable.
• 1:45:08
  Phil: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because the people who are truly… Willing and able to vote.
• 1:45:14
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly because most of the people who don't vote…
• 1:45:18
  Tad Eggleston: And certainly all of the people who, like, fanatically be independent, meaning they try to vote for both sides.
• 1:45:27
  Tad Eggleston: Really, really represent the people who have somehow managed to hook, line, and sinker
• 1:45:33
  Tad Eggleston: Decide that the parties are the same.
• 1:45:37
  Tad Eggleston: That it doesn't matter.
• 1:45:41
  Tad Eggleston: So my question becomes… How does worrying about Marjorie Taylor Greene's motivations.
• 1:45:51
  Tad Eggleston: Rather than amplifying the good point that she made.
• 1:45:56
  Tad Eggleston: Reach that group.
• 1:45:59
  Phil: Reach the group of people that think both parties are the same.
• 1:46:02
  Tad Eggleston: Or it doesn't matter.
• 1:46:05
  Tad Eggleston: How does behaving exactly how the Republicans would behave in a similar situation.
• 1:46:12
  Tad Eggleston: Convince the people who think that both parties are the same, Both parties aren't the same.
• 1:46:21
  Phil: Well, and I mean…
• 1:46:24
  Phil: it's… and this is… this is rough for me, because I… I feel like I'm at stage 2 of the Parties Are the Same, where it's that the parties work together.
• 1:46:35
  Phil: to continually make…
• 1:46:36
  Tad Eggleston: I don't disagree with you.
• 1:46:38
  Phil: Yeah?
• 1:46:38
  Phil: I don't… I don't disagree with you. So I guess…
• 1:46:40
  Tad Eggleston: But if there's one party that you agree with more.
• 1:46:45
  Phil: Yeah, I know.
• 1:46:46
  Tad Eggleston: Shouldn't you want it to be pushing more towards not being the same?
• 1:46:50
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:46:51
  Tad Eggleston: Rather than going, the reality of the world means that we have to be the same?
• 1:46:56
  Phil: And that's where… that's where it's one of those where I don't… I don't think that's the reality of the world. I think that's the reality that's being pushed on the…
• 1:47:02
  Tad Eggleston: And this is where I'm coming from.
• 1:47:04
  Phil: This is where I'm coming from on all of this stuff, whether it's the writer or the…
• 1:47:10
  Tad Eggleston: you know, being willing to have real conversations with Marjorie Taylor Greene, where we don't let her off the hook for the stuff that she hasn't shown any…
• 1:47:20
  Phil: Yeah, any remorse for that?
• 1:47:22
  Tad Eggleston: At the same time where we acknowledge that this is something that we wholeheartedly agree with you on.
• 1:47:27
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, and I mean, I guess… and that's… that's the… I guess I have a very difficult time admitting that people I don't like can make good points, too.
• 1:47:38
  Phil: You know, it's… it's a…
• 1:47:41
  Tad Eggleston: And this is what I'm saying, part of that is because that's what the… the…
• 1:47:47
  Tad Eggleston: Right-wing apparatus has been trying to build into you for your entire life.
• 1:47:53
  Phil: Yeah, that's…
• 1:47:55
  Tad Eggleston: Education system, in the news system, in…
• 1:47:58
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:47:59
  Tad Eggleston: Why I do think that it's in some ways worse that, like, We're more likely to see…
• 1:48:07
  Tad Eggleston: More opinions, even if those opinions are inherently bad, mean, or evil.
• 1:48:14
  Phil: Right.
• 1:48:15
  Tad Eggleston: Coming out of Warner Bros.
• 1:48:17
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:48:18
  Tad Eggleston: After the merger than we are to have them
• 1:48:22
  Tad Eggleston: Pull back on the stuff that we do like.
• 1:48:25
  Phil: Yeah, it's just… and I'm now having a new sense of clarity about the WB,
• 1:48:34
  Phil: what's it? The… the WB,
• 1:48:39
  Phil: buyout of either Paramount or Netflix, it's like, what do you want to see? Do you want to see more hateful and repugnant content, or do you want to see more bland and forgettable content? And it's like, neither.
• 1:48:52
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and this is why… this is totally where I go back to, like…
• 1:48:56
  Phil: Sure.
• 1:48:58
  Tad Eggleston: the problem isn't Paramount versus Netflix, it's… Yeah.
• 1:49:02
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:49:03
  Tad Eggleston: The merger period.
