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Brit's Cabinet Book Club #4 - Absolute Martian Manhunter & Alienated · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:01
  Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to Britt's Cabinet on 22 Panels. It's been a while since we managed to get together. Britt, how's it going?
• 0:10
  Britton Payne: It's going good, how are you doing?
• 0:11
  Tad Eggleston: I am doing well. I was up late enough to see the Dodgers win the World Series last night. Were you able to hear the fireworks from your house?
• 0:19
  Britton Payne: It was really fun, yeah, we were… my wife happened to be walking… we live in Los Angeles, my wife was walking the dog.
• 0:24
  Tad Eggleston: And, actually, the dog did not find it fun.
• 0:28
  Britton Payne: You know, we were far enough away that we could hear them, but it was not terribly disturbing. Okay. So it's just neat. And she was outside in the moment when,
• 0:37
  Britton Payne: when the double play happened, and so she was walking and came back in, and she goes, well, I guess the Dodgers won.
• 0:43
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 0:45
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, my cousin Jack lives in LA as well, and I was texting with him.
• 0:51
  Tad Eggleston: During the… the, game, and… and…
• 0:57
  Tad Eggleston: he mentioned the fireworks when they were going off, which is how I knew.
• 1:01
  Britton Payne: I know you're a lifelong baseball guy, and I am not. I'm an NFL guy, but I will occasionally watch baseball. I just haven't watched that much baseball, and it was really only half a game, probably. My father-in-law was visiting, and
• 1:14
  Britton Payne: I saw more baseball last night than I probably have since McGuire broke the record.
• 1:22
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:22
  Britton Payne: home runs. And it was fun. I had a good time.
• 1:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, I mean, part of the reason that Jack and I were texting is I don't think he watches a ton of baseball, so, like, he was in awe of a lot of stuff. I'm like, yep, this is why I'm passionate about this sport.
• 1:40
  Britton Payne: I also found myself trying to remember the rules from when I played baseball in the mid-'80s.
• 1:46
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 1:47
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I mean, what I love about baseball is, the number of…
• 1:55
  Tad Eggleston: crazy little things that happen. Actually, what I love about baseball doesn't even come out in playoff baseball. Playoff baseball's kind of a different beast.
• 2:04
  Britton Payne: Because…
• 2:06
  Tad Eggleston: Every team loses 4 out of 7 games multiple times during the season.
• 2:12
  Tad Eggleston: Right, so the idea that 4 out of 7 games…
• 2:18
  Tad Eggleston: between two of the best teams actually decides who's better is kind of ridiculous. The game has way too many…
• 2:30
  Tad Eggleston: Totally random occurrences.
• 2:34
  Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean?
• 2:35
  Tad Eggleston: Duh.
• 2:37
  Tad Eggleston: like, my uncle was getting upset about the call at home plate, because he was rooting for Toronto, and it's like…
• 2:44
  Britton Payne: So close.
• 2:45
  Tad Eggleston: It was, and the way the replay rule… Reads is… To overturn the call.
• 2:55
  Tad Eggleston: It has to be definitive on the video.
• 2:59
  Tad Eggleston: So, that call was so close that if he'd been called out.
• 3:04
  Tad Eggleston: Or if he'd been called safe, and the Dodgers had challenged it, it also wouldn't have been.
• 3:10
  Tad Eggleston: flipped over.
• 3:11
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, that was one where, like, it was just too close to call, even on video.
• 3:18
  Tad Eggleston: And when it's too close to call on video.
• 3:22
  Tad Eggleston: The… the… the ruling on the field stance.
• 3:26
  Britton Payne: Yeah, in the NFL, I believe it's irrefutable evidence.
• 3:29
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly. Same in baseball.
• 3:35
  Tad Eggleston: And there just wasn't that for that call.
• 3:37
  Tad Eggleston: You know,
• 3:41
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I mean, like, the fact that it was Miguel Vargas that tied the game, the guy who, like.
• 3:51
  Tad Eggleston: Only made it into the lineup, because
• 3:54
  Tad Eggleston: Andy Pajes was struggling so much. Andy Pajes, who made a fantastic catch, too.
• 4:04
  Britton Payne: Oh, is he the guy who made that catch where he took out his teammate? Right.
• 4:07
  Tad Eggleston: Where he ran over Enrique Hernandez, who's a whole different player in the playoffs than he is in the regular season.
• 4:14
  Tad Eggleston: Cause…
• 4:15
  Britton Payne: See, that's the stuff you miss out on.
• 4:17
  Tad Eggleston: To be a real thing.
• 4:19
  Britton Payne: That's the stuff I miss out on by not watching the game, you know, during the year. All I knew was what was directly in front of us. And it was also fun, too. I like the NFL, I've been watching that for…
• 4:29
  Britton Payne: you know, almost 50 years, I guess, at this point. And, so I don't really listen to the… to the guys doing the commentary, because I kind of know what's going on. But for baseball, I didn't, and so it was very exciting when the guy goes, the Dodgers are up 5-4, and it's the bottom of the 11th, and it's Toronto's last chance, basically, to…
• 4:46
  Britton Payne: They'd have to score if they want to stay in or win the game.
• 4:50
  Britton Payne: And, I think it was a man on first and third, and they said, if… if it's a… if they get a hit, the one team… if it hits to the outfield, the Jays win, and if it hits to the infield, the Dodgers win. And then if it's a hit to the infield. So I kind of knew what… like, when I saw the ball go to the infield, I was like, oh, this means we're gonna win, just because I was listening to the guy.
• 5:09
  Tad Eggleston: Wasn't quite that simple, but it was… Close.
• 5:14
  Britton Payne: And as a viewer, as a casual viewer, it made it, you know, very engaging. I mean, you know, honestly, it did what it was supposed to do. It got me to watch, and it made me want to watch again.
• 5:22
  Tad Eggleston: But as, like, as a nuanced viewer, like…
• 5:25
  Tad Eggleston: Mookie Betts was a gold glove right fielder.
• 5:28
  Tad Eggleston: In general, there's considered to be a defensive spectrum.
• 5:32
  Tad Eggleston: that, that goes from shortstop and center field, to second base and third base, to right and left field, to first base. And… and, like.
• 5:43
  Tad Eggleston: You move right on the spectrum as you get older and slower. The idea that you would move left on the spectrum from a corner outfield spot to shortstop, one of the hardest positions on the field.
• 5:57
  Tad Eggleston: Is essentially unheard of.
• 6:00
  Tad Eggleston: But not only did Mookie do it a couple of years ago, he's now a gold glove shortstop. So, like, the craziness of it being Mookie Betts.
• 6:10
  Tad Eggleston: who spent a large amount of his career playing right field, which is a completely different position than shortstop. Now, he spent a lot of time in the minors playing short and second. It's not like he hadn't played… I mean…
• 6:22
  Tad Eggleston: Half the guys in baseball played shortstop in high school.
• 6:25
  Tad Eggleston: You know? And the other half were center fielders.
• 6:30
  Tad Eggleston: Unless they were left-handed, in which case they were centerfielders or first basemen.
• 6:35
  Tad Eggleston: But, like…
• 6:41
  Tad Eggleston: people just don't move left on the defensive spectrum, and not only did he do it because his team needed to, but he excelled at it. And now, one of the most famous Moogie bets
• 6:56
  Tad Eggleston: plays in history, it's gonna be him…
• 6:59
  Tad Eggleston: Turning a double play that wasn't an easy double play.
• 7:03
  Tad Eggleston: I… I mean, he had to go a long way to get that ball. If… if…
• 7:09
  Tad Eggleston: He was far enough from the bag that normally he would have flipped to the second baseman, but the second baseman was also far enough from the bag, and the runner was fast enough
• 7:19
  Tad Eggleston: that if he had, they don't get the out at second. If they don't get the out at second, the run scores.
• 7:27
  Britton Payne: No.
• 7:28
  Tad Eggleston: Even if they get the out at first.
• 7:30
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, he had to make that decision in the moment. Nope, I need to run for the bag, I need to beat him to the bag, and then throw to first, all on my own, because…
• 7:41
  Tad Eggleston: There's not time to do this the easy way, and we have to get the double play. Because if we get just one out here, it's tied again.
• 7:51
  Britton Payne: Yeah.
• 7:53
  Britton Payne: It was very exciting, it was a very fun night.
• 7:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. So, so, before we get into, Absolute Martian Manhunter, your pick, and Alienated, my pick to pair with it, tell me about, this, this contest. And, well, for that matter, since the last time you were on, I think you created the foundation, so, like…
• 8:14
  Tad Eggleston: Tell me about all of it.
• 8:16
  Britton Payne: Well, so as we've talked, and you've seen for a couple years, I've been talking about autism and pop culture. My son, who's 11, is autistic, and in the years that, since his diagnosis, when he was 18 months, basically, you know, we've been steeped in that world, and then learning all about autism, and seeing about how it operates in the world.
• 8:35
  Britton Payne: And, so I've been speaking about autism and pop culture, doing autism in comic books, and authentically creating autistic characters, and also behind the scenes, I've been talking… I'm an attorney, I've worked at Warner Brothers Animation, spent a long time at Nickelodeon, and I've built up a
• 8:51
  Britton Payne: Pretty reasonable rolodex of people who make things, specifically make things for kids.
• 8:56
  Britton Payne: I've been trying to figure out how to get more autistic characters, explicitly autistic characters, into kids' pop culture. And in doing that, I came up with this idea that I needed to incentivize writers to create autistic characters.
• 9:09
  Britton Payne: So, since I'm an animation attorney, largely, I started a nonprofit called The Autism Scene. You can go see all kinds of details about them at theautismscene.org, and
• 9:19
  Britton Payne: I started a nonprofit for the purpose of having a spec script competition that would incentivize writers to create
• 9:29
  Britton Payne: new autistic characters interacting meaningfully with series regulars on popular kids' cartoon shows. And the…
• 9:37
  Britton Payne: The idea is, then, that those
• 9:39
  Britton Payne: There are a couple of ideas, I guess, at play. One is you incentivize the writers to create these things by giving them an opportunity to have meetings with people who could theoretically hire them. That can be a real challenge. How do I get people to know who I am? So, I happen to have the Rolodex, and by this competition, if we go through the slush pile and figure out what are the real gems, who are the writers out there who are terrific.
