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Transcript

Fourth World Book Club #4 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the 4th World Book Club on
• 0:06
  Tad Eggleston: 22 panels, where I'm joined by playwright and comics, Aficionio, Mark Pratt, and maybe at some point actor and comic Aficiono, Sean Harville wrote, but he he seems to be sleeping in this morning, so we'll give him a break. He went out and supported Alex Ross last night.
• 0:28
  Mark Pracht: So did I. I was out.
• 0:30
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah.
• 0:30
  Mark Pracht: Play with sean.
• 0:31
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I was trying not to throw him completely under the bus.
• 0:34
  Mark Pracht: I'll throw him under the bus. I am up. It is 10 in the.
• 0:38
  Tad Eggleston: You guys have been friends, I am here.
• 0:42
  Tad Eggleston: So before we get started, I actually wanted to bring up a couple of not strictly
• 0:48
  Tad Eggleston: 4th World things but Kirby things, or at least Kirby adjacent things.
• 0:54
  Tad Eggleston: I I talked to Tiffany Babb of the wonderful Comics Courier.
• 1:00
  Tad Eggleston: This week, and did you get a chance? Did you kickstart the comics career.
• 1:04
  Mark Pracht: I did not.
• 1:05
  Tad Eggleston: You, you would enjoy this reading. I might have to to slip you my Pdf.
• 1:10
  Tad Eggleston: but but there were 2 things that wound up standing out to me a lot Douglas Wolk in his interview. The leaf is terrific. Talking about just married number 55 from Charlton. Comics
• 1:25
  Tad Eggleston: use the word colletified.
• 1:30
  Tad Eggleston: and I thought that you would prefer. I thought that you would very much appreciate that.
• 1:36
  Mark Pracht: He said, Yep.
• 1:39
  Tad Eggleston: In reference to one of the stories. It was definitely inked by Vince Coletta, who inked every romance comic he could get his hands on throughout his career and colletified them to the point that it's often tough to tell whose pencils he was inking, anyway.
• 1:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:58
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, you know the whole Vince Coletta. You know we've had this discussion, but you know, I think I think that
• 2:07
  Mark Pracht: there's, you know, there's so many people who have
• 2:10
  Mark Pracht: issues with Vince Coletta. And you know Vince liked to. You know, he you know I read a lot about the persona he liked to
• 2:21
  Mark Pracht: put forth, you know, where he would drive his Cadillac down into a certain like Italian neighborhood, and just leave it unlocked with all of his stuff in it, and no one would touch that car, you know. And it's like.
• 2:35
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, okay, you know, it's like a little bit of the you know. Venny, new people is what.
• 2:44
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 2:44
  Mark Pracht: You like people to blame.
• 2:45
  Tad Eggleston: The implication was supposed to be.
• 2:47
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: But.
• 2:49
  Mark Pracht: But you know, if there's it, yeah, Coletta
• 2:59
  Mark Pracht: was a guy who got the job done. And you know we've talked about that. If if he had the time, he could do a really good job.
• 3:07
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 3:07
  Mark Pracht: But 9 times out of 10 they were just like, Okay, we need
• 3:12
  Mark Pracht: 55 pages ink this week, and he would just, you know, and he would be like, Don't need this. Don't need this. Don't need this, you know. It's like.
• 3:20
  Tad Eggleston: And and I wasn't. I wasn't trying to like bash him as much as I loved the fact that it turned out that this guy that I didn't know that you were big on. You know Douglas Wolk has actually turned into a verb.
• 3:35
  Mark Pracht: Mean I wouldn't I, you know. Look! And I'm not big on Coletta. I like I don't.
• 3:41
  Mark Pracht: I find him an interesting figure. He's interesting to read about. I'm not like a huge fan, nor am IA huge detractor. It's like, you know, he's certainly no Mike Royer.
• 3:54
  Tad Eggleston: But but then in in a similar vein, in that it was again dealing with inking.
• 4:06
  Tad Eggleston: and this time of Jack Kirby, Hassan Otsman Al-hao did a piece on
• 4:14
  Tad Eggleston: strange tales, 1, 51 through 1, 53.
• 4:20
  Tad Eggleston: Which are the last 3
• 4:25
  Tad Eggleston: Kirby drawn issues or Kirby layout issues
• 4:30
  Tad Eggleston: and inked by Jim Storanco before Stranko took over the the nick fury from there.
• 4:38
  Tad Eggleston: And he really talks about how you can like
• 4:43
  Tad Eggleston: metaphorically see the the pat, the the torch past, like the 1st one. You can still see Kirby in it. But you're seeing little things where Storanco, like like the the he talks about he can't actually imagine Kirby drawing
• 5:03
  Tad Eggleston: the the leader of Hydra drinking a glass of wine. So he kind of figures that that was slipped in by.
• 5:12
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I I think I think that.
• 5:15
  Tad Eggleston: The plunging neckline. Throughout the 3 issues.
• 5:18
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:19
  Tad Eggleston: And Nick Fury's shirt. So so like the 1st issue, looks
• 5:26
  Tad Eggleston: not quite like Kirby, but very inspired by Kirby and the the 3rd of the issues looks not quite like Storanco, but
• 5:34
  Tad Eggleston: but more inspired by Storanco. So like
• 5:38
  Tad Eggleston: you haven't read them, I'm assuming. But it.
• 5:43
  Mark Pracht: At some point, because it's I've I've seen those issues. I.
• 5:46
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 5:47
  Mark Pracht: And a very long time since I read them. But
• 5:51
  Mark Pracht: you know, that was that was
• 5:55
  Mark Pracht: you know, sort of standard operating procedure at Marvel during that time was that you know, if they brought in somebody new
• 6:03
  Mark Pracht: Stan and be like, Hey, Jack, do layouts for for them. So they understand what we do here.
• 6:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 6:10
  Mark Pracht: And then, you know, Jack would. Do, you know.
• 6:15
  Mark Pracht: either very rough layouts or or.
• 6:17
  Tad Eggleston: I mean in this case, though, he'd been doing.
• 6:22
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 6:22
  Tad Eggleston: Nick fury for for
• 6:24
  Tad Eggleston: significant period, I mean, Sterenko was the 1st person to do Nick fury other than than Kirby. I believe so. It's not like it's not like it was just, oh, I'm going to jump in and do these 3 for Storanco. It was.
• 6:36
  Mark Pracht: Right. No, no, but I mean but I think also.
• 6:38
  Tad Eggleston: But he probably loosened up as he went.
• 6:40
  Mark Pracht: Right and and but you know and I think it was also something that I that Jack, I think, felt misused by.
• 6:50
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 6:50
  Mark Pracht: End up essentially laying out these books for some other artist who would get the money.
• 6:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right and.
• 6:56
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I think.
• 6:58
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and they're both credited, at least, so there's.
• 7:00
  Mark Pracht: Sure I mean.
• 7:02
  Tad Eggleston: They both got paid.
• 7:03
  Mark Pracht: IA hundred percent. If they're both credited, they both would have gotten a check but
• 7:09
  Mark Pracht: you know
• 7:12
  Mark Pracht: But you see that in like, you know, even even great artists like John Busema.
• 7:19
  Mark Pracht: You can. You like the way Busama lays out a page.
• 7:26
  Mark Pracht: and the way he draws figures is a hundred percent like the posing is a hundred percent. Kirby.
• 7:31
  Mark Pracht: I mean, Busema is a better technical artist than Kirby.
• 7:37
  Mark Pracht: His anatomy is much better his. His figures are much more realistic.
• 7:44
  Mark Pracht: but the idea of that full bore
• 7:49
  Mark Pracht: find the most extreme positioning of the body you can is all I mean, you can just.
• 7:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 7:56
  Mark Pracht: Every page that.
• 7:57
  Tad Eggleston: Where whereas and and I, I haven't looked at 1 54 yet, because apparently, you know, Hasan writes about 1 54, being actually very much immediately full on Sterenko.
• 8:08
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 8:09
  Tad Eggleston: And in part because it's not Kirby. Yeah, like, you can see it through these 3 issues, you know. And one of the things that that Hasan brought up that I didn't even realize I hadn't even fully like
• 8:22
  Tad Eggleston: put together about Kirby until both Hassan talked about it. And I watched over these 3 issues. It get tighter. Kirby's really big on loose fitting clothes, and Sterenko is very, very big on on tight fitting, and like you can watch in like single issues, the clothes become more form, fitting.
• 8:44
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I wanna like the
• 8:53
  Mark Pracht: look. Sterenko is the nick fury agent of shield artist.
• 8:58
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely!
• 8:58
  Mark Pracht: He didn't. Even he didn't even really do that. Many issues of it. But he.
• 9:03
  Tad Eggleston: To find it.
• 9:04
  Mark Pracht: Defined what that book is, you know. And and just in the same way that Kirby defined, defined so many of those marvel books
• 9:12
  Mark Pracht: right, you know. Right?
• 9:13
  Mark Pracht: Franco did it. That does. It kind of prompts something. I was. I was. I was
• 9:21
  Mark Pracht: I was on Reddit somewhere. God help me! But
• 9:26
  Mark Pracht: it, somebody was talking about thunderbolts.
• 9:30
  Mark Pracht: and they were talking about Julie Louise Dreyfus having the streak of white in her hair, and this guy was going off and off and off, and he was like, Oh, that's obviously an homage to rogue. It's about rogue. They're trying to indicate that rogue is coming, and I'm and I and I just started putting up all these Storanco
• 9:53
  Mark Pracht: drawings of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Contessa, you know you know
• 10:01
  Mark Pracht: Contessa Valentina Allegro Defontaine. I never get that name right. But and all you know all of these things with the white stripe, and I'm like Buddy. This character predates rogue by like 15 years. Sit down.
• 10:17
  Mark Pracht: I just. I think it's so funny how
• 10:21
  Mark Pracht: I mean, sometimes it's it's aggravating.
• 10:26
  Mark Pracht: but it's also funny. And it's it's fandom, you know. Everybody's fandom is is defined by their version of everything, you know, and it's like there's so much history
• 10:37
  Mark Pracht: to everything, and it goes so far back. And it there, you know. And I have my issues with the marvel cinematic universe. I really did like. I thought thunderbolts was fantastic. I might even say, it's my favorite marvel, cinematic universe movie.
• 10:56
  Mark Pracht: Just because.
• 10:57
  Tad Eggleston: Haven't seen it yet. But Grace.
• 11:00
  Mark Pracht: It's it.
• 11:01
  Mark Pracht: Let I'll just put it to you this way. The ending is about people confronting themselves.
• 11:07
  Mark Pracht: not about a sky beam or some bullshit like that, you know.
• 11:12
  Tad Eggleston: That I like.
• 11:13
  Mark Pracht: And I wish, and I hope that it they do more stuff like that.
• 11:20
  Mark Pracht: because it's really great, and I really enjoyed it.
• 11:26
  Mark Pracht: But you know, like everybody's, everybody's idea of what everything means always gets wrapped up in like, whatever the last thing they read was, or you know, and it's like.
• 11:40
  Mark Pracht: and God bless him, you know. Marvel also leans into that. It's like.
• 11:44
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 11:44
  Mark Pracht: Whatever whatever you know that like. Then, whatever they're hot.
• 11:49
  Tad Eggleston: I mean the the.
• 11:50
  Mark Pracht: Process.
• 11:50
  Tad Eggleston: Matter is, rogue was likely.
• 11:54
  Tad Eggleston: Her look was at least likely mildly inspired by
• 11:59
  Tad Eggleston: that look from. I'm not even gonna try to remember the character's name, because I don't know it as well as you do, and you stumbled over it and or some other.
• 12:08
  Mark Pracht: Valentina, Allegra, Dev.
• 12:10
  Tad Eggleston: Was, and like it was just a marvel thing to have the that white streak everywhere.
• 12:16
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 12:16
  Tad Eggleston: And broke was just the 1st character that like broke broke, that had it.
• 12:21
  Mark Pracht: Right, I mean, and you know
• 12:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean particularly given that rogue is from that era of cartoonists that or.
• 12:31
  Mark Pracht: Oh, sure! Like the people.
• 12:32
  Tad Eggleston: That were very much influenced by other cartoonish.
• 12:36
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. When when rogue, I mean, like, rogue.
• 12:40
  Tad Eggleston: Or even more.
• 12:41
  Mark Pracht: Relieve.
• 12:41
  Tad Eggleston: In that era, that 1st era of superhero cartoonists, who are very, much, very much influenced by other superhero cartoonists. Sure.
• 12:51
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, like, just just in terms of the
• 12:58
  Mark Pracht: yeah. Well, I mean getting back to the, to the focus of this podcast I mean, like the amount of people who are
• 13:07
  Mark Pracht: inspired by Kirby, who draw their style from doing variations on the Kirby thing.
• 13:17
  Mark Pracht: Is it's fascinating like I mean, every time, like
• 13:24
  Mark Pracht: every time I see Steve Rood stuff, I'm like, oh, yeah.
• 13:29
  Mark Pracht: he's a total Kirby, I you know, like it. It.
• 13:33
  Tad Eggleston: This. This reminds me of one other thing from this week that just ties in. I finally read the 1st volume of copra. Have you read copra.
• 13:43
  Mark Pracht: No.
• 13:44
  Tad Eggleston: Mikhail Fife.
• 13:46
  Tad Eggleston: It's it's very like Suicide Squad-esque, but it's independent.
• 13:53
  Tad Eggleston: But but what struck me was at as I was reading.
• 13:58
  Tad Eggleston: I want to say that afterward.
• 14:01
  Tad Eggleston: The the cartoonist talked about how we essentially
• 14:06
  Tad Eggleston: challenged himself to work at a Kirby speed.