• 1:49:05
  Phil: Exactly. And it's easy to lose sight of that. It's easy to lose sight of that in… because it's the same… it's the same sort of… I mean, that's why I feel…
• 1:49:13
  Tad Eggleston: And because in our entire lifetimes, the only time there was real pushback on media consolidation.
• 1:49:22
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:49:23
  Tad Eggleston: was the Biden years, and it was one of the things that they were incredibly bad at taking credit for, making a big deal out of, etc.
• 1:49:31
  Tad Eggleston: This is… this is where the flood the zone with good stuff was completely failed on that in the Biden years.
• 1:49:38
  Phil: And I mean, and that's the thing is that I, I mean.
• 1:49:41
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, and it goes along with the other perfect example.
• 1:49:47
  Tad Eggleston: That, that, like, could have actually made a huge deal.
• 1:49:50
  Phil: The number of Republicans who voted against high-speed internet for their constituents, who then showed up and took.
• 1:49:57
  Tad Eggleston: Credit for high-speed internet for their constituents?
• 1:50:01
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:50:01
  Tad Eggleston: Without any pushback?
• 1:50:06
  Tad Eggleston: was absurd.
• 1:50:07
  Phil: Yeah, that's… that's… that's inherently absurd. And… and… yeah.
• 1:50:11
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:50:13
  Tad Eggleston: And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have done stuff for red states. We needed to do stuff for red states.
• 1:50:18
  Phil: Right, right.
• 1:50:19
  Tad Eggleston: Red states need stuff, but we should have made damn certain that they knew where it was coming from.
• 1:50:25
  Phil: Yeah, that's a good point. It's a really good point, too.
• 1:50:28
  Phil: You know, we're gonna help you whether you like it or not. I mean, Donald Trump. It puts his…
• 1:50:33
  Tad Eggleston: Fucking signature in the memo line on…
• 1:50:37
  Tad Eggleston: And we can't put up billboards that say.
• 1:50:41
  Tad Eggleston: high-speed internet available now, thanks to the Biden infrastructure plan?
• 1:50:46
  Phil: And that's… First of all, I mean, that's… that's… that's hardly a sexy billboard, unfortunately.
• 1:50:53
  Tad Eggleston: care!
• 1:50:54
  Phil: No, I know.
• 1:50:55
  Tad Eggleston: I don't care!
• 1:50:56
  Phil: I'm laughing about that. I'm just laughing about that.
• 1:50:59
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, have you seen some of the Christian billboards? They work!
• 1:51:02
  Phil: Unfortunately, yes. No, I have seen them there often.
• 1:51:05
  Tad Eggleston: They're not sexy either!
• 1:51:06
  Phil: No, they're not. They're… they're terrible. They're… they're laughably bad. I guess the problem ultimately comes down to,
• 1:51:13
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, sometimes we get too cute by half.
• 1:51:16
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:51:18
  Phil: But I just… where I was going with that was that the people with the billboard money
• 1:51:23
  Phil: want Republican leadership. That's the issue. I know!
• 1:51:27
  Tad Eggleston: I know!
• 1:51:27
  Phil: I know you know, it's just a…
• 1:51:29
  Tad Eggleston: But, you know, we actually have, and it is something that the Republicans got.
• 1:51:36
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes, but we have what's called the Ad Council. There is federal dollars…
• 1:51:41
  Phil: Oh, set aside for… for…
• 1:51:42
  Tad Eggleston: set aside for making certain that people know about… Now, there's some rules, you'd have to… you'd have to play a little bit to manage to…
• 1:51:52
  Tad Eggleston: To find a way To, plausibly call it not campaigning.
• 1:52:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:52:04
  Tad Eggleston: One of those ways is, like, when Biden dropped out of the race?
• 1:52:09
  Tad Eggleston: You put Biden's name on it rather than Harris, and you're absolutely not campaigning.
• 1:52:14
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:52:21
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 1:52:25
  Phil: This is where… this is where I, I, I, I have to ask… you have, you have, you have another, another podcast in.
• 1:52:30
  Tad Eggleston: 8 minutes. 8 minutes. 8 minutes.
• 1:52:32
  Phil: Oh no, so we should probably wrap.
• 1:52:33
  Tad Eggleston: So, we're gonna move on to three books that we hope will be spectacular, and this was another tough week. There's a lot of good books coming out, including a Lands Unknown book, which, it was kind of nice that we were going to be talking about Mignola's Lands Unknown, and there was one coming out.