• 10:00
  Britton Payne: Then I… then those…
• 10:02
  Britton Payne: people who I happen to know, agents and managers and showrunners and people who are…
• 10:06
  Britton Payne: in hiring positions in kids' animation can maybe help those guys out. And vice versa, you know, they're always looking for new voices, and so all it's gonna cost them is a 20-minute meeting and reading one script.
• 10:19
  Britton Payne: So for both sides, it's a pretty reasonable exchange, and then in the middle is me, the only…
• 10:24
  Britton Payne: to sort of put this all into play, the only thing I'm asking for is that you pick a show, you write an 11-minute script, and that script has a series regularly meaningfully interacting with an explicitly autistic character. So, we're gonna… on the website, we're gonna sort of provide a list of cartoon shows that are currently in production.
• 10:43
  Britton Payne: there's no point in writing an episode for the Flintstones, let's say, if there's no current Flintstones show in production. It's not gonna get you hired. So, we're encouraging people to write for shows that are currently in production, and then we have a lot of those showrunners as
• 10:57
  Britton Payne: what we're calling prizes in the competition itself. So the submission period opens on December 1, it closes on January 31, so there's sort of this two-month period
• 11:05
  Britton Payne: Where you can submit these things, and if… the people we're trying to draw in are professional
• 11:14
  Britton Payne: animation writers. It's a… it's a kids' animated series spec script competition. It's… we're keeping it pretty limited for this year, just…
• 11:20
  Britton Payne: Just so that we're not biting off more than we can chew. And if it's successful, maybe we expand it next year. But then on April 2 next year, at Nickelodeon Animation Studios, we're gonna be having the awards ceremony, and so Nickelodeon is not sponsoring it or anything like that, but they're just letting us use their space, which is really nice.
• 11:35
  Britton Payne: And, and then hopefully that ends up populating Hollywood with more scripts that say the word autism, and say the word spectrum, and specifically have characters who are explicitly autistic, so that it's not coded
• 11:49
  Britton Payne: And that… that will normalize it for executives, so that when scripts do pop up that have an autistic character, they can say they're autistic. I personally think that's important, because I think it's easier for kids, especially young kids, to transfer their understanding of autism in a situation if they see the word autism associated with
• 12:06
  Britton Payne: you know, their robot unicorn friend on their cartoon show was kind to an autistic person, and understanding, or accommodating, or empathetic. And then, in turn, when they go to school, that might better help them understand their autistic peers, which…
• 12:20
  Britton Payne: you know, there are many ways to do it. This is the way that I happen to have access to, because I know some of these people, and I have an understanding of how these work, and I have the patience of a lawyer willing to do some paperwork to get it all going. So that's the… that's the overall story.
• 12:34
  Tad Eggleston: So, I have a, I have a comment, a thing to add, and then a question. The comment is, is I will, I will, tell the quick story. I, I gave a copy of Raina Telgemeider's Cartoonist Club.
• 12:46
  Tad Eggleston: To… to a… a friend of mine's kid for his birthday this year.
• 12:52
  Tad Eggleston: And…
• 12:56
  Tad Eggleston: I thought it was gonna be meaningful just because it's a great book, and, like, it obviously was, but the first message I got was how meaningful it was, because there was one character who used they-them pronouns, so there was one… only one page that dealt with that at all.
• 13:13
  Tad Eggleston: But that meant the world to this kid, because he also… or they also use they-them pronouns. So, so, like…
• 13:23
  Tad Eggleston: You don't… to be… to be explicitly something doesn't mean that the story has to be about autism, or about…
• 13:32
  Tad Eggleston: You know, it's as simple as.
• 13:35
  Tad Eggleston: you know, having the character say, oh, I'm autistic.
• 13:40
  Britton Payne: Yes.
• 13:42
  Tad Eggleston: In the middle of a scene that's completely about something else.
• 13:46
  Britton Payne: Yeah, it's not a very special episode of Rugrats, right? SpongeBob runs into the… SpongeBob runs into the library because he needs to get something, the librarian says, whoa, whoa, I'm autistic, can you mellow out a little bit? And SpongeBob says, sure, and then he tries, and of course he can't.
• 13:58
  Tad Eggleston: Or you have…
• 14:00
  Britton Payne: He gets his book, and then the librarian gives him his book, he runs away, the episode continues. He's running through the Krabby Patty, because later in the episode he's getting chased, he runs through the pineapple, he kind of tries to walk quietly through the library, you know, also kind of awkwardly, like Martin Schwart. And then you've seen a fun episode of SpongeBob, and not really thought too much about the autism, but what you've also seen as a kid is SpongeBob accommodating and having empathy for
• 14:23
  Britton Payne: a person who is explicitly autistic, that didn't cost him anything, and it was still fun and funny, but might translate to better behavior when you get to school, and you have the autistic kid who has different traits, but still needs empathy and understanding and accommodation and inclusion.
• 14:37
  Britton Payne: All those kinds of things can be, you know, one show's not gonna do it, but if we can flood the zone and get lots of shows, maybe that can make a little bit of a difference.
• 14:44
  Tad Eggleston: And then the second comment I'll make, I didn't hear you mention the prize, other than getting to meet with the showrunners, there is also a cash prize, which means a lot to you, too.
• 14:56
  Britton Payne: Luke.
• 14:57
  Tad Eggleston: Poor writers.
• 14:58
  Britton Payne: Especially right now, you know, things have really cooled off in Hollywood. They say that animation is slowly starting to pick up, so maybe it's a good time to get in as well.
• 15:04
  Britton Payne: But there's a $5,000 grand prize winner, and there are also going to be about 15 category winners of things like Best Sci-Fi Script, and Funniest Script, and Best Use of an AAC device, and Best Script for Young Kids, and Best Non-Speaking Character, and so,
• 15:19
  Britton Payne: anybody… any… not anybody, the people who are the winners of those categories will… are the ones who are going to get fed into meetings with people, and hopefully we'll try and pair them… you know, if you're an adventure writer, then we'll try and pair you with the showrunner of an adventure show.
• 15:33
  Britton Payne: A lot of the shows that we're gonna have represented are some of the… some, you know, really big shows, some shows that haven't even quite started yet. We've got
• 15:40
  Britton Payne: people from Starfire, the DC Comics one, and Avatar, the, Last Airbender one, and Monster High, and LEGO Friends, and Hello Kitty, and other shows like that. Also, managers from places like… I don't know how much this will mean to anybody, but
• 15:55
  Britton Payne: actual writers out there, but, Gersh and Verve LA, and we're gonna have executives from, hopefully from Nickelodeon and Disney and some of the other places, you know, that… that… where I know people, and can…
• 16:06
  Britton Payne: sort of try to do my best to make connections for people who've gone to this effort, which isn't a horrible effort, it's only an 11-minute episode of a show that already exists, you don't even have to come up with the premise of a show or the characters, they already exist.
• 16:17
  Britton Payne: So hopefully it's not too heavy a lift, but that it can have this effect of seeding the ground with explicitly autistic characters to normalize it.
• 16:24
  Britton Payne: Among executives, to have writers even consider it as somebody who might be a character in their story, and to show the many ways in romances and sci-fi and adventure that autistic characters can function in kids' pop culture, so that, you know, normal diets for kids consuming
• 16:42
  Britton Payne: cartoon videos and stuff will include autistic characters, explicitly autistic characters.
• 16:49
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, now the one question is,
• 16:53
  Tad Eggleston: How does the judging process work?
• 16:56
  Britton Payne: Yeah, so there… it's… there's a reading process that starts. We've got a couple of people who work in the industry, who… there are actually a lot of people who are writers who also have done reading for other competitions, so we have some of those guys.
• 17:08
  Britton Payne: And then once we get down towards the end of grading and sorting out the scripts, which is a pretty normal process in a scriptwriting competition, we pull in
• 17:18
  Britton Payne: excuse me, other experts who are going to be the prize presenters, basically, so that we'll get… we'll whittle it down to, like, I don't know, the top 3, 5, however many sci-fi scripts, and then we get somebody who has… who is known in the…
• 17:31
  Britton Payne: animation world for sci-fi kids' shows, like whatever, Transformers, or with the DC Extended Universe. And then that person will pick the winner, basically, in that group. We're also gonna have autism consultants working at all stages of the process to make sure that
• 17:49
  Britton Payne: The representations of autism that are in the script.
• 17:52
  Tad Eggleston: At least that they get the opportunity to weigh in and say, this is something you should know about. This is bad, or this is good, or…
• 17:58
  Britton Payne: This is unusual.
• 18:00
  Tad Eggleston: That'll also include actually autistic… autistic consultants, I hope.
• 18:04
  Britton Payne: Yeah, oh no, all the autism consultants we will be using are autistic, and then some of the writers who are also judging will be autistic, and… Excellent. And everybody involved… well, I guess the experts. We're trying to get people who don't necessarily think about autism that much to start.
• 18:19
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I mean, having both is fine, but I know it's become, particularly among
• 18:26
  Tad Eggleston: Those of us, like myself, who are adults in the autism community, that often… there's a huge part of the world that, like, seems to think that autism ends when you become an adult.
• 18:38
  Britton Payne: Right. No, these… so these guys are autistic, they…
• 18:41
  Tad Eggleston: As it turns out, kids grow up. Yes.
• 18:44
  Britton Payne: Well, they're also professionals, so we'll be…
• 18:46
  Tad Eggleston: being left-handed?
• 18:47
  Britton Payne: we'll be paying them an honorarium, because, you know, if you're a writer, if you're doing a spec script, I guess you do what you gotta do, but ultimately, professionally, if you are writing scripts with an autistic character, you really ought to have an autism consultant if you're not autistic yourself, or you don't have, you know, autistic folks in your writing room or on your team. And so… and it's important that those people get paid, so we're gonna also be a part.
• 19:07
  Tad Eggleston: No, I mean, it just… it comes up to me because one of the reasons that I finally have an autism diagnosis is that autistic people were involved in the DSM-5, so it wasn't just people
• 19:21
  Tad Eggleston: looking at statistics and defining autism without having lived autism. It was…
• 19:26
  Tad Eggleston: It was people who were autistic going, oh, no, no, no! Because they can do this, doesn't mean they're not autistic.