• 14:10
  Tad Eggleston: That part of the reason that it came out is rather than thinking everything out rather than like it was. Just keep going. Keep going. See where the story takes you. And it's really quite brilliant. I've been like recommended it forever, and it's coming to an end. So I've been
• 14:28
  Tad Eggleston: like finally dusted off my trade paperback of volume one and managed to to read it and like, Oh, now I've got another thing that I need to read 50 more issues right? But but it struck me
• 14:40
  Tad Eggleston: that that, like it's become like a challenge that people make for themselves as as like. Let's see the best thing I can do where I'm saying that I have to do this much a day.
• 14:53
  Mark Pracht: 10 pages a week, or whatever it right, you know. Right?
• 14:55
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, you know, it's, you know, when we had that conversation with Matt Madden. You know it's the limitations that you put on yourself, or the challenge that you give yourself to create something
• 15:07
  Mark Pracht: I like. I wish I wish more people. I wish more comic people would do that.
• 15:12
  Mark Pracht: you know. I I wish I you know. I wish
• 15:16
  Mark Pracht: I would love to see like a Brian Hitch be like
• 15:20
  Mark Pracht: if I tell myself I have to draw
• 15:23
  Mark Pracht: a whole issue in a week.
• 15:26
  Tad Eggleston: What will I do?
• 15:27
  Mark Pracht: Not get anal about it.
• 15:33
  Mark Pracht: You know.
• 15:34
  Mark Pracht: What what do you get? I mean? And like, you know, a lot of people like to. You know the evolution of
• 15:41
  Mark Pracht: the evolution of Frank Miller style, right?
• 15:45
  Mark Pracht: The stuff that he's doing now, the covers and things, and some of that may be a health issue. But I also think that in a way
• 15:54
  Mark Pracht: Miller is like kind of
• 15:57
  Mark Pracht: in his own way, going more and more towards like a Kirby style, where it's like, I don't really care about anatomy I just care about, like what kind of interesting image can I create? Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. I'm not. I'm not here to defend it, or anything like that.
• 16:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, to a certain extent I've always thought that
• 16:15
  Tad Eggleston: Miller Miller relied on his anchors for anatomy anyway.
• 16:20
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, it's a hundred percent possible and a hundred percent you know. But I mean, like, I also think you know clearly what he's doing now on these covers is very I mean, like you can trace it back to that last.
• 16:35
  Mark Pracht: What was it? Sin City? The what was the last Sin City.
• 16:39
  Tad Eggleston: It's the whole asset.
• 16:40
  Mark Pracht: Trip thing.
• 16:41
  Tad Eggleston: The the love and love and war.
• 16:43
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. And and like like that was moving very much towards this very cartoony.
• 16:51
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, they're very.
• 16:52
  Tad Eggleston: That is possibly my favorite sin. City.
• 16:54
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, but.
• 16:56
  Tad Eggleston: And I, yeah. And I love Sin City.
• 16:58
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, we should consider Anderson City at some point for for.
• 17:01
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, I mean, they. I have.
• 17:04
  Tad Eggleston: Flyer!
• 17:05
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah, that would be really good. Because, like, I mean, that's about as as much.
• 17:10
  Mark Pracht: you know. And and I'm also like, I am somewhat of a a
• 17:17
  Mark Pracht: I am a kind of a I don't want to say apologist, but I mean, I do think that Frank Miller does what Frank Miller does, and you can like it or hate it.
• 17:26
  Mark Pracht: and that's fine. But I don't. I also think that he is. He is a true artist, like he does what he wants to do, and.
• 17:33
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I guess what I'll say for Miller is that like the only thing he needs an apology for is.
• 17:40
  Tad Eggleston: or at least that I think he needs an apology for is is his
• 17:46
  Tad Eggleston: post 9, 11 screed, and then only take.
• 17:49
  Mark Pracht: Holy, holy care, I mean like look, but but.
• 17:54
  Tad Eggleston: He he lived, how far from ground 0.
• 17:58
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 17:59
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 18:00
  Tad Eggleston: When I say he needs an apology. I only kind of mean that what I really mean is, he should just be forgiven for it, and don't read it.
• 18:11
  Mark Pracht: Right? Well, yeah.
• 18:13
  Mark Pracht: I certainly. I certainly don't think holy terror is his best work. I certainly I think it's.
• 18:18
  Tad Eggleston: I can't even read it. I've flipped parts of it, but I can't.
• 18:23
  Mark Pracht: It. It's incredibly simplistic, a little bit dumb, but.
• 18:27
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 18:27
  Mark Pracht: And thank God that DC pulled Batman out of it. Right? Yeah. But although Batman, holy terror is a fucking, incredible title, it is
• 18:38
  Mark Pracht: But
• 18:43
  Mark Pracht: I think that it's exactly like I. He's never made any bones about the fact that it was a piece of propaganda, and it was a piece of propaganda based on the fact that the city that he lived in was attacked.
• 18:55
  Mark Pracht: and he wanted to write something about it. And to me. That's like, Okay, of all.
• 19:03
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 19:03
  Mark Pracht: Of all the things you could do in response to that creating a piece of art.
• 19:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right is right right, and my problem has always been less with with holy terror than than like. He put an
• 19:16
  Tad Eggleston: incredibly he had the letter up on his website forever.
• 19:23
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:25
  Tad Eggleston: And frankly, even writing the letter doesn't bother me as much as the fact that it was like the 1st thing you saw on his website for almost a decade after 9, 11.
• 19:35
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:36
  Tad Eggleston: And it's like dude at some point. You got to remember who you are, because Frank Miller of the eighties would have bitch slapped you for writing this.
• 19:44
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I'm absolutely I mean, like, look, yeah, it's it's you know.
• 19:52
  Mark Pracht: yeah, like, we're talking about Frank Miller here now. But you know.
• 19:56
  Mark Pracht: we're talking about comics, I mean, like.
• 19:59
  Mark Pracht: it's probably this, you know, the the.
• 20:01
  Tad Eggleston: We're giving Sean a little bit of time to wake up.
• 20:04
  Mark Pracht: True. The
• 20:06
  Mark Pracht: the conversation that you know like, if we ever do do Sin City as part of the pulp water, which is a really good idea the
• 20:17
  Mark Pracht: You know we could.
• 20:19
  Mark Pracht: I think that there are many things that happened to Frank Miller in his life that a lot of us don't
• 20:26
  Mark Pracht: quite like I mean, he talks about he, you know. Dark Knight returns came out of being
• 20:35
  Mark Pracht: very violently mugged right.
• 20:38
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I didn't know about that part. I
• 20:40
  Tad Eggleston: He woke up and realized he was older than Batman.
• 20:43
  Mark Pracht: Well. He said that, too, but it was also like he was. He was living in in a crappy part of New York, and.
• 20:50
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 20:50
  Mark Pracht: Was hospitalized after being mugged and.
• 20:53
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 20:54
  Mark Pracht: And I think that you know a lot of that stuff again. I I just go back to.
• 21:00
  Mark Pracht: It's 1 of those things where I'm like it for myself as a big
• 21:07
  Mark Pracht: 1st amendment, free speech advocate. If you're angry about something, and even if it's something that maybe is not the most advisable thing to be angry about, and you make a piece of art about it. That's
• 21:18
  Mark Pracht: that's a positive thing. That's.
• 21:21
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely expressing yourself in a way that
• 21:25
  Tad Eggleston: my my only, my only counter.
• 21:28
  Mark Pracht: On a page. Don't hurt anybody.
• 21:29
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, my only counter argument whatsoever. And it's not even really a counter argument is another free speech argument is that people can choose not to read it.
• 21:37
  Mark Pracht: Absolutely.
• 21:38
  Tad Eggleston: People can choose me.
• 21:38
  Mark Pracht: 100 100%. No one need, you know, like.
• 21:43
  Tad Eggleston: Right. I mean that to me is the biggest thing that the current right wing, free speech movement doesn't get is free. Speech does not mean that you're not responsible for your speech.
• 21:55
  Mark Pracht: Oh, no! I mean.
• 21:57
  Tad Eggleston: It means you get to make it and take the consequences.
• 21:59
  Mark Pracht: Well, sure, I mean, I think.
• 22:02
  Mark Pracht: mean, yeah, yeah, I mean, and like, in any, the best, the best way to counteract free speech is more free speech like, you know. If if
• 22:11
  Mark Pracht: if Frank Miller's holy terror bothers you
• 22:15
  Mark Pracht: a lot, then make your own book write something.
• 22:19
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 22:19
  Mark Pracht: Create something.
• 22:21
  Tad Eggleston: Or at the very least, don't buy Frank Miller, and that's.
• 22:24
  Mark Pracht: By Frank Miller, yeah, I mean, yeah, I just.
• 22:26
  Tad Eggleston: That's the quietest form of free speech you can take, but it is a form of free speech.
• 22:30
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and the thing is is like it's it. I think that I think that
• 22:36
  Mark Pracht: and it's interesting, because this this conversation does kind of tie in to the 4th World books this month.
• 22:42
  Tad Eggleston: I know.
• 22:43
  Mark Pracht: Is that you know you can. Just I think that
• 22:49
  Mark Pracht: one of one of the more disconcerting things about fandom for me right now is that it's like, well, this is what I want.
• 23:00
  Mark Pracht: and if somebody does something other than that.
• 23:05
  Mark Pracht: it's gotta be this whole fucking clash of I mean, like I on.
• 23:14
  Tad Eggleston: They're doing it because they're woke, or they're doing it because they're afraid to upset this person or.
• 23:19
  Mark Pracht: Or they or they're doing, or they're doing it because they they
• 23:24
  Mark Pracht: have to like, or they have to prove how woke they are. Or you know, right? You know, it's like I,
• 23:35
  Mark Pracht: you know, on May the 4, th which recently I like, I put up a post, and I was like. You know what I wish for, May. The 4th is for all of you people to stop fucking arguing about this thing.
• 23:44
  Mark Pracht: You know what it's a it's it's it's supposed to be for everybody, and that that doesn't mean that every part of it is for everybody you you don't like part of it. Great! Don't read it.
• 23:57
  Tad Eggleston: And the President totally outed himself by showing up with a red lightsaber.
• 24:01
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't. It's just fucking whatever. But
• 24:08
  Mark Pracht: that's as far as I'm going.
• 24:10
  Mark Pracht: But I mean, like, but it's like, just be like.
• 24:12
  Tad Eggleston: It led to interesting community notes.
• 24:16
  Mark Pracht: V, the inability
• 24:21
  Mark Pracht: to just have an adult conversation about something that like, let's be honest, let us be honest right. There are many things that are important in this world.
• 24:31
  Mark Pracht: whether or not you like, and or
• 24:34
  Mark Pracht: is not one of them right? Whether or not whether or not you thought the acolyte was good or not is not something that we need to be screaming about like our lives. Depend on it. Right.
• 24:48
  Mark Pracht: turn the damn thing off, or watch it, or whatever you know, stop! Stop acting like I can't. I could read the whole thing, but I don't want to, but I mean it was sort of like, stop acting like
• 25:02
  Mark Pracht: George Lucas doesn't matter, but also don't stop at stop acting like George. Lucas is the only one who knows what Star Wars is, you know it's like it's it's like, none of this exists without George Lucas. But at the same time, hey, man! Now, there's all sorts of ideas, right? That can be used in this this framework that he created right? It's just
• 25:23
  Mark Pracht: right. I
• 25:23
  Mark Pracht: I think I think that anyway, I don't want to get onto a Star Wars rant, but I mean, it happens in comics, too, where it's like.
• 25:30
  Tad Eggleston: No, it. This actually takes us to to Kirby.
• 25:34
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 25:35
  Tad Eggleston: In in any number of ways. Be, because, like.
• 25:43
  Mark Pracht: Because, God damn it, the Golden Guardian does not act like that.
• 25:47
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I was just thinking like it's a joke.
• 25:50
  Tad Eggleston: My introduction to Darkside is actually the great darkness. Saga.
• 25:57
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 25:57
  Tad Eggleston: So like.
• 25:59
  Mark Pracht: I mean. And I think I've said before, I actually think that most of the great stories, the truly great stories about these characters from the 4th World were done after Kirby.
• 26:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 26:10
  Tad Eggleston: right? And I think so. Imagine if we've been so precious. Imagine a world that people have been so precious about
• 26:17
  Tad Eggleston: maintaining Kirby's vision that we didn't get all of the great art that he inspired.
• 26:25
  Mark Pracht: You. You don't think that there's people out there who?
• 26:28
  Mark Pracht: I know that there are people out there. I know
• 26:33
  Mark Pracht: Saga is an abomination, you know.
• 26:35
  Tad Eggleston: I I know that there are people out there, but but like.
• 26:40
  Mark Pracht: No, I know it's.
• 26:42
  Tad Eggleston: I mean hell! That's even like the the place that I like to wade into it. The least is watchmen, because I do think that DC. Did Alan Moore wrong. But I also think that there's a certain amount of Alan Moore's crotchediness that's performative.
• 26:58
  Mark Pracht: 100%. 100, you know, like everybody. Okay.
• 27:03
  Tad Eggleston: And and like I feel like they've made some swing and misses with watchmen properties, but they've also done some really good things with watchmen properties sure, and I kind of wonder
• 27:16
  Tad Eggleston: how much more they might have done if they'd been more willing to go to the plate more often.
• 27:22
  Mark Pracht: Well, look, I mean, and the thing is is like what whatever happened right?
• 27:27
  Mark Pracht: I remember
• 27:30
  Mark Pracht: right after watchmen came out, the DC superheroes. Role-playing game was was a going thing, and Alan Moore wrote
• 27:41
  Mark Pracht: adventures and handbooks on how to use the watchman characters in that game.