• 1:52:50
  Phil: I didn't realize there was more coming out already.
• 1:52:52
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, there has already been more coming out.
• 1:52:55
  Tad Eggleston: And Briar's Night… Briar… I can't believe I left Briar out of my top 3. Wow. But Sleep Number 8 from Xanded Cannon, wrapping up that series, and I still don't know how it's gonna wrap up at
• 1:53:08
  Tad Eggleston: all, but I trust Sandra Kamen. It's gonna be amazing, so, like, I'm really looking forward to that book. Beneath Trees Where Nobody Sees, Rites of Spring, number 6. Again.
• 1:53:19
  Tad Eggleston: I don't entirely know where we're going, but rumor has it, it's gonna be bomb… Bastic!
• 1:53:28
  Phil: She goes into a wormhole to the DC universe.
• 1:53:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right. And then, Black Moon Ritual from the Protopius Collection, this is,
• 1:53:35
  Tad Eggleston: I've loved the Protopias collection from AWA and FutureFrick to begin with.
• 1:53:42
  Tad Eggleston: And this is the first, afrofuturism.
• 1:53:48
  Tad Eggleston: title in that collection, so I'm looking forward to it even more, for Natasha Womack and Aletha Martinez.
• 1:53:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:54:01
  Tad Eggleston: It's gonna be a good week. And I know Narco is amazing, and I know my gun is the jury, is amazing, because I even got sent a…
• 1:54:10
  Tad Eggleston: Physical copy of that from Phantograph. Thank you, Phantograph. Jack Davis and Wally Wood.
• 1:54:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a good book. The deluxe edition of, Helena Windhorne comes out, the, the Kelly Thompson-Matia de Ulis…
• 1:54:28
  Tad Eggleston: Jessica Jones' Blind Spot, which was originally a…
• 1:54:33
  Tad Eggleston: Marvel Unlimited, digital only, I think got released in issues, but I'm pretty certain this is the first time it's being collected.
• 1:54:43
  Phil: That sounds likely.
• 1:54:44
  Tad Eggleston: years after the fact, but, Kelly Thompson was the first non-bendist to write Jessica Jones, and she knocked it out of the park.
• 1:54:53
  Phil: Cool. Yep.
• 1:54:54
  Tad Eggleston: And also, Chris Condon's, news from Fallout with Jeffrey Allen Love is… coming out.
• 1:55:02
  Tad Eggleston: This week, in collected forms. So, like I said, a, a…
• 1:55:08
  Tad Eggleston: Another fantastic, fantastic week, and you didn't… you didn't check out the note that I made on your book at any point.
• 1:55:16
  Phil: No, I mean…
• 1:55:16
  Tad Eggleston: You can… you can use it again!
• 1:55:20
  Phil: I mean, the fact, the fact that, that we skipped the Great Responsibility and the manga race, even though I read something this week, this apparently, I, I am a week ahead that, Metadagos by Bernice Mortois de Normont and Drawn in Quarterly has, is coming out March 11th.
• 1:55:38
  Phil: how did… I'm like, I swear, I swear, I thought, let me… let me head back to the trusty League of Comic Geeks.
• 1:55:44
  Tad Eggleston: League of Comic Geeks doesn't always.
• 1:55:46
  Phil: So, when the date changed.
• 1:55:47
  Tad Eggleston: Son of a beasting! Yep, it says release is March 3rd. I, I will be angrily… This is, this is, this is why I, I, I spend all of that time with Lunar and…
• 1:55:58
  Phil: Yep.
• 1:55:59
  Tad Eggleston: I should've, you know?
• 1:56:01
  Phil: Hey, this book looks interesting enough that.
• 1:56:05
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you, you got to… you got to learn… learn last night the amount of times that I spend going through these catalogs.
• 1:56:11
  Phil: to the point where I'm like, I should probably be helping you with this more regularly, because that's just so.
• 1:56:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I won't turn it down, but yeah, there is a lot to go through.
• 1:56:22
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:56:24
  Tad Eggleston: But, yeah.
• 1:56:25
  Tad Eggleston: So, I'm gonna make you, though.
• 1:56:29
  Tad Eggleston: between my collections and graphic novels and books I know are spectacular, there are seven.
• 1:56:34
  Tad Eggleston: I would absolutely… So you gotta pick one.
• 1:56:36
  Phil: I would absolutely endorse News from the Fallout by Chris Condon and Jeffrey Allenlove. That one sounds fantastic, I need to read it for sure.