• 19:35
  Britton Payne: That's right.
• 19:37
  Britton Payne: And, you know, of course, as you've talked about a million times, autism presents in a million different ways, and that's why…
• 19:41
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly.
• 19:42
  Britton Payne: That's part of the reason I feel like, you know, whatever I can do to get as many different characters out there, hopefully, will have a lot of different types of representation as well, so that you can see
• 19:50
  Britton Payne: members of autism.
• 19:51
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'll just, I'll just say that, that,
• 19:55
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, part of how you won me over that there needed to be… more explicit.
• 20:03
  Tad Eggleston: representation, because there are thousands of characters out there that, like, autistic people see as autistic. We see ourselves in the characters.
• 20:12
  Tad Eggleston: But, like… Particularly right now, when we have an administration that's talking about autism like it's…
• 20:21
  Tad Eggleston: This… holy hell, worst… worst thing that could ever happen to somebody is that they could be autistic.
• 20:29
  Tad Eggleston: don't take Tylenol, etc. Like…
• 20:35
  Tad Eggleston: Being autistic is like being left-handed. It's a trait. It's… it's sometimes a trait that… that… that causes…
• 20:43
  Tad Eggleston: More trouble than being left-handed, though ask left-handed people about driving cars, or lots of things that just aren't…
• 20:50
  Tad Eggleston: They're built to favor right-handed people. It's not always easy being left-handed, but it's a trait like being blind. In fact, the actual autistic community has looked to the blind and deaf community a lot for how they got
• 21:07
  Tad Eggleston: Better represented, better aided, and treated less differently.
• 21:12
  Tad Eggleston: You know, where it's just part of who they are, rather than the defining factor of who they are.
• 21:18
  Tad Eggleston: So I think one of the… one of the things to me that is huge about the… the word being used is… is for those neurotypical people out there, the more… the more they see the word attached to characters that they love, the more they go, oh…
• 21:35
  Tad Eggleston: Oh…
• 21:38
  Britton Payne: Yeah, well, and the, you know, a lot of… a lot of… not a lot, there's certainly a significant portion of
• 21:45
  Britton Payne: The challenges of being autistic that are based in the way other people treat you.
• 21:51
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 21:51
  Britton Payne: And so it's the other people who need to change them. You know, it's the neurotypical people who need to change. And so my hope is that this is, like, again, drip, drip, drip, cracks the boulder. Part of how you change
• 22:05
  Britton Payne: the world that… Autistic people are operating in.
• 22:10
  Britton Payne: Be kinder, to be more empathetic, to recognize that, like, just like being left-handed, there are a lot of parts of autism that
• 22:17
  Britton Payne: Doesn't require an adjustment from the autistic person, it requires an adjustment from the neurotypical person around them.
• 22:22
  Tad Eggleston: And, since we started this all off at baseball, one of the reasons that lefties play a lot of first base is it actually puts their glove in the position to put a better tag on
• 22:33
  Tad Eggleston: The… Runner diving back in, so there's an argument that a left-handed player has an inherent advantage
• 22:43
  Tad Eggleston: As a first baseman. There's a really good argument that a left-handed
• 22:47
  Tad Eggleston: Pitcher has an inherent advantage, just because there are enough fewer of them, that it puts the, like, so…
• 22:53
  Tad Eggleston: Autism comes with its… with its…
• 22:57
  Tad Eggleston: Difficulties, but it also comes with its advantages that, like, a neurotypical person might not even be able to wrap their heads around, because their heads are wired different.
• 23:08
  Britton Payne: Absolutely, and so I hope that the scripts that get presented in this competition.
• 23:13
  Tad Eggleston: Include both of those, the difficulties and the benefits.
• 23:16
  Britton Payne: And, you know, recognizes that just like everybody, we have our strengths and weaknesses. And I think that that's a great form of representation that, you know, I hope to see at least some of in these cartoons, the animated scripts that people turn in.
• 23:30
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, did you get a chance to read, Endeavor?
• 23:34
  Britton Payne: Endeavor… yes, I read Endeavor, it was just part one, of what appears to be a much longer story.
• 23:39
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's at least 3, it might be 5.
• 23:42
  Britton Payne: Total, once it's all said and done.
• 23:44
  Tad Eggleston: That's the… that's the typical length at distillery.
• 23:48
  Tad Eggleston: But I saw the explicitly autistic character and immediately thought of you.
• 23:54
  Britton Payne: Yes, thank you for giving me that tip, just as a quick, you know, explanation of what was in there. It was… it's a… it seems like it's gonna be a horror story, excuse me, set on an old-timey pirate ship in the modern day, or something, you know, my old-timey ship in the modern day. And the only… my only perception of the autistic character in the first book, you meet the character, but there was nothing about the character inherently.
• 24:14
  Britton Payne: that made you wonder, even, if the… or that was even coded, but there was an explicit conversation about it
• 24:22
  Britton Payne: With the parents, where the parents are talking about how she was treated in school.
• 24:25
  Britton Payne: But I've only read the first issue, so there might be more that comes later. And the parents are kind of talking about, you know, a typical conversation between parents of an autistic child.
• 24:33
  Britton Payne: I'll be curious to see
• 24:36
  Britton Payne: is the story more… and is the character's autism in the story more centered on the character, or is it more centered on the parents and their response to the kid's autism? So, you know, I don't know, we'll see.
• 24:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, it looks like the parents are both dead now, so…
• 24:51
  Britton Payne: Hey, spoiler alert.
• 24:53
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, you read the first issue, it's been out for a while, and, like, one of the premises is that they're going on a vacation with Dad.
• 25:05
  Tad Eggleston: After mom has passed away.
• 25:10
  Tad Eggleston: And that's part of what's… what's hard for everybody, but… but also, like…
• 25:16
  Tad Eggleston: One of the things is, it appears that all of the adults on this ship have died, and now it's…
• 25:22
  Britton Payne: Mike.
• 25:22
  Tad Eggleston: the kids that have to figure it out. And that's why I… I am… I am guessing…
• 25:29
  Tad Eggleston: That whether it's continually explicit or something that you have to remember from the beginning, the autistic traits that she has are gonna wind up playing it a lot.
• 25:41
  Tad Eggleston: Because my hunch is, she's gonna be the hero.
• 25:44
  Tad Eggleston: And my hunch is it's gonna be a lot of the different ways that she sees. I mean, that's just my…
• 25:52
  Tad Eggleston: I know Stephanie, but we haven't talked about this book yet. It's been a while since we bumped into each other. So this is no inside information. This is, this is, like, when we're reading at school, we sometimes ask kids to make predictions based on what they've read so far. That's part of reading comprehension.
• 26:11
  Tad Eggleston: My guess, from what I've read so far, is that one of the reasons that you find out she's autistic
• 26:17
  Tad Eggleston: Is to explain… And help you understand how she thinks so differently from… and she's gonna have…
• 26:25
  Britton Payne: other problems, and we've already seen that. She needs her headphones, you know.
• 26:29
  Tad Eggleston: We've seen some of the sensory stuff already.
• 26:31
  Tad Eggleston: But my hunch is she's gonna take…
• 26:35
  Tad Eggleston: Center stage in, in, like, the survival story.
• 26:39
  Tad Eggleston: But that's just a guess, based on what I've seen so far.
• 26:42
  Tad Eggleston: We'll certainly revisit it, I'm certain.
• 26:47
  Britton Payne: Really fun to have a new autistic character that I can throw into my panel presentation about autism in comic books.
• 26:53
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Well, the next time you do it at C2E2, like, we'll reach out to Stephanie.
• 26:57
  Britton Payne: Oh, that'd be great.
• 26:58
  Tad Eggleston: in Chicago.
• 26:59
  Tad Eggleston: But, yeah. So, let's talk… Martian Manager, and…
• 27:07
  Tad Eggleston: and alienated. I'm gonna let you start with…
• 27:10
  Britton Payne: Yeah, let's…
• 27:11
  Tad Eggleston: Why do you pick Martian…
• 27:13
  Tad Eggleston: Manhunter, and, you know, give the thumbnail and what you love about it. But then, as always, you have to guess why I paired it with Alienated.
• 27:24
  Britton Payne: Okay, so for… the reason that I would have picked Absolute Martian Manhunter is just because since I saw the very first announcement of it, I just happened to be in the audience at, I think it was New York Comic-Con.
• 27:35
  Britton Payne: last year, and they put up a slide, and it just had this beautiful art. I couldn't believe it. I've never heard… I'd never heard of Dennis Camp, or at least didn't know his name at that point. I love Dennis Camp. And and I… I mean, I do, you know, now I pay attention, obviously, but… Right.
• 27:50
  Britton Payne: And, Javier Rodriguez, and the art style just…
• 27:55
  Britton Payne: just blew the doors off the joint for me. I felt like I hadn't seen anything quite like it before. It was evocative of the phase of Martian Manhunter, or the version of Martian Manhunter… my headcanon version of Martian Manhunter, which is that he's sort of steeped in the detective noir-ish of the 50s and early 60s.
• 28:14
  Britton Payne: And that he is now, in almost a kitschy way, using that as his entryway into finding out about humanity. And this kind of captured that era's
• 28:23
  Britton Payne: Artistic style, not necessarily in comic books, but in popular art.
• 28:29
  Britton Payne: the color palette and the shapes, and I… it was evocative of that for me, but in a modern way, it wasn't as, I found a lot of that work dry back in the 50s and 60s, and this was very much alive. So even just seeing that first
• 28:42
  Britton Payne: that first slide was just kind of crazy. I was like, okay, I gotta follow this. I happen to love the character Martian Manhunter, and again, like, in the… in my headcanon, you know, the perfect Martian Manhunter story is… it's called American Secrets, and it's a largely forgotten, square-bound story from, I think, the late 90s. Eduardo Barreto.
