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Transcript

Fourth World Book Club #3 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:01
  Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody! Welcome back to 22 panels and the 4th World Book Club with my friends Mark Pratt and Sean Harklewood. Do either of you have anything to plug right now. I think, like you're in between shows, aren't you?
• 0:18
  Sean Harklerode: Sean's got a show going on.
• 0:20
  Sean Harklerode: I can plug citadel theaters production of jukebox for the Algonquin, which starts April 20th and runs through mid. May. I'm an understudy, so you will probably not be seeing me.
• 0:37
  Tad Eggleston: Unless we come on just the right night and or food poison your your.
• 0:45
  Tad Eggleston: You're you're the person in front of you.
• 0:48
  Sean Harklerode: Right. No, I.
• 0:50
  Tad Eggleston: But we wouldn't. We wouldn't. Actually, we wouldn't actually call for that to happen here on 22 panels. We won't.
• 0:55
  Mark Pracht: There's.
• 0:55
  Tad Eggleston: It won't name any names or give any addresses.
• 0:57
  Mark Pracht: We don't. We don't.
• 0:58
  Tad Eggleston: Unless you don't have want me to.
• 1:00
  Tad Eggleston: We don't have any Tanya Harding operations going on here, so I don't think so.
• 1:06
  Tad Eggleston: No, my.
• 1:07
  Sean Harklerode: My character's already in a wheelchair, so we got to
• 1:11
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, so yeah, no. The Tommy Harding thing wouldn't work.
• 1:13
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 1:15
  Tad Eggleston: Still do the wheelchair? No.
• 1:17
  Sean Harklerode: But it's a great show.
• 1:19
  Sean Harklerode: It will be a great show.
• 1:21
  Mark Pracht: Do you roll into rehearsal humming the Ironsides theme.
• 1:26
  Sean Harklerode: No, but I do do this thing.
• 1:30
  Mark Pracht: Wow! Shawn and I are old.
• 1:35
  Sean Harklerode: Bada bada. Bah!
• 1:37
  Mark Pracht: Anyway.
• 1:38
  Mark Pracht: No, I am. I am ready to talk about the 4th World. I've got my.
• 1:42
  Tad Eggleston: I know we get to.
• 1:43
  Mark Pracht: Comic book, scented candle going. And yeah.
• 1:47
  Mark Pracht: coffee. And and we're we're going to talk about a character who was voiced by none other than Ed, asner in in the the Superman animated series in the DC. Animated universe.
• 2:04
  Mark Pracht: The great great Ed Asner.
• 2:06
  Sean Harklerode: So like.
• 2:08
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 2:10
  Tad Eggleston: Granny, goodness is your favorite.
• 2:12
  Mark Pracht: Granny. Goodness was voiced by Ed Asner Hugh Lou Grant himself, anyway. Yes, no, I I.
• 2:20
  Tad Eggleston: Cool.
• 2:21
  Mark Pracht: I love granny goodness just oh, oh.
• 2:28
  Sean Harklerode: Only Granny can teach.
• 2:30
  Mark Pracht: Only Granny can teach you pointed headed.
• 2:37
  Mark Pracht: anyway.
• 2:38
  Mark Pracht: So yeah, so I'm gonna let you guys take it away.
• 2:42
  Mark Pracht: This is this is, yeah. I mean, like.
• 2:44
  Tad Eggleston: Mildly brain dead.
• 2:46
  Mark Pracht: Mildly. Brain dead!
• 2:48
  Mark Pracht: Hey?
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: I know that's a step.
• 2:50
  Mark Pracht: We're only 3 months into this.
• 2:54
  Mark Pracht: You can't.
• 2:55
  Tad Eggleston: Brilliant, yes.
• 2:56
  Mark Pracht: That's how you tried to read the whole thing on a flight from Chicago to London, and 2 30 in the morning.
• 3:02
  Tad Eggleston: Well, well, see, see, you said, we're only 3 months into this, and and Paul Krugman wrote about how we were only in the 3rd year of the second trump. Oh, I mean 3rd month of the second trump.
• 3:14
  Tad Eggleston: So you know and I do, how many podcasts, a month.
• 3:19
  Mark Pracht: But you know success is just a real burden, isn't it, Dick?
• 3:24
  Tad Eggleston: No, I mean, am I successful?
• 3:28
  Tad Eggleston: I think I'm just prolific, prolific, and successful are different things, aren't they?
• 3:33
  Mark Pracht: Success comes from prolificness.
• 3:35
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 3:36
  Mark Pracht: Think of it that way. The more you put out in the world the more people can ignore.
• 3:44
  Tad Eggleston: I think they're very good at ignoring it.
• 3:46
  Mark Pracht: Oh, now! Stop!
• 3:47
  Tad Eggleston: These at the.
• 3:47
  Sean Harklerode: Like likes on my dating profile.
• 3:50
  Mark Pracht: I actually, you know, it's funny. On Tuesday, I mean, we talked about this on the the.
• 3:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. How's your signing been.
• 3:57
  Mark Pracht: It went. It went okay, I mean, but there were several people who were just
• 4:05
  Mark Pracht: rando people that came in. And there was one guy. Where'd it go?
• 4:12
  Mark Pracht: He was actually he had a Phd. In comic studies.
• 4:17
  Tad Eggleston: Sweet.
• 4:17
  Mark Pracht: And he was he created a peanuts pop-up book.
• 4:25
  Sean Harklerode: I saw that at the counter.
• 4:27
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, that's him. And so I got one from him that he signed but it's basically just the first, st the very 1st peanut strip done as a pop up.
• 4:37
  Mark Pracht: So it's just like it opens.
• 4:39
  Sean Harklerode: Good, Old Charlie Brown.
• 4:40
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah. Oh, how I hate him!
• 4:44
  Mark Pracht: But anyway so is this Gene Cannenberg? I think so.
• 4:49
  Mark Pracht: Yes, yeah.
• 4:51
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 4:52
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, he was super super nice. And we talked a little bit. And he specifically was like, Oh, I need to check out that 4th world. Podcast and I said, well, you should check it out on 22 panels podcasts.
• 5:06
  Tad Eggleston: Hey! Hey! Hi! Jean!
• 5:08
  Mark Pracht: They have. They have many, many different podcasts that you could listen to. You know, I'm doing my radio voice now. So.
• 5:18
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, and you got your radio microphone going to make.
• 5:21
  Mark Pracht: I got.
• 5:22
  Tad Eggleston: Make you sound all smooth and suave.
• 5:25
  Sean Harklerode: We? You kind of glossed over the fact that all 3
• 5:30
  Sean Harklerode: entries in the 4th World Trilogy are now available for purchase.
• 5:34
  Mark Pracht: For color trilogy. Yes, available for purchase, because you can't spell prod.
• 5:39
  Tad Eggleston: Call it P.
• 5:41
  Tad Eggleston: The 4th world, 4th word.
• 5:43
  Mark Pracht: The 4th word.
• 5:44
  Tad Eggleston: Hey? That's okay.
• 5:45
  Mark Pracht: Color, whatever.
• 5:47
  Tad Eggleston: And I.
• 5:48
  Sean Harklerode: Edit, that.
• 5:49
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 5:49
  Tad Eggleston: I managed to embarrass myself and
• 5:54
  Tad Eggleston: establish my my comics bona fides when talking to Sherman Alexi this week, and I said that I'd reread Lone Wolf and Taunta I mean Lone.
• 6:06
  Mark Pracht: And Ranger Antonio.
• 6:09
  Mark Pracht: It's played in heaven.
• 6:11
  Tad Eggleston: And he just he starts laughing. And he's like this. This is how I know that you know your comics. Only a comics. Guy would think Lone Wolf before they thought Lone Ranger and I went. And this is how I know that you also know comics. You knew that.
• 6:27
  Sean Harklerode: Wow!
• 6:27
  Mark Pracht: Lone Wolf and Tato. I would read the shit out of that book.
• 6:33
  Sean Harklerode: Of mine has a quote from that book on on his arm.
• 6:37
  Mark Pracht: Deb.
• 6:39
  Tad Eggleston: Although I have to admit as a comedy nerd my 1st thought when you said his name.
• 6:44
  Sean Harklerode: I was thinking of a Lexi sale. So on different.
• 6:50
  Tad Eggleston: We're all all on on different.
• 6:53
  Tad Eggleston: I I mean, Sherman's a funny guy, but I don't. I don't know if he's.
• 6:56
  Sean Harklerode: She wasn't in the young one.
• 7:00
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, no. So yeah, the the books are available. Yay, I'm.
• 7:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yay!
• 7:05
  Mark Pracht: I actually got approved for my my professional badge at C. 2 E. 2, so I'll be.
• 7:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yay day wandering around. If you spot me.
• 7:16
  Mark Pracht: You might be able to get a free copy.
• 7:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you got you got unlimited.
• 7:21
  Mark Pracht: Please.
• 7:22
  Tad Eggleston: You gotta let me know. When you're going down, maybe we'll have breakfast or something.
• 7:27
  Mark Pracht: I think I'm going to be there Saturday and Sunday. I don't see, any way that I'm going to be able to get there on Friday, but maybe Saturday, of course.
• 7:34
  Tad Eggleston: I think I'm.
• 7:34
  Mark Pracht: Let me check.
• 7:35
  Tad Eggleston: Friday off to go.
• 7:37
  Mark Pracht: This could all blow up, because.
• 7:38
  Tad Eggleston: Sick.
• 7:39
  Mark Pracht: So. Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 7:43
  Mark Pracht: I'm sorry you're sick.
• 7:46
  Mark Pracht: but yeah, it also could all blow up, because I'm also up for jury duty on Wednesday. So.
• 7:52
  Tad Eggleston: Oh!
• 7:53
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, so we'll see what happens.
• 7:55
  Mark Pracht: Maybe I'll get sequestered for 6 months.
• 7:59
  Tad Eggleston: That would not be fun. I have only once ever been called for jury duty, but it was right after I'd moved out of the particular
• 8:07
  Tad Eggleston: area where I was called for jury duties. So I've
• 8:11
  Tad Eggleston: or no. I guess I had one other time where I was called, and I had to report, but I never even made it to to voir dire.
• 8:19
  Tad Eggleston: I just got to sit in a room for a couple of days
• 8:22
  Tad Eggleston: waiting to see if they called me to go talk to lawyers.
• 8:26
  Tad Eggleston: and they didn't. So I read comic books.
• 8:30
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, like I have to call the night before, and they might tell me I don't need to come at all. And then, if I do have to come in, I just sit there until they want to talk to me. So.
• 8:40
  Tad Eggleston: Days where I didn't have to come at all.
• 8:42
  Sean Harklerode: You get the one best, sweet, sweet 30 year old, Lester Holt Video, where he still has the mustache
• 8:48
  Sean Harklerode: explaining the rules of jury duty in Cook County. It's it's great.
• 8:57
  Mark Pracht: Well, I always love me some Lester Holt.
• 8:59
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 8:59
  Tad Eggleston: He's a good guy.
• 9:00
  Sean Harklerode: Lester and Linda. I'm Bill Curtis.
• 9:05
  Sean Harklerode: I go.
• 9:07
  Mark Pracht: Bill can used to be. The voice of the Joffrey ballet actually.
• 9:11
  Tad Eggleston: Isn't he still the voice of
• 9:14
  Mark Pracht: When?
• 9:14
  Tad Eggleston: Wait! Wait! Don't tell me.
• 9:17
  Mark Pracht: I don't know.
• 9:18
  Sean Harklerode: Took it over from Carl Castle, right.
• 9:22
  Tad Eggleston: But I think Carl Castle's still there. Bill Curtis does.
• 9:26
  Tad Eggleston: But Bill, Bill, I think they both do stuff. But Bill will. Bill will read your your answering machine message for you if if you win one of the games. Yeah.
• 9:37
  Tad Eggleston: I don't remember. My wife's the much bigger
• 9:41
  Tad Eggleston: family fan. I enjoy it, but.
• 9:45
  Mark Pracht: Bill Curtis, on your answering machine would be amazing.
• 9:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 9:51
  Sean Harklerode: I am, little Curtis. You've reached Mark Pratt in error.
• 9:58
  Mark Pracht: You're probably trying to sell him something, anyway.
• 10:02
  Mark Pracht: All right.
• 10:04
  Mark Pracht: 4th world.
• 10:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 10:06
  Mark Pracht: Tad's. Tad's tired, so I guess it's up to Sean, and I.
• 10:09
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 10:10
  Mark Pracht: So it's 1st of all.
• 10:12
  Sean Harklerode: The cover. The cover of forever people has has a collage.
• 10:17
  Mark Pracht: Yes.
• 10:18
  Sean Harklerode: Seems like a choice.
• 10:19
  Mark Pracht: You know what? The other thing that I thought was really interesting about that cover. Let me go back and look at it now.
• 10:25
  Sean Harklerode: For people, number 2 for those.
• 10:26
  Mark Pracht: Forever. People, yeah, yeah, no. We had forever. People number 2 new gods. Number 2. Mr. Miracle number 2. And then it's Jimmy Olsen. What? 1, 37, 1, 67.
• 10:39
  Tad Eggleston: Something like that.
• 10:41
  Tad Eggleston: Give me a second.
• 10:47
  Tad Eggleston: That sounds right.
• 10:48
  Sean Harklerode: 1, 37.