• 1:56:42
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, it's so good.
• 1:56:43
  Phil: Yeah, so I will… easy, easy, easy endorsement right there. So, yes.
• 1:56:50
  Tad Eggleston: Alrighty.
• 1:56:51
  Tad Eggleston: For 22 panels, this has been a long, off-the-rails episode that talked about comics way less than we meant to. This is what happens when Tyler's not around. We did our best.
• 1:57:02
  Phil: We had to stay on the rails, and we just couldn't help ourselves.
• 1:57:04
  Tad Eggleston: We… you know, I mean, it's something I think… cause it is hard.
• 1:57:09
  Phil: Yes.
• 1:57:10
  Tad Eggleston: It is hard to… Keep rational thinking in irrational times, but it's also important.
• 1:57:21
  Phil: It is, because you don't want to give in to hurtful irrationality, that's for sure.
• 1:57:26
  Tad Eggleston: Well, it's not even that, it's… It hurts you.
• 1:57:32
  Phil: Well, and that's where I… I don't know what it looks like, but I have a concept of beneficial irrationality.
• 1:57:42
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:57:43
  Phil: It might, you know, might be useful.
• 1:57:45
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, yeah, yeah, but what I mean is, is, like…
• 1:57:50
  Tad Eggleston: just because I've seen it so much where people fall into it for years and years and years, eventually they, like.
• 1:57:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. It's one thing to decide
• 1:58:01
  Tad Eggleston: I can't be rational about this right now.
• 1:58:03
  Phil: Sure.
• 1:58:04
  Tad Eggleston: And it's another thing entirely to justify irrational opinions, BECAUSE…
• 1:58:11
  Phil: Right. The other side is being irrational.
• 1:58:14
  Tad Eggleston: And then watch your own opinions become less and less rational.
• 1:58:19
  Phil: Right, right.
• 1:58:21
  Phil: Yo.
• 1:58:21
  Tad Eggleston: It, you know…
• 1:58:23
  Phil: and I…
• 1:58:23
  Tad Eggleston: I certainly don't want to become a caricature of myself. Well, but beyond that, like, there's a lot to be said for… I mean, whether or not you spend the energy to be rational on something is…
• 1:58:35
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I… one of my least popular political opinions is I have a… I mean, I only dug into you for a second for treating the masses in a very politician way. I don't think they're easily brainwashed. I don't think that they're…
• 1:58:52
  Tad Eggleston: easily swayed. I think they're hardworking and tired.
• 1:58:57
  Phil: Well, I… I guess…
• 1:58:59
  Tad Eggleston: I think that they could absolutely be captured… I mean, the reason that Donald Trump
• 1:59:05
  Tad Eggleston: has, at times, captured large swaths of them, and also, at times, lost large swaths of them, is because he feels
• 1:59:16
  Tad Eggleston: Authentic.
• 1:59:18
  Tad Eggleston: What they don't have energy for is trying to figure out what you mean.
• 1:59:23
  Phil: Right, and I guess I would… I would…
• 1:59:26
  Tad Eggleston: There's a lot to be said for more plain-spoken politicians.
• 1:59:30
  Phil: Right.
• 1:59:31
  Tad Eggleston: It's better to be plain-spoken and wrong, and then fix it.
• 1:59:35
  Phil: Huh.
• 1:59:36
  Tad Eggleston: Than it is to sound like a goddamn computer.
• 1:59:40
  Phil: Yeah, that's for sure.
• 1:59:41
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly in the age of AI.
• 1:59:44
  Phil: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Above and beyond. Yeah, I will absolutely recognize that as a weakness of mine, and.
• 1:59:51
  Tad Eggleston: I don't even know that I think it is a weakness of yours. Well, I guess, I guess… But, but…
• 1:59:56
  Phil: the weakness of mine, specifically the characterization of masses, because I guess it's… the caveat there is that I would say that I think that
• 2:00:04
  Phil: I think that…
• 2:00:06
  Phil: there are more peop… I mean, first of all, I guess, I think everyone is susceptible to propaganda, whether they know it or not.
• 2:00:13
  Phil: And… what I say… when I say brainwashing, I mean, like, people who have…
• 2:00:20
  Phil: Been raised in religiously restricted information zones for generations.
• 2:00:25
  Tad Eggleston: Sure, but I think, I think most of those are actually in your 10% on either side.