• 29:03
  Britton Payne: Which is… which is, I think, a wonderful story also. But this one, not only… I mostly would have just picked it because I loved it, and then I knew we would have something to talk about in no small part because there's a child in there who, so far, I believe, hasn't said anything, and…
• 29:17
  Britton Payne: is at least coded as autistic or something. And so, you know, we'll see whether that gets explored in later issues. Originally, this one
• 29:27
  Britton Payne: I believe it's only supposed to be 6 issues.
• 29:29
  Tad Eggleston: And now we're already soliciting 7.
• 29:31
  Tad Eggleston: Right, so far the coding is more in the talk of…
• 29:37
  Tad Eggleston: Was it a speech therapist or an OT that, that, that was specifically… discussed by… by,
• 29:49
  Tad Eggleston: The wife at one point, that he had an appointment with his… his…
• 29:53
  Britton Payne: Yeah, and you're gonna miss it. Yeah.
• 29:55
  Britton Payne: Yeah, his autism so far has mostly been
• 29:59
  Britton Payne: Expl… who knows if it's autism? What… his… the character…
• 30:03
  Tad Eggleston: It looks alone.
• 30:04
  Britton Payne: is a secondary character. It does, yeah. But he… but it is not centered on him, at least not yet. It is about the father and the father's…
• 30:11
  Britton Payne: Struggle, and then the mother's struggle with the father.
• 30:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, going back…
• 30:17
  Tad Eggleston: predictions, though, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that I think it will become a thing, because I.
• 30:23
  Britton Payne: It does seem like it, yeah.
• 30:24
  Tad Eggleston: I think he can see… John Johns.
• 30:29
  Britton Payne: But he is… I think so, too. But he is unlikely, I think, to become the central character in the story.
• 30:35
  Tad Eggleston: No, I think, I think…
• 30:36
  Britton Payne: It's gonna be more of a silent…
• 30:37
  Tad Eggleston: Bob-type thing.
• 30:39
  Britton Payne: I think you're right, yeah. I don't think we're ever going to know his internal monologue, for example.
• 30:42
  Tad Eggleston: No, right. I think there's gonna be a massive mic drop moment that comes from him.
• 30:50
  Britton Payne: I suspect… it is funny, though, that I don't know that it would be as much of a mic drop for you and me, just because we've been paying attention to it.
• 30:55
  Britton Payne: Like, a little more so than maybe the average bear?
• 30:58
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but I mean, like, when you're watching a Kevin Smith movie, you know that… you know that Bob is gonna talk at some point, and it's gonna be meaningful. That doesn't make it any less meaningful, so it'll still be that.
• 31:13
  Britton Payne: I agree. Yeah, and so I… then I got the book, and I… I mean, I just adore it. You know, I've been reading comics for 50 years at this point, and…
• 31:22
  Britton Payne: you feel like, and I read every Wednesday, you know, I've been going to the store every Wednesday, and you feel like you're never gonna see anything new, you're just gonna see a new variation on something you're familiar with. And to be honest, this felt new to me, there were a lot of tricks throughout the course of this six-issue run.
• 31:36
  Tad Eggleston: That's right.
• 31:37
  Britton Payne: on paper.
• 31:38
  Tad Eggleston: Right. This is actually where I need to ask you if you're reading Assorted Crisis Events.
• 31:44
  Britton Payne: I have read Assorted Crisis events, and I loved it. I thought it was wonderful.
• 31:49
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 31:49
  Britton Payne: Yes, I am.
• 31:50
  Tad Eggleston: I was about to say, because honestly, I think, like, as much as I love Martian Manhunter, it's, like, the second most ambitious and crazy out-there comic that Dennis Camp is doing right now.
• 32:03
  Britton Payne: Yeah, well, I ended up buying that. I was kind of aware of it, and people were saying it was good, but I didn't buy it until…
• 32:08
  Britton Payne: I made the connection between Martian, and probably on your podcast, or I'm listening to your podcast, making the connection between, the writer of Martian Manager and the sort of crisis events. But yeah, then I went back, and I think I read one, and I was like, I need to own this paper, so I went and bought the floppies off of eBay or whatever, and I adore it. It's just… it's just great. And I'll be curious to see how all the stories tie together, and…
• 32:27
  Tad Eggleston: It's another one that was supposed to be, it was supposed to be, like, 5 or 6 issues and got extended, so he's…
• 32:33
  Britton Payne: Oh, good.
• 32:34
  Tad Eggleston: He's done too well… so well with two different… Books.
• 32:38
  Tad Eggleston: That he gets second arcs.
• 32:41
  Britton Payne: Well, so both, you know, both of those books now that we're talking about them, they push the visual element, this visual storytelling style, in ways that remind me of Promethea from a long time ago, but I found Promethea really difficult to get.
• 32:55
  Tad Eggleston: Well, it's now and more. …to and through after a while.
• 32:58
  Britton Payne: Yeah, the earlier parts.
• 32:59
  Tad Eggleston: Ellen Moore is the Dickens of… of… comics.
• 33:03
  Britton Payne: It was also the visual presentation, the more that I'm thinking about. I mean, the storytelling, yes, for me, it kind of went off the rails. It started off as, like, a more sort of elegant, magical Wonder Woman story, and then it turned into something
• 33:16
  Britton Payne: that was, I don't know, a meditation on something I've just became less interested in, or found a little bit more opaque, because of the visual style. And so, in both of these two Dennis Camp books.
• 33:24
  Tad Eggleston: Well, that's J.H. Williams, isn't it?
• 33:27
  Britton Payne: I think so, yeah. Yeah, back then, yeah.
• 33:29
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, if there's an artist version of Dickens, he's it! So that book is just, like… and I need to re-read it, because I… when I read it initially, I think I felt a lot of similar things to you. But it's also, like, I have an awareness that you have
• 33:47
  Tad Eggleston: the densest, most layered writer in the business, with one of the densest, most layered artists in the business, on a comic book for…
• 33:58
  Britton Payne: It was beautiful, but after a point, I found it obtuse. This, on the other hand, I found both of these stories, but especially Martian Manhunter, Absolute Martian Manhunter, I found really accessible. So it was really cool to see something avant-garde and accessible at the same time. I think that's a real trick.
• 34:12
  Britton Payne: Oh, absolutely. And I enjoyed it so much, and the first run, the first read-through especially, and when you have to wait a month in between, there's a certain thing about that that…
• 34:21
  Britton Payne: is very exciting, and it's unusual to have that sort of month-to-month excitement of, like, what's gonna happen next? You know, when you're 10, and they, you know, Superman gets captured, and he's got the kryptonite on him, and it's the cliffhanger, you're like, I think this might be the end for Superman, I don't know.
• 34:37
  Britton Payne: But now, when you're, you know, when you're in your 50s and you're reading that same story, you're like, well, obviously they're not gonna cancel Superman because of intellectual property and blah blah blah. Like, all the things you know that you didn't know when you.
• 34:47
  Tad Eggleston: There you are with your lawyer-speak, intellectual part. Exactly.
• 34:50
  Britton Payne: That's what we all… that's what we all do. Like, you know they're not. At this age, you know they're not gonna kill Superman and not bring him back. But with this Absolute Martian Manhunter, I felt surprised, you know? It could have gone… I don't know what this.
• 35:02
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and that's the other thing, I mean, one of the reasons they do things like absolute universes and whatnot is that,
• 35:09
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know that they couldn't kill Absolute Superman.
• 35:13
  Britton Payne: Absolutely, or absolute Martian Manhunter, like, you don't know, you don't know. So it kind of brings back a little.
• 35:18
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I also… I mean, I also somewhat reject the idea that just knowing that somebody can die is what's… and I'm not saying that you were saying this, but some people… some people say it. That, like, if you know they can't die, there's no tension, and bullshit. There's… there are plenty of ways to have tension that don't involve people dying.
• 35:37
  Britton Payne: That is totally true, but when you think back to, you know, your earliest comic books that you read, every issue, you know, you don't know where this is gonna go, because it's your first exposure to it. I had an interesting reread of The Absolute Martian Manhunter, though, where a lot of that
• 35:52
  Britton Payne: the joy of surprise, and like, what kind of story is this gonna be, and what kind of storytelling is this as I'm reading it? That was gone. And then it has to sort of stand on its own merits, separate from the surprise aspect of it.
• 36:05
  Britton Payne: And it's a really great story!
• 36:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I was about to say.
• 36:08
  Britton Payne: All of that.
• 36:09
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think I've read it
• 36:12
  Tad Eggleston: three, maybe four times, because, like, I'm not always great at remembering issue to issue, so sometimes when I read the new month's book, and, like, I don't know, like, I'm enjoying it, but I don't remember everything, I, like, re-read everything before it, like, immediately, and then read it again.
• 36:29
  Tad Eggleston: I did that a couple of times with Martian Manhunter during the run here, and I read it yesterday to be ready for this.
• 36:36
  Tad Eggleston: Like… And it holds… not only does it hold up, it gets steeper.
• 36:44
  Britton Payne: It gets deeper in certain ways, especially in your…
• 36:47
  Britton Payne: In the reread, I think you get more empathy and understanding of his wife, and of her situation, and it's this really fun parallel of
• 36:57
  Britton Payne: not on the first read. On the first read, I think it's all spectacular. And it's on the second read, I think you get this more nuanced understanding of, gee, what's going on here? What are we exploring? Because your Martian Manhunter and Jon Jones are, in this case, trying to merge their minds, basically. Right. Which is different from the original Martian Manhunter, where it was a…
• 37:16
  Britton Payne: It was an alien who would disguise himself as John Jones.
• 37:19
  Britton Payne: So there was no inherent conflict of who am I? No.
• 37:23
  Tad Eggleston: In this one, there is. Inhabit John Jones.
• 37:26
  Britton Payne: Yeah, and so…
• 37:27
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's in the multi… it's in the extra readings that I also start seeing… The ways that…
• 37:35
  Tad Eggleston: John Jones both welcomes and pushes back against this other presence.
• 37:40
  Britton Payne: Which he has both internally and externally, and that's what I think is the fun meditation of the story, whereas the main story, of course, is… well, there's a plot, of course, but the main character development is, how are these two minds going to merge? You know, how are these two people who now occupy the same space going to merge together?
• 37:58
  Britton Payne: Drawn right next door to…
• 38:00
  Britton Payne: how are you supposed to be married? Which is the same thing, you know? How are you supposed to merge your life with this other person's life? How do you manage this voice in your head? And how do you maintain, you know, a single unit while being separate people?