• 10:50
  Tad Eggleston: 1, 37, yeah, yes, 1, 37.
• 10:52
  Mark Pracht: Doesn't the Jimmy Olsen have a have a yeah? Oh, no, that's the next issue
• 10:57
  Mark Pracht: as a collage element, too.
• 10:59
  Sean Harklerode: No, it no, it it's it's in here, but it's not on the cover.
• 11:04
  Mark Pracht: Well, yeah. But actually, the cover of Jimmy Olsen, 138 has a collage in it. It also has a clearly
• 11:13
  Mark Pracht: we shouldn't talk about. That's next month.
• 11:18
  Mark Pracht: But to big happenings this week that I was
• 11:28
  Mark Pracht: like we were talking about this Granny. Goodness to me is
• 11:33
  Mark Pracht: nearly dark, side level, awesome character, just beautifully designed.
• 11:42
  Mark Pracht: wondrously creepy and weird. And as we were talking about, I will never be able to read any granny goodness, dialogue, without thinking of Ed Asner's voice, and that makes me so happy, and every time the granny goodness shows up I get happy. I know I shouldn't, because Granny.
• 12:02
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I was about to say, see, my problem is.
• 12:05
  Mark Pracht: But.
• 12:05
  Tad Eggleston: I like Scott free, and she wants to kill Scott free, so I don't like her.
• 12:10
  Mark Pracht: She doesn't want to kill him.
• 12:12
  Tad Eggleston: She says she wants to keep.
• 12:13
  Sean Harklerode: She wants to.
• 12:14
  Mark Pracht: She wants to discipline him.
• 12:17
  Tad Eggleston: She says specifically that she wants to kill him.
• 12:21
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe maybe she dials it back at some point, but.
• 12:25
  Mark Pracht: To add.
• 12:26
  Tad Eggleston: Here in this book. She says she wants to kill him.
• 12:30
  Mark Pracht: Well, yes, yeah, I mean, like, okay, I guess we're talking about Mr. Miracle, you know, like my favorite thing about this book. And it is entirely like gold and silver age. Nonsense! In the Bronze Age, which I think is fantastic.
• 12:46
  Mark Pracht: I always love every one of these issues starts with him rehearsing some sort of massive death trap. And you're like
• 12:54
  Mark Pracht: at like, by the time you get to like issue 7, you're like, when are you ever gonna have a show. When are you gonna perform any of this stuff?
• 13:02
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 13:04
  Tad Eggleston: What's he need a show for.
• 13:07
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know the I don't know how they do it on, on New Genesis or in Supertown, but you know, here on Earth
• 13:15
  Mark Pracht: we need money.
• 13:16
  Tad Eggleston: He's got a mother box.
• 13:20
  Mark Pracht: Deuce Deus ex mother box.
• 13:23
  Tad Eggleston: That's right.
• 13:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's it's why he explains how he does all the tricks. So it's clearly it is.
• 13:31
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know what that's, you know. Okay, look. And and I.
• 13:37
  Tad Eggleston: And also did you notice that we had 3 different designs of mother boxes across our.
• 13:43
  Mark Pracht: Of course nothing makes you know nothing like God bless Jack Kirby! God bless him! It is! There is so much
• 13:52
  Mark Pracht: so much imagination so much cool stuff so
• 13:59
  Mark Pracht: little concern about the details. I think it was in forever. People. There was the character that had the the fist that was like a brick.
• 14:09
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 14:10
  Mark Pracht: And and the other hand is supposed to be normal. And there's 1 panel. I don't even remember what page it is where both hands are the weird claw things holding a brick
• 14:20
  Mark Pracht: both hands. I.
• 14:21
  Tad Eggleston: Was that the same guy that at 1 point had 4 arms.
• 14:25
  Mark Pracht: You. I don't. Maybe I don't know.
• 14:29
  Sean Harklerode: Be an alien.
• 14:30
  Mark Pracht: That's a.
• 14:31
  Tad Eggleston: There was definitely a a guy that looked like he could have been thing except that he had 4 arms.
• 14:37
  Mark Pracht: Well, it wasn't that the d that wasn't that! Wasn't that the DNA aliens or the DNA aliens, Jimmy Olsen?
• 14:45
  Tad Eggleston: Sure.
• 14:46
  Mark Pracht: But no, I mean like
• 14:48
  Tad Eggleston: I read all the books they may have bled together a little bit.
• 14:53
  Mark Pracht: Like I, said Tad.
• 14:55
  Mark Pracht: Try try being 3 30 in the morning on a jet.
• 14:59
  Tad Eggleston: On a cross country.
• 15:01
  Mark Pracht: On across Atlantic. Yeah, trying to read all of these before you get there.
• 15:08
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I think that like
• 15:11
  Tad Eggleston: I've I've never. I've never partaken at all. I'm I'm a square, but I feel like that's what gummies were made for.
• 15:20
  Tad Eggleston: I you know I.
• 15:23
  Mark Pracht: There is something that you know this. This is something to broach. There is something weirdly
• 15:31
  Mark Pracht: psychedelic about what Kirby does there really is.
• 15:35
  Mark Pracht: Don't. I have, you know, and it's very clear that he never.
• 15:39
  Tad Eggleston: I I don't know. I mean he was giving straight.
• 15:42
  Tad Eggleston: He moved to California.
• 15:44
  Tad Eggleston: He might have.
• 15:45
  Tad Eggleston: Everybody knows that everybody in California is a drug addict.
• 15:49
  Sean Harklerode: Well has to be some of that refurb, Roz.
• 15:53
  Sean Harklerode: I gotta get through the night.
• 15:56
  Mark Pracht: I got 16 more issues to do in the next 3 h.
• 16:02
  Mark Pracht: Hand me the amphetamines.
• 16:04
  Sean Harklerode: El Cortez.
• 16:06
  Mark Pracht: Huh!
• 16:06
  Sean Harklerode: Hotel isn't gonna climb itself.
• 16:09
  Tad Eggleston: This would also explain why why all the mother boxes look different.
• 16:13
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know, like like I will say that you start to.
• 16:20
  Mark Pracht: I think that Mr. Miracle is clearly the best of these series. Right.
• 16:28
  Mark Pracht: I it's the most consistent, and it's the most
• 16:32
  Mark Pracht: solid, and it's the most
• 16:36
  Mark Pracht: unified. I think it's also got the similar. This the easiest premise really right?
• 16:44
  Mark Pracht: but you do like I do. I think, like particularly this issue of the new gods I felt like was kind of
• 16:51
  Mark Pracht: flailing around a bit, you know.
• 16:54
  Mark Pracht: There was sort of that whole sequence of splash pages which you know, my.
• 17:00
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, it might.
• 17:02
  Mark Pracht: Gorgeous art, gorgeous art. But I mean there was 2 things that went through my mind. It was like Jack's trying. Jack's trying desperately to tie all of this together in these these splash pages, and also, like we've talked about
• 17:17
  Mark Pracht: drawing a splash page takes less time than drawing
• 17:22
  Mark Pracht: 6 panels or 4 panels, or 5 panels, or whatever
• 17:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 17:27
  Mark Pracht: And that's.
• 17:29
  Tad Eggleston: But I did. I did like.
• 17:30
  Mark Pracht: Said.
• 17:30
  Tad Eggleston: I think forever. People.
• 17:32
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, I mean, like, I like.
• 17:37
  Tad Eggleston: And and one of them really looks like he might be partaking.
• 17:42
  Mark Pracht: Oh, he probably is.
• 17:44
  Sean Harklerode: Although speaking of those, the the
• 17:48
  Sean Harklerode: the splash page of of Mantis
• 17:51
  Sean Harklerode: makes me think maybe this was intended to be before forever. People.
• 17:57
  Mark Pracht: I? Well, I mean, like that is one of the things is like,
• 18:01
  Mark Pracht: the reading order that we're using
• 18:04
  Mark Pracht: is the order that they hit the newsstands. Now
• 18:07
  Mark Pracht: I do think that that probably suggests that that should have been before forever people. But I don't know what
• 18:16
  Mark Pracht: I mean. But yeah, I mean.
• 18:19
  Sean Harklerode: When when Roy and when they were doing the
• 18:24
  Sean Harklerode: the defenders avengers crossovers, they they talked about how difficult it was to.
• 18:31
  Mark Pracht: Take.
• 18:31
  Sean Harklerode: Know when a book was gonna come out.
• 18:34
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 18:34
  Sean Harklerode: At that point.
• 18:35
  Mark Pracht: Well, and then at that point in the seventies, you know, distribution was so
• 18:39
  Mark Pracht: odd, right? It could have been.
• 18:42
  Sean Harklerode: They couldn't decide, you know, is the avengers gonna.
• 18:45
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, park gonna be 1st etc. But yeah, they get that figured out.
• 18:49
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, when it's just going to a a you know, a candy shop or a a drugstore.
• 18:55
  Mark Pracht: Who knows? Who knows if you're even gonna see that issue? But I mean
• 19:01
  Mark Pracht: no, I think I think
• 19:06
  Mark Pracht: this this reread has not changed my mind that I think that I think forever. People is sort of just like
• 19:13
  Mark Pracht: it's it.
• 19:15
  Mark Pracht: It's still not finding out what it's supposed to be, you know, and I.
• 19:20
  Tad Eggleston: He's trying to appeal to the hippies.
• 19:22
  Mark Pracht: Oh, I know.
• 19:23
  Tad Eggleston: Really not a hippie.
• 19:24
  Mark Pracht: I, yeah. And and he like.
• 19:28
  Mark Pracht: and I I don't. I don't want to always be invoking Stan Lee. But
• 19:35
  Mark Pracht: Stan had a nice, easy way of trying to
• 19:40
  Mark Pracht: talk with the kids, you know, that wasn't anywhere, you know, like he was
• 19:45
  Mark Pracht: greatest generation, too. I mean, like he wasn't a hippie. He wasn't 1 of that generation, but there was something
• 19:52
  Mark Pracht: less less strained about trying to do it. You know.
• 20:00
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, the the what I will say for Jack is like
• 20:06
  Tad Eggleston: sometimes with Stan. I feel like there's a certain amount of condescension while he's trying to talk to the kids. Jack seems to genuinely like the kids, but not understand them at all.
• 20:17
  Mark Pracht: I mean, I'd say that's part of it, I mean, like Stan knew he was trying to sell to these people right. But I mean, I also think.
• 20:24
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I almost feel like Jack. It's less about selling to them and more about being around them and going. These are cool people. I want to include them, but like really not understanding anything other than the fact that they seemed happy.
• 20:38
  Mark Pracht: Well. And you know, there's this, there's this story that's always gone around that the forever people, characters were actually based on the kids who started San Diego comic con.
• 20:49
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that would.
• 20:50
  Mark Pracht: I don't. I don't know if that I don't know if that's actually true. It's just something I read in my my reading right. But
• 21:00
  Mark Pracht: he always seems.
• 21:07
  Mark Pracht: I mean. And I also I also think that what I'm talking about is just a a factor of of
• 21:13
  Mark Pracht: Stan in general, I think, is a better
• 21:16
  Mark Pracht: wordsmith. Right? He just puts words together in a much more smooth way. But
• 21:23
  Mark Pracht: There is this sort of sense that Jack is sort of standing outside of it and watching these people, you know.
• 21:29
  Mark Pracht: Certainly, like we heard that story about the El Cortez, and climbing to the top of the El Cortez Hotel, and and like Jack, surrounded by all these kids smoking pot. And he's just sort of like
• 21:41
  Mark Pracht: oblivious to all of it. And
• 21:43
  Mark Pracht: that's a beautiful story. But it's also sort of indicative. I think of of what I feel about
• 21:49
  Mark Pracht: forever. People, I think.
• 21:53
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I I let's see, am I on the.
• 21:58
  Sean Harklerode: Well, I I would say that struck me, and I don't know why it took this long for it to strike me this month. That forever. People.
• 22:08
  Sean Harklerode: you know, is a team book.
• 22:11
  Sean Harklerode: but I think it's also a an homage of some sorts to Captain Marvel.
• 22:17
  Mark Pracht: Oh, absolutely the Taru thing! And turning into the.
• 22:22
  Sean Harklerode: And demand.
• 22:23
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 22:26
  Mark Pracht: I mean, it's also like there's also that element of it, that is
• 22:31
  Mark Pracht: it? It is sort of it's sort of a Kirby boy gang book in its own way, just like I mean. And that's more true of Jimmy Olsen as he's doing it.
• 22:42
  Mark Pracht: But this is that's there's definitely elements of that here.
• 22:47
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 22:48
  Mark Pracht: You know, the iconography of all of these characters is
• 22:54
  Mark Pracht: sometimes weirdly specific, like the what's his name? The cowboy character? I mean, like.
• 23:02
  Sean Harklerode: There have been.
• 23:03
  Mark Pracht: The Seraphin. Yeah, like, I mean. And this is part of the whole thing is that these.
• 23:11
  Mark Pracht: the the forever people don't like big bear resonates sort of as a character, because it's just an interesting visual.
• 23:20
  Mark Pracht: Seraphin is an interesting visual. The other ones are all just kind of there, you know.
• 23:29
  Sean Harklerode: You know, beautiful dreamer, on the splash page there is.
• 23:33
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 23:33
  Sean Harklerode: That is a beautiful yes, rendering.