• 27:48
  Mark Pracht: and or he was, I don't know if he wrote them, but he was involved in it.
• 27:52
  Tad Eggleston: Involved in them.
• 27:53
  Mark Pracht: He? He like that was, it was in that it was in the source book.
• 28:01
  Mark Pracht: Look, I was pretty young when that came out.
• 28:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 28:03
  Mark Pracht: In that source book that I
• 28:08
  Mark Pracht: found out that Captain Metropolis and the and hooded justice were lovers, and I was like what?
• 28:18
  Mark Pracht: What? And then I go back and I read it, and I like
• 28:21
  Mark Pracht: when when Hood of justice has beaten the hell out of the comedian he's like, is this. What you like is this, what gets you off? I'm like whole whole holy shit, you know, like that, like, you know, it's the thing that.
• 28:34
  Mark Pracht: But anyway. But I mean like so like at some point, Alan Moore was all about like, Oh, sure, we can do some more things right, you know. And then, of course, he was like, but I thought I was going to get these characters back. And I'm like they're making money. You're making money. You're getting your checks. I mean.
• 28:49
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 28:51
  Mark Pracht: Nobody, nobody stole it from you. This is the contract, right? Right?
• 28:57
  Mark Pracht: You know. It's not like it's not like Siegel and Schuster, you know where.
• 29:03
  Mark Pracht: When DC. Stopped paying him, DC. Stopped paying him. You know.
• 29:07
  Mark Pracht: whatever. I don't know what I don't. I'm not. Gonna I'm not gonna get into this because it
• 29:12
  Mark Pracht: it's a it's a it's a long.
• 29:14
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no.
• 29:15
  Mark Pracht: All Durant, on my part about, you know, having the that artists need to be cognizant of
• 29:24
  Mark Pracht: of the deals they make.
• 29:26
  Mark Pracht: Steve Ditko would tell you that.
• 29:31
  Tad Eggleston: I found it
• 29:33
  Mark Pracht: Hey!
• 29:36
  Tad Eggleston: Good morning, sunshine.
• 29:39
  Sean Harklerode: Alright!
• 29:40
  Tad Eggleston: They found a comic book. Resources article on the the Alan Moore sanctioned Rpg.
• 29:46
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 29:46
  Tad Eggleston: Books.
• 29:48
  Mark Pracht: Anyway, we haven't even started talking about the books yet, Sean. So.
• 29:52
  Tad Eggleston: Or barely. Yeah. So so, yeah, hey, yeah.
• 29:57
  Mark Pracht: We were talking about Frank Miller and and Alan Moore, and everything else waiting for.
• 30:02
  Tad Eggleston: Jim Storanco.
• 30:03
  Mark Pracht: Jim Storanco.
• 30:05
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, wow!
• 30:09
  Mark Pracht: Sorry. Sorry. Sorry I kept you out so late.
• 30:13
  Sean Harklerode: Oof I yeah, you know
• 30:20
  Sean Harklerode: I have no idea I had had my alarm not just gone off at 1042.
• 30:29
  Sean Harklerode: Which? Why.
• 30:30
  Tad Eggleston: Forget to set it for daylight savings time so that it could go off, and at 9, 42, and you could make the.
• 30:37
  Sean Harklerode: After that.
• 30:40
  Sean Harklerode: No, I.
• 30:41
  Mark Pracht: Well, I I am glad to see you here, my dear friend, because I actually was a little I was like, Boy. I hope nothing happened after I got in my cab.
• 30:51
  Mark Pracht: So anyway.
• 30:53
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 30:54
  Mark Pracht: You know it is Chicago. It's Chicago.
• 30:57
  Sean Harklerode: That's the Chicago way.
• 31:00
  Tad Eggleston: This is. This is where I'm gonna make it abundantly clear for anybody watching. Statistically speaking, Chicago is not that dangerous of a city. I don't care. What.
• 31:07
  Tad Eggleston: Think 10 people on Fox News news.
• 31:09
  Mark Pracht: It's a hundred percent true like, stop talking about my city. You don't live here. I can make these jokes. I live here.
• 31:16
  Tad Eggleston: I just I want to make it abundantly clear because we get we get made out to be so damn. And and then they use the like gross murder total. And it's like out of 9 million people.
• 31:32
  Tad Eggleston: 3,000 were murdered, murdered last year.
• 31:35
  Mark Pracht: Just because the new.
• 31:36
  Tad Eggleston: We have to go all the way to Gary, Indiana to find a murder rate that's like 3 times as high as ours.
• 31:43
  Mark Pracht: Just because somebody handed the new Pope a hot dog with ketchup on it, and he stabbed him 17 times. I mean, that doesn't have anything you know like that's not. That's not typical.
• 31:53
  Tad Eggleston: Hope? Does it? Is it murder?
• 31:58
  Mark Pracht: I I believe so. Yes, I I don't.
• 32:02
  Mark Pracht: I don't think I don't think it says thou shalt not kill unless you're the Pope, anyway.
• 32:11
  Mark Pracht: So.
• 32:12
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe.
• 32:13
  Mark Pracht: Shall we? Should we talk about this month's?
• 32:18
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 32:20
  Tad Eggleston: And and and, like you, you do totally totally play into the very.
• 32:26
  Tad Eggleston: the very 1st page of the very 1st issue with what we were just talking about with Fandom.
• 32:34
  Tad Eggleston: That like. What is it that that is the glorious thing about our movement that these members are uniform, not only in ideas, but even the facial expressions, is almost the same.
• 32:47
  Tad Eggleston: Adolf Hitler, and and a page of very sheepish looking dead in the eyes, people
• 32:59
  Tad Eggleston: agreeing with the great Godfrey.
• 33:01
  Tad Eggleston: It reminds me of Arcade
• 33:07
  Tad Eggleston: later.
• 33:09
  Mark Pracht: We don't talk about that. We don't talk about Arcade looking like.
• 33:12
  Tad Eggleston: Why?
• 33:14
  Mark Pracht: Just God.
• 33:16
  Tad Eggleston: What discuss.
• 33:18
  Mark Pracht: Because just cause.
• 33:18
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 33:19
  Mark Pracht: Everybody stole everything from Kirby. No, I'm kidding.
• 33:21
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 33:23
  Mark Pracht: No, you know, I think that I think that
• 33:32
  Mark Pracht: you know
• 33:37
  Mark Pracht: that I guess we're jumping right to forever, people, which is fine, because I thought the the Jimmy Olsen book was not all that interesting this month.
• 33:47
  Mark Pracht: but you know.
• 33:55
  Mark Pracht: in the like, I think this is the book
• 33:59
  Mark Pracht: the whole time. I'm reading this book I'm thinking about.
• 34:03
  Mark Pracht: The the Ronnie James Dio sung black Sabbath tune mob rules.
• 34:10
  Mark Pracht: you know. If you listen to fools. The mob rules, you know. And
• 34:17
  Mark Pracht: yeah, the the idea of you know, mob mentality and and like, obviously, Kirby has a direct
• 34:34
  Mark Pracht: experience with this sort of stuff, I mean, like, you know, the the German American bond was apparently after him
• 34:42
  Mark Pracht: in the thirties and the forties because of Captain America and and
• 34:48
  Mark Pracht: you know, and I think that it
• 34:55
  Mark Pracht: as with most things with Kirby, it's it's incredibly simplistic, and it's incredibly
• 35:04
  Mark Pracht: It gets a little over convoluted, but I mean it's also really powerful. I mean, it really is. I remember there was a when when I was reading this. I took
• 35:15
  Mark Pracht: the. I took screenshots of a bunch of those panels and I put them up on
• 35:22
  Mark Pracht: I put them up on Instagram, you know, and I was like, you know, it's always been the same. It's with this has been going on forever right.
• 35:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I am looking a lot at the the yes, it is his gift. Us friends, the cosmic hunting license, the right
• 35:38
  Tad Eggleston: right point, the finger or the gun.
• 35:40
  Mark Pracht: Right? Well, I mean, and the thing is is like, but I I put these panels of Godfrey
• 35:48
  Mark Pracht: on Instagram, and they they took him down
• 35:54
  Mark Pracht: because they were like, this is, this is this is not appropriate.
• 35:58
  Tad Eggleston: Beach.
• 35:59
  Mark Pracht: It's hate speech.
• 36:00
  Mark Pracht: And I'm like.
• 36:01
  Tad Eggleston: Wow!
• 36:01
  Mark Pracht: Wow, you know. And I'm like.
• 36:03
  Mark Pracht: I think when I I said, You know, it's funny. When you take a piece of art, it's sort of like what we're talking about. We were talking when we're talking about Frank Miller, and how you know if you have something, and it makes you angry, or whatever you know, make a piece of art about it. It's not going to hurt any. You know. A piece of art doesn't hurt anyone.
• 36:22
  Mark Pracht: you know, and especially this where it's obviously a, you know. But if you take it out of context.
• 36:29
  Mark Pracht: it can mean anything to anybody, you know.
• 36:32
  Mark Pracht: But that's that's what art is right.
• 36:36
  Mark Pracht: Art exists within a context, and art is what it is. But you know, I think, that
• 36:44
  Mark Pracht: what what Kirby does so brilliantly. Here is, you know.
• 36:49
  Mark Pracht: he creates these these costumes for these guys, the and the helmets, you know, that.
• 36:59
  Mark Pracht: Make everyone one thing right.
• 37:04
  Mark Pracht: And that's always what happens.
• 37:13
  Mark Pracht: And it's it's either. It's, you know. You can say it's racial. You can say it's intellectual. You can say it's it's
• 37:20
  Mark Pracht: political, it's whatever. But the whole idea that everybody must be. One thing is is something that clearly Kirby
• 37:29
  Mark Pracht: hates.
• 37:31
  Mark Pracht: And I think it's 1 of this. I I would honestly say, I think this is this.
• 37:38
  Mark Pracht: It's certainly the strongest issue of forever people that we've had so far. And
• 37:53
  Mark Pracht: I don't. I don't know. I'm I'm trying to remember. I'm trying to think back to last time I read forever people like I've said, it's not. It's probably my least favorite of these series.
• 38:05
  Mark Pracht: This may be the best issue of forever people that there is, so I don't know
• 38:11
  Mark Pracht: somebody else talk. I've talked enough.
• 38:14
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I definitely felt. This was, you know, the the best issue of forever people that that I
• 38:21
  Sean Harklerode: have read so far.
• 38:27
  Sean Harklerode: It felt like it felt like something that could have been written today.
• 38:32
  Tad Eggleston: Unfortunately.
• 38:33
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, absolutely. And you know.
• 38:37
  Sean Harklerode: I was like, Wow, if if this were written today, I'd say, Wow, wow! This is very on the nose right?
• 38:46
  Sean Harklerode: So thinking of, you know the seventies.
• 38:50
  Sean Harklerode: But yeah, what you said, his experience with the Bund and and you know, being in Europe.
• 38:58
  Sean Harklerode: I think, really.
• 39:01
  Sean Harklerode: you see it here that that just affected him. What everyone always says is that you know Jack's
• 39:09
  Sean Harklerode: Jack's war stories were
• 39:12
  Sean Harklerode: on a personal level. That's when you knew Jack, he would start telling war stories, and and oh.
• 39:20
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, like, yeah, like, you know, it's sort of a it's sort of a given that.
• 39:25
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 39:25
  Mark Pracht: Everybody.
• 39:28
  Mark Pracht: Everybody knows that the defining thing in Jack's life was fighting in Europe.
• 39:35
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 39:36
  Mark Pracht: And the hardships he endured, and the the frostbite and all of the, you know.
• 39:45
  Mark Pracht: And but but they he and Roz dealt with it in such a a matter of fact way.
• 39:57
  Mark Pracht: I I you know it's it's that generation, you know. Like, yeah.
• 40:02
  Mark Pracht: I think that there's something magnificent about that, you know. Like, when Roz found out that Jack, you know, had terrible frost frostbite in his feet.
• 40:12
  Mark Pracht: and they were like he might lose his legs.
• 40:16
  Mark Pracht: and Roz was like what Roz said was, well, thank God, it's not his hands.
• 40:23
  Sean Harklerode: And you know, and and.
• 40:25
  Mark Pracht: When Jack would start telling his war stories, Roz would be like, I've heard them all. I'm I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.
• 40:32
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, I think, that there is something
• 40:36
  Mark Pracht: he is, I think, that. And and I think that this does come down to
• 40:43
  Mark Pracht: the core of why he is doing this larger story right
• 40:51
  Mark Pracht: is, I think he is exercising.
• 40:56
  Mark Pracht: exorcising, not exercising, exercising a lot of things that he saw. I mean, I think that I think that
• 41:09
  Mark Pracht: I think that there's a lot of I mean, like.
• 41:14
  Mark Pracht: you know, I I sometimes sometimes talk about like the
• 41:19
  Mark Pracht: Stan gave Jack humanity, but I think that there is, you know, like I think Orion is a hundred percent. Jack.
• 41:27
  Mark Pracht: I think that is Jack. I think he sees himself as a
• 41:33
  Mark Pracht: sort of an animal inside a human skin, you know.
• 41:41
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean the the, the
• 41:46
  Mark Pracht: the new god story with the black racer. I mean, I think that that's
• 41:50
  Mark Pracht: I think that's part of like, I think this whole month of these books we see a lot of Jack exercising
• 42:00
  Mark Pracht: things from the war.
• 42:02
  Sean Harklerode: And I think that that is fascinating.
• 42:04
  Sean Harklerode: Well, I think you know back to to forever people. Still, I I think
• 42:10
  Sean Harklerode: you know you can't get away from the art in this issue.
• 42:15
  Sean Harklerode: just that last. Well, the second to last page, that that picture of dark side is like the iconic dark side. We all all seen.