• 38:16
  Britton Payne: So it's just really fun to see the relationship between Jon Jones and The Martian.
• 38:21
  Britton Payne: And… and parallel development with John Jones' relationship with his wife.
• 38:25
  Britton Payne: Which I found really just great on the second read-through. And then the other big issue, I think, and this is where it draws me into Alienating, is that it feels like the plot is a lot about,
• 38:39
  Britton Payne: The emotional… the plot, like, the danger, how are we gonna solve this problem?
• 38:45
  Britton Payne: And it's a lot about paranoia, and emotion, and love.
• 38:50
  Britton Payne: And how are we going to not let the anti-love forces take over? Which sounds like hippie stuff. In some ways, The Martian is kind of a proto-hippie. You know, he's definitely, like, a beatnik type, which was also an aspect of,
• 39:06
  Britton Payne: the Eduardo Barreto American Secrets Martian Manhunter story back from, I think it was the late 90s.
• 39:11
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna have to go read.
• 39:13
  Britton Payne: It's really fun. It's a… it's noir. You have to sort of remember what was going on in the DC Universe.
• 39:17
  Tad Eggleston: Gerard Jones, who does…
• 39:19
  Britton Payne: I believe so, yeah.
• 39:19
  Tad Eggleston: No, I know so, I'm looking at it.
• 39:22
  Britton Payne: Oh, oh, okay, yes.
• 39:26
  Tad Eggleston: who also does some, some fantastic work, so I'm looking forward to…
• 39:31
  Britton Payne: It's a different type of story, but I still think it's really lovely, and in a…
• 39:35
  Britton Payne: To me, it's… it's one of the craziest.
• 39:37
  Tad Eggleston: from August…
• 39:38
  Britton Payne: Martian Manager.
• 39:39
  Tad Eggleston: of 1992. It was a three-issue.
• 39:41
  Britton Payne: Old. Oh, alright.
• 39:43
  Tad Eggleston: prestige format.
• 39:44
  Britton Payne: Yes.
• 39:46
  Tad Eggleston: And it's outside of mainstream continuity, but not officially in Elseworlds.
• 39:52
  Britton Payne: Yeah, it sort of occupies that liminal space. Like, I think it would be fair in that version… in that… that universe of that time
• 39:59
  Britton Payne: it… it could have been… it could have been really… it bridged the gap between the Golden Age and the Silver Age. That was…
• 40:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, just looking at the cover and the brief descriptions I'm seeing,
• 40:13
  Tad Eggleston: it feels like, like, it's out of continuity the way that, technically, Batman Year 1 is out of continuity.
• 40:22
  Britton Payne: And the Golden Age would have been sort of a…
• 40:24
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Similar idea at the time.
• 40:26
  Britton Payne: Right. Now, you know, now we're game for everything. Everything happened, everything is real. So I don't know that it would need to have been that strict.
• 40:35
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So, the quick rundown on Alienated, Taki Soma, and, John Brolia.
• 40:42
  Tad Eggleston: Is that, like… Aliens have come to Earth, but then they immediately died.
• 40:48
  Tad Eggleston: And it's a… it's kind of a multi-generational family story surrounding…
• 40:57
  Tad Eggleston: That, and the one alien that was saved.
• 41:04
  Tad Eggleston: And yeah, it's hard to describe… describe, because, like, I think the heart of it is actually a coming-of-age story for the two teenage characters.
• 41:14
  Tad Eggleston: But it also says a lot about love, and it says a lot about family.
• 41:19
  Tad Eggleston: And it says a lot about risk and fear, and… And whatever.
• 41:27
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, I totally recommend this on Comixology Unlimited, and I'm certain it will get put into print.
• 41:32
  Tad Eggleston: Sooner rather than later, but I don't know that it's been announced anywhere yet. But Britt, why did I pair it with Absolute Martian Man Toter? This is actually an easier one than it normally is.
• 41:42
  Britton Payne: I actually feel like there are two reasons. I mean, they're both, you know, Alien comes to Earth and makes connections with humans. You know, that was sort of in the face value version of it. And then the plots, strangely enough, are relatively similar, where,
• 41:58
  Britton Payne: you have… and character development, because you have an alien who has come to Earth and is connected with a human, and has to figure out how to bridge the communication gap.
• 42:08
  Britton Payne: And, Martian Manhunter, we have not fully resolved that. Alienated was a six-issue miniseries where we got the beginning, middle, and end. So everything they had to say about Alienated has been said.
• 42:17
  Britton Payne: Martian Manage are still a little bit up in the air, so they're still figuring out that communication, part. In Alienated, we come to realize that the alien can see things that, the other kids, the other people there can't see.
• 42:28
  Britton Payne: And has… and eventually learns how to speak English, basically.
• 42:33
  Tad Eggleston: Well, there you just hit the autistic reason that I paired them, is that Martian Manhunter and aliens see things.
• 42:40
  Tad Eggleston: On, on different spectrums, then.
• 42:43
  Tad Eggleston: than the human characters and their stories. They both…
• 42:46
  Britton Payne: Have the ability to see.
• 42:49
  Tad Eggleston: More than the people that they're communicating with.
• 42:54
  Britton Payne: Yeah, and the Martian Manhunters appears to be… the absolute Martian Manhunters appears to be time-related, where he can sort of…
• 43:01
  Britton Payne: into the future a little bit, and that's roughly what's happening. Whereas in Alienated, it is described… he can see things on, like, an electromagnetic spectrum. I don't know that they ever give a name to it.
• 43:12
  Britton Payne: Where, in part, he could see when someone was likely to die soon.
• 43:17
  Britton Payne: And that was something he was aware of.
• 43:19
  Tad Eggleston: strong emotions, he can see all sorts of things. Yeah.
• 43:24
  Britton Payne: And both stories also have a plot that seems to resolve… it seems to lie in love, and using love
• 43:32
  Britton Payne: As a… an affirmative…
• 43:34
  Britton Payne: weapon, I guess. It's more of a shield, but as your power, basically, in fighting the bad guy, which in Martian Manager appears to be an actual entity, and in Alienated is basically just, how do we get home without
• 43:49
  Britton Payne: without dying.
• 43:50
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and also that, that.
• 43:52
  Britton Payne: Using lab.
• 43:52
  Tad Eggleston: Presence here has somehow jeopardized both of our…
• 43:57
  Tad Eggleston: You know, we've thrown something off of balance.
• 44:00
  Tad Eggleston: You know, everywhere else we've gone, it's just been okay. Here, we've messed with entropy.
• 44:06
  Tad Eggleston: Things have slowed down here, but if things have slowed down here, they've sped up at home, so both of our worlds are in danger if we don't.
• 44:13
  Tad Eggleston: Fix it.
• 44:14
  Britton Payne: Yeah, Alienated leans more into physics. Yeah, Alienated leans more into physics, and Martian Manager seems to veer more into, like, ESP.
• 44:23
  Britton Payne: But… but they're obviously very similar, and they're both… they're both terrific. They're both…
• 44:27
  Britton Payne: surprisingly breezy, to get through. There's a certain… if you look at the artwork in both
• 44:35
  Britton Payne: There's a certain simplicity and efficiency of line work, and
• 44:39
  Britton Payne: Narrowing of storytelling, so neither one is particularly sprawling.
• 44:43
  Britton Payne: They are… they're both very much character stories and character analyses that have a plot.
• 44:48
  Britton Payne: That have a fun, you know, propulsive element in the story, but are largely about exploring relationships between people.
• 44:56
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, and like,
• 44:59
  Tad Eggleston: Not explicitly, but I really think winter is somewhere on the spectrum as well. And possibly.
• 45:06
  Tad Eggleston: His sister, but definitely Winter.
• 45:09
  Tad Eggleston: You know, that, that, that level of…
• 45:15
  Tad Eggleston: Shyness isn't quite the right word, it's, it's, like, overthinking beer.
• 45:21
  Tad Eggleston: Not being able to pick up on social cues, being worried about
• 45:28
  Tad Eggleston: Sending the wrong social messages, whatnot, just… Like, th-that-that…
• 45:35
  Tad Eggleston: Strikes me so much as a… as a spectrum behavior… Her set of behaviors.
• 45:43
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is… this is where we go back to, what we said earlier about the advantage and the great thing about having more explicit autism in…
• 45:54
  Tad Eggleston: And books, is that, like.
• 45:57
  Tad Eggleston: I think there are a lot of people who wouldn't look at Winter and go, oh, he's autistic. They'd go, he's shy, or he's…
• 46:04
  Tad Eggleston: This, or he's that.
• 46:07
  Tad Eggleston: I think… so is Winter the brother?
• 46:09
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 46:10
  Britton Payne: So, winter…
• 46:12
  Britton Payne: the specific problem that he's dealing with, he's got a crush on a boy, he's a boy, and he doesn't know whether the boy he's got a crush on is… first of all, doesn't know if he's gay, and second of all, doesn't know if he's interested in him. So it sort of doubles up the, should I ask this person out on a date?
• 46:29
  Britton Payne: You know, standard part of teenage dramas and teenage life.
• 46:33
  Britton Payne: And…
• 46:35
  Britton Payne: it is interesting that, you know, you could perceive him as coded as autistic, you could also sort of see him as having this universal experience, and as I was reading it, my kids are not quite that age yet, but they're getting there, and I wonder how current
• 46:51
  Britton Payne: You know, tweens and young teenagers.
• 46:54
  Britton Payne: deal with homosexuality. I just don't know, because I'm not that age. And when I remember back to, you know, when I was 14, 15 years old, it would have been unthinkable. This storyline would have been unthinkable, at least in my cohort.
• 47:07
  Britton Payne: In suburban New Jersey, and so it's interesting to see the evolution of that, because it… it felt to me like I don't know this world, either in the real world or in the comic book. I don't know if this is an existential threat. If he ass out… if a gay kid ass out a straight kid.
• 47:24
  Britton Payne: Boy?
• 47:25
  Britton Payne: he get beat up? Like, I don't know, that might have been what would have happened in the.