• 23:37
  Sean Harklerode: I mean that splash 1st splash pages is nice for all of them. But yes, okay.
• 23:41
  Sean Harklerode: Something about her face that really pulls you in there.
• 23:45
  Mark Pracht: Of course it does.
• 23:47
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I kinda I kinda like this kid on crutches that they met and decided that he was
• 23:54
  Tad Eggleston: the guy, but like nothing is explained about him behind that.
• 23:58
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 23:59
  Tad Eggleston: It's just there.
• 24:00
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Tad Eggleston: They found like this ghost town.
• 24:03
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, this guy, the old guy doesn't want to beat them because they change into the Archie versions of themselves in his head.
• 24:11
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and the guy the guy supposedly a security guard.
• 24:14
  Sean Harklerode: Don't go, Willy!
• 24:15
  Mark Pracht: Uncle Willie. Yeah, which you know it.
• 24:20
  Mark Pracht: And yeah, we have this section of the city that apparently an utter
• 24:28
  Mark Pracht: you know, disaster area. I don't
• 24:34
  Mark Pracht: there! It like it just feels I like I I think that that book feels messy.
• 24:43
  Mark Pracht: I mean, they're all messy in a certain way, but I mean this one. It just feels like
• 24:49
  Mark Pracht: I don't know.
• 24:50
  Mark Pracht: I mean and and I the you know the horrible thing. The horrible thing about it is
• 24:58
  Mark Pracht: the Jimmy Olsen story. I could. Probably I'm kind of like Tad. I probably couldn't tell you what happened in that story. At this point I read it. That was the 1st one I read earlier in the week.
• 25:07
  Tad Eggleston: It did have my favorite single page, though.
• 25:10
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, and what's that?
• 25:11
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it had the the newsboys in the huddle, and it was looking up on them.
• 25:17
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 25:19
  Tad Eggleston: I loved that image.
• 25:20
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:21
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, like, you know, you know damn well that every book you're gonna get one great Kirby
• 25:27
  Mark Pracht: image, no matter no matter what it is, you know you're going to get it, and you know it's going to be spectacular.
• 25:34
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I mentioned off air while we were waiting for you. I didn't see any
• 25:42
  Tad Eggleston: wrestler grab images between these 4 issues which makes me wonder. And I'm gonna have to start paying attention like if there are sometimes months where he falls in love with an image, and it winds up in all of the books and and other times months where he doesn't, because I didn't feel like there was anything that I saw in every book this time.
• 26:06
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, yeah. And
• 26:14
  Tad Eggleston: That's not even supposed to be a slam. That's like when you draw as much as Kirby does.
• 26:19
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean that you just.
• 26:20
  Tad Eggleston: It's easy to go. Oh, that was cool. I'm gonna do it again.
• 26:24
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, you know, here's a guy like right now. He's putting out for 22 page books
• 26:33
  Mark Pracht: a month.
• 26:34
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 26:35
  Mark Pracht: That's I mean, you know, that's.
• 26:36
  Tad Eggleston: That he's writing, drawing.
• 26:39
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean. And
• 26:42
  Mark Pracht: from what I, from what I know, the writing is, probably he's just drawing it and making notes to himself in the corner.
• 26:48
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, which
• 26:51
  Mark Pracht: is fine. But that also, I think, is where you lead into sort of these these weird
• 26:58
  Mark Pracht: things. You know, that don't quite sync up, because, like I I
• 27:06
  Mark Pracht: it's sort of unfair, right? It's unfair to critique something from.
• 27:10
  Tad Eggleston: 19.
• 27:11
  Mark Pracht: And 71 or whatever it was that
• 27:15
  Mark Pracht: for the kind of storytelling that we expect
• 27:18
  Mark Pracht: in 2025, you know where it's like, okay, we've got.
• 27:23
  Mark Pracht: We've got this crossover event set up, and everything's gonna be perfect. And we all know what we're doing. And we all know how it feeds into each other, and even that doesn't even work half the time. But
• 27:34
  Tad Eggleston: See in a weird way
• 27:37
  Tad Eggleston: the fact that I think the writing was worse this month made it more enjoyable.
• 27:42
  Mark Pracht: I would agree with you.
• 27:44
  Tad Eggleston: I was able to just start really skimming the writing
• 27:48
  Tad Eggleston: well, enjoying the pictures, enjoying the flow. It became jazz rather than rock and roll.
• 27:57
  Mark Pracht: That actually is a really good way to describe. I think a lot of Kirby's storytelling. I do think it is like jazz
• 28:05
  Tad Eggleston: They actually made me wish that not only had he been less wordy
• 28:10
  Tad Eggleston: rather than wordy like Stan, but that he'd been more willing to go silent entirely.
• 28:15
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 28:17
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean like you
• 28:21
  Mark Pracht: again. I don't want to keep, and we've got a long way to go with this, and I don't want to
• 28:25
  Mark Pracht: like Stan Stan Stan, but I mean like, especially like right off the bat. You can tell.
• 28:31
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, Joe Simon. Joe Simon also used too many words. Yeah, not as many as Stan.
• 28:36
  Tad Eggleston: but too many words. It was an error thing is what I meant.
• 28:40
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, absolutely. But I'm just saying that I think that there is an attempt here to assert
• 28:52
  Mark Pracht: that he doesn't need these people, and that what was done at Marvel was him. You know I.
• 29:01
  Tad Eggleston: Ironically.
• 29:03
  Tad Eggleston: I think that one of the reasons that this era is so defined by words is because of one of Bill Gaines's
• 29:13
  Tad Eggleston: cost saving measures.
• 29:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, we had.
• 29:19
  Tad Eggleston: Who was.
• 29:19
  Mark Pracht: We end up.
• 29:20
  Tad Eggleston: Rider.
• 29:21
  Mark Pracht: It was it was Al Feldstein would.
• 29:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, we had Feldstein literally write the story on the Bristol board before it went to the artists. So he was giving set direction in.
• 29:35
  Tad Eggleston: and I think that that led people to think that that was the way to make comics, even though I am willing to bet even at the time, and certainly now one of the keys to really enjoying Ec. Comics is read the dialogues, but not the exit exit
• 29:50
  Tad Eggleston: Exposition boxes unless you need them pictures.
• 29:56
  Mark Pracht: You know.
• 29:56
  Tad Eggleston: On first.st If you're confused. Look at the exposition box.
• 30:00
  Mark Pracht: Think I think you know, I think
• 30:06
  Mark Pracht: Kirby, Kirby is way too visual to to like.
• 30:12
  Mark Pracht: I mean, we know we know for a fact, because we we can see the artwork. He's he's doing the artwork and then spotting the the word balloons and the dialogue on right on the art
• 30:25
  Mark Pracht: and
• 30:29
  Mark Pracht: I do think I know I know you. You wish that he had less words, more art. But you know that that was just.
• 30:39
  Tad Eggleston: Same amount of art.
• 30:40
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, but I mean cause.
• 30:44
  Tad Eggleston: But no, it wasn't the time. I'm not blaming Kirby.
• 30:47
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. No.
• 30:47
  Tad Eggleston: Is.
• 30:48
  Tad Eggleston: it was standard, and particularly if his goal was to have autonomy as somebody who's an artist, not a writer.
• 30:57
  Tad Eggleston: you know. It would be easy for him to go. Oh, I need to make it look like theirs.
• 31:04
  Tad Eggleston: When like he could have gone to a whole nother level if he, if
• 31:12
  Tad Eggleston: he both thought about it, and managed to push hard enough by going.
• 31:16
  Tad Eggleston: You don't need that. Many words.
• 31:20
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know, spoilers, wait until we get to the hunger dogs.
• 31:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 31:28
  Mark Pracht: That's exactly what you're asking for.
• 31:30
  Tad Eggleston: Well, then, he then he figured it out, and that makes me even happier.
• 31:34
  Mark Pracht: Well, I don't know that I'd say figured it out. That book is.
• 31:40
  Mark Pracht: I think, fundamentally flawed. But but but that's.
• 31:44
  Tad Eggleston: That happens too. But.
• 31:46
  Mark Pracht: No, I think
• 31:50
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly with somebody like Kirby. I like, I like evidence that they're
• 31:57
  Tad Eggleston: experimenting, that they're pushing the edges of the medium that they're going. How? How do I do better with the medium? Not just how do I tell great stories.
• 32:06
  Mark Pracht: Well, look, I don't know. What do you think?
• 32:09
  Mark Pracht: And I think he does that I'm not. I'm not trying to slam, you know.
• 32:12
  Sean Harklerode: I I think. Obviously, as you said, you know, this is the way comics kind of were at that point which
• 32:19
  Sean Harklerode: you know, I I kind of like that. I
• 32:22
  Sean Harklerode: you know that I can't finish one of these books in 5 min.
• 32:24
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 32:25
  Sean Harklerode: Like these books. I spend 5, $6 for now, and it's over in 10 min.
• 32:31
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 32:33
  Sean Harklerode: So I I.
• 32:34
  Tad Eggleston: But that I mean this is.
• 32:35
  Sean Harklerode: Of ideas. What.
• 32:37
  Tad Eggleston: I just I have to cause cause. I hear this argument a lot, and and I get where it's coming from. But
• 32:46
  Tad Eggleston: like you can still choose to go back and spend more time with them, and there's often more time.
• 32:53
  Sean Harklerode: I'm usually not that interested in them.
• 32:55
  Tad Eggleston: But but but there's often more to spend time with if you choose to.
• 33:02
  Mark Pracht: I I agree with that to a certain point. I mean, like, Look, my, my.
• 33:10
  Mark Pracht: I I'm with Sean like I like the fact that there's a density to the storytelling
• 33:17
  Mark Pracht: both in the art and like.
• 33:21
  Mark Pracht: because I think that I think that the non realistic art is much more dense than.
• 33:27
  Tad Eggleston: That I enjoy.
• 33:28
  Mark Pracht: When people get super, you know, try to be photorealistic or realistic about things. I think that there's so much more going on in Jack's work because he's just being inventive. But
• 33:43
  Mark Pracht: but I you know, there's also this, this sense that we are telling a story. We are, you know, because, like I, I'm with Sean. The one thing that was
• 33:56
  Mark Pracht: what was it? It was the. It was a superman. 78 book. I think it was the Iron Curtain, or whatever it was, and you know I love Christopher Reeves, Superman. So I was buying that series, and there was one issue that I got it, and I read it cover to cover in. I kid you not like 2 min.
• 34:13
  Tad Eggleston: All right.
• 34:14
  Mark Pracht: Like there was. Just it was.
• 34:17
  Mark Pracht: It was nothing right.
• 34:19
  Mark Pracht: It was just a way to pad it out to 6 issues. It felt like, and
• 34:24
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm not saying that that doesn't happen, but, like my first, st read, a saga almost never takes more than 5 min. Always do a second read a saga immediately after my 1st read a saga, and that one takes 15 or 20.
• 34:36
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 34:37
  Tad Eggleston: Where whereas I don't immediately do a second read of Kirby, because I don't want to go anywhere near the words again.
• 34:48
  Tad Eggleston: and I probably don't spend as much time with the art, because the words are.
• 34:52
  Mark Pracht: Okay, just want to. I just want to say.
• 34:56
  Tad Eggleston: But that's me.
• 34:56
  Mark Pracht: There are people who think that I am some sort of anti-kirby guy, because I think that his writing is not as good as Stan's
• 35:04
  Mark Pracht: that was. Tad. Tad said, that he doesn't want to go anywhere near the Arctic, and to read the words again.
• 35:09
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I also I I.
• 35:12
  Mark Pracht: Give it that I'm kidding.
• 35:13
  Mark Pracht: I say, well, but I'm going to make it clear. I say that 10 times over for Stan.
• 35:18
  Mark Pracht: Yes, okay.
• 35:21
  Tad Eggleston: I have a lot of trouble reading Stan Lee comics.
• 35:24
  Mark Pracht: I, yeah.
• 35:26
  Tad Eggleston: You like Stanley's writing way more than I like Stanley awesome.
• 35:30
  Sean Harklerode: John Tad's hit parade. Tom King.
• 35:34
  Mark Pracht: Who else does Tad not hate like as a writer.
• 35:38
  Tad Eggleston: Tom, I'll see you. I'll see you this weekend.
• 35:40
  Mark Pracht: Hey, Michael Bendis, fuck, you.
• 35:42
  Tad Eggleston: I like.
• 35:43
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I mean.
• 35:44
  Mark Pracht: I love badness, you know, I've just. It's like it's and like, it's.
• 35:53
  Mark Pracht: it's like we've had 2 min of like, who do we hate as writers?
• 35:56
  Tad Eggleston: But I didn't. I didn't say I hate them.
• 35:59
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 35:59
  Tad Eggleston: I said that I have trouble like
• 36:03
  Tad Eggleston: revisiting and spending more time with them, like I'm not looking for more in the words. I often feel so inundated with information that I don't
• 36:13
  Tad Eggleston: have that drive to go look for more.
• 36:16
  Sean Harklerode: Write in such a way. You don't have to read it a second time.
• 36:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but I like reading it a second time.
• 36:26
  Sean Harklerode: Okay.
• 36:29
  Mark Pracht: Oh! Oh! This is the best.
• 36:32
  Tad Eggleston: I mean. Sometimes they write in such a way that I don't have to read it the 1st time.