• 42:24
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 42:24
  Sean Harklerode: I really like
• 42:28
  Sean Harklerode: And when infinity man is swimming through rock.
• 42:34
  Mark Pracht: Yes.
• 42:35
  Sean Harklerode: Right. That's a really cool image to me.
• 42:42
  Sean Harklerode: And had they used Taru to to as their magic word before? I didn't recall that.
• 42:50
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, that's Taru's been in all the books. They never really
• 42:56
  Mark Pracht: every time they transfer it. I think in the earlier books you could have looked at it as some sort of weird sound effect when they.
• 43:04
  Sean Harklerode: Okay.
• 43:05
  Mark Pracht: Transformed. But it's a but yeah like. And I think that we talked about this last night.
• 43:15
  Mark Pracht: excuse me, I'm about.
• 43:16
  Sean Harklerode: So the word is, said Taru. Right.
• 43:20
  Mark Pracht: Ask you.
• 43:22
  Mark Pracht: Excuse me.
• 43:23
  Mark Pracht: I think that you know clearly there is a whole lot of CC. Beck, Captain Marvel in this. Yeah, I mean.
• 43:35
  Mark Pracht: You know right.
• 43:38
  Tad Eggleston: I also like, go ahead.
• 43:41
  Mark Pracht: No, no, go ahead. I I talking too much.
• 43:43
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I was about to go on on a slightly different bent.
• 43:49
  Tad Eggleston: But just because I've been reexamining Godfrey the whole whole time we've been talking
• 43:56
  Tad Eggleston: and like particularly this end sequence. It's like Godfrey is the charlatan that, like has latched on to to dark side and decide because he sees the prophet in it and whatnot, and he thinks that they're in it. For the same reason he is, which is just to like.
• 44:12
  Tad Eggleston: take this thing, and rile people up and make money and personal power off of it, and like
• 44:18
  Tad Eggleston: you see him realizing. Oh, oh, wait a minute, you you guys.
• 44:24
  Sean Harklerode: Want to do this.
• 44:29
  Tad Eggleston: You know it's almost that that Marco Rubio on the couch.
• 44:34
  Tad Eggleston: as as Jd. Vance and Steve Miller rip into Zelensky like, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
• 44:42
  Tad Eggleston: I did you. You meant that.
• 44:49
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know, I think that
• 44:55
  Mark Pracht: I I am. You know I I almost think that narratively.
• 45:02
  Mark Pracht: It might have been interesting if because
• 45:07
  Mark Pracht: maybe maybe I missed this. Godfrey is a denizen of apocalypse.
• 45:14
  Mark Pracht: I think it's very funny how they talk about everyone is, you know, every the the
• 45:19
  Mark Pracht: Apocalypse is full of like, you know, conformity and all of this stuff. And but yet when we see the people in dark side circle, they're all very different, you know.
• 45:32
  Mark Pracht: but it almost would have been interesting if Godfreed had been like if he'd had
• 45:46
  Tad Eggleston: See, I guess I didn't realize he was from Apocalypse 2.
• 45:49
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 45:50
  Tad Eggleston: But but I'm not always as good at picking that stuff up.
• 45:53
  Tad Eggleston: I thought he was like the the Earth man who was adopting the whole kind of kind of like we had the
• 46:00
  Tad Eggleston: the Crazy mob syndicate that was
• 46:03
  Tad Eggleston: to hide in the dark side.
• 46:04
  Mark Pracht: And I was thinking.
• 46:05
  Tad Eggleston: He's like board preaching man tied into dark side.
• 46:08
  Mark Pracht: Like I. I'm wondering if it might not have been more interesting and more cohesive if.
• 46:17
  Mark Pracht: like Morgan Edge had been the one
• 46:22
  Mark Pracht: instead of Gottfried, or we haven't met him yet. But you know, funky flash man.
• 46:29
  Mark Pracht: like there's a lot of funky flash man in Gottfried. So
• 46:37
  Mark Pracht: but I mean, yeah.
• 46:41
  Mark Pracht: But I mean.
• 46:43
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, and I just saw.
• 46:45
  Mark Pracht: Godfrey is the he's the face man, so he's Darkside's probably like we have to have one good looking. Guy.
• 46:51
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 46:53
  Mark Pracht: Not every.
• 46:53
  Tad Eggleston: But he's literally doing like a tent revival here.
• 46:56
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 46:57
  Mark Pracht: 100%.
• 46:58
  Tad Eggleston: I know.
• 46:59
  Mark Pracht: And I mean it's very I mean I don't know where.
• 47:04
  Sean Harklerode: We were with Televanism in the early seventies, but.
• 47:10
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if we'd gotten hardcore into it, but it came out of some really really popular tent revivalists
• 47:19
  Tad Eggleston: and and Jack would have lived through Father Father Coghlan.
• 47:27
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 47:29
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean.
• 47:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean.
• 47:31
  Mark Pracht: I'm sure.
• 47:31
  Sean Harklerode: And we're speaking from the town that Billy Sunday couldn't shut down.
• 47:35
  Mark Pracht: Right, I mean, you know. And obviously Billy Graham was around so.
• 47:41
  Tad Eggleston: All right.
• 47:42
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 47:43
  Mark Pracht: Although.
• 47:44
  Tad Eggleston: And had and hadn't realized. I think good Billy Graham is that he had.
• 47:50
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 47:50
  Tad Eggleston: I'll give Billy Graham a little bit of credit for, like somewhat denouncing himself later in his life. But.
• 47:56
  Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, I mean.
• 47:56
  Tad Eggleston: Time to.
• 47:57
  Mark Pracht: Think Billy Graham sort of resent represented a kinder, gentler kind of
• 48:04
  Mark Pracht: take certainly a more Christian. Take on.
• 48:06
  Tad Eggleston: I think he wanted to.
• 48:08
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean timekeeping.
• 48:11
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 48:12
  Mark Pracht: Anyway.
• 48:17
  Tad Eggleston: The Billy Graham Center wheat in Illinois.
• 48:21
  Mark Pracht: Interesting. I I'm actually very the the cover of this forever. People
• 48:28
  Mark Pracht: is kind of fascinating to me
• 48:32
  Mark Pracht: because it's another one of the the photo covers.
• 48:38
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah.
• 48:39
  Mark Pracht: The the photo part is basically just sort of like a cloud or something.
• 48:44
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 48:45
  Mark Pracht: And I that it. It's interesting.
• 48:51
  Mark Pracht: I'm always I'm I. You know, the the whole idea that, like
• 48:56
  Mark Pracht: what is what is Jack thinking when he does this, you know, he's like, Oh, I'll just put this
• 49:03
  Mark Pracht: this kind of nebulous image in the background, and.
• 49:07
  Tad Eggleston: He's thinking. I don't want to draw a background.
• 49:09
  Mark Pracht: I probably I mean.
• 49:13
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not.
• 49:14
  Tad Eggleston: It's gonna.
• 49:16
  Mark Pracht: I'm not gonna.
• 49:18
  Tad Eggleston: Time to move on to the next book.
• 49:21
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, speed did matter to me.
• 49:26
  Mark Pracht: Speed matters to everyone.
• 49:28
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say is that
• 49:32
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's it's it's sometimes dangerous to to assume that every part of of every piece of art meant something to the artist to begin with, but the faster they're working, the more.
• 49:45
  Mark Pracht: No, I think it might be. I think
• 49:47
  Mark Pracht: that I think that there is a ton like IA hundred percent agree with that. I think that that there's a lot of stuff that Jack does in these books, especially all through his seventies work where it it's like, okay, how do I do this faster and more efficiently.
• 50:04
  Mark Pracht: And, you know, save myself some work that I think that's why, you know.
• 50:12
  Mark Pracht: you would never see like Jack would never do. The Steve Ditko 9 panel page, you know.
• 50:22
  Sean Harklerode: Nobody got time for that.
• 50:25
  Mark Pracht: What'd you say?
• 50:26
  Sean Harklerode: Ain't nobody got time for that.
• 50:28
  Mark Pracht: That's right. I mean it like. And granted
• 50:31
  Mark Pracht: also, his style suggests like splash pages and large panels. So I'm not. I'm not knocking him for that, but I mean like clearly, it also allowed him to work faster right.
• 50:44
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I think I think actually like he's known for his 6 panel pages at Marvel, and he still does 6 panel pages here. But he does way more. 4 panel pages.
• 50:52
  Mark Pracht: Right, yeah.
• 50:58
  Tad Eggleston: I mean he plays with his panel layouts a little bit more period.
• 51:02
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 51:04
  Tad Eggleston: But he's much more willing to go. Do 3 and 4 panel pages, or or pages that are essentially split into 4 and worked from there.
• 51:13
  Mark Pracht: Right, no.
• 51:15
  Tad Eggleston: Rather than
• 51:16
  Tad Eggleston: so, yeah, I mean, that's just my my agreeing that his style is, is action packed enough that he he prefers to give himself more space.
• 51:29
  Tad Eggleston: And I mentioned earlier that I I'd read through, and it really, I should say, looked through, because there was so many words that I I chose not to read them because they weren't part of what I was
• 51:41
  Tad Eggleston: looking at. I'll go back and read them.
• 51:45
  Tad Eggleston: Those those the
• 51:50
  Tad Eggleston: the strange tales, Nick fury stories that Kirby Kirby laid out, and and that's where I noticed that, like as much as Jack is still wordy in his own work. The word balloons take up way less space than some of the stuff.
• 52:06
  Mark Pracht: Right. I mean, there were so many panels that I was looking at, and I'm sitting there going.
• 52:10
  Tad Eggleston: There is so much good artwork being covered up in this panel that it's not even funny.
• 52:18
  Mark Pracht: I, I.
• 52:19
  Tad Eggleston: And that's where I can also understand not wanting to do anything with the background. You're just gonna put a word balloon there, anyway.
• 52:24
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I like, I have no doubt that that cover is just simply like, you know what. Let's just let's just take this photo I found in the newspaper and put it in the back, and nobody nobody will know. And it's like, okay. But it's it's interesting.
• 52:40
  Mark Pracht: another. Just little funny thing.
• 52:44
  Mark Pracht: The final panel of the final page is that
• 52:50
  Mark Pracht: is that the serenity from Firefly.
• 52:54
  Tad Eggleston: It does look like it, doesn't it?
• 52:57
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 53:04
  Mark Pracht: That I that just struck me as I was flipping through it.
• 53:08
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, except for the fact that it's clearly smaller, because, like, it's more of a fantastic car.
• 53:16
  Sean Harklerode: That's what I was just like, yeah.
• 53:18
  Tad Eggleston: There's there's a guy whose head's sticking out of it.
• 53:21
  Mark Pracht: It's not the fantastic car.
• 53:24
  Tad Eggleston: Well, it's not the fantastic car, because the fantastic car has 4 downward facing jets. Duh.
• 53:34
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know it does have the 2 little seats on the, you know, for when it splits off anyway.
• 53:39
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, no.
• 53:42
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, if you made that bigger, that would be the serenity.
• 53:45
  Mark Pracht: The
• 53:47
  Mark Pracht: this is, yeah, this is this is the one month where I can say quite honestly, I think
• 53:54
  Mark Pracht: forever, people is the best book in this month.
• 53:56
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, it's fantastic!
• 53:57
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 53:59
  Tad Eggleston: And it really does seem to be addressing the social issue of using faith and conformity yep or evil.
• 54:15
  Mark Pracht: I mean, yeah, it. It's it's.
• 54:18
  Tad Eggleston: Which I imagine was I mean, as we were talking earlier, you know he had the American boon after him for Captain America, and then he went, and like
• 54:28
  Tad Eggleston: served in Germany, you know.
• 54:30
  Mark Pracht: I think that you know, especially in the early seventies, there was a whole, you know, that was a big undercurrent of like
• 54:38
  Mark Pracht: freedom of expression and freedom of.
• 54:42
  Mark Pracht: you know, like you got thx you got
• 54:47
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and and this is.
• 54:48
  Mark Pracht: So Logan's well, Logan's runs a little later, but I mean, like that was a you know, a easy rider. All of these things. It's like we want to be
• 54:58
  Mark Pracht: free of.
• 54:59
  Mark Pracht: Can you know of conformity? Right?
• 55:03
  Tad Eggleston: But but also as as comics are so often
• 55:08
  Tad Eggleston: ahead of the curve as he had been with Captain America.
• 55:13
  Tad Eggleston: Nixon won by a lot in 72. How much was he already seeing, you know.
• 55:21
  Tad Eggleston: racist, dog whistles, whatnot being being framed as law and order or religious whatever
• 55:32
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, what level of of intentional or subconscious commentary is there?
• 55:45
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 55:45
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, going on to, I mean, for that matter, again, even on the cover, the the
• 55:52
  Tad Eggleston: the live by my rules or die.
• 55:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 55:58
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, well, I mean, I think this is I mean, that's
• 56:01
  Sean Harklerode: this is the clearest distillation of the anti-life equation that we've seen.
• 56:10
  Sean Harklerode: or at least what it can do.
• 56:13
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I still think that
• 56:17
  Mark Pracht: anti-life, or the anti-life equation, or it's still like
• 56:24
  Mark Pracht: so nebulous. It seems like it's just anything that's evil, right or.
• 56:30
  Sean Harklerode: But I it feels like it's it takes away your
• 56:34
  Sean Harklerode: it's basically taking away your will.
• 56:37
  Mark Pracht: Individual.
• 56:38
  Sean Harklerode: Your individuality.
• 56:40
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 56:40
  Sean Harklerode: Life has pitfalls, and Thai life is protection.
• 56:45
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 56:45
  Sean Harklerode: You know. Remind me a little bit of the prisoner. You know these signs that they have.
• 56:51
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 56:52
  Sean Harklerode: To buy anything with Anti-life.