• 2:00:30
  Phil: I could see that. I could see that happening. And I guess that's also struggling with the, population breakdown in relation to, yeah, I feel like I went more, separation between political class and voting class than you did.
• 2:00:46
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 2:00:47
  Phil: Yeah.
• 2:00:48
  Tad Eggleston: But again, like, you know, I don't… and, like, I really need to run, but, like, there are two comments in my lifetime, you know, Mitt Romney never, never…
• 2:01:02
  Tad Eggleston: Never recovered from, what, his 40%?
• 2:01:05
  Tad Eggleston: Comment.
• 2:01:06
  Tad Eggleston: Something about all the people who essentially live off the government. Of course, yeah. Never recover from that. And…
• 2:01:14
  Tad Eggleston: Whether… there were so many things in 2016.
• 2:01:18
  Tad Eggleston: that… Were relevant, that who knows exactly how much
• 2:01:26
  Tad Eggleston: this mattered, but Hillary Clinton's deplorables comment didn't help her.
• 2:01:31
  Phil: No. Yeah.
• 2:01:32
  Tad Eggleston: Now, the thing is… Both of those comments are defensible.
• 2:01:37
  Tad Eggleston: Neither one of them is automatically untrue.
• 2:01:42
  Phil: Yo.
• 2:01:44
  Tad Eggleston: they have everything to do with your particular worldview and understanding of how things work. And again, not of the irrational kind. This is not climate denial type.
• 2:01:57
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 2:01:59
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 2:02:00
  Tad Eggleston: But they wound up killing…
• 2:02:04
  Tad Eggleston: Large swaths in the middle for these people.
• 2:02:07
  Phil: Yeah.
• 2:02:09
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so that, I think, is why, like, as an educated voter, or as somebody talking to whatever small audience we have, I think it's important to…
• 2:02:22
  Tad Eggleston: Explore… the nitty-gritty.
• 2:02:26
  Phil: Yeah.
• 2:02:27
  Tad Eggleston: And why, as a politician, they really should be paying a lot more attention.
• 2:02:32
  Phil: Yes.
• 2:02:34
  Tad Eggleston: To the offline people.
• 2:02:36
  Phil: Yes.
• 2:02:37
  Phil: And, well, not just the offline people, but I also think that politicians get
• 2:02:42
  Phil: Massively, like, again, the more power you have, the more disconnect you have from real life.
• 2:02:46
  Phil: The harder it is to know what you can do to help those people in real life.
• 2:02:49
  Tad Eggleston: Right?
• 2:02:50
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 2:02:51
  Phil: Yeah.
• 2:02:52
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, the person working 3 jobs with no healthcare?
• 2:02:56
  Tad Eggleston: Really could give a shit.
• 2:02:58
  Tad Eggleston: About trans bathrooms.
• 2:03:00
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, that's not on their radar. That's… they… they have much.
• 2:03:04
  Tad Eggleston: Unless you just stirred it up.
• 2:03:06
  Phil: Unless they are a shops, yeah.
• 2:03:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, no, no, it, it…
• 2:03:13
  Tad Eggleston: like… and this is where the Democratic strategy to pivot to
• 2:03:21
  Tad Eggleston: Affordability is a good one, except that, like.
• 2:03:25
  Phil: In the face of…
• 2:03:26
  Tad Eggleston: They… well, no, it's not even in the face of war. They think that they have to pivot without addressing.
• 2:03:35
  Tad Eggleston: They still can't walk and chew gum. Even as they watch the other side… I mean, we think it's… we treat it as a weakness that the other side throws everything and anything at the wall.
• 2:03:46
  Phil: And goes with what sticks.
• 2:03:48
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. And we don't seem to notice that, actually, all of it sticks.
• 2:03:53
  Tad Eggleston: With a group of people.
• 2:03:55
  Phil: Yeah.
• 2:03:56
  Tad Eggleston: So, why aren't we doing that?
• 2:03:59
  Phil: Right, right, yeah, we give up on too many.
• 2:04:00
  Tad Eggleston: That's not a moral thing.
• 2:04:02
  Phil: Yeah.
• 2:04:03
  Phil: That's just a momentum thing.
• 2:04:05
  Tad Eggleston: Right! Yeah.
• 2:04:07
  Tad Eggleston: But, I need to go get another cup of coffee, and I'm 3 minutes late for… for the pulp blotter, so for 22 panels…
• 2:04:15
  Tad Eggleston: This has been episode 225.
• 2:04:21
  Tad Eggleston: And we will see you after the next page. 6, 7, 8.