• 36:39
  Mark Pracht: Well, okay. Look.
• 36:40
  Tad Eggleston: I've figured it out by like page 4 or 5, and the next 18 pages are superfluous. I switched to
• 36:47
  Tad Eggleston: slip to the back.
• 36:47
  Mark Pracht: Page, and I've got my information.
• 36:50
  Mark Pracht: I know. But you can. You can. You can say that about any number of things you know.
• 36:54
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely absolutely.
• 36:55
  Mark Pracht: Every time I watch like a mystery show with my wife. Colleen, she's like, oh, they did it, and we're like 2 min in.
• 37:02
  Tad Eggleston: But.
• 37:03
  Mark Pracht: So what about.
• 37:03
  Tad Eggleston: I mean to give you to give you an example.
• 37:07
  Tad Eggleston: I mean. Unfortunately, 2 of 2 of them are people that I don't feel like talking about. But Alan Moore hasn't, hasn't, hasn't hurt anybody and and been outed for it. So so I'll talk about Alan Moore. Alan Moore uses a lot of words.
• 37:22
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 37:23
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 37:25
  Tad Eggleston: But I feel like there's meaning to them beyond the art. I feel like they're in conversation with the art rather than describing.
• 37:33
  Tad Eggleston: Well.
• 37:34
  Mark Pracht: Look. But if we talk about Alan Moore, and we just did a podcast talking about Alan Moore, we did. But you know, we we also know from Alan Moore's script scripts that he is
• 37:48
  Mark Pracht: highly highly
• 37:52
  Tad Eggleston: Detailed and what he wants from there.
• 37:53
  Mark Pracht: Controlling of what the artist is going to give him, too.
• 37:56
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, this many panels, and I want them in this shape. And I and that.
• 38:03
  Mark Pracht: That is also that is a type of writing in this, in this, in this medium, right? That I don't think existed.
• 38:14
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no! For.
• 38:16
  Mark Pracht: Like the eighties right?
• 38:18
  Tad Eggleston: Right, possibly before Alan Moore.
• 38:21
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 38:22
  Mark Pracht: because, you know, in the seventies you know, marvel kind of shifted back from the marvel method. You know. Once Stan wasn't wasn't writing almost everything, you know. There was that sense that they were shifting back from the marvel method. You know. Roy Thomas was still using it, but for the most part people were writing scripts, but they looked like movie scripts, and and it was you know, it might say, this is a close up, or this is a blah blah, but it left the artists the room to interpret that.
• 38:50
  Mark Pracht: And then, you know, Alan Moore clearly is not
• 38:57
  Mark Pracht: yeah. Alan Moyer is sort of like a prose writer who happens to work in comics because he wants to control completely and utterly what the what, the what the
• 39:07
  Mark Pracht: the reader sees right, and that's that's great.
• 39:12
  Mark Pracht: bringing that back to Kirby. I think Kirby wants that, too. I just think that Kirby skill set is not quite as sharp as that, especially when it comes to the writing. Now.
• 39:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 39:23
  Mark Pracht: To that end like I said, there was the 2 things that really struck me. One we got granny goodness, which is
• 39:31
  Mark Pracht: just genius, genius. Sorry genius, genius, granny! Goodness, I I will take a granny. Goodness ongoing series anytime. You want to give it to me.
• 39:40
  Mark Pracht: But it's also in the new gods where he he!
• 39:46
  Mark Pracht: It's the 1st time we see him try to put all of the pieces together.
• 39:55
  Mark Pracht: and it ends up just being more confusing, you know.
• 39:59
  Mark Pracht: because it starts on page
• 40:03
  Mark Pracht: 13, where Orion is explaining everything to these or saps that he's
• 40:09
  Mark Pracht: drafted into this war. You know they all touched the mother box the
• 40:15
  Mark Pracht: day of sex, mother box. And then they all get this imagery of all of this stuff, and it's stuff that's we're going to see in later issues. It's stuff we've seen in other issues. You know, we've got
• 40:26
  Mark Pracht: Mantis, which is one of my singularly most hated villains ever.
• 40:33
  Mark Pracht: I think that character's fucking lame.
• 40:37
  Mark Pracht: you know. Then we go to the the the the Harrys in.
• 40:44
  Mark Pracht: because I think you said that there was the the forever people dancing. It's not. It's the Harrys from Jimmy Olsen
• 40:51
  Mark Pracht: on page 16 of new gods.
• 40:57
  Mark Pracht: But I mean, you see him trying to bring all of this together. And it just it's sort of like, huh.
• 41:05
  Mark Pracht: and you know, like on on a broad strokes, it all makes sense. Right? Okay, there's dark side.
• 41:14
  Mark Pracht: Dark side wants earth.
• 41:16
  Mark Pracht: Right
• 41:17
  Mark Pracht: dark side is against Super Town. Dark side is against new Genesis. There's this anti-life equation, which again, as we've talked about.
• 41:27
  Mark Pracht: It seems to be one thing in forever people and another thing in new gods. And yet another thing in
• 41:35
  Mark Pracht: Mr. Miracle, the mother box has never seemed to have any sort of consistent design or structure, or anything.
• 41:44
  Mark Pracht: It it's all.
• 41:46
  Mark Pracht: And I think I think that the description you had it's jazz is so apt.
• 41:52
  Mark Pracht: It is improvisation in the moment on the page.
• 41:58
  Mark Pracht: Everybody who worked with him was talking about how he would. Just
• 42:03
  Mark Pracht: some new idea would come to him, and he'd put it on the page
• 42:06
  Mark Pracht: and figure it out later, you know. Make it connect somehow.
• 42:14
  Mark Pracht: and
• 42:19
  Mark Pracht: yeah,
• 42:21
  Mark Pracht: But I mean, I do think, like a lot of the heavy lifting with this narrative, you would think it would be in new gods. But I actually think it's in Mr. Miracle
• 42:31
  Mark Pracht: like I have a better sense of
• 42:36
  Mark Pracht: what the Apocalypse, you know, mindset is from Mr. Miracle than I actually do from new gods.
• 42:45
  Mark Pracht: just because I think scot-free being an escapee from apocalypse.
• 42:54
  Mark Pracht: I it gives it a a
• 42:58
  Mark Pracht: context that makes it much more visceral.
• 43:02
  Mark Pracht: There's a certain amount of I think intellectual remove that happens with
• 43:09
  Mark Pracht: new gods for some reason with me. Even though, like as we, you know. Look, this is this is a what 50 year Old Series spoilers ahead. We're gonna find out that
• 43:22
  Mark Pracht: Orion and Scott free are 2 sides of the same coin. And
• 43:27
  Mark Pracht: you know we're part of the same plan. You know
• 43:32
  Mark Pracht: the pact, as it will be called. But I don't know.
• 43:39
  Sean Harklerode: Mr. Miracle. I I think probably that's that might be. You know Mr. Miracle is
• 43:44
  Sean Harklerode: the most compelling character. I I don't know if it's with Oberon especially when you get big Barda in the mix, and
• 43:53
  Mark Pracht: Yes, yes, but.
• 43:54
  Sean Harklerode: I I feel like
• 43:56
  Sean Harklerode: I I feel that way, too, and I just wonder if it's because I like that character more than I really relate to to any of the other.
• 44:04
  Mark Pracht: Okay.
• 44:05
  Sean Harklerode: Characters.
• 44:06
  Mark Pracht: It. It feel, I think I think, that Scott's interactions with Earthlings and humans is much more human, right?
• 44:23
  Mark Pracht: Like when Orion right sorry, and I just thought of that.
• 44:32
  Sean Harklerode: I think we have a batman superman kind of difference here, right.
• 44:35
  Mark Pracht: Kind of I mean. Yeah, it. But in that fits with what we're, you know, they're they're.
• 44:40
  Mark Pracht: you know that Scott is highfather's father that was sent, or highfather's son that was sent to Apocalypse to live. And that Orion is Darkside, son that was sent to New Genesis to live. Okay, great switch back. It's going to keep the peace right?
• 44:55
  Mark Pracht: But you know you have this. Whenever Orion is talking to these 4 humans that he saved right
• 45:04
  Mark Pracht: Earth people.
• 45:05
  Mark Pracht: It is so portentous and wrapped up in Bizarro.
• 45:18
  Mark Pracht: Superhero-y nonsense, and when Scott interacts with Oberon it's so
• 45:26
  Mark Pracht: human like it feels much more human.
• 45:30
  Mark Pracht: The writing is better, the the characterization is better, even though there's still archetypes. Right? You know Scott is the the.
• 45:41
  Mark Pracht: the impetuous youth trying to, you know.
• 45:44
  Mark Pracht: do something spectacular, and Oberon is the worry, Ward, you know.
• 45:50
  Mark Pracht: And Shawn's absolutely right. Once Big Barda is introduced into this this this
• 45:55
  Mark Pracht: situation, it is, you know.
• 45:58
  Mark Pracht: Sorry I feel like I'm running on of the mouth. So if anybody else wants to get me to shut up, just say so. But I mean
• 46:05
  Mark Pracht: I ran on in the mouth for a while. It's your turn.
• 46:07
  Mark Pracht: because, you know, there was at 1 point you and I were talking about Kirby, and I said that my absolute favorite Kirby work at DC. After marvel is commandee.
• 46:19
  Mark Pracht: Very close second would be
• 46:23
  Mark Pracht: Mr. Miracle. I think those are his 2 best books that he did.
• 46:29
  Mark Pracht: And I also think that Mr. And this is getting.
• 46:34
  Mark Pracht: This is something that we'll probably address later, too. But I mean, I also think the fact that Mr. Miracle did not get canceled with everything else allowed him to focus more energy onto
• 46:44
  Mark Pracht: this narrative through that one book instead of 4, right?
• 46:53
  Mark Pracht: And that that sounds right about that.
• 46:59
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, no, you know, it's you know, it's funny I made. I made the joke about like, when is he ever going to do the show that he keeps practicing for, you know, and risking his life for to practice for.
• 47:13
  Mark Pracht: But you know, the thing about it is is it's it's all gold and silver age. Nonsense, right? And it's the most glorious kind of gold and silver age. Nonsense! Right? It's it's it's just the the conceit of the book that every time we open the book it's going to be some new death trap that's ridiculously over designed, and that
• 47:34
  Mark Pracht: Scott will figure out a way out of
• 47:39
  Mark Pracht: which almost always has little to do with actually escape artist skills, and mostly to do with Motherbox doing something.
• 47:51
  Sean Harklerode: Mother box is like a sonic screwdriver that you wear in your arm.
• 47:56
  Tad Eggleston: Only.
• 47:56
  Mark Pracht: Entirely like.
• 47:58
  Mark Pracht: yeah, it's entirely that it, especially especially later era. Sonic screwdriver where it's like, Oh, I can do this, and it can do that. It can do this. It can do that. Yeah, I mean, there, there are many things.
• 48:11
  Mark Pracht: And again, I feel like I'm rattling on. So if somebody has something to say. Just say, Mark, shut up for a second.
• 48:17
  Mark Pracht: But I mean, I just think there are many things in life in these books, and especially in this month books where I'm like, okay? So it can do this. Mantis is.
• 48:27
  Mark Pracht: if anybody can truly explain to me what Mantis's power set is.
• 48:33
  Mark Pracht: I would I would love to know.
• 48:36
  Mark Pracht: because it seems like he can do whatever he needs to do on any given page.
• 48:40
  Mark Pracht: And you know, in a way like during the Silver Age. That was the superman thing. But
• 48:46
  Mark Pracht: like I can generate cold, I can generate heat. I can generate electricity. I can blah blah, you know, it's like, okay.
• 48:55
  Mark Pracht: And all right, I just it it again. Jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz.
• 49:06
  Sean Harklerode: And all that jazz.
• 49:08
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 49:09
  Mark Pracht: And I. I have a copy of Miles Davis kind of blue coming today. So I'm.
• 49:13
  Tad Eggleston: I love that out.
• 49:14
  Mark Pracht: Join yep.
• 49:16
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, I.
• 49:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I have it on Vinyl.
• 49:18
  Mark Pracht: I was. You know what I was at the here we go tangent I was at. I was at a record store yesterday, and and they had a like
• 49:29
  Mark Pracht: special edition to via, you know, 2 disc thing of it. And I it was like 60 bucks, and I was like, I don't want to play 60 bucks. So I just went online. And I found one for like
• 49:40
  Mark Pracht: 20.
• 49:41
  Mark Pracht: And I was like, I'll pay 20. But it seems like that seems like an album that you should listen to on Vinyl.
• 49:47
  Tad Eggleston: Oh yes!
• 49:47
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 49:48
  Sean Harklerode: It's great!
• 49:48
  Tad Eggleston: I? I have a 4 album, Keith Jarrett live vinyl
• 50:00
  Tad Eggleston: like an original one from like
• 50:02
  Tad Eggleston: the seventies that I picked up at a you shop that like
• 50:07
  Tad Eggleston: during the era where he was literally making up
• 50:10
  Tad Eggleston: his shows. When he sat down to the piano.
• 50:14
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 50:14
  Tad Eggleston: So I think he did all of his career, but he had one era where he was really doing that.
• 50:19
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean.
• 50:19
  Tad Eggleston: It's 1 of my favorite relaxation. Musics.
• 50:23
  Mark Pracht: Yes, colleen hates jazz, so I can't listen to it when she's around, but especially that kind of jazz.