• 56:56
  Sean Harklerode: It was I I you know this was to me. This is satire, this this issue.
• 57:01
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I think I think that
• 57:09
  Tad Eggleston: No, but.
• 57:09
  Mark Pracht: You know life has.
• 57:10
  Tad Eggleston: Library.
• 57:11
  Mark Pracht: Like.
• 57:11
  Sean Harklerode: Okay.
• 57:11
  Mark Pracht: Life, has.
• 57:12
  Sean Harklerode: No one's more qualified to burn your books than I am.
• 57:16
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 57:18
  Mark Pracht: But you know, like you talk about wife has pitfalls right.
• 57:24
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 57:25
  Mark Pracht: Anti-life is protection, you know, and like every every
• 57:35
  Mark Pracht: I you know, and I know I sort of have this this sort of like
• 57:40
  Mark Pracht: attitude of like. Let's let's look at this from all sides. But everybody is all about protection these days, you know. It's like I want to be protected from this. I want to be protected from that. I want to be, you know. I don't want to. I don't want things that make me uncomfortable. I don't want things that that make me feel gross, or whatever you know I do it. We all do it right. It's it's.
• 58:03
  Tad Eggleston: I'll settle for not having to worry about getting shot.
• 58:06
  Mark Pracht: Sure, but you know but like
• 58:10
  Mark Pracht: but but it's it's sort of like what we're talking, what we're talking about, like what we were talking about before Tad, when we were talking about like Star Wars and stuff, and like.
• 58:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 58:19
  Mark Pracht: You know, don't watch it.
• 58:21
  Mark Pracht: Right? Yeah, like, if this if this comps, if this concept bothers you great, then just, you know, like there's no.
• 58:28
  Tad Eggleston: That means.
• 58:29
  Mark Pracht: Law that says every piece of content in the world, and fuck. I just said the word fucking content.
• 58:34
  Tad Eggleston: Alright!
• 58:34
  Mark Pracht: But you know that like that has to be for you right if everybody is talking about, if everybody is talking about
• 58:43
  Mark Pracht: whatever if everybody is talking about the forever people right? And you are like, well, that really, I really just that makes me really upset. And it really, you know like.
• 58:54
  Mark Pracht: then you don't have to be part of that conversation like, just because everybody else is talking about. It doesn't mean that you have to be able to be part of that conversation. You know what I'm saying. I think that
• 59:07
  Tad Eggleston: Or defend your own. I mean, like, yeah, you brought up.
• 59:11
  Mark Pracht: Your own thing. Yeah, yeah. Find your.
• 59:13
  Tad Eggleston: Brought up Star Wars again, and like one of the most interesting
• 59:17
  Tad Eggleston: riffs that I see in Star Wars are the people who are upset that the old expanded universe has been redubbed legends. I fall into a very small camp that thinks that the fact that it was redubbed legends rather than retconned is actually brilliant.
• 59:35
  Tad Eggleston: Because we have so much legend and so much fact when it comes to history or whatever. But beyond all of that.
• 59:43
  Tad Eggleston: you can decide that it's your Star Wars universe.
• 59:46
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 59:47
  Mark Pracht: I mean, I think we're we're we're. I mean, like, we're kind of getting off the point, because obviously this, that what Kirby is talking about is a totalitarian state, right, or an attempt at a totalitarian state. But I'm just saying.
• 1:00:00
  Tad Eggleston: And yeah, we don't quite get to decide.
• 1:00:02
  Mark Pracht: I think that I think you know every time I see things I always think about my own.
• 1:00:11
  Mark Pracht: and honestly my own feelings of like. If I could just make people do this, it'd be great, right?
• 1:00:18
  Mark Pracht: And and how insidious that thought process is, and and.
• 1:00:24
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly what what Kirby is.
• 1:00:27
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:00:28
  Tad Eggleston: Laying here.
• 1:00:29
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:00:29
  Tad Eggleston: Is is how many people can be brought into
• 1:00:35
  Tad Eggleston: whatever but by by suggesting, Hey.
• 1:00:40
  Tad Eggleston: you know that feeling you have that feels a little bit icky where you just wish that you could make other people do what you? It's not icky, it's powerful. It's right we should.
• 1:00:51
  Mark Pracht: Well, the thing is is like that. You know. The the ultimate end of that that no one ever gets to is that pretty soon
• 1:01:00
  Mark Pracht: the people who are under Godfrey right? Who are listening to Gottfried. They're going to realize. Well, he's telling those people the exact same thing. He's telling us.
• 1:01:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:01:10
  Mark Pracht: That like. So it it's not like
• 1:01:15
  Mark Pracht: no one. Somebody is always going to lose right? Somebody, right? So I mean God, I don't even know what the hell point I'm making anymore. But all I know is, you know, this is a really great book, and it is a really powerful book, and it is. It is Kirby at his best.
• 1:01:33
  Tad Eggleston: This.
• 1:01:34
  Mark Pracht: Writing is tighter. It's still. It's still got a little, it's still got. It gets a little.
• 1:01:39
  Tad Eggleston: He's not a writer. What the fuck.
• 1:01:41
  Mark Pracht: Talking about, but I mean, you know, but like the
• 1:01:45
  Mark Pracht: it, it's it's an excellent. It's an excellent example of something we talk about in theater, which is.
• 1:01:50
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:01:50
  Mark Pracht: If your theme is strong, if you understand what your story is about, you can almost say anything, and the audience will follow you right.
• 1:02:00
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's not an original thought about Kirby. It's not even an original thought on this air. So much of Kirby's work could have been made so much better by
• 1:02:10
  Tad Eggleston: not even a a.
• 1:02:12
  Tad Eggleston: A writer necessarily is a scripter and an editor.
• 1:02:16
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean.
• 1:02:17
  Tad Eggleston: People he trusts, and it's completely understandable why he he pushed against that.
• 1:02:24
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 1:02:25
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah.
• 1:02:25
  Mark Pracht: Totally understandable. But you know it is like, you know. And again, it's just.
• 1:02:31
  Tad Eggleston: But if he'd had just a little bit more understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses.
• 1:02:36
  Tad Eggleston: and like this can be said of of.
• 1:02:40
  Tad Eggleston: you know, with with the Star Wars theme that's been running through us. This can be said about George Lucas, too, you know. I mean, I think most people think that the best of the movies that he was involved in are Empire strikes back and return of the Jedi, and they have the advantage of not having been written or directed by him.
• 1:02:57
  Mark Pracht: I would disagree with that. But I'm 1 of the weird people who wishes that the original Star Wars was the only Star Wars.
• 1:03:05
  Tad Eggleston: And that's that's fair as well. Yeah.
• 1:03:08
  Mark Pracht: I mean. Look, that's that's kind of giddy.
• 1:03:11
  Tad Eggleston: I think he's a better storyteller than he. I mean. What what I'm really saying is is, I think, that it's very clear to me that Lucas is a great overall storyteller.
• 1:03:22
  Tad Eggleston: He is fantastic with effects, and
• 1:03:27
  Tad Eggleston: he's going to do well with the overall vision. He's not as into the nitty gritty of screenwriting
• 1:03:34
  Tad Eggleston: or directing actors.
• 1:03:37
  Mark Pracht: Oh, just just do that, do that, you know, Joe.
• 1:03:41
  Tad Eggleston: So if he had hired, you know.
• 1:03:42
  Tad Eggleston: to do those things, you know.
• 1:03:44
  Mark Pracht: George, you can type this shit, but you can't. You don't have to say it.
• 1:03:50
  Mark Pracht: No, I think that there's I think there's so like. Look, there's there's a lot of people
• 1:03:56
  Mark Pracht: who like to claim that Lucas lifted
• 1:04:00
  Mark Pracht: all of this for Star Wars. Right? All of the 4th World. I don't. I? I think that there's a lot that there.
• 1:04:07
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's relatively clear that he'd read the 4th World. That's as far as I'll go.
• 1:04:11
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, I think, that I think that he he was aware of a lot of sci-fi and stuff.
• 1:04:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, just like there are a lot of people who like to say he he lifted the whole thing from Hidden fortress, too, and I will say that it's relatively clear that he'd seen and loved hidden fortress.
• 1:04:26
  Mark Pracht: Sure. Yeah, no. I mean, like everything comes from somewhere, right? But I mean, I do think I do think that the the comparison of Kirby to Lucas is a very valid one. I mean, like, I think, that they're they're visual thinkers, they they are not.
• 1:04:42
  Mark Pracht: I think I think the difference. The difference is that every time you talk to George Lucas he's like, well, you know, I'm not a very good writer, and and
• 1:04:54
  Mark Pracht: I think Kirby thought he was a good writer.
• 1:04:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:04:56
  Mark Pracht: You know, and I think that
• 1:04:59
  Mark Pracht: I I am also. I also am struck, and it's
• 1:05:04
  Mark Pracht: you know, it's hard to talk about Jack, especially in this period, without talking about Stan. But I mean, like Stan, I remember in the like. It was in the eighties. Somebody was asking Stan about Jack's work at DC. And he's like, you know. I wish Jack had brought that to me, because I think we could have really done something with that, and you know what I think that these books would have been
• 1:05:30
  Mark Pracht: possibly more popular.
• 1:05:33
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:05:34
  Mark Pracht: If because and I look. And again, Kirby.
• 1:05:37
  Tad Eggleston: But I be.
• 1:05:38
  Tad Eggleston: I really do believe that these books did not sell as well as they wanted them.
• 1:05:42
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 1:05:43
  Mark Pracht: You know, and that's that's.
• 1:05:45
  Tad Eggleston: I'm certain that they didn't they? They wouldn't have canceled them.
• 1:05:47
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:05:48
  Tad Eggleston: Like? What is the.
• 1:05:48
  Mark Pracht: Why would you cancel these books if they weren't if they were making money? You know it's it's like people don't.
• 1:05:54
  Tad Eggleston: No, I am certain that what.
• 1:05:56
  Mark Pracht: His jack off, you know.
• 1:05:58
  Tad Eggleston: Whether whether it was because they they paid him more, and therefore needed to sell more to reach that or whatnot. I am certain that if they're making any money at all.
• 1:06:10
  Tad Eggleston: they don't cancel these books.
• 1:06:12
  Mark Pracht: Well, here's here's an even better thing that I would say, look, because I always. I always talk about this in relation to these books is that I think Jack left Marvel at a really bad time for him to leave Marvel, because, like what was happening at DC. Was, we've got Denny O'neill and Neil Adams coming up.
• 1:06:31
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:06:32
  Mark Pracht: Which, you know, we were talking about very realistic artwork.
• 1:06:36
  Mark Pracht: Very very ripped from the headlines. Sort of writing, you know, and very not.
• 1:06:47
  Mark Pracht: I'm going to use the word, not comic bookie
• 1:06:50
  Mark Pracht: sort of storytelling was coming. You know. It was the 1st round of the comic. Books aren't just for kids, you know.
• 1:06:56
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:06:57
  Mark Pracht: And well, and I 1st post.
• 1:07:00
  Tad Eggleston: Post wortham round.
• 1:07:02
  Mark Pracht: Sure. Yeah,
• 1:07:04
  Mark Pracht: But
• 1:07:07
  Mark Pracht: and I think I think that these books felt. And I when we read them, they feel like
• 1:07:13
  Mark Pracht: there's various early silver age, very golden age kind of feel to them where shit just happens right? And
• 1:07:23
  Mark Pracht: It is one of those things where? What if
• 1:07:27
  Mark Pracht: but like. Can you imagine this issue of forever people? If, in fact.
• 1:07:31
  Mark Pracht: Jack would have felt comfortable enough to let Denny O'neill.
• 1:07:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:07:37
  Mark Pracht: Do do the dialogue.
• 1:07:38
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I was even thinking.
• 1:07:40
  Mark Pracht: Been amazing.
• 1:07:41
  Tad Eggleston: If we were going among the the more
• 1:07:49
  Tad Eggleston: cosmic of the era. If Jim Starlin or Steve Gerber, or or any of the weird guys had been able to do the dialogue.
• 1:07:59
  Tad Eggleston: it could have massively changed the the quality of the book.
• 1:08:05
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:08:06
  Tad Eggleston: And and and I'm not even talking like the plotting or the whatnot I'm talking. Jack gives them this book.
• 1:08:14
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:08:14
  Tad Eggleston: And ask them to clean up the dialogue.
• 1:08:16
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:08:17
  Tad Eggleston: Like script, doctor type clean up the dialogue.
• 1:08:20
  Mark Pracht: No, I I think I mean. And there's there's some indication.
• 1:08:24
  Tad Eggleston: That's true of a lot of what we've read so far. Is that all it really needed was a good script, doctor
• 1:08:30
  Tad Eggleston: 2.
• 1:08:32
  Tad Eggleston: Hell! Let's just go get Carrie Fisher.
• 1:08:34
  Mark Pracht: Yeah? Who? Yeah?
• 1:08:35
  Tad Eggleston: Wasn't doing it yet.
• 1:08:37
  Mark Pracht: We're stopper.
• 1:08:39
  Tad Eggleston: She was only 11.
• 1:08:42
  Mark Pracht: Guys hang on just a second. I got to jump off for a half a second. Okay.
• 1:08:46
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, I'll talk to Sean.
• 1:08:48
  Tad Eggleston: I talked about Mark for a long time without Sean.
• 1:08:51
  Sean Harklerode: So this would have been
• 1:08:53
  Sean Harklerode: this would have been right around the time that Carrie Fisher was in the Ringo Starr video for
• 1:08:59
  Tad Eggleston: Sounds about right?
• 1:09:02
  Sean Harklerode: You're 16. You're beautiful in your mind.