• 47:28
  Tad Eggleston: It does not seem like it in this book, obviously. Overall, it's…
• 47:34
  Tad Eggleston: In most places, a much less existential threat.
• 47:38
  Tad Eggleston: than it once was, and I think.
• 47:40
  Britton Payne: That's what I would assume, but you know…
• 47:41
  Tad Eggleston: supposed to be.
• 47:43
  Britton Payne: You just don't have exposure to it. So that's… that was part of… that increased the tension for me as a reader.
• 47:48
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely. And, and, and, and, like…
• 47:52
  Tad Eggleston: It's always fascinating to talk with you about this stuff.
• 47:56
  Tad Eggleston: Because, like… what… what coded winter as…
• 48:05
  Tad Eggleston: Neurodivergent, to me, was more not…
• 48:09
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, yes, he was having the standard
• 48:14
  Tad Eggleston: everybody has that, that, do they like me, do they not like me, blah blah blah. That part was standard, but it was more like the specific phrasings, the specific hang-ups that made me go.
• 48:27
  Tad Eggleston: this feels… more…
• 48:31
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I didn't prepare well enough to take notes to say, and I'll have to think about this in the future, when he said it this way rather than that way, it felt neurodivergent to me.
• 48:46
  Tad Eggleston: You know, the way he stumbled over his words.
• 48:50
  Tad Eggleston: Reminded me of…
• 48:53
  Tad Eggleston: myself and or a lot of other neurodivergent people that I know, or have worked with, or… Whatever.
• 49:05
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah.
• 49:06
  Tad Eggleston: But you're right. I mean, and that… but that also goes back to my… what I was saying about the power of…
• 49:15
  Tad Eggleston: Being more explicit, because…
• 49:21
  Tad Eggleston: if you're more explicit on a character like this, you've got twofold. You've got the, oh, I wouldn't have thought of him as autistic until…
• 49:29
  Tad Eggleston: But… I might have thought of this as annoying, and now I think of it differently.
• 49:35
  Britton Payne: Yeah, and also, think about it this way, like, if it's a code… let's say that character is coded as autistic, so then you… intentional. So then… and you see it, you perceive it. So now you…
• 49:45
  Britton Payne: get to see yourself in the comic book. But if it's explicit, I get to see yourself.
• 49:50
  Britton Payne: That's what I'm saying.
• 49:52
  Britton Payne: And I feel like there's a certain value… I'm not saying that, you know, Takisoma should have done something different with their book, like, that's not what I'm after. But if…
• 50:00
  Tad Eggleston: But the next time I talk to her, I'm gonna ask how she thought of Winter. I mean, we talked about this book, but I think it was before I really, like, thought of him.
• 50:08
  Tad Eggleston: that way.
• 50:10
  Tad Eggleston: But I've talked to Taki a couple of times, I'm certain we'll talk again.
• 50:15
  Britton Payne: Yeah, I mean.
• 50:16
  Tad Eggleston: question.
• 50:16
  Britton Payne: You could also see the alien as coded as autistic, you know, if you're suggesting that here's a person… here's a person surrounded by people who naturally understand language and communication and how they perceive the world, and this other person who has to consciously learn it.
• 50:32
  Britton Payne: Rather than have it come to them naturally and intuitively. And for a lot of people, that's also part of.
• 50:37
  Tad Eggleston: And I think that's another reason why, I mean, Winter wasn't really the main, main character, but…
• 50:45
  Tad Eggleston: I felt like he… Connected with the aliens trying to figure out
• 50:57
  Tad Eggleston: things in a different way. He seemed to have a different affinity with the alien than his sibling or his grandfather, and that is actually one of the things that also made me think, because you're right, you know, the alien's absolutely a metaphor… could absolutely be read as a metaphor for autism.
• 51:15
  Britton Payne: Yeah, like a Star Trek way.
• 51:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's like, oh, okay, I have to figure out how all of these other people think.
• 51:22
  Britton Payne: Yeah. I don't happen to think that that was… that was Takisoma's intention, but I'd be curious.
• 51:27
  Tad Eggleston: No, I don't necessarily think it was, but it could be. I mean, particularly, like, the revelation for the alien that, like…
• 51:36
  Tad Eggleston: Because one of the weirdest things
• 51:39
  Tad Eggleston: for me, through the years, being autistic, is the things that I…
• 51:45
  Tad Eggleston: that are second nature to me, or that I…
• 51:49
  Tad Eggleston: always notice, or hear, or whatever, that it turns out that, no, other people
• 51:55
  Tad Eggleston: Don't hear the electricity in the walls.
• 51:58
  Tad Eggleston: Other people… Can't tell what direction the wind is blowing from the slightest breeze on their arm.
• 52:10
  Tad Eggleston: You know, other people do drive automatically. They don't…
• 52:17
  Tad Eggleston: Think about all 17 cars in their view, and what they think they might do next, and sometimes even give them names to help keep track of them.
• 52:30
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, the alien, like, suddenly realizing, oh, you don't see!
• 52:37
  Tad Eggleston: But it's also very it.
• 52:39
  Tad Eggleston: very meaningful to me, when it's like, oh… because half the time, like, at least for me, one of the places
• 52:49
  Tad Eggleston: that my autism has been most difficult is those times where I'm
• 52:54
  Tad Eggleston: three steps ahead in the conversation, and it's not even that the person couldn't get there, it's that I didn't take them there, because I didn't know that they needed to be taken there, and I was worried about feeling like I was condescending, so I didn't want to take them through the steps, and here I am, just babbling on, because that's what I do, because…
• 53:12
  Tad Eggleston: That's also an autism trait.
• 53:16
  Britton Payne: Yeah, it's interesting, you know, talking about the kids, too. The two different books resonate differently with me as an adult. I felt Alienated was very much targeted at kids, and had a very childlike view of the world and their relative importance in it, and that the judgment decisions that they make were very much childlike.
• 53:35
  Britton Payne: Where, you know, who should sacrifice what, and should we…
• 53:40
  Britton Payne: follow this lead in this mystery, or should we go to our own graduation and give a speech? The way those decisions were made felt very much child-centered, whereas in Martian Manager, it feels like very adult issues. You know, how do you man… how do you… specifically, the relationship between the husband and the wife.
• 53:58
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, comicsology doesn't always specifically,
• 54:04
  Tad Eggleston: brand genre, but I would be willing to bet that when Alienated gets…
• 54:09
  Tad Eggleston: published, it'll be published as a YA.
• 54:14
  Britton Payne: Yeah, it feels a little bit like that, which is fair, you know, it's also child-centered.
• 54:18
  Britton Payne: Which, you know, lots of things should be. But it's a fun, good, breezy story.
• 54:24
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I don't call YA… I mean, for me, YA isn't pejorative. They're… they're… like, half of the best stuff out there is YA, because, like…
• 54:37
  Tad Eggleston: There's great value in… in… Seeing things from a kid's perspective.
• 54:44
  Britton Payne: Absolutely, yeah.
• 54:45
  Tad Eggleston: And YA is mostly a marketing term.
• 54:49
  Tad Eggleston: You know, you know all about that, you know.
• 54:53
  Britton Payne: Well, it's… it is fun, also.
• 54:55
  Tad Eggleston: Part of deciding… How something gets… gets…
• 54:59
  Tad Eggleston: marketed is more about how will it sell more than what specifically is it?
• 55:08
  Britton Payne: Yeah, although having a daughter who's a voracious reader, who is mature but still 10,
• 55:14
  Britton Payne: I'm now realizing how thinly sliced the various different categories are.
• 55:19
  Britton Payne: Because she is a little too young for YA.
• 55:22
  Britton Payne: And even though her reading level is, you know, up and past YA reading level, the content still is… she could read it, but it's just not quite where she is developmentally yet. Right. And… which means that there is a category
• 55:37
  Britton Payne: under YA, that a lot of books are in.
• 55:41
  Britton Payne: Middle grade, is that what it is? Yeah. Middle grade.
• 55:43
  Tad Eggleston: And there's actually also early middle grade, and then children's.
• 55:46
  Britton Payne: That's so great. Yes, and so they're all thinly sized.
• 55:50
  Tad Eggleston: Considered, like, grades… 5 to 7, middle grade is 6 to 8.
• 55:57
  Tad Eggleston: YA is technically, like, 8 through…
• 56:04
  Tad Eggleston: 8th grade and up.
• 56:07
  Britton Payne: Well, as a parent, those things actually are meaningful to me.
• 56:11
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. You know, I don't want her reading things that are too simple for her, but I don't want reading things that are too mature for her.
• 56:16
  Britton Payne: And I am kind of grateful that… that there is, like, okay, middle grade… there's this genre of book that I know that this is… this is what she can get the most out of.
• 56:25
  Tad Eggleston: But that's also a marketing decision, because lots of parents are like that.
• 56:30
  Britton Payne: Marketing, because they're communicating it to me, because it has value to me.
• 56:33
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 56:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 56:38
  Britton Payne: So overall, I think they're both really great books. I find that I like Absolute Martian Manhunter an awful lot more, partly because of who I am and my age and stuff like that. And I… with Martian Manhunter, I know that it was supposed to be this limited series, but I was sad, but like, oh my god, we're only gonna get six issues of this wonderful thing.
• 56:56
  Britton Payne: I'm glad they are continuing it, but I also hope that
• 57:00
  Britton Payne: I still hope it doesn't run out of steam. Like, that's a little bit of a fear.
• 57:04
  Tad Eggleston: That's supposed to be this little beautiful thing. We're continuing to 12.
• 57:07
  Tad Eggleston: And my hunch is, just because it's the way these things work a lot,
• 57:16
  Tad Eggleston: Dennis had a 12-issue version in his head, and he had a 16-issue version in his head.
• 57:22
  Britton Payne: Oh, interesting.
• 57:23
  Tad Eggleston: The decision was made in time to shift.
• 57:28
  Tad Eggleston: It's so good. My understanding is…
• 57:31
  Britton Payne: That's what I'm just like…
• 57:32
  Tad Eggleston: A lot of times, it's something like, a 12-issue series got pitched, and they're like, well, we can't give you 12, so… we're gonna guarantee 6, and if your sales are good enough after the first 4,
• 57:46
  Tad Eggleston: then we'll… we'll extend it. Apparently, so what'll happen…
• 57:49
  Britton Payne: really well, really quickly, and sort of from half inside knowledge, and so… Right. The decision might have been made very early.