• 50:31
  Tad Eggleston: See, my my.
• 50:32
  Mark Pracht: Like my wife, bebop and stuff she can handle. But the the 5 guys all playing a different song. Jazz. She's.
• 50:40
  Tad Eggleston: No, with Jared. It's just him and the piano.
• 50:43
  Tad Eggleston: My wife and I were laughing because.
• 50:47
  Tad Eggleston: like she made me even write it down when I when I came up with it, I'm like, Yeah, no, I have.
• 50:53
  Tad Eggleston: I have 2 ways to quiet my mind, and I always know like which one I want, even though I can't tell you
• 51:01
  Tad Eggleston: what mood goes with each one. I either need music that I know so well that nothing surprises me, played at the absolute maximum volume to drown everything else out.
• 51:16
  Tad Eggleston: or music that's so unpredictable that I just sit back and listen to the beauty.
• 51:28
  Tad Eggleston: Those are the those are. Those are my extremes in terms of like the music that calms me.
• 51:34
  Mark Pracht: I mean. I I can't argue, because the other thing I got this week was I got the the rush 40th or 50th anniversary box set on Vinyl, which is
• 51:44
  Mark Pracht: 4 h and 40 min of a journey through the history of Rush.
• 51:49
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 51:50
  Mark Pracht: I had to get it. I actually I actually had to get it, because the last song on the last disc or the last 3 songs is the last 3 songs they ever played at their last concert.
• 52:00
  Tad Eggleston: Very nice.
• 52:01
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 52:02
  Tad Eggleston: No, that that that day I I had played
• 52:07
  Tad Eggleston: Jarrett at a at a very reasonable volume in the morning, and by mid afternoon it was ziggy. Start us at at the the
• 52:19
  Tad Eggleston: directed maximum volume that it that it says that it's supposed to be played at on the, on, the, on the jacket.
• 52:27
  Tad Eggleston: that.
• 52:29
  Mark Pracht: That always reminds me of the last walls.
• 52:34
  Mark Pracht: Right? Movie, you know, it starts.
• 52:37
  Tad Eggleston: Smart.
• 52:37
  Mark Pracht: This, this should be played loud, and what I have always been
• 52:43
  Mark Pracht: truly amused by is that when you watch it.
• 52:46
  Mark Pracht: if you don't play it at maximum volume, the talking Stuff. You can't hear it
• 52:53
  Mark Pracht: like they. I think that Scorsese intentionally, you know.
• 52:59
  Tad Eggleston: Made it so that you.
• 53:00
  Mark Pracht: All of the interview stuff so low.
• 53:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 53:04
  Mark Pracht: You had to turn it up to the point that the music was blasting, and I.
• 53:09
  Tad Eggleston: That feels very scorsese to me.
• 53:11
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah, it it was. It was. It's it's a very interesting. But anyway, tangent
• 53:20
  Mark Pracht: I don't know but
• 53:24
  Mark Pracht: you know what we haven't really talked about, Granny. Goodness! That much.
• 53:29
  Tad Eggleston: Let's talk about her.
• 53:30
  Mark Pracht: Oh, what what an amazing villain!
• 53:34
  Mark Pracht: What an amazing villain! I mean!
• 53:40
  Mark Pracht: I was surprised that you you didn't know that Ed Asner did the voice in the cartoon.
• 53:46
  Sean Harklerode: No, I I yeah, I haven't gotten to her yet. In my viewings of.
• 53:52
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean like the one.
• 53:53
  Sean Harklerode: You're gonna get. Goodness, epic.
• 53:55
  Mark Pracht: The. I will also say that probably the best adaptation of a 4th World
• 54:00
  Mark Pracht: storyline that will ever be done on any other medium is probably the I think it was 3 or 4 parter that they did in Superman. The animated series.
• 54:10
  Sean Harklerode: I mean I'm still blown away by Brad Garrett as Lobo that was. That was pretty impressive.
• 54:18
  Mark Pracht: All of it's awesome, I mean, like, you know, like the it it it but you know what actually.
• 54:26
  Mark Pracht: in a very real way, I think that
• 54:29
  Mark Pracht: those you know, the the cartoons of the nineties, the the DC. Animated thing that they did there, you know Justice League and Batman and superman
• 54:40
  Mark Pracht: like, I think, just on a graphic level. Just strike me as very Kirby. And
• 54:46
  Mark Pracht: I think that there is so much that is beholden to that
• 54:52
  Mark Pracht: I? Yeah, I don't know. I think that granny's I love how he introduces Granny.
• 54:58
  Mark Pracht: because, you know, she's in like her moo moo thing.
• 55:03
  Mark Pracht: you know, sitting at the the overlord, you know, and
• 55:08
  Mark Pracht: And then suddenly she whips it off. And she's in this chain mail thing, you know, and you're like
• 55:13
  Mark Pracht: what the hell is going on.
• 55:16
  Mark Pracht: But and the face better
• 55:22
  Mark Pracht: face on page 9 is just, oh, it's perfect, Kirby.
• 55:27
  Mark Pracht: It's just so. It's insane.
• 55:33
  Mark Pracht: but I don't know, I think.
• 55:37
  Mark Pracht: And this whole concept that, like, you know, I I like. There's a there are many times that I want to poo. Poo this whole like. Kirby saw the future thing.
• 55:47
  Mark Pracht: You know. Everybody wants to say that the mother boxes are like smartphones, and the you know he saw cloning. And he, you know, and you know it's clear that Jack read a lot of stuff, and it got in his head. But it's also like
• 56:05
  Mark Pracht: I just lost my train of thought, and I don't remember the point I was making.
• 56:13
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, like the random stuff like this follower thing
• 56:17
  Mark Pracht: which becomes like it comes back several times.
• 56:22
  Mark Pracht: But like, I don't understand this technology at all, or what how useful it's supposed to be.
• 56:30
  Mark Pracht: But
• 56:31
  Sean Harklerode: Well, I I mean, 1st of all, if we're we're going there, I I would say that, like
• 56:38
  Sean Harklerode: the begin, that, Mr. Miracle, the beginning. That sequence is probably the best sequence, at least in in what we've
• 56:47
  Sean Harklerode: read this month.
• 56:51
  Sean Harklerode: Just from the opening, you know, with Scott.
• 56:56
  Mark Pracht: Like.
• 56:57
  Sean Harklerode: Oberon doing the the the escape trick with overlords, you know.
• 57:05
  Sean Harklerode: At 1st I'm like, what is that banner? What? What is happening? You know those are, I guess, overlords thought waves.
• 57:12
  Sean Harklerode: and they culminate in that fantastic, those 2 splash pages.
• 57:18
  Mark Pracht: Yes, yes.
• 57:19
  Sean Harklerode: Of overlord, who seems gigantic.
• 57:24
  Mark Pracht: Yes.
• 57:24
  Sean Harklerode: You know. Strike, Overlord, obey.
• 57:29
  Mark Pracht: Okay.
• 57:30
  Sean Harklerode: I mean, I mean, that's on. There's a reason that's on T-shirts, right? I mean that
• 57:35
  Sean Harklerode: that is a a fantastic image. And then the scene with, you know Scott
• 57:42
  Sean Harklerode: and Mr. Miracle, or the the follower, the following
• 57:46
  Sean Harklerode: straight jackets and and and the follower being blasted now.
• 57:52
  Sean Harklerode: my question later is like. Well, he's looking for scot-free, not Mr. Miracle. Scot-free is right there.
• 58:00
  Mark Pracht: You're right there.
• 58:01
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know, the other thing is like I I like. The whole idea of using the follower in this thing is.
• 58:10
  Mark Pracht: I don't quite understand what the point is.
• 58:13
  Sean Harklerode: So.
• 58:13
  Mark Pracht: Like, Okay, I'm going to get into a straight jacket. The follower is going to get into a straight jacket.
• 58:19
  Mark Pracht: and then, you know, we're going to put this, you know, they're going to put this explosive there.
• 58:29
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 58:29
  Mark Pracht: And
• 58:31
  Mark Pracht: it doesn't seem like he's far enough away and plus plus oh, my God! This is so, Kirby. So yeah, they're both standing on top of these platforms
• 58:42
  Mark Pracht: that are like 3 levels, tall, with like little little tiny like dowel rod things holding them up balanced on balls.
• 58:51
  Mark Pracht: And it's just like, like, how, how, how much more, how much more
• 58:58
  Mark Pracht: like it? It's so just like, I, okay, they're on balls. That's great it it.
• 59:05
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, like, I, 100% agree with you. Like, as it's sort of like
• 59:12
  Mark Pracht: sort of like Hitchcock, you know, like it builds through the sequence. And then there's the big moment, and you know that
• 59:20
  Mark Pracht: the sequence is so good, and it builds to such a great moment that you don't go back and start asking yourself
• 59:28
  Mark Pracht: why and to Tad's Point. See?
• 59:31
  Mark Pracht: You don't want to go back and reread it.
• 59:33
  Mark Pracht: because then you're like, wait, wait a minute what you know.
• 59:36
  Mark Pracht: But
• 59:39
  Tad Eggleston: But see, I I'm gonna go back to my point. As you guys have been talking about the art, I've been going back and looking at it and seeing all all sorts of things that I missed because there were so many words that I was trying to get through.
• 59:55
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is embarrassing, but I only kind of got that. The the follower part
• 1:00:06
  Tad Eggleston: only kind of like figured out.
• 1:00:09
  Mark Pracht: I'm gonna get a t-shirt for Tad that says there were so many words.
• 1:00:17
  Tad Eggleston: We can put my wife on it. My wife makes all of my T-shirts, so you should just get together with her to to do a good design.
• 1:00:25
  Tad Eggleston: pick, pick a Kirby image and.
• 1:00:28
  Mark Pracht: Just a picture of you like, with your baseball cap on a glasses, hands like this.
• 1:00:33
  Mark Pracht: and just a word balloon coming. There were so many words.
• 1:00:40
  Mark Pracht: Anyway, no, I like I.
• 1:00:44
  Tad Eggleston: But I actually I mean yes, it's ridiculous, but I love that. They're balancing on those calls.
• 1:00:50
  Mark Pracht: No like. That's part of the whole thing. And then, when we come back to the other one after, there's this massive explosion right and
• 1:00:58
  Mark Pracht: like, there's this massive explosion, and they sort of have this. Oh, the mother box is hurt.
• 1:01:05
  Tad Eggleston: And
• 1:01:09
  Mark Pracht: And then it's like.
• 1:01:10
  Tad Eggleston: And then they shoot the swords.
• 1:01:12
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. And then it's like, Oh, let's go on to this next death trap that that we're doing. Like.
• 1:01:17
  Mark Pracht: yeah, like, I understand that you have to practice this stuff. But
• 1:01:23
  Mark Pracht: wouldn't. Wouldn't you want to do it with? I like. And again, it's comic book nonsense, and we all love it, and we understand that that's the point of it. But I mean, it is like one of those things where.
• 1:01:33
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and.
• 1:01:34
  Mark Pracht: And why would you use the real fucking.
• 1:01:37
  Tad Eggleston: I actually like Kirby dialogue more than Kirby Exposition boxes. I still think you could cut it in half.
• 1:01:45
  Tad Eggleston: But I love it when Oberon's like I can't look, but I think you made it.
• 1:01:53
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like it's the other thing. Where? Let's see, on page 12,
• 1:01:58
  Mark Pracht: where Granny's shock troopers bust in and stun guns out, fire away they stiffen, they fall, and then the next.
• 1:02:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, they'll only one of those balloons was necessary.
• 1:02:12
  Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, but like you think that the next panel would be them getting hit right.
• 1:02:20
  Mark Pracht: But no, it's it's dialogue explained that. So yeah, I know.
• 1:02:24
  Tad Eggleston: Bit and move on to carrying them away.
• 1:02:28
  Mark Pracht: Yes!
• 1:02:28
  Tad Eggleston: You. Either you either you either write it or you draw it. You don't have to do both, Mark. I'm in favor of that.
• 1:02:35
  Mark Pracht: Get it. But I just think first.st
• 1:02:39
  Tad Eggleston: But the only way that you could make that work so that
• 1:02:46
  Tad Eggleston: they stiffen they fall is the right word. Balloon is, if, rather than having the picture of the guys with the stun gun shooting. You have the picture of the follower and Oberon getting
• 1:03:02
  Tad Eggleston: hit with the word balloons coming from off panel.
• 1:03:06
  Mark Pracht: Well, no, I mean like, look stun guns out, fire away till that they step and they fall. Then you have a panel where they're getting hit.
• 1:03:14
  Tad Eggleston: No, it should be the same panel.
• 1:03:17
  Tad Eggleston: and the angle we should be having is is over the gun site, looking at them.
• 1:03:25
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean I'll send your edit to to Jack and see what he thinks.
• 1:03:29
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:03:32
  Mark Pracht: Maybe maybe we can get Jeremy Kirby on here, and he can give us.
• 1:03:36
  Sean Harklerode: Actually, I think Vinnie, just kind of, you know, blacked that.
• 1:03:40
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, actually, yeah, everything we're complaining about. It was just Vinnie Coletta, via like, we don't need that.
• 1:03:47
  Tad Eggleston: This is too hard to ink. I'm gonna change it to this.
• 1:03:51
  Mark Pracht: Background. Screw it.