• 1:09:09
  Sean Harklerode: But yeah, I I this was to me again.
• 1:09:15
  Tad Eggleston: It would have been 15 when this came out.
• 1:09:18
  Sean Harklerode: Okay.
• 1:09:19
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe 14, because she was born in October.
• 1:09:23
  Tad Eggleston: What? What month was this?
• 1:09:29
  Tad Eggleston: This was? Yeah, this was this was this was June of 71. So so yeah, she she would have been 14 when this came out.
• 1:09:37
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know. She might have been able to be. I mean, that's an that's a year older than Shooter. When he started writing.
• 1:09:44
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 1:09:44
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe Carrie Fisher would have been the right script. Doctor.
• 1:09:50
  Mark Pracht: All right. Here's what's gonna happen.
• 1:09:52
  Tad Eggleston: She would have been a year older than Shooter.
• 1:09:58
  Mark Pracht: And already on.
• 1:09:59
  Sean Harklerode: Only you could be so bold.
• 1:10:01
  Tad Eggleston: And she lived in Southern California. If only they bumped into each other.
• 1:10:08
  Mark Pracht: You know. It looks like I'm gonna be in la in early August, and I'm going to get to go to that Kirby.
• 1:10:14
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, skirball!
• 1:10:15
  Mark Pracht: The Skirball.
• 1:10:16
  Tad Eggleston: Nice.
• 1:10:17
  Mark Pracht: And so I'll take some pictures.
• 1:10:20
  Tad Eggleston: Cool.
• 1:10:21
  Sean Harklerode: It goes through march!
• 1:10:24
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, March of next year. Yeah.
• 1:10:25
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 1:10:26
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:10:26
  Mark Pracht: So maybe I get. Maybe maybe I'll find another time to go out, too. Maybe you know.
• 1:10:30
  Mark Pracht: But yeah.
• 1:10:33
  Mark Pracht: I'm thinking I'm not in there, not there very long, but I think I'm going to go to the skirble, and then I might go back down to 1,000 Oaks and and go out and make a pilgrimage back to the graves, and
• 1:10:46
  Mark Pracht: maybe go find stands, too. So.
• 1:10:49
  Tad Eggleston: I discovered recently that there is a comic shop slash pinball arcade in La
• 1:10:57
  Tad Eggleston: that is now on my list of places that I need to go, cause it looks pretty cool.
• 1:11:08
  Mark Pracht: Anyway,
• 1:11:09
  Mark Pracht: So
• 1:11:13
  Tad Eggleston: So we want to move on to the other books.
• 1:11:14
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, was thinking that I mean, like, really the Forever people was. It was the best book of his.
• 1:11:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:11:20
  Mark Pracht: Which is great. It's nice to have that be a high point.
• 1:11:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, for me.
• 1:11:29
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, I think the other books are equally interesting.
• 1:11:34
  Tad Eggleston: We're not. You can't.
• 1:11:36
  Tad Eggleston: Ca, can I get the bad hot? Take out of the way on, on new gods before
• 1:11:44
  Tad Eggleston: be be before we get into the actual good stuff, which is
• 1:11:50
  Tad Eggleston: Jack, by making a skier in the air that doesn't actually completely like solidify here I created the silver surfer case and and
• 1:12:03
  Tad Eggleston: can we please have a black hero that's not called black?
• 1:12:07
  Tad Eggleston: Something.
• 1:12:11
  Mark Pracht: Know. Look, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna you're a hundred percent, right? A 100%. Right? You know.
• 1:12:19
  Tad Eggleston: That's just my hot take based on the cover. And the 1st page.
• 1:12:23
  Mark Pracht: You know I'm gonna tell you this right now. We could have had the coal panther instead of the Black panther, and I don't know if that would be better or worse.
• 1:12:32
  Tad Eggleston: It could have just been the panther.
• 1:12:35
  Mark Pracht: Hey, man, I'm not going to argue with Jack Kirby. But again, okay, we do.
• 1:12:43
  Tad Eggleston: But at least a black panther is a thing.
• 1:12:45
  Mark Pracht: It's true.
• 1:12:46
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's that's better than like black.
• 1:12:48
  Mark Pracht: Well.
• 1:12:48
  Tad Eggleston: Lightning I mean.
• 1:12:51
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I know.
• 1:12:54
  Sean Harklerode: Choose.
• 1:12:55
  Mark Pracht: Okay.
• 1:12:56
  Sean Harklerode: With George Jones and White Lightning.
• 1:12:59
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:13:00
  Mark Pracht: Here.
• 1:13:01
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:02
  Mark Pracht: Here's here's our new podcast.
• 1:13:04
  Mark Pracht: 3 middle-aged white guys talk about naming conventions of black superheroes.
• 1:13:10
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I said. It's my hot tank that I just wanna get out of the way.
• 1:13:18
  Mark Pracht: Black racer is like I I love the idea of this of this this soldier.
• 1:13:25
  Mark Pracht: who is, you know, paralyzed and bedridden, and unable to move or speak, or anything, and him becoming some sort of heroic character.
• 1:13:38
  Mark Pracht: I think that that is, I think again, when we're talking about how there seems to be a lot of
• 1:13:45
  Mark Pracht: this month. Jack must have had some
• 1:13:49
  Mark Pracht: feelings about the war. Come up right right, and I think that that that's a great hook for Jack.
• 1:14:01
  Mark Pracht: I, when I was a kid
• 1:14:07
  Mark Pracht: the 1st time I ever saw
• 1:14:10
  Mark Pracht: an image of the black racer was in DC. Comics. Who's Who right? Which was their kind of
• 1:14:20
  Mark Pracht: version of the Handbook for the Marvel Universe. You know where it would be. Each page would be a character, and and I looked at the drawing of that character, and I thought, That is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life.
• 1:14:32
  Mark Pracht: and you know I hadn't read it that I don't think it's the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life now. But I do think that as a conceptualization.
• 1:14:43
  Mark Pracht: this feels really
• 1:14:49
  Mark Pracht: B team to me.
• 1:14:51
  Mark Pracht: and, like the character in itself, is kind of interesting. I like the fact that he like it never like. The other thing is is that it's it's death, right?
• 1:15:01
  Mark Pracht: Right? He is. It's Dep, right, he the
• 1:15:04
  Mark Pracht: but in this book it never really quite says that like he's chasing light ray
• 1:15:14
  Mark Pracht: oblivion. I face oblivion. And it's like, Oh, okay, I
• 1:15:21
  Mark Pracht: you know, like. And I think again, as we were talking about where
• 1:15:28
  Mark Pracht: other creators have taken these things and done more with them. I think I think that other people have done more with the black racer.
• 1:15:36
  Mark Pracht: But again I don't. I also don't think that this character is used all that often. If I remember
• 1:15:44
  Mark Pracht: when new guys.
• 1:15:45
  Tad Eggleston: No, though I am looking through its history, and it's been brought back in some interesting ways.
• 1:15:50
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:15:51
  Tad Eggleston: Oh!
• 1:15:52
  Mark Pracht: I.
• 1:15:52
  Tad Eggleston: Including in final crisis and new. 52.
• 1:15:56
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, like it's I mean, it's certainly like a useful character, for, like DC. Mythology to have this character. That is deaf right?
• 1:16:07
  Mark Pracht: I mean, anytime you need somebody to be out running death like it's funny, like, if.
• 1:16:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm
• 1:16:17
  Tad Eggleston: Wikipedia. Look at list of his abilities, and he's a badass immortality, infinite super speed, supercharged brain activity, vibration to phase through objects. Time travel by running faster than the speed of light, enhanced super strength, endurance, reflexes, agility and stamina, creation of vortexes, electrokinesis, dimensional travel, time, manipulation, flight via cosmically powered skis, intangibility, touch of death wears cosmic armor and schemes.
• 1:16:44
  Tad Eggleston: skis, energy, projection and absorption, matter, manipulation, invulnerability, illusion, casting and cosmic perceptions and senses, I mean, that's 1 hell of a badass character.
• 1:16:57
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, but that's like.
• 1:16:59
  Mark Pracht: in a lot of ways. It's like every character in these books.
• 1:17:03
  Tad Eggleston: I can
• 1:17:04
  Mark Pracht: They do whatever Jack needs them to at any given moment.
• 1:17:06
  Tad Eggleston: That's right.
• 1:17:07
  Mark Pracht: I mean, I'm also like if somebody was, if if by some miracle somebody was to come in and say, Hey, Mark, you want to write the flash I'd be like, all right.
• 1:17:17
  Mark Pracht: It's going to be chased by the black racer.
• 1:17:21
  Mark Pracht: and I'm like, all right, like I can do something with that, you know. It's like
• 1:17:27
  Mark Pracht: But like I there, it's just it's kind of a dumb looking character. If you ask me right.
• 1:17:36
  Tad Eggleston: Well. And and it's funny that you mentioned that because the black racer appears in issue number 2 of
• 1:17:46
  Tad Eggleston: the flash rebirth, I think, or final.
• 1:17:49
  Mark Pracht: I.
• 1:17:50
  Tad Eggleston: Crisis pursuing Barry Allen, the flesh.
• 1:17:57
  Sean Harklerode: Well, I just want to say thanks, Metron, right?
• 1:18:01
  Sean Harklerode: You know metron brings him to earth.
• 1:18:05
  Tad Eggleston: That's true.
• 1:18:06
  Sean Harklerode: I like.
• 1:18:07
  Sean Harklerode: Come on, man.
• 1:18:11
  Tad Eggleston: I do think, though, that, like the idea that we're gonna go from surfing to skiing is.
• 1:18:20
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know. Look, I think that I think that this whole issue has this sort of you know.
• 1:18:27
  Mark Pracht: like clearly, Jack.
• 1:18:31
  Mark Pracht: Jack, obviously like he created characters of color on several occasions. Right? I think that he did want to like, and I I think that it was a mercenary idea. I think I think he did think oh, man, maybe I could sell more books if I,
• 1:18:48
  Mark Pracht: you know, put a character of color in here. Great I diversity for financial gain.
• 1:18:57
  Mark Pracht: I mean, it's still diversity, right? But
• 1:19:02
  Mark Pracht: there is so much in this book that I'm like, this is a middle-aged white guy in California, writing about inner City black people as
• 1:19:10
  Mark Pracht: and like the Sugar Man, is like Whoa.
• 1:19:18
  Sean Harklerode: I'm your Sugar man.
• 1:19:23
  Mark Pracht: It's like he watched shaft, and he was like I got this now.
• 1:19:26
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 1:19:29
  Mark Pracht: But I don't know. I think I think that.
• 1:19:34
  Mark Pracht: And this is this is another one of those books where
• 1:19:41
  Mark Pracht: and this happens in new gods quite a bit, I think, where it's like, okay. Ostensibly this book is about Orion being on earth and fighting
• 1:19:51
  Mark Pracht: the forces of Apocalypse. Right?
• 1:19:53
  Mark Pracht: But then it seems like everyone said like that. There's always like, let's introduce another new God right? And that the book becomes sort of about that a new God, and
• 1:20:03
  Mark Pracht: and you're sort of sitting there going like well, I was kind of into this whole Orion
• 1:20:09
  Mark Pracht: fights the forces of Dark Side, you know.
• 1:20:12
  Mark Pracht: and that seems to be a real ancillary point here, plus man this Orion thing.
• 1:20:24
  Mark Pracht: Oh, Jack, your name will be O'reion.
• 1:20:31
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:20:31
  Mark Pracht: I think that's funny, don't you? Not really. No, thanks.
• 1:20:38
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's my favorite constellation, so like doesn't bother me.
• 1:20:45
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. But your favorite combination is not, O apostrophe. RYAN.
• 1:20:51
  Tad Eggleston: That's I, said Constellation, not company.
• 1:20:55
  Mark Pracht: Sorry I misspoke.
• 1:20:58
  Tad Eggleston: Don't get me wrong. It would be cooler if he had a different name than Orion, and became Orion.
• 1:21:05
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:21:10
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe I think.
• 1:21:11
  Mark Pracht: I think that they should have taken this exact same character, and named him Cassiopeia.
• 1:21:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:21:18
  Mark Pracht: I am. I am Cassiopeia. I anger. I feel I fight.
• 1:21:25
  Mark Pracht: anyway. But yes, no. To to Sean's point. Yeah. Like, thanks. Metron. What like.
• 1:21:37
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I mean.
• 1:21:38
  Mark Pracht: Gonna I'm gonna save you light Ray, by sending this guy directly to a planet that has very little hope of stopping him in any way.
• 1:21:46
  Mark Pracht: And I I don't know. I mean
• 1:21:53
  Mark Pracht: some of page 10, that splash page. I mean that that is a great Kirby spatch, splash page. But
• 1:22:01
  Mark Pracht: it's also like, yeah, okay, it's the black racer.
• 1:22:06
  Mark Pracht: I don't know.
• 1:22:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I liked a lot of this comic.
• 1:22:12
  Tad Eggleston: And then the parts that were too silly were almost like truly too silly.
• 1:22:18
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 1:22:19
  Tad Eggleston: If that makes sense.
• 1:22:20
  Mark Pracht: Well, you I, the actually like the the whole, the whole motivation for the Sugar Man to try to kill.
• 1:22:28
  Mark Pracht: Willie Walker.
• 1:22:30
  Mark Pracht: It's always got to be the liberation. Right?
• 1:22:34
  Mark Pracht: It's like, Okay.
• 1:22:35
  Tad Eggleston: I think he'd want to get away from that. After leaving Stan.
• 1:22:39
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:22:40
  Mark Pracht: But
• 1:22:42
  Mark Pracht: but like, it's this guy. Okay, so he he kills this guy outside the window. There's a guy inside who can't move. He can't turn his head.