• 57:57
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly. So, so, like…
• 57:59
  Tad Eggleston: you know, he was probably not even done with rewriting 5 and 6 to be able to end it with 5 and 6 by the time.
• 58:10
  Tad Eggleston: he was able to… I mean, and he may not have done all the scripts. He was probably not even done, though, with the replotting to figure out how to fit it into six issues.
• 58:22
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is one of the reasons why I think… I mean, the biggest reason I think this is because… because the Sun hasn't become a major player yet. I think that…
• 58:33
  Tad Eggleston: We would have had a major scene from the sun.
• 58:36
  Tad Eggleston: If he hadn't known, That he was gonna get 12.
• 58:40
  Britton Payne: Yeah, they're still just laying the sun's breadcrumbs.
• 58:43
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 58:43
  Britton Payne: And if they… you expect that it's…
• 58:45
  Tad Eggleston: But for that matter, we haven't had a major, major scene with the wife.
• 58:49
  Britton Payne: We've had bigger…
• 58:50
  Tad Eggleston: with.
• 58:51
  Britton Payne: We've had bigger scenes.
• 58:53
  Tad Eggleston: But that's what I'm saying, is like…
• 58:56
  Tad Eggleston: They're bigger than breadcrumbs, but they're not anywhere near… Fleshed out yet.
• 59:03
  Britton Payne: Yes, I agree. Hey, what's your history with Martian Manhunter?
• 59:07
  Tad Eggleston: I don't actually have a lot.
• 59:10
  Tad Eggleston: I have friends.
• 59:11
  Britton Payne: A huge and deep one.
• 59:13
  Britton Payne: I've read every Martian Management.
• 59:15
  Tad Eggleston: My friend Elijah is a massive Martian Manhunter fan, too, the biggest reason.
• 59:19
  Britton Payne: Yeah.
• 59:20
  Tad Eggleston: like the New 52 is they replaced Martian Manhunter in the Justice League with, with, well done.
• 59:28
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, Cyborg.
• 59:30
  Britton Payne: And then the Martian Manager they did introduce was of a different nature. That's the only iteration of Martian Manager that I've skipped. But even going back to, you know, his very earliest adventures were, you know, was he 19…
• 59:41
  Britton Payne: 59 or something like that, he got introduced? I don't know, he got introduced a very long time ago. And, those early adventures were…
• 59:48
  Britton Payne: of a piece with the kinds of material you would have seen back then, pre-Marvel. And then he disappeared for a while. He was in the Justice League, he disappeared for a while, and he came back, and he would come back here and there, like, in a guest spot, basically, where he was not particularly fresh at character.
• 1:00:03
  Tad Eggleston: 55.
• 1:00:04
  Britton Payne: 55, okay. Detective Comics 261?
• 1:00:07
  Tad Eggleston: 225.
• 1:00:09
  Britton Payne: 225, okay. And but when he came back in the mid-'80s with the Detroit Justice League, there was a Martian invasion of Earth, and then he stayed.
• 1:00:18
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:00:19
  Britton Payne: he has been a consistent part of the DC universe. That very first iteration, when he came back, was great. The wah-ha-ha Justice League Martian Manager was terrific. That's where we learned that he liked Oreos, and he had a different form. There was a mini-series, I think it was Jamie Mateus.
• 1:00:33
  Britton Payne: But it could have been Copperburg. And he had, I think he had two miniseries around then. Then he got the series, which was great, right around the era of JLA, the Grant Morrison book, which was terrific. Tom Mandrake and John Ostander, maybe I'm getting names backwards, but, that was a wonderful series.
• 1:00:52
  Tad Eggleston: Ryder and Mandrakos, but they've worked together on a lot of things really well.
• 1:00:58
  Britton Payne: I mean, that one was… my recollection is that wasn't a terribly long series, but it was a really, really good one. As they… as you ran through JLA, and he was… he was great in the JLA book. The very first story arc was about the White Martians invading again, you know, as another return to form for those guys.
• 1:01:13
  Britton Payne: And, and he has been recognized… oh, and then he was in JLA, the TV show, where he was essentially the heart of the league.
• 1:01:21
  Tad Eggleston: Isn't he part of Justice League International, too?
• 1:01:23
  Britton Payne: Yeah, that's the Keith Giffen, Demteos Oaxaha era.
• 1:01:27
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:01:27
  Britton Payne: Yeah, that was when he came… that was the Oreos thing. And, and he has been…
• 1:01:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, the first, Martian Manhunter miniseries, the four-issue, was, mark DeMateus with Mark Badger.
• 1:01:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, and so he has… and he has this really fun power set that… So it looks like he was also in House of Mystery?
• 1:01:49
  Tad Eggleston: 143 to 173.
• 1:01:54
  Britton Payne: Was that when he was, like, a backup feature? Was that a long time ago? Was that in, like, the 60s?
• 1:01:58
  Tad Eggleston: I'm pulling it up right now.
• 1:02:01
  Tad Eggleston: It looks like it might have made him the main character in it.
• 1:02:06
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, and that was his main title?
• 1:02:09
  Britton Payne: journey.
• 1:02:10
  Tad Eggleston: 4?
• 1:02:10
  Tad Eggleston: Introducing the new John Jones, Manhunter from Mars, in issue 143.
• 1:02:20
  Britton Payne: he… he had such a fun history in the 90s, again, where he… he was, like, the number one superhero in South America, because unknown to everybody else, he would fly down there, shapeshift into this other character, and that was just a fun little thing. I think it was Morrison who threw that in there. There was another one, during, I think it was…
• 1:02:38
  Britton Payne: Ace was the name?
• 1:02:39
  Tad Eggleston: Mandrake was Volume 2, which was, 38-ish?
• 1:02:45
  Britton Payne: True.
• 1:02:45
  Tad Eggleston: series.
• 1:02:46
  Britton Payne: 30-something, yeah. They connected him to Jem, son of Saturn, that they were essentially the same race, that had split into different planets and had the same… similar abilities. JLA1 Million was really fun, where they made him into… he turned into Mars, I believe.
• 1:03:00
  Tad Eggleston: I'm…
• 1:03:01
  Britton Payne: And so he's just had, like, a fun, broad history, and he's a relatively grounded character, of all things, in part because
• 1:03:08
  Britton Payne: at the heart of most of these is his attempt to try and understand and become a part of humanity. And I just think that it just has made for a fun, general sense of character. You know, Clark never doubts that he's part of humanity, because he was effectively born and raised here.
• 1:03:22
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:03:23
  Britton Payne: And John Jones came here essentially as an adult, and so had to try and figure out how to make it work, and he was…
• 1:03:31
  Britton Payne: depending on which iteration of the character, he comes from tragedy that he remembers, and he has vivid memories of the life that he's lost, and the challenge of fitting into this new place is just a great fish-out-of-water story that he seems to take very seriously, and he also sees his entry point
• 1:03:49
  Britton Payne: It's something very similar to the tastes of comic book readers.
• 1:03:54
  Britton Payne: he likes ulty detective stories. So he's trying to figure out humanity.
• 1:03:58
  Britton Payne: through these stories of where good defeats evil, and crime doesn't pay, which of course is the backbone of American comic book superhero stories, which is what he is a part of. So, I find him to be a really reliable, fun character over the years, and when they've departed occasionally from that.
• 1:04:17
  Britton Payne: and made him more alien, and… and less interested in trying to become… trying to become part of humanity. That's when I find the character less compelling. But he's in a… he's in a really… he's been a really great character for a very long time, and I still enjoy some of.
• 1:04:32
  Tad Eggleston: No, I certainly need to explore him more. This is the advantage of having…
• 1:04:37
  Tad Eggleston: DC Infinity is that, like…
• 1:04:41
  Tad Eggleston: when I'm in the mood, I can go find stuff.
• 1:04:45
  Tad Eggleston: A lot, and quickly.
• 1:04:48
  Tad Eggleston: So… You have family in town, I have…
• 1:04:52
  Britton Payne: do.
• 1:04:53
  Tad Eggleston: other podcasts today, and a wife to take care of, so… We've gone thoroughly through your cabinet, so we won't necessarily go through the cabinet, but you still need to pick the book that I will either immediately pair, if I immediately have something connect, or that I will text you about
• 1:05:11
  Tad Eggleston: As soon as I do.
• 1:05:14
  Britton Payne: Let me just tell you what I'm reading right now, and we shouldn't talk about it, because you're right, I do have obligations that I need to get to. But, I recently read an old Superman Red and Blue story, where,
• 1:05:25
  Britton Payne: the things that Pa Kent said to super… young Clark throughout his life, it might be only a two-page story or something, it's… it's wonderful.
• 1:05:34
  Britton Payne: are the things that Clark says as he is rescuing people. So, it's, I'm proud of you.
• 1:05:42
  Britton Payne: And these… it's only 3 lines that just get kind of repeated through the story. It's really terrific. Jack Kirby, The Epic Life of the King of Comics by Tom Scioli. I'm halfway through it. It's just wonderful, I just love it.
• 1:05:55
  Britton Payne: And they… anything Mark Waid is doing right now is great. Jeremy Adams' run on Aquaman right now has been terrific. I read something called Bridge Planet 9, which is kind of a heist story that I thought was terrific.
• 1:06:07
  Tad Eggleston: That's on my list.
• 1:06:09
  Britton Payne: I finally binged Absolute Wonder Woman, and it is spectacular.
• 1:06:13
  Tad Eggleston: My God.
• 1:06:14
  Britton Payne: Superior Spider-Man. I plowed all the way through Superior Spider-Man, which I really enjoyed.
• 1:06:21
  Britton Payne: I guess I didn't realize how old it was, but yeah, Doc Ock is Spider-Man, it's about 10 years old. I did not realize how…
• 1:06:26
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's even older than that now.
• 1:06:28
  Britton Payne: so I've never been a Spider-Man guy, and it is interesting that, like, I… you know what, I have a lot of Spider-Man, and there are some stories that I like, but it… just the character, for whatever reason, never quite resonated with me, but this Doc Ock version did.