• 1:03:55
  Sean Harklerode: I mean. Look looking at this.
• 1:03:57
  Tad Eggleston: Those guns do look a little backwards.
• 1:04:00
  Sean Harklerode: The the miasma. You know the mud that they're in on page 18. Yeah.
• 1:04:07
  Sean Harklerode: you know. I think Vinny's doing a pretty damn good job here.
• 1:04:10
  Mark Pracht: I do think Vinnie is doing a good like we. We've had this discussion about Vinnie Coletta. And
• 1:04:16
  Mark Pracht: you know, I I think
• 1:04:19
  Mark Pracht: you know there are many people who will continually, and Sean and I know some of them who will always be like Vinnie Coletta
• 1:04:30
  Mark Pracht: gave Marvel all of Jack's pages so that they could laugh at him. And blah blah! And I'm like it's whatever. But you know.
• 1:04:38
  Mark Pracht: Vinnie Coletta was like, in a way, it makes sense that he would be the art, the anchor who would work with Jack a lot because, dear God, the man could, was fast, and as fast as Jack was. Vinny was just as fast, you know. He got fast by, you know, just omitting stuff that he thought would take too much time, but you know. But to Sean's point, when he did have the time.
• 1:05:06
  Mark Pracht: he could do
• 1:05:08
  Mark Pracht: immaculate work. And and you you are a hundred percent right that the sequence with the mud is is beautifully drawn and beautifully inked, and I no notes, no notes.
• 1:05:21
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I I will give. I will give one note in in panel
• 1:05:27
  Tad Eggleston: one, and to a lesser extent in in Panel 3.
• 1:05:33
  Tad Eggleston: I think there are some interesting color choices.
• 1:05:39
  Mark Pracht: On page 18.
• 1:05:41
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 1:05:42
  Mark Pracht: Well, okay.
• 1:05:46
  Mark Pracht: Granted.
• 1:05:48
  Mark Pracht: These are recolored.
• 1:05:52
  Mark Pracht: I mean, this is, I am a hundred percent certain that this isn't the color that we would have seen in 71. Buying this off the Newspan.
• 1:05:59
  Tad Eggleston: That's entirely possible.
• 1:06:01
  Mark Pracht: So I don't know. I mean, I've never. I've never read in an original copy of this, so I don't.
• 1:06:08
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, who
• 1:06:10
  Tad Eggleston: maybe they made better color choices then. But the version that I can see now turning the top of his head light blue.
• 1:06:22
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:06:23
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, and panel one.
• 1:06:25
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:06:30
  Mark Pracht: Well, hey, man, it's it's water and dirt.
• 1:06:35
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but it's it's like.
• 1:06:37
  Sean Harklerode: Well, but but the water.
• 1:06:39
  Tad Eggleston: On red isn't light blue.
• 1:06:42
  Mark Pracht: Fuck.
• 1:06:45
  Sean Harklerode: I mean, if you go back to 17, you know these.
• 1:06:49
  Sean Harklerode: The electroshock cycle, you know, is bluish.
• 1:06:56
  Sean Harklerode: And so I I thought that you know that it's like a blue force that was hitting, striking them.
• 1:07:04
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe.
• 1:07:05
  Mark Pracht: I would say that that last panel on page 17 does not say
• 1:07:10
  Mark Pracht: electroshock to me. That sounds like that panel looks like they've turned on the fans.
• 1:07:18
  Tad Eggleston: That's that's also I mean, and
• 1:07:22
  Tad Eggleston: and or, if you like, if you.
• 1:07:24
  Mark Pracht: It's Jeff.
• 1:07:25
  Mark Pracht: Stop asking questions. It's Jack.
• 1:07:27
  Tad Eggleston: Took away the dialogue entirely, and or
• 1:07:31
  Tad Eggleston: just left it with Oberon's dialogue. I could see it being a sonic thing.
• 1:07:37
  Mark Pracht: Oh, sure, I mean look
• 1:07:44
  Mark Pracht: I I truly believe that he drew all of this, and then was going back and trying to make sense of a lot of things. Because Stan talked about this, too. He makes sense of stuff
• 1:07:57
  Mark Pracht: on the back end, because, you know, Jack being Jack.
• 1:08:01
  Mark Pracht: might start out with one thing, and then, by the end of the issue, it's another thing, you know.
• 1:08:07
  Mark Pracht: The 1st issue of the Galactus Trilogy. For God's sakes, it starts out.
• 1:08:12
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:08:14
  Mark Pracht: We're still with the inhumans. And then, by the end of it, Galactus has shown up, and we're in a completely different story. And that's
• 1:08:23
  Mark Pracht: I mean, that's the jazz of it. That's that's the inventiveness of it, and that's that's the power and the excitement of it, too. But
• 1:08:32
  Mark Pracht: I don't know. You know, and the thing about it is is that we can nitpick this stuff.
• 1:08:42
  Mark Pracht: I do think this is the best issue of the 4 we read this month.
• 1:08:46
  Mark Pracht: Like I, said the Jimmy Olsen. I don't.
• 1:08:50
  Mark Pracht: I can't even I couldn't probably even tell you what the plot was. I know that there was this for our.
• 1:08:54
  Tad Eggleston: I know that there was a great huddle.
• 1:08:56
  Mark Pracht: And there was a great huddle. Yeah.
• 1:08:58
  Sean Harklerode: Yes, before he got on air.
• 1:09:01
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, and there's great huddle forever. People much similar
• 1:09:13
  Tad Eggleston: They turned into a a what infinity! Man!
• 1:09:19
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean they do that every, every issue.
• 1:09:22
  Tad Eggleston: No, I just I I was summing up the plot. They.
• 1:09:25
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 1:09:25
  Tad Eggleston: Do infinity, man.
• 1:09:26
  Mark Pracht: Right. They.
• 1:09:27
  Tad Eggleston: And then they won, and then they turned back into people, and it.
• 1:09:30
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 1:09:30
  Tad Eggleston: V.
• 1:09:31
  Mark Pracht: And and
• 1:09:33
  Tad Eggleston: Did he actually say groovy? I don't know. I don't know if he's learned that word yet, but that
• 1:09:37
  Tad Eggleston: well was.
• 1:09:38
  Mark Pracht: And didn't Mantis freeze infinity man? But then it wasn't ice. It was actually some sort of power.
• 1:09:47
  Mark Pracht: something like like. And that that goes, that goes.
• 1:09:51
  Tad Eggleston: That that's 1 of those places where I think, Mark, it would have been better to just let the words go.
• 1:09:57
  Tad Eggleston: Sure.
• 1:09:59
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I know. But.
• 1:10:00
  Tad Eggleston: And see. That's actually that's become my challenge with Kirby.
• 1:10:05
  Tad Eggleston: Like with Ec comics, I learned that you just don't read the exposition panels.
• 1:10:13
  Tad Eggleston: and you're good with Kirby, you you not only have to skip most of the exposition panels like
• 1:10:22
  Tad Eggleston: you have to be willing to completely
• 1:10:25
  Tad Eggleston: abandon word balloons, the second they stop making sense.
• 1:10:30
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 1:10:31
  Tad Eggleston: If you do that, it becomes awesome.
• 1:10:36
  Tad Eggleston: Very different reading, experience.
• 1:10:37
  Sean Harklerode: While we're talking about forever. People. At the bottom of page 11, when the little boy touches
• 1:10:47
  Sean Harklerode: the cosmic cartridge that bottom panel just has so much.
• 1:10:55
  Tad Eggleston: Alright. Yeah.
• 1:10:56
  Sean Harklerode: Crackle I mean.
• 1:10:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:58
  Sean Harklerode: Giving me. I mean, I've got
• 1:11:00
  Sean Harklerode: Kirby's 2,001 treasury over here, and it's just making me think of of that. It's
• 1:11:07
  Sean Harklerode: that's a a fabulous.
• 1:11:09
  Mark Pracht: Remember, remember when I almost bought one of those at San Diego last year, and the guy was like, Don't touch. It
• 1:11:16
  Mark Pracht: was like.
• 1:11:16
  Mark Pracht: I can't. If I'm I'm looking at this to buy it. You won't let me open it, or okay, maybe I'll be back.
• 1:11:27
  Mark Pracht: No, look, the one thing that everyone should understand. If you have not read these books, or if you've not read Kirby, is that you are 100% guaranteed.
• 1:11:39
  Mark Pracht: guaranteed that at some point in every issue there is going to be a piece of artwork, a panel, a page, a
• 1:11:49
  Mark Pracht: splash page, a double splash page, whatever that it will take your breath away.
• 1:11:55
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely!
• 1:11:56
  Mark Pracht: For generally.
• 1:11:57
  Tad Eggleston: Multiple times per yeah, particularly if
• 1:12:01
  Tad Eggleston: and and again, I have to train myself, look at the panel.
• 1:12:05
  Tad Eggleston: enjoy the art, then start reading.
• 1:12:10
  Tad Eggleston: which is normally the reverse of how I do my comic reading.
• 1:12:14
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 1:12:15
  Mark Pracht: But yeah, that that panel at the bottom of page 11. It's pure what he would ultimately do in 2,001. And
• 1:12:26
  Mark Pracht: I actually think that both of those word balloons are perfect.
• 1:12:29
  Mark Pracht: They're placed. Well, yeah.
• 1:12:32
  Mark Pracht: they give you information that adds to the image you're getting and not tries to explain the image. You know.
• 1:12:38
  Tad Eggleston: I. I honestly believe that Jack had a good writer in him.
• 1:12:45
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah.
• 1:12:46
  Tad Eggleston: It's. It's 1 of the reasons that it's a shame that he was so turned off on the idea of having an editor.
• 1:12:53
  Mark Pracht: Well, yeah.
• 1:12:55
  Tad Eggleston: I think if he'd had anybody doing even minor editing it could have exponentially improved these comics.
• 1:13:07
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, 100%
• 1:13:08
  Mark Pracht: 100% like. No, no, there is. There is no doubt in my mind about that, like I think that
• 1:13:19
  Mark Pracht: I I think that that I think that's inarguable. I mean, I think that even people.
• 1:13:24
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think I think there are a handful of times where, if he, if he thumbnailed, somebody, would have said.
• 1:13:30
  Tad Eggleston: What if you did this angle.
• 1:13:33
  Tad Eggleston: and I think there are a lot of times where somebody would have suggested either a mild change in dialogue or more times than not like
• 1:13:42
  Tad Eggleston: Jack. You've got 2 word balloons here. You only need one.
• 1:13:46
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know, the the other thing is that we know
• 1:13:51
  Mark Pracht: that editorial was redrawing as superman.
• 1:13:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:13:56
  Mark Pracht: Like.
• 1:13:57
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I yeah.
• 1:13:59
  Tad Eggleston: Why he didn't.
• 1:14:00
  Mark Pracht: Somebody, but somebody was looking at it right.
• 1:14:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:14:03
  Mark Pracht: And I there, I would have to. Well, you know, in my play I extrapolate that there was a conversation about like.
• 1:14:14
  Mark Pracht: let's let's get somebody in here to help you with this dialogue.
• 1:14:19
  Sean Harklerode: Penny O'neal is expressed interest. He's a real whiz, kid.
• 1:14:25
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, I mean, like, really, there is a part of me that would have killed to see
• 1:14:34
  Mark Pracht: Denny come in and smooth out this dialogue.
• 1:14:40
  Tad Eggleston: We're at.
• 1:14:41
  Mark Pracht: I, because he, you know, like Jack, was Jack was a really a good plotter.
• 1:14:49
  Mark Pracht: you know. Sometimes sometimes I think he lost the forest for the trees, but, like the stories, are always interesting. They're exciting. They they're propulsive. They, they.
• 1:15:01
  Mark Pracht: they take you.
• 1:15:03
  Tad Eggleston: And you know I I'd have to look at it. But like among Marvel, DC. I think Denny was the first, st
• 1:15:10
  Tad Eggleston: but I can think of that consistently like believed in
• 1:15:16
  Tad Eggleston: being out of the way of his artists.
• 1:15:19
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, I think, that Denny could certainly be wordy.
• 1:15:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but but but it wasn't.
• 1:15:26
  Tad Eggleston: It was. It was the 1st where it was that different kind of wordy where? Where? I felt like it was more of a conversation with the artwork than
• 1:15:35
  Tad Eggleston: than a repetition of the artwork.
• 1:15:37
  Mark Pracht: Well, and I think that you know the other thought that I have about that is that
• 1:15:42
  Mark Pracht: and I may be a hundred percent wrong about this. This is just my memory is that when
• 1:15:48
  Mark Pracht: jeanette Khan came in and was like, Look these Kirby books!
• 1:15:56
  Mark Pracht: There's so much stuff here that we can still use. I mean, we own it.
• 1:16:01
  Mark Pracht: and I believe that when they restarted the series it was Denny was rewriting it right, and maybe
• 1:16:08
  Mark Pracht: I do think that
• 1:16:12
  Mark Pracht: it was either Denny or Len Ween. I don't. I don't. I don't think that it was anybody else. But
• 1:16:18
  Mark Pracht: but again I could be wrong. I have way too many names in my head at this point in my life.
• 1:16:25
  Mark Pracht: But
• 1:16:27
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know anybody with that kind of problem.