• 1:22:53
  Mark Pracht: He can't speak, but he's like I'm gonna have to get rid of this guy. He might talk.
• 1:22:58
  Mark Pracht: It's like what
• 1:23:06
  Mark Pracht: it's some of some of the motivations. I'm just like, Okay, I didn't.
• 1:23:15
  Tad Eggleston: But, as always, the artwork is fantastic.
• 1:23:19
  Mark Pracht: As always.
• 1:23:20
  Sean Harklerode: Absolutely.
• 1:23:21
  Tad Eggleston: I I would I would. And it's another one of those speed things, so I don't get too upset. I wish he had more male faces.
• 1:23:33
  Tad Eggleston: He seems to have a slightly bigger variety of female faces, possibly because he doesn't have to draw as many of them.
• 1:23:40
  Mark Pracht: Right now. I page.
• 1:23:42
  Tad Eggleston: I love it when we get like like Chester Gould-esque
• 1:23:51
  Tad Eggleston: character like like this guy with the the cigar.
• 1:23:56
  Tad Eggleston: the the bald guy with cigar on on page 16,
• 1:24:01
  Tad Eggleston: 17 and 18, the guy in the green shoot.
• 1:24:04
  Tad Eggleston: you know. Every once in a while he'll he'll like, really do up a face different.
• 1:24:09
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah.
• 1:24:09
  Tad Eggleston: But so many of the faces are just that angular reed. Richards, this is my face, right.
• 1:24:18
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, I think that you know he's got his heroic face, and then he's got his.
• 1:24:23
  Mark Pracht: you know, and obviously drawing, drawing villains, and and and
• 1:24:29
  Mark Pracht: I will say like when we get to Mr. Miracle that that book was a
• 1:24:36
  Mark Pracht: cornucopia of of great whacked out phases. I I was having a blast with that.
• 1:24:44
  Mark Pracht: I was going to say. Page 13, the upper right panel.
• 1:24:49
  Mark Pracht: Oh, man, that's great! Where the black racer is reaching out to him, and it's just the face and the hand I'm like. That's that's great. That is super Kirby. Dynamic image dynamic pose.
• 1:25:02
  Mark Pracht: And it's not like it's not even a full body. It's just like this, yeah, I love it.
• 1:25:17
  Mark Pracht: yeah, I just can't get over. I think
• 1:25:19
  Mark Pracht: it's just so silly. Oh, it's flying skis! It's got flying skis.
• 1:25:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean that in in some ways I have to say that, like that particular decision.
• 1:25:35
  Tad Eggleston: just kind of overshadows so much of this book.
• 1:25:39
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it. It's just a silly.
• 1:25:42
  Tad Eggleston: I think even roller skates would have been better.
• 1:25:45
  Mark Pracht: The you know, the thing about it is is like a lot of people have pointed out that that it seems like.
• 1:25:52
  Mark Pracht: you know Jack's original idea, for the surfer was that he was this avenging angel, right? So that
• 1:25:59
  Mark Pracht: the black racer, you know, might be a storehouse for some similar ideas. Right.
• 1:26:05
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:26:09
  Mark Pracht: But just the design of the character, like the surfer is. So
• 1:26:18
  Mark Pracht: it just pops, and it's nothing right. It's a it's a. It's a white, naked guy on a white surfing board right.
• 1:26:27
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:26:27
  Mark Pracht: But it's.
• 1:26:28
  Tad Eggleston: Whereas he just does too much here.
• 1:26:30
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, it's like, there's like, you know, it's like one color, too.
• 1:26:38
  Tad Eggleston: Ski poles. And then there's yeah. There's I mean, the Cape is unnecessary.
• 1:26:43
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:26:45
  Tad Eggleston: Even with the Cape. You've then got exactly one color too many.
• 1:26:50
  Mark Pracht: And the the, you know, like the helmet is. It's like.
• 1:26:56
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 1:26:58
  Mark Pracht: Like it was like the the cleanliness of of the surfer is.
• 1:27:05
  Tad Eggleston: Part of what makes it.
• 1:27:06
  Mark Pracht: Is what makes it interesting. Really, I mean.
• 1:27:09
  Mark Pracht: it's almost like in acting. We do mask work right where you put on a neutral mask, and then through your body motion, the audience starts to imbue your face. This blank face with with character right? And in a way the surfer is like that. And I think.
• 1:27:27
  Tad Eggleston: That's why.
• 1:27:28
  Mark Pracht: Stan loves him. I think.
• 1:27:29
  Tad Eggleston: Wife.
• 1:27:30
  Mark Pracht: People love him, because, you know, you can put whatever you want.
• 1:27:33
  Mark Pracht: This is just so like there's so much. And I'm just like I I don't. What is.
• 1:27:39
  Tad Eggleston: Though I do want to call out. This is a particularly good photo background cover.
• 1:27:45
  Mark Pracht: Yes, I'll 100% tell you that.
• 1:27:50
  Mark Pracht: At least I know what the background is.
• 1:27:53
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and it totally fits the pictures. So it's not just having, I mean, in some ways, as we just look at the covers of.
• 1:28:01
  Tad Eggleston: If you look at the the Mr. Miracle cover
• 1:28:05
  Tad Eggleston: and and how much of it is just yellow.
• 1:28:09
  Tad Eggleston: Think I think that that's essentially what
• 1:28:12
  Tad Eggleston: the forever people photo background is rather than just choosing a color. We're going to choose this.
• 1:28:19
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, honestly, I am willing to bet that that is an overly zoomed in on something.
• 1:28:25
  Mark Pracht: Oh, a hundred percent, 100%. I think that that like, it's obviously just a graphic
• 1:28:32
  Mark Pracht: decision. I I but it's just like it's funny, because, like to me, I'm like, I'm looking at it. And I'm like, well, you could have just made the whole thing blue, or whatever you know.
• 1:28:42
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I think it's supposed to kind of imply them floating in space or
• 1:28:48
  Tad Eggleston: in between dimensions or whatnot, which they do a little bit of in this issue. At least, that's the way I read it.
• 1:28:56
  Mark Pracht: You couldn't find a picture of the night sky. Then what's the matter here? What's going on here? What's going on.
• 1:29:01
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but but but like they weren't floating in like that space, they were like in between.
• 1:29:09
  Tad Eggleston: like apocalypse and and Earth type space. So you know.
• 1:29:15
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 1:29:16
  Mark Pracht: Actually, you know what's funny now that I'm looking at this cover, I love the sheer bullshit Chutzpah
• 1:29:27
  Mark Pracht: of this blurb.
• 1:29:30
  Mark Pracht: Is he after Orion, or you
• 1:29:37
  Mark Pracht: run, run! Death is the black racer. Okay? 1st of all, this is the only place where it suggests that the black racer is death.
• 1:29:45
  Mark Pracht: Which is fine!
• 1:29:46
  Mark Pracht: But
• 1:29:49
  Mark Pracht: Unless I've totally had a brain hemorrhage or something over the last 2 days
• 1:29:55
  Mark Pracht: the black razor is near. Neither after Orion or us.
• 1:30:02
  Tad Eggleston: Or the guy in the car.
• 1:30:03
  Mark Pracht: Or the guy in the car.
• 1:30:05
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, it it it. He's after light ray at 1 point, and then.
• 1:30:13
  Mark Pracht: and with all of his powers. It seems like, even though they boom, tumbed him to earth if he was really after light ray.
• 1:30:19
  Mark Pracht: just go back. Yeah.
• 1:30:23
  Mark Pracht: But it also does ask. The the like is
• 1:30:30
  Mark Pracht: again. This is where this I can go down a rabbit hole with this in Jack Kirby stuff. Okay, so is light ray marked for death
• 1:30:39
  Mark Pracht: has the cosmic you know.
• 1:30:46
  Mark Pracht: Roulette wheel come up with his number.
• 1:30:50
  Mark Pracht: if that's the case, shouldn't he like it? It's like final destination. Right? Shouldn't the black racer constantly be after light, ray?
• 1:30:59
  Mark Pracht: Or is it just like, Oh, you cheated death once you're you're good until the next time.
• 1:31:06
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:31:07
  Mark Pracht: I the logic I mean, like it's comic books. It doesn't.
• 1:31:12
  Mark Pracht: Well, and it can be comic book
• 1:31:14
  Mark Pracht: logic. But I'm just still. I'm still like.
• 1:31:15
  Tad Eggleston: I brought this up earlier. Sean, have you read copra.
• 1:31:21
  Sean Harklerode: No.
• 1:31:22
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, this might be something that we'll have to to play with at some point.
• 1:31:27
  Tad Eggleston: I just finally read the 1st volume of of Mikkel Fife's.
• 1:31:32
  Tad Eggleston: and I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that right copra, which is a book that's been going on at image for a while, and is wrapping up, and one of the things they talked about with it. Is he essentially the constraint he put on himself was to work at Kirby Speed.
• 1:31:47
  Tad Eggleston: So. So I think I think something that that needs to be
• 1:31:57
  Tad Eggleston: needs to be appreciated
• 1:32:00
  Tad Eggleston: about Kirby is that sometimes he is figuring out on the fly, and he might not know exactly what to do. But he's got to get these pages done.
• 1:32:10
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:32:11
  Tad Eggleston: So you know.
• 1:32:17
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. No.
• 1:32:18
  Tad Eggleston: I try not to discount him too much for that, I guess.
• 1:32:20
  Mark Pracht: No, no, I think I think that's a hundred percent true. And and look, we talked about it last time. You know, it's like jazz right?
• 1:32:29
  Mark Pracht: Right? Improvising. And I appreciate that. But I I do. You know it does lead me to ask these questions. You know, it's like.
• 1:32:37
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 1:32:38
  Mark Pracht: Like I.
• 1:32:39
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but I think that's also why it's so beautiful. What's and like
• 1:32:45
  Tad Eggleston: when we're through this? I know we've talked about a few different options, for where where to go next, but, like one of them, I think, should be exploring
• 1:32:55
  Tad Eggleston: some of the things that have come out of the 4th world
• 1:33:00
  Tad Eggleston: since then, just because, like because he's working in jazz because he's
• 1:33:08
  Tad Eggleston: coming up with ideas that he doesn't always know what to do with. But he's still putting out there. It gives people
• 1:33:16
  Tad Eggleston: the ability to do things with them, you know. I think I mean.
• 1:33:20
  Mark Pracht: And we've actually talked. I mean, like, I think you know, Mark Evenier has said that Jack's original idea was that he was going to create all these books and then turn them over to other people, and then he would be the the
• 1:33:34
  Mark Pracht: editor of the line, essentially, and
• 1:33:38
  Mark Pracht: I don't know. I think there was a
• 1:33:42
  Mark Pracht: I think, in the early eighties when Steve I it it might have been Denny O'neill, but Steve Englehart wrote a new gods book. And
• 1:33:52
  Mark Pracht: then, of course, the great darkness. Saga, of course, and.
• 1:33:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:33:55
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like there's all sorts of places we could go with this in terms of
• 1:34:00
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:34:03
  Mark Pracht: You know.
• 1:34:05
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but I mean what the the analogy.
• 1:34:07
  Mark Pracht: I mean, although we need to get through this first.st
• 1:34:11
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, the analogy I was going to use, though, is one of the things that makes amazing fantasy. 15.
• 1:34:19
  Tad Eggleston: Such a perfect story is that not only does the entire mythos of spider-man
• 1:34:29
  Tad Eggleston: a as well as like all of the the like character reference that would be needed for the next 50 years
• 1:34:37
  Tad Eggleston: come out of 1 11 page story.
• 1:34:40
  Tad Eggleston: There is no aspect of that 11 page story that hasn't inspired another story. There's a 1. There's a 1.
• 1:34:49
  Tad Eggleston: One shot issue of a comic about the kid who said, Hey, mom, look! If that man is climbing the wall.
• 1:34:57
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 1:34:59
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 1:35:01
  Tad Eggleston: So there, there's a lot to be said for for putting out ideas
• 1:35:10
  Tad Eggleston: running with the ones that work for you. But allowing the other ones to sit in case they inspire someone else.
• 1:35:19
  Mark Pracht: Yup!
• 1:35:22
  Tad Eggleston: It's definitely
• 1:35:26
  Tad Eggleston: I'm appreciating Kirby more and more as as each one of these go, because I'm seeing the visual version of
• 1:35:39
  Tad Eggleston: My favorite kind of storytelling, which is what I call messy in the in the best way
• 1:35:44
  Tad Eggleston: which you know acknowledges that not every part of the story needs to be streamlined towards the end that the end is only an ending, not the ending, unless you're destroying the universe.
• 1:35:58
  Tad Eggleston: Right?
• 1:35:59
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah.
• 1:36:00
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I think, I I
• 1:36:06
  Mark Pracht: I mean, I think we yes.
• 1:36:09
  Mark Pracht: a hundred percent. Yeah, I I think
• 1:36:13
  Mark Pracht: I was just gonna say, I I just looked at the time and like at a certain point here, I'm gonna have to.
• 1:36:19
  Tad Eggleston: No, I I was about to say, let's let's try to move into other books so that.
• 1:36:24
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:36:24
  Tad Eggleston: At the very least you can say the stuff that you wanted to say about a
• 1:36:30
  Tad Eggleston: I look, I look. I think, Mr. Miracle.
• 1:36:33
  Mark Pracht: I'm going to be. Really, I'm going to be really honest. There was absolutely nothing about the Jimmy Olsen book this week or this month that
• 1:36:43
  Mark Pracht: cause me to want to have anything to say about it.
• 1:36:48
  Tad Eggleston: Like some of the visuals, but the story itself.
• 1:36:50
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I, I agree with that.
• 1:36:53
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, there are some really cool visuals.