• 1:06:42
  Britton Payne: Where…
• 1:06:44
  Tad Eggleston: You're the video… you're the… you're the, the 2013, so 12 years ago.
• 1:06:50
  Britton Payne: Crazy, it was a long one.
• 1:06:51
  Tad Eggleston: The villain guy. I see. I see.
• 1:06:53
  Britton Payne: I mean, usually I'm not. Usually I do not care for the villains. What I like about this one, it's a villain who is sort of infected by Peter's sense of morality, combined with his own need to be superior to Peter, where he's like, oh yeah, that guy thinks he was doing good, I'm gonna really do good. And then, of course, it, you know, it goes crazy. So it reminds me of,
• 1:07:12
  Britton Payne: Squadron Supreme, in a certain way, you know? That you have, if the heroes tried to solve all of the world's problems.
• 1:07:18
  Britton Payne: It might actually make them worse.
• 1:07:21
  Britton Payne: And I thought that was really great. We Stand On Guard, I just read for the first time.
• 1:07:26
  Britton Payne: Really great, obviously. Brian came on.
• 1:07:29
  Britton Payne: Yeah. I'd never read it, I heard about it, and I thought it was terrific. Cheetah vs. Cheshire is so good, and I'm glad people are talking about it, too, because that's one of those books…
• 1:07:37
  Tad Eggleston: Greco.
• 1:07:38
  Britton Payne: Yeah, you could see getting lost.
• 1:07:40
  Tad Eggleston: Greg Rucka about it. I hadn't read it yet. He convinced me I had to.
• 1:07:44
  Britton Payne: It's so fun. It's so fun. And the DCKO, I'm not a pro wrestling guy, I was not, into the comics style.
• 1:07:52
  Tad Eggleston: I am not either.
• 1:07:53
  Britton Payne: around them.
• 1:07:53
  Tad Eggleston: There's a lot of wrestling comics that I'm into.
• 1:07:56
  Tad Eggleston: Like, do a powerbomb by Daniel Warren Johnson was amazing.
• 1:08:00
  Britton Payne: I'm also not a gamer, so, like, the DCKO is not aimed at scratching my personal itch, you know, because those aren't things natural to me. And yet, I love DCKO. I think it's so wonderful.
• 1:08:10
  Tad Eggleston: of it, but you just gave me the first positive review, so who knows?
• 1:08:15
  Britton Payne: It's so fun!
• 1:08:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 1:08:17
  Britton Payne: Kind of safe.
• 1:08:17
  Tad Eggleston: any other reviews. I don't want to make it out that I've heard bad things and you gave me a positive review. The first person I know who's read it just gave it a positive review, so I might not be able to skip it the way that I had intended.
• 1:08:31
  Tad Eggleston: Thanks so much, because I don't read enough comics already.
• 1:08:36
  Britton Payne: The new Batman book is great, the new JS fan…
• 1:08:38
  Tad Eggleston: Oh my god.
• 1:08:40
  Britton Payne: They say Jeff Lemire is really great.
• 1:08:42
  Tad Eggleston: I, which one?
• 1:08:44
  Britton Payne: The JSA by Jeff Lemire.
• 1:08:46
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:47
  Britton Payne: great. I recently read Joe Fix-It for the first time. There was a Joe Fix-It miniseries that somehow came across my desk, and I thought it was good. The Marvels Project was great. I recently read that. I thought that was really great.
• 1:08:58
  Britton Payne: I think so, yes, it looks like Brubaker, yeah. Accidental Czar? I don't know that that's something…
• 1:09:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:09:05
  Britton Payne: really know about, I thought that was great.
• 1:09:09
  Tad Eggleston: talks about that.
• 1:09:10
  Britton Payne: Adrian Tomin, Tomone, I'm not sure how to say it, because it's even part of the book, Tomone, that people don't know how to say his name, the loneliness is a long.
• 1:09:17
  Tad Eggleston: I'm a long-distance cartoonist.
• 1:09:18
  Britton Payne: So good.
• 1:09:19
  Tad Eggleston: I love everything that Adrian does.
• 1:09:21
  Britton Payne: I've been reading…
• 1:09:22
  Tad Eggleston: meter in for… 25 years?
• 1:09:26
  Britton Payne: we've been talking about a sort of time crisis, events, and then… what's it called? One Bad Day? That whole series? I didn't realize the premise of it. I just read the Riddler one. I didn't realize that the premise…
• 1:09:36
  Tad Eggleston: Riddler.
• 1:09:37
  Britton Payne: You're gonna…
• 1:09:37
  Tad Eggleston: Amazing.
• 1:09:38
  Britton Payne: It's really great.
• 1:09:39
  Tad Eggleston: We're good, yeah.
• 1:09:40
  Britton Payne: Yeah, it's just that it could have been… talking about marketing, it could have been marketed in a way that I would understand a little bit better, where it was out of continuity would have been the first thing, and it's this villain becoming the biggest, baddest thing in Batman's world, or being the biggest, baddest thing in Batman's world. What if the Riddler was the.
• 1:09:58
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, the marketing that I heard on it, and that I looked at it all from, and still think it is, is I don't know that it is strictly out of continuity. I think that they left that kind of open.
• 1:10:13
  Tad Eggleston: But what it is, is it's playing off of…
• 1:10:18
  Tad Eggleston: the killing joke, and the Joker saying, all it takes is one bad day, 2…
• 1:10:27
  Tad Eggleston: Turn anybody into a monster.
• 1:10:32
  Britton Payne: That… I mean, that's the marketing that I vaguely remember. Right. But what the result… that's… that's just sort of what gave us the idea to do this mini-series, or to do this event. But the result ended up being, in the Riddler's case, I don't remember that… there probably was one bad day in the Riddler story, obviously, but it was really the story of what if the Riddler was the biggest
• 1:10:52
  Britton Payne: thing in the Batman universe, and I thought that was great. It was really well told.
• 1:10:57
  Tad Eggleston: Tom… which Tom had already played with. I mean, that's one of the reasons I don't know if that one is considered out of continuity, because it kind of fits in with the Riddler that Tom had used.
• 1:11:08
  Britton Payne: It was really fun to read.
• 1:11:09
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah, no, it's… it's phenomenal.
• 1:11:13
  Britton Payne: the Mark Waid Bizarro run on World's Finest. I tend to really like Bizarro stories. There have been a couple of really beautiful Bizarro stories in recent years, which I just think are so cool.
• 1:11:22
  Tad Eggleston: Zaro Collection a few years ago, too.
• 1:11:24
  Britton Payne: There's something called A Voice in the Dark, which I read, which is, it's a… it's Top Cow, and it's,
• 1:11:31
  Britton Payne: It's created by… a disabled…
• 1:11:35
  Britton Payne: artist and writer, and it's a… it's a… it's kind of like a horror-ish story about a girl going to college. But I don't know, I just found it compelling. I have to sort of follow up on that, I'm just realizing.
• 1:11:46
  Britton Payne: And, what's that one called? I'm not gonna remember the name, but I don't know. There's a lot of… there's a lot…
• 1:11:53
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that one's one's also 10 years old.
• 1:11:56
  Britton Payne: Oh, Murder Inc. I read for the first time.
• 1:11:59
  Tad Eggleston: the, Bendis and Oming?
• 1:12:02
  Tad Eggleston: I think so. Yeah, it looks like I'm in, yeah. United States of Murder Incorporated?
• 1:12:06
  Britton Payne: The last days of Lex Luthor, yes, that's the one. The last days of Lex Luthor I really enjoyed.
• 1:12:12
  Britton Payne: I tried the Maturia, that was cute.
• 1:12:14
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, a lot of these I've read and would happily read again, but the question is, which one are you gonna pick?
• 1:12:22
  Britton Payne: I guess I wasn't really thinking through that I was gonna pick.
• 1:12:25
  Tad Eggleston: pick one, and then I'll wind up pairing it, either right now, or once I start reading it.
• 1:12:31
  Tad Eggleston: That's… that's our conceit, Britt. You give me a book.
• 1:12:37
  Tad Eggleston: and then I give an autistic pairing.
• 1:12:39
  Tad Eggleston: And then we talk.
• 1:12:44
  Britton Payne: Hmm.
• 1:12:50
  Tad Eggleston: That was a great list of books.
• 1:12:52
  Tad Eggleston: the, the.
• 1:12:53
  Britton Payne: Yeah, I don't know, to me.
• 1:12:54
  Tad Eggleston: Red that's on my list.
• 1:12:57
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, if I was picking from that, that…
• 1:13:00
  Britton Payne: Oh, no, you pick. I mean.
• 1:13:01
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, if I was.
• 1:13:02
  Britton Payne: My notion is not that I'm creating a book club, my notion is that I'm going through…
• 1:13:05
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:13:05
  Britton Payne: And just talking about books that I've read, that there's a possible off chance you haven't.
• 1:13:09
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, if I'm going from the list that… you said you read Bridge Planet 9, and that's literally already downloaded on my iPad from Hoopla, because.
• 1:13:18
  Tad Eggleston: caught my attention.
• 1:13:20
  Tad Eggleston: And I like a good heist book.
• 1:13:23
  Britton Payne: Alright, let's do that one.
• 1:13:24
  Tad Eggleston: So let's, let's do Bridge Planet 9, and as I start reading it, I will,
• 1:13:29
  Tad Eggleston: I'll tell you what we're pairing it with, because I haven't read it yet, so I have no idea what we're pairing it with.
• 1:13:34
  Tad Eggleston: But I'm certain I'll figure it out.
• 1:13:37
  Tad Eggleston: So… Britt, as always, a blast.
• 1:13:42
  Tad Eggleston: the… the… Do I still have it up?
• 1:13:48
  Tad Eggleston: The competition is the Auspec Script Competition 2026, or I'm sorry, the 2026 Auspec Script Competition.
• 1:13:57
  Britton Payne: Yeah, the OSPEC Awards.
• 1:13:58
  Tad Eggleston: the Auspect Awards. You can find Details at theautismscene.org.
• 1:14:09
  Tad Eggleston: So, Britt, thank you so much for sharing your cabinet some more, and we will see everybody after the next page.