• 1:16:28
  Mark Pracht: That's neither here nor there. But I mean, I do think, and it's sort of something that I've said since we started. This thing is that I do think that these characters are so. There is a lot of interesting things in these characters, even if
• 1:16:43
  Mark Pracht: Kirby doesn't quite exploit it as well as it could be.
• 1:16:50
  Mark Pracht: Orion. And oh, my God! Oh, my God! We have to talk about that
• 1:16:56
  Mark Pracht: painful exchange, about how Orion needs to have a secret identity.
• 1:17:03
  Mark Pracht: And then it's.
• 1:17:05
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 1:17:05
  Mark Pracht: It's it's right in your name.
• 1:17:07
  Mark Pracht: Oh, Ryan, like, okay, wait like he's like share. I don't. What I
• 1:17:12
  Mark Pracht: right? Well, you spell it different.
• 1:17:15
  Mark Pracht: It's it was bizarre, like.
• 1:17:20
  Sean Harklerode: Sure it is my last son from Apocalypse, our Ryan.
• 1:17:24
  Mark Pracht: Oh, Ryan! Oh, Ryan, but I mean like, and I was just like like
• 1:17:32
  Mark Pracht: just the idea that at some point with the nature of these books
• 1:17:37
  Mark Pracht: that Kirby, sitting there going like, well, I gotta give him a secret identity, I said.
• 1:17:42
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, have you guys read cosmic Odyssey.
• 1:17:46
  Mark Pracht: I absolutely have read coms. No goddess.
• 1:17:48
  Tad Eggleston: Okay. I didn't even know about it.
• 1:17:51
  Mark Pracht: I actually.
• 1:17:52
  Tad Eggleston: Jim Starlet and Mike Mignola.
• 1:17:55
  Mark Pracht: It's it's I remember when that book came out I bought.
• 1:17:59
  Sean Harklerode: When I read it. I haven't read it since.
• 1:18:00
  Mark Pracht: I bought them off the mark. I just remember that it was. The one thing that I definitely remember was that there was that huge gym.
• 1:18:14
  Mark Pracht: I want to say, Rody, that's not right.
• 1:18:18
  Mark Pracht: Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart, moment where he that
• 1:18:26
  Mark Pracht: because that that was the book that tried to explain what the anti-life equation was.
• 1:18:31
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:18:31
  Mark Pracht: And didn't.
• 1:18:34
  Tad Eggleston: Feels like a starlin type thing.
• 1:18:36
  Mark Pracht: Didn't quite get it, but I mean it's the the anti-life equation is so goddamn nebulous that it doesn't
• 1:18:45
  Mark Pracht: it? It almost it almost feels like it should never be explained. It should just be this thing that no one ever finds or no one ever figures out, you know.
• 1:18:54
  Sean Harklerode: 42.
• 1:18:56
  Mark Pracht: Yes.
• 1:19:00
  Mark Pracht: how many roads can a man walk down before?
• 1:19:04
  Mark Pracht: But
• 1:19:06
  Mark Pracht: but yeah, like dark side unleashes the anti-life equation. And Jon Stewart is like, Oh, I can save this planet.
• 1:19:15
  Mark Pracht: I've got my power ring.
• 1:19:17
  Mark Pracht: And then the planet gets like completely decimated.
• 1:19:22
  Mark Pracht: and he's sitting there on this smoking cinder of what's left with it.
• 1:19:26
  Mark Pracht: and and I remember that that moment resonated through the books for quite a while, like Jon Stewart was really like he. There was a lot of guilt because of his arrogance. And I I actually loved that moment. I thought it was. I thought it was really well done.
• 1:19:41
  Mark Pracht: Cause yeah, cause he was teamed up with John Jones, who, like, I remember, he flew up and cause he like did something to get John off the playing field because John was
• 1:19:54
  Mark Pracht: trying to caution him or whatever. And I remember John was like now I've watched another planet die, because, of course, at that point Mars had been destroyed.
• 1:20:03
  Mark Pracht: and it was a great moment. Great moment. Great Jim Starlin! Moment, Mignola! I don't know that Magnola was the right artist for that series, but
• 1:20:14
  Mark Pracht: it was really I love the artwork, but I don't know that it was like
• 1:20:18
  Mark Pracht: the right artwork for that series. I don't. I don't know. What did you think, Sean? Do you know.
• 1:20:22
  Sean Harklerode: I don't remember. I read it, you know, in high school. And yeah.
• 1:20:27
  Tad Eggleston: I just randomly came across it now, so I have no opinion except that like Oh, wow! I know both of those names affectionately.
• 1:20:34
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, no, I think I think, you know.
• 1:20:39
  Mark Pracht: you know, this might be something that we could revisit after
• 1:20:43
  Mark Pracht: we finish in 15 months, or whatever it is. But you know the I,
• 1:20:51
  Mark Pracht: the books that have come after
• 1:20:54
  Mark Pracht: Kirby's run that, I think are really super interesting. Cosmic Odyssey is one of them, one of my favorite, and it's not continuity. But whatever one of my favorite dark side stories after this is the X-men Teen Titans, Crossover book.
• 1:21:14
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:21:17
  Mark Pracht: And then well, great darkness! Saga, of course.
• 1:21:24
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:21:25
  Mark Pracht: Which I've actually, I was just thinking the other day that I need to reread that because I haven't read it, and probably since I was a kid.
• 1:21:34
  Tad Eggleston: I read it a couple of years ago.
• 1:21:36
  Tad Eggleston: We have our annual legion of superheroes roundtable.
• 1:21:42
  Mark Pracht: The because I was just reading. I was just.
• 1:21:46
  Tad Eggleston: Or we try to. I think we accidentally didn't have one last year.
• 1:21:51
  Mark Pracht: the not the most recent back issue magazine, but the one before. It was a Keith Geffen tribute issue. And they talked a lot about those things, speaking of which
• 1:22:06
  Mark Pracht: I I this is just for Mr. Harkle Road, because I think it'll make him laugh. The latest issue of back issue is the
• 1:22:15
  Mark Pracht: Mister issue.
• 1:22:17
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, I have that with Mr. Weatherby.
• 1:22:23
  Sean Harklerode: Yes.
• 1:22:24
  Mark Pracht: So there's like articles
• 1:22:26
  Mark Pracht: A, all the Misters. Well, you have it. I actually got an extra copy. Thank you. Tomorrow tomorrow's because my subscription it like I, it was like.
• 1:22:36
  Mark Pracht: had been 4 weeks since I got my digital copy. And I was like, Did you guys already mail these out? Or is there some sort of delay? Because I know they've been having some problems with like diamond and stuff. And they're like, Oh, no, you should have gotten it.
• 1:22:48
  Mark Pracht: and like 2 days later
• 1:22:51
  Mark Pracht: it arrives in the mail. And then a day after that, the replacement copy image. I was like this
• 1:22:57
  Mark Pracht: crazy. And now I feel bad. John Morrow, if you're listening, I feel bad. I I.
• 1:23:03
  Tad Eggleston: Well, you know I mean you can bring it to me.
• 1:23:05
  Sean Harklerode: Drop it at the table.
• 1:23:07
  Mark Pracht: That's true. There you go.
• 1:23:09
  Mark Pracht: I could drop it at the table, or I could give it to my friend Tad when I see him next weekend at C. 2 E. 2.
• 1:23:16
  Tad Eggleston: That's right. That's right.
• 1:23:18
  Mark Pracht: Beautiful South Loop, Chicago.
• 1:23:21
  Mark Pracht: Are you going, Sean?
• 1:23:23
  Sean Harklerode: No, I'm out of town so.
• 1:23:25
  Mark Pracht: Oh!
• 1:23:26
  Sean Harklerode: It feels like there's a David Lynch festival at at Music Box. I feel like everything cool in Chicago is happening the week that that I am out of town.
• 1:23:35
  Tad Eggleston: That's sometimes the way it works.
• 1:23:37
  Mark Pracht: Well, Keith Corson, who we met in San Diego is gonna be there, and on a panel with
• 1:23:48
  Mark Pracht: Patton Oswalt.
• 1:23:50
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 1:23:51
  Mark Pracht: So I don't know.
• 1:23:53
  Mark Pracht: I told I told Heath that I would give him a copy of House of Ideas, because it's the only one he doesn't have.
• 1:23:59
  Mark Pracht: and I don't know. Maybe maybe if I can
• 1:24:03
  Mark Pracht: get there at the right moment I can.
• 1:24:07
  Mark Pracht: There you go, Pat, and maybe you like me.
• 1:24:09
  Sean Harklerode: Patent.
• 1:24:10
  Tad Eggleston: Patton. You wanna make a couple of movies. Now.
• 1:24:13
  Mark Pracht: No,
• 1:24:14
  Mark Pracht: I don't know.
• 1:24:16
  Mark Pracht: Making movies. Yeah.
• 1:24:16
  Tad Eggleston: For TV ones. We don't need a huge dramatic thing.
• 1:24:21
  Mark Pracht: I think it would be hard to make those into movies. To tell you the truth.
• 1:24:24
  Mark Pracht: there'd be a lot of rights issues.
• 1:24:26
  Mark Pracht: But.
• 1:24:27
  Sean Harklerode: I guess there is that issue. Yeah.
• 1:24:29
  Mark Pracht: Anyway.
• 1:24:32
  Mark Pracht: I don't know. Let's see, we've been on about an hour and a half now.
• 1:24:35
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:36
  Mark Pracht: It's time to wrap it up.
• 1:24:37
  Tad Eggleston: I was about to say that. Yeah, so sure.
• 1:24:42
  Sean Harklerode: I enjoyed this I.
• 1:24:44
  Tad Eggleston: I had fun.
• 1:24:45
  Sean Harklerode: I had fun, especially had fun on the podcast today. But I also just wanted to say, I, I really enjoyed this month's books a bit more than last month's, although I did love. I do love Mr. Miracle number one, and and the art in new gods number one, so I guess I enjoyed last month as well, but it seemed like I. This this month was.
• 1:25:06
  Mark Pracht: I.
• 1:25:07
  Sean Harklerode: The forever.
• 1:25:08
  Mark Pracht: I would I would 100% agree. I think, that. You know, as I said, I do think that
• 1:25:17
  Mark Pracht: for those of you who may be keeping track at home. I do think that
• 1:25:22
  Tad Eggleston: Hi, mom,
• 1:25:25
  Mark Pracht: Is your mom reading along with us.
• 1:25:28
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if she's reading along with us, but she's the most likely. Keep track of anything on the podcast.
• 1:25:34
  Mark Pracht: But Hi!
• 1:25:35
  Tad Eggleston: Adam, my brother, too, so you know, he might actually be reading along.
• 1:25:40
  Mark Pracht: But I do think I do think that does not surprise me. That Kirby
• 1:25:50
  Mark Pracht: leaves leaves Jimmy Olsen pretty quickly, and that
• 1:25:55
  Mark Pracht: forever. People gets canceled fairly quickly. It just doesn't surprise me. It doesn't.
• 1:26:01
  Mark Pracht: They don't feel.
• 1:26:06
  Mark Pracht: I think, to what Sean was saying like forever. People feels like a Kirby boy gang slapped into Captain Marvel. Shazam, Captain Marvel.
• 1:26:16
  Mark Pracht: and into this sort of like it I you know.
• 1:26:22
  Tad Eggleston: I mean Jimmy Olson will make it till October with us.
• 1:26:27
  Tad Eggleston: and forever. People will make it into next year.
• 1:26:32
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I guess.
• 1:26:33
  Sean Harklerode: And if you're doing the same thing.
• 1:26:35
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, it's, you know. Infinity. Man is like.
• 1:26:41
  Mark Pracht: I wish infinity man had like he doesn't seem to really have a personality, you know.
• 1:26:47
  Mark Pracht: He's just sort of there, I mean, and I guess I don't know.
• 1:26:53
  Mark Pracht: I've been sort of making my way very slowly through the 1st
• 1:26:58
  Mark Pracht: Micronauts omnibus, and I kind of feel the same way about
• 1:27:02
  Mark Pracht: Captain Universe. You know the the the
• 1:27:08
  Mark Pracht: cosmic power that infuses someone as Captain Universe randomly whenever there's danger or whatever. And it's like it just doesn't really.
• 1:27:18
  Mark Pracht: If you remember any of this, maybe this is something that I only remember from when I was a kid.
• 1:27:24
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I I did not read micronauts.
• 1:27:27
  Mark Pracht: Well, you're missing out.
• 1:27:29
  Tad Eggleston: I. I have also not read micro notes.
• 1:27:31
  Sean Harklerode: I I had one little micronaut, but that's that's all.
• 1:27:35
  Mark Pracht: I had a couple of micronauts, and my grandparents had a couple of micronauts at their house, for some reason, but I actually it's
• 1:27:43
  Mark Pracht: very, very, very derivative of Star Wars. But
• 1:27:50
  Mark Pracht: It's got it's got. It's got some interesting stuff in it.
• 1:27:54
  Tad Eggleston: So it's like the Kmart Star Wars.
• 1:27:56
  Mark Pracht: I wouldn't.
• 1:27:58
  Tad Eggleston: Sound like go by.
• 1:28:00
  Mark Pracht: Think I think I wish they had stuck with the conceit, but like at the very beginning, and I think they thought it was going to be a limited series, you know, like a 4 issue limited series, that the Micronauts get come through a
• 1:28:14
  Mark Pracht: a gate from the microverse into Earth, and they're all the size of the toys.