• 1:36:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but this is the one that accidentally made me. May or this is this is along the lines of what? What made me say those words that Mark will never let me forget, and therefore I will not say them again.
• 1:37:09
  Tad Eggleston: so so yeah.
• 1:37:11
  Mark Pracht: The words don't matter, anyway. No, but I mean like, aside from that, was.
• 1:37:16
  Tad Eggleston: That was in a certain context.
• 1:37:19
  Mark Pracht: I know, I know but aside from like, there's the the double splash page with the photo collage that we sort of interest. It was pretty cool. There's some
• 1:37:30
  Mark Pracht: really egregious redraws of Superman's face in this.
• 1:37:35
  Tad Eggleston: Definitely.
• 1:37:38
  Mark Pracht: But it just like.
• 1:37:41
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:37:42
  Mark Pracht: Morgan.
• 1:37:43
  Tad Eggleston: It wasn't much.
• 1:37:44
  Mark Pracht: I mean, we got Morgan. There's the Morgan Edge, basically consigning an entire city to death
• 1:37:53
  Mark Pracht: so he can get away.
• 1:37:57
  Mark Pracht: You know, I
• 1:38:00
  Mark Pracht: oh, yeah, okay, that's right. There was a nuclear reactor that was melting down, and Superman had to put the rods into it.
• 1:38:09
  Mark Pracht: But yes, although I have to admit
• 1:38:15
  Mark Pracht: I am looking forward to the next issue of Jimmy Olsen.
• 1:38:19
  Sean Harklerode: Man.
• 1:38:21
  Mark Pracht: Are you ready for this 2 rickles, Don Rickles?
• 1:38:28
  Mark Pracht: I am I that that'll be fun, I mean, like I I don't know. I still, I feel like you know, I
• 1:38:36
  Mark Pracht: I don't feel like I don't feel like Jack's heart was in
• 1:38:41
  Mark Pracht: the Jimmy Olsen book. Really right? I think it.
• 1:38:46
  Mark Pracht: I think it was something they wanted him to do one of the flagship characters, and he did it so.
• 1:38:52
  Mark Pracht: and then they redrew the heads, so
• 1:38:56
  Mark Pracht: I don't know. That's my bottom line on those books, and and it's probably
• 1:39:03
  Mark Pracht: I'm looking forward to the Don Rickles Two-parter. But that's.
• 1:39:11
  Tad Eggleston: So so, Mr. Miracle, which gives us our 1st Major Kirby Cliffhanger right in in these books.
• 1:39:20
  Mark Pracht: Yep.
• 1:39:21
  Tad Eggleston: And and one of the coolest, I mean, I know. I'm skipping to the end of the issue, and we'll go backwards. But but you're short on time, and I don't wanna miss it.
• 1:39:31
  Mark Pracht: The end.
• 1:39:31
  Tad Eggleston: The final page. Here is one of the coolest images, pages, etc, that I have ever seen. Kirby Kirby, draw.
• 1:39:41
  Mark Pracht: No, I think this this whole book, this whole book visually, is fucking killer right? Right like like the faces of the people under the paranoid pill
• 1:39:51
  Mark Pracht: are astounding like just like the the it's true like he could truly draw madness like.
• 1:40:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:40:04
  Mark Pracht: And but you're right like that last page is incredible.
• 1:40:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:40:11
  Tad Eggleston: And it's so. And it's go ahead.
• 1:40:14
  Mark Pracht: No. And and it's it's funny, because it's like.
• 1:40:17
  Mark Pracht: There's not a ton of detail. It's sort of just like
• 1:40:22
  Mark Pracht: it's almost abstract right, like when.
• 1:40:25
  Tad Eggleston: Then there's just enough to really.
• 1:40:28
  Mark Pracht: Right? I mean, like, yeah, like, where where they're looking down the center of the building right? And and
• 1:40:35
  Mark Pracht: like, of course, like, once you've set the a couple of the couple of floors below.
• 1:40:41
  Mark Pracht: Then he knows I can just draw squares all the way down right. Everybody will know what that is, and then.
• 1:40:47
  Tad Eggleston: Though he throws in heads a little bit more than.
• 1:40:53
  Tad Eggleston: and, like you would automatically expect.
• 1:40:56
  Mark Pracht: Right. But then, like, when the when the crate is falling like it's totally just.
• 1:41:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:41:04
  Mark Pracht: Squares like.
• 1:41:05
  Tad Eggleston: But because it's a different angle now.
• 1:41:07
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 1:41:07
  Mark Pracht: I mean, and also it gives you the per it. It also gives you the sense of it's falling. So there's no you don't get the.
• 1:41:14
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 1:41:14
  Mark Pracht: Hell, anyway.
• 1:41:15
  Mark Pracht: I mean, I I
• 1:41:19
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like Jesus, the page on page 20, the lower the lower left panel, those faces. Yeah, those guys they're just like,
• 1:41:30
  Tad Eggleston: Well, for that matter, even the the one the guy
• 1:41:35
  Tad Eggleston: pull pulling the cables in the top panel on that page.
• 1:41:38
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:41:39
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 1:41:41
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 1:41:41
  Mark Pracht: And the thing the thing about it is is like, this, I mean, like it really is Kirby at the best, because, like like there's not. There isn't really one of those big like Kirby cosmic panels that he does. But what it is it's it's a masterclass in Jack showing you how to do action right? Because that's all it is. It's I mean, like, really, this story is
• 1:42:04
  Mark Pracht: superhero, you know, Diehard, essentially right?
• 1:42:08
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:42:09
  Mark Pracht: Or or the raid.
• 1:42:11
  Mark Pracht: Oh, there's somebody else who stole something from Kirby. You got to get to the bottom of the building right.
• 1:42:16
  Mark Pracht: but you know, like from the minute he hits that building it is.
• 1:42:24
  Mark Pracht: it is just rolling, and and it never lets up, you know.
• 1:42:30
  Mark Pracht: I the it amuse me. The building looks a little bit like the Baxter building to me, which
• 1:42:36
  Mark Pracht: kind of cracked me up.
• 1:42:39
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, like the the second he starts he starts down. It's like
• 1:42:45
  Mark Pracht: I love that when he gets on the arrow discs and he's flying over everybody's head. It's just like boom! Boom, boom, boom! And we're not going to stop and like
• 1:42:55
  Mark Pracht: When I was reading it like it, it, you know.
• 1:43:00
  Mark Pracht: Sean and I like to talk about like I like books that I can done. I can't read a book in 5 min, but I mean with this one once once we hit that page. Once I hit page 16, where he flew over their heads. I was like being bang! Bang! Bang! I think I read the I think I read the whole rest of the book in like 2 min.
• 1:43:18
  Mark Pracht: just because it was like, Yeah, and and.
• 1:43:23
  Tad Eggleston: And see.
• 1:43:24
  Mark Pracht: Sorry now I'm gonna I'm on a roll, but but like.
• 1:43:27
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no! Go for it.
• 1:43:28
  Mark Pracht: About. We talk about the curvy faces right? But this also has, like some really great emotional moments, like page 17, the lower left.
• 1:43:39
  Mark Pracht: when the guy pulls the gun on Mr. Miracle, and the Mr. Miracle gives him like the side eye. And it it's really evocative. And it's really top notch
• 1:43:51
  Mark Pracht: Who's the anchor on this?
• 1:43:57
  Mark Pracht: Oh, it's Coletta still.
• 1:43:59
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 1:44:02
  Mark Pracht: I mean I am, you know. I know Royer comes in at some point here. I can't remember what issue.
• 1:44:09
  Mark Pracht: but I'm looking forward to that.
• 1:44:14
  Mark Pracht: I mean Jesus Christ, the guy in the lower, right on page 18,
• 1:44:20
  Mark Pracht: like you. Just it's not, it's not, it's not
• 1:44:28
  Mark Pracht: It's not necessarily, Dick Tracy. But man like those faces, are just
• 1:44:32
  Mark Pracht: like it's like horror book shit. It's great.
• 1:44:35
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:44:37
  Tad Eggleston: So what I was gonna bring up
• 1:44:42
  Tad Eggleston: and like this is, this is literally top top of my head. So like, I'm curious as to what other things you guys will come up with. But
• 1:44:52
  Tad Eggleston: the the
• 1:45:05
  Tad Eggleston: the the power to make everybody go crazy via gas or powder or or cell phone signal or whatnot is a way more common trope and comics than I had fully recognized. I bring this up just because again, in things that I have done this week that unexpectedly tied into
• 1:45:30
  Tad Eggleston: Kirby. I've been revisiting David Masicelli Daredevil and issue 2 22 has him and Black widow in the swamp
• 1:45:40
  Tad Eggleston: with a Dr. Saad who has altered
• 1:45:48
  Tad Eggleston: the fear formula from I forget who the guy that has the fear formula in the marvel. Universe is right now in such a way as to to make people fight rather than just be afraid.
• 1:46:04
  Tad Eggleston: Well, we have that here we have. It's a it's a key component of Kingsman, you know.
• 1:46:11
  Mark Pracht: It's it's like it's a Kirby return to. I mean, like you. Could, you could legitimately say that the the glorious Godfrey stuff is the same thing.
• 1:46:22
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 1:46:22
  Mark Pracht: The mad bomb storyline in Captain America is a hundred percent that, like, I think that Kirby
• 1:46:29
  Mark Pracht: was very aware that people could be manipulated in.
• 1:46:34
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:46:34
  Mark Pracht: And I think that it's certainly like.
• 1:46:40
  Mark Pracht: And it's, you know, it's always
• 1:46:45
  Mark Pracht: when we talk about it that being a common trope in comics, I mean, of course it is. Everybody likes to feel like you are the one person who understands what's going on right.
• 1:46:57
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:46:58
  Mark Pracht: And that everybody else is being
• 1:47:01
  Mark Pracht: controlled or manipulated like that is, that is a recurring thing in in humanity, in society, in America, in the world like everybody wants to think that they're the ones who are get, who know what's going on, you know, or the the ones standing strong, you know. And
• 1:47:23
  Mark Pracht: I is. Yeah, I mean.
• 1:47:27
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, in in terms of this story, like, you know, I make the joke about it being, you know, Kirby's Diehard, but it sort of is, I mean, like, what's that story is like? There's John Mcclain trapped in the building. He's trying to call the cops. Nobody will listen to him, you know. It's like he's the one guy who knows what's going on, and the one guy who can do something about it right? And
• 1:47:50
  Mark Pracht: The world is against him, you know, and and that I think that
• 1:47:56
  Mark Pracht: you know people who, you know comic book readers always like that idea that the world is against me and that.
• 1:48:08
  Mark Pracht: you know.
• 1:48:09
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I it's a fantastic book. And you're right. It's the 1st big cliffhanger, a literal, almost literal Cliffhanger.
• 1:48:18
  Sean Harklerode: What's up?
• 1:48:20
  Mark Pracht: I I did. You know the one thing I loved actually, and it it goes with it goes with the jazz, because obviously it was just like, Keep keep shit happening is when they're like we need to poke holes in this box.
• 1:48:33
  Mark Pracht: so he doesn't suffocate, so that when we throw it like then like did he.
• 1:48:39
  Tad Eggleston: So he can die when he hits rather than.
• 1:48:45
  Mark Pracht: It. It's it's like, okay.
• 1:48:53
  Mark Pracht: well, I would say.
• 1:48:55
  Mark Pracht: until we decide what to do with him. And it's like, Okay, well, if you're going to just kill him. What's the
• 1:49:00
  Mark Pracht: anyway?
• 1:49:02
  Tad Eggleston: I am going to say that that is as
• 1:49:06
  Tad Eggleston: good a time as any to wrap up any any final
• 1:49:12
  Tad Eggleston: final thoughts. Mr. Hucklerove, Mr. Pratt.
• 1:49:16
  Mark Pracht: Read, more.
• 1:49:19
  Tad Eggleston: What?
• 1:49:19
  Sean Harklerode: I just hope he gets out of it.
• 1:49:21
  Tad Eggleston: Me, too, I mean.
• 1:49:24
  Sean Harklerode: I feel like it's likely.
• 1:49:27
  Mark Pracht: I feel like.
• 1:49:29
  Tad Eggleston: But.
• 1:49:30
  Mark Pracht: Box. He, the mother box, is going to do something.
• 1:49:33
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:49:34
  Tad Eggleston: but it's always possible that, like the scot-free of this era is just a different scot-free from that era.
• 1:49:41
  Tad Eggleston: and you know I haven't read these before, so I mean, maybe not.
• 1:49:46
  Mark Pracht: Well, and to like when you look at.
• 1:49:49
  Sean Harklerode: Party is gonna catch him!
• 1:49:50
  Mark Pracht: Big big Bar day is coming.
• 1:49:53
  Mark Pracht: Big party.
• 1:49:54
  Tad Eggleston: It's great!
• 1:49:55
  Mark Pracht: Big bar.
• 1:49:56
  Tad Eggleston: Barda has been a major major part of Kelly Thompson's
• 1:50:00
  Tad Eggleston: Birds of Prey, and I love it.
• 1:50:05
  Mark Pracht: Well, big Barda is
• 1:50:08
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like I think you can make. I think you can make the argument that Big Bart is the greatest thing that Jack Kirby, certainly in his DC. Era, is is like the most fun character.
• 1:50:21
  Tad Eggleston: That makes me look forward to it even more.
• 1:50:25
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:50:26
  Mark Pracht: And you know, as Jack said, I like big girls.
• 1:50:34
  Tad Eggleston: So I I will say for the for the
• 1:50:40
  Tad Eggleston: 4th World Book Club on 22 panels
• 1:50:44
  Tad Eggleston: Sean, Harvard Road, and Mark Pratt, I will
• 1:50:48
  Tad Eggleston: bid you adieu and see you. After the next page.