• 1:28:22
  Tad Eggleston: And I.
• 1:28:23
  Mark Pracht: Thought that was
• 1:28:24
  Mark Pracht: really fun, right? Because they're like like these ships are flying around in people's like backyards, having battles, you know, and there's a dog going crazy, because, like all these tiny ships are flying around, and I did the whole thing just amused me. And then they kind of go back to the microverse, and it just becomes sort of this. It's essentially just a cosmic.
• 1:28:46
  Mark Pracht: you know, adventure kind of comic. So.
• 1:28:49
  Tad Eggleston: They're missing.
• 1:28:50
  Sean Harklerode: Chlorine's right.
• 1:28:53
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 1:28:53
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, they're they're all kinds of Midichlorians, they are Midichlorians. This is the great secret of Star Wars is that the Midichlorians are
• 1:29:02
  Mark Pracht: the Bickernauts.
• 1:29:04
  Tad Eggleston: I mean micro the Midichlorians got to Ellis Island. They had to get Americanized to to micronauts.
• 1:29:12
  Mark Pracht: Wow.
• 1:29:14
  Mark Pracht: I mean, it's also why I I keep thinking about buying the ROM. Space night omnibus.
• 1:29:21
  Mark Pracht: even though I'm deathly afraid that that's just gonna be bad, right? Although people do
• 1:29:27
  Mark Pracht: people seem. I I that like, it's really funny that.
• 1:29:32
  Tad Eggleston: I've read some ROM.
• 1:29:34
  Mark Pracht: I I think.
• 1:29:36
  Tad Eggleston: Get some.
• 1:29:37
  Mark Pracht: There was like this amazing time at Marvel, where they would would license these books right
• 1:29:43
  Mark Pracht: like the Godzilla book, and then they would drop these characters right into the marvel universe.
• 1:29:50
  Mark Pracht: you know, because at that point, who knew about reprinting stuff, you know. And then, you know. So you have all these books where, like stuff
• 1:29:59
  Mark Pracht: like in ROM, there was stuff that happened in that book that resonated throughout the line, you know.
• 1:30:06
  Mark Pracht: Rick Jones, and all that stuff, and then, you know, they lose the rights.
• 1:30:12
  Mark Pracht: and you can never reprint any of that stuff, and then they finally get the rights to reprint it. I find the whole thing kind of fascinating, but, like micronauts, is the same thing like they, the tons of crossovers, tons of.
• 1:30:25
  Tad Eggleston: And Bill Mantlow wrote them both.
• 1:30:27
  Mark Pracht: Yep, Bill Mantlow, creator of rocket, raccoon.
• 1:30:36
  Sean Harklerode: Credible hope. 271.
• 1:30:38
  Mark Pracht: Although.
• 1:30:39
  Sean Harklerode: Although he.
• 1:30:40
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 1:30:40
  Sean Harklerode: Popped up earlier.
• 1:30:42
  Tad Eggleston: Also choke and dagger.
• 1:30:44
  Mark Pracht: Yes,
• 1:30:45
  Tad Eggleston: Silk and dagger.
• 1:30:47
  Mark Pracht: Because Keith Giffen was the 1st person to draw
• 1:30:52
  Mark Pracht: rocket raccoon, or who would become rocket raccoon.
• 1:30:55
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 1:30:57
  Mark Pracht: Learned that from my last issue of back issue magazine available from tomorrow's press.
• 1:31:03
  Mark Pracht: John, you can send me a check for $5,
• 1:31:07
  Mark Pracht: or just extend my extend my subscription for another 3 months.
• 1:31:12
  Mark Pracht: No,
• 1:31:13
  Tad Eggleston: Isn't that more than $5.
• 1:31:21
  Mark Pracht: I look. I've been giving them so much money like when they when they ran into trouble with dynamite. I you know I was like, I got to do something for these guys. So I had been wanting to buy.
• 1:31:38
  Mark Pracht: The American Chronic Comic book Chronicles set.
• 1:31:42
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:31:43
  Mark Pracht: Which is 8 volumes, so like every week for the last, like 6 weeks, I've purchased 1 1 volume.
• 1:31:51
  Mark Pracht: so the last one is on the way.
• 1:31:54
  Mark Pracht: but they're great. I if you don't know about these, I'm holding it up like we're.
• 1:31:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:31:59
  Mark Pracht: Video. But it is they're great. They basically do a decade each book
• 1:32:10
  Mark Pracht: with just the history of the industry.
• 1:32:14
  Mark Pracht: So I'll be making use of these in the future for future projects.
• 1:32:21
  Sean Harklerode: I. I subscribe to back issue also retro fan, which is great for pop culture.
• 1:32:31
  Sean Harklerode: reminiscing and cryptology, which is a horror.
• 1:32:35
  Mark Pracht: -
• 1:32:37
  Sean Harklerode: Fanzine that they have. It's.
• 1:32:39
  Mark Pracht: Of one of those book, one of those books I ordered. They sent me a I guess it just a bonus issue of comic book. Creator, also, very good. Yeah. A lot.
• 1:32:51
  Mark Pracht: I love.
• 1:32:53
  Mark Pracht: I love back issue because it's basically just a continuity magazine like it takes a character. And it's like, here's the entire continuity. And we sum it up right. But sometimes it can become a little stultifying, because it's like, Okay, all right, all right. But comic book Creator was really interesting.
• 1:33:13
  Mark Pracht: like, I had never read an issue of that before. And it's they're really long articles about specific people
• 1:33:22
  Mark Pracht: and specific projects. The one that they sent me had a really, really I wish oh, I wish I'd had this before I started House of Ideas, because it was like
• 1:33:35
  Mark Pracht: 25 pages on the on the
• 1:33:41
  Mark Pracht: the Carnegie Hall show that Marvel did.
• 1:33:45
  Mark Pracht: That was this classic disaster right? And it was fascinating, fascinating.
• 1:33:56
  Mark Pracht: I could have had Joan read, God woke. I always wanted to get God woke into the into the show, but then I thought I'd get sued so. But
• 1:34:05
  Mark Pracht: anyway, all right.
• 1:34:06
  Tad Eggleston: I. I have a couple of their books that I've picked up randomly through the years.
• 1:34:11
  Tad Eggleston: But you you've now sold me on the fact that I need to.
• 1:34:18
  Tad Eggleston: Go look at them more.
• 1:34:20
  Mark Pracht: Well, you know. Look I I don't. I don't.
• 1:34:24
  Mark Pracht: I don't pitch, for tomorrow's lightly
• 1:34:28
  Mark Pracht: because I think that their their publications are really good, and I'm
• 1:34:34
  Mark Pracht: probably I'm probably talking too much. We were trying to wrap up like 15 min ago.
• 1:34:38
  Tad Eggleston: It's okay. It's good talk.
• 1:34:40
  Mark Pracht: I think that their books are really really well done and really good reads. I also like, apparently the the diamond and I don't. I'm not talking out of school because they actually just put this on their social media. The diamond bankruptcy left them
• 1:34:59
  Mark Pracht: owed like $60,000 that they will likely never get back right? And
• 1:35:09
  Mark Pracht: You know
• 1:35:13
  Mark Pracht: that that's.
• 1:35:14
  Tad Eggleston: We've got a best of Simon and Kirby's mainline comics.
• 1:35:18
  Mark Pracht: Yep, I have that right on the shelf over here.
• 1:35:20
  Tad Eggleston: They have a 1st comics, companion.
• 1:35:25
  Mark Pracht: They have a book coming out that I'm kind of waiting to buy at San Diego, because we always go to their booth. But
• 1:35:31
  Mark Pracht: that's a history of movie adaptations.
• 1:35:36
  Mark Pracht: Oh, nice.
• 1:35:38
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I'm I think that'd be an interesting read. But yeah, no, I
• 1:35:45
  Mark Pracht: like, well, Sean was at the signing the other night, like every time somebody asked me about like research. I'm always like tomorrow.
• 1:35:51
  Tad Eggleston: I have the comic book artist Bullpen. That's the baseball one.
• 1:35:55
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, yeah, I have that. I was like.
• 1:35:57
  Tad Eggleston: Am.
• 1:36:00
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I like, I tend to like they. Just recently it was like, last year they did a great book called Our Artists at war, which is all about the war comics, artists.
• 1:36:11
  Mark Pracht: And they did like one print run. And they said, We can't print anymore. So
• 1:36:18
  Mark Pracht: it's now not available. But I have my copy.
• 1:36:23
  Mark Pracht: They have, you know, they have a 4 volume History of Marvel, going from the
• 1:36:31
  Mark Pracht: late fifties into the early eighties. So.
• 1:36:35
  Sean Harklerode: Well, stuff, bad.
• 1:36:37
  Mark Pracht: Stuff, said stuff said is, is like I can. I can legitimately say that I don't think that house of ideas would be
• 1:36:46
  Mark Pracht: as good as it is, or even exist. If I hadn't gotten stuff, said.
• 1:36:51
  Sean Harklerode: Well, and it looks like 4, th there's a 4th world
• 1:36:55
  Sean Harklerode: basically companion. Yes, old gods and new is that.
• 1:36:59
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah, that's actually, that's actually an issue. Technically, an issue of the Kirby Collector magazine.
• 1:37:05
  Sean Harklerode: Okay.
• 1:37:06
  Mark Pracht: Every once in a while, you know, Kirby Collector is sort of their
• 1:37:10
  Mark Pracht: bread and butter publication, and every once in a while they'll do like special issues that will be like essentially just a book.
• 1:37:19
  Mark Pracht: I remember Kirby Collector 50
• 1:37:26
  Mark Pracht: was all about Kirby's tabloid books like at Marvel.
• 1:37:31
  Mark Pracht: and it was printed in tabloid size.
• 1:37:33
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, wow!
• 1:37:34
  Mark Pracht: So, yeah.
• 1:37:36
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but it also looks and don't get me wrong. I I love me physical stuff, but I only have so much room in the house looks like they keep pretty much everything in print. Digitally.
• 1:37:47
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, yeah.
• 1:37:47
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:49
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 1:37:50
  Sean Harklerode: Great, and if you subscribe, that's right.
• 1:37:53
  Sean Harklerode: If you get both you get you get Pdfs as well as your physical.
• 1:37:59
  Mark Pracht: I mean I.
• 1:37:59
  Sean Harklerode: Or you can only choose to have. You can. Only you can subscribe digitally only as well.
• 1:38:05
  Mark Pracht: I I
• 1:38:07
  Mark Pracht: I keep all the Pdfs. I'm keeping a library of everything so that I have it digitally in case. But I you know, I will say, because they're
• 1:38:18
  Mark Pracht: just Pdfs and not like I don't know.
• 1:38:22
  Sean Harklerode: Great.
• 1:38:23
  Mark Pracht: E-reader books. It's they're kind of hard to read on my e-reader, because you've got to like
• 1:38:29
  Mark Pracht: scroll through and like, because if I just bring up the page. It's so small that I can't read the.
• 1:38:34
  Tad Eggleston: Right, so.
• 1:38:37
  Mark Pracht: And that's, you know, like when I'm at the gym or something, and I'm on the, you know, elliptical or whatever. And I'm trying to just flip through something. It's like if I've got to go.
• 1:38:46
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:38:47
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, it's it's hard to do.
• 1:38:49
  Tad Eggleston: See. That's when you should be reading those comic books that you read too fast.
• 1:38:54
  Mark Pracht: Oh, that is where I read the comic books that I read too fast.
• 1:38:59
  Mark Pracht: because then I'm going like fuck fuck. Okay, it's been 6 pages of Superman flying.
• 1:39:10
  Mark Pracht: Yes, it looks like Christopher Reeve. Great.
• 1:39:15
  Mark Pracht: anyway. Sorry that particular book made me so angry.
• 1:39:19
  Mark Pracht: I was just like, what did I pay for. I paid 6 bucks for this.
• 1:39:24
  Mark Pracht: and I got about 2 min of reading out of it.
• 1:39:30
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't.
• 1:39:30
  Mark Pracht: And on that level.
• 1:39:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:39:33
  Mark Pracht: No way. You will never get for your whatever dollar, 98 that you can get these for digitally.
• 1:39:40
  Mark Pracht: A Jack Kirby book will give you 20 to 25 solid minutes of reading.
• 1:39:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean. I made it through most of these in 10, but it was because I had to.
• 1:39:53
  Mark Pracht: But as the reason that happened was because, as we've seen, and as we've heard
• 1:40:00
  Mark Pracht: for Tad, the words don't matter.
• 1:40:03
  Tad Eggleston: Well, they do matter.
• 1:40:07
  Mark Pracht: But we're used.
• 1:40:08
  Tad Eggleston: Better when they don't.
• 1:40:09
  Mark Pracht: You've already said it. It is now your catchphrase. It is now your catchphrase forever.
• 1:40:15
  Mark Pracht: Well, I think.
• 1:40:16
  Sean Harklerode: You know.
• 1:40:18
  Mark Pracht: That's it makes words don't matter.
• 1:40:20
  Sean Harklerode: What?
• 1:40:21
  Tad Eggleston: Only when talking about Kirby.
• 1:40:27
  Tad Eggleston: So for for 22 panels this has been the 4th World Book Club, and and we ran long because we got distracted and started laughing. And and that's fun, Harkerwood and Mark Pratt, and we will see you after the next page.