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Saga Book Club #2 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to the second edition of the Saga Book Club on 22 Panels. I am joined by Matt and Belle.
• 0:12
  Tad Eggleston: our father-daughter combo, who read Saga together, and I'm certain that that was awkward on a couple of pages here. Thankfully, he probably read it in different rooms, possibly in different towns.
• 0:27
  Tad Eggleston: Lee from Psychocomicology and comic writer Joss Eisereich.
• 0:33
  Tad Eggleston: I think screenwriter, too. Oh, has your wrist been bothering you, Josh?
• 0:37
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, no, it's just, it's occupational hazard of just, you know, sitting and typing all day.
• 0:42
  Tad Eggleston: Well, that's what… yeah, that's fair.
• 0:45
  Tad Eggleston: So now…
• 0:46
  Josh Eiserike: Now I wear these dorky wrist guards, and I…
• 0:50
  Josh Eiserike: I don't know, I wish there was a cool story, like a hockey accident, but no, I just…
• 0:54
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, I figured it was from the writing. That's why I have to wear mine sometimes, too. Mine's on the floor over here. My wrist's been kind enough to me lately that I didn't think to put it on. Is that a Writer's Guild t-shirt?
• 1:08
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, it is.
• 1:08
  Tad Eggleston: of the Strike ones, or is it just a… just a Writers Guild one? Because I got a couple. Okay. I just… I got a couple of the Strike ones, because…
• 1:17
  Josh Eiserike: Well, that's where I got it. It was the free swag.
• 1:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Yeah, no, mine weren't free, they were to help people out. I paid for them, because I'm not in the guild.
• 1:27
  Josh Eiserike: That's appreciated.
• 1:29
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:30
  Josh Eiserike: I think my entire wardrobe was mostly just clothes that were gifted to me for various things, so…
• 1:36
  Tad Eggleston: I… I'm a writer, like, I don't know how to dress.
• 1:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. You know, that's allowed. I'm a podcaster and a teacher, I don't know how to dress either.
• 1:45
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 1:45
  Tad Eggleston: But my wife makes cool t-shirts, so…
• 1:49
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, nice!
• 1:49
  Matt: I can attest to that, she sure does.
• 1:51
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, actually, right now, it's my… My one-of-a-kind mutiny sweatshirt.
• 1:58
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, that's cool.
• 1:59
  Josh Eiserike: I dig that.
• 2:01
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Little halt and catch fire.
• 2:04
  Tad Eggleston: I like to,
• 2:06
  Tad Eggleston: I don't think I actually sent a picture of it today to Chris. Half the time when I wear it, I… I'm friends with Chris Cantwell, who is the…
• 2:14
  Tad Eggleston: showrunner creator, so… so that's why she made me the Mutiny t-shirt. She's like, oh!
• 2:20
  Tad Eggleston: You fell in love with this show after you became friends with this guy, so here's your Christmas present.
• 2:27
  Josh Eiserike: Nice.
• 2:29
  Tad Eggleston: But, yeah, so Saga Volume 2.
• 2:34
  Tad Eggleston: We meet the… we meet the, the first set of parents here.
• 2:39
  Tad Eggleston: That's, interesting.
• 2:42
  Tad Eggleston: What are first thoughts from people? I'm gonna… I wanna… I could… I could talk so much about Saga. I want… I want other people to weigh in first.
• 2:53
  Tad Eggleston: And if we have to go alphabetically, we can.
• 2:56
  belle price: I went first last time. You're not making me go first this time.
• 3:00
  Matt: I'm happy to jump.
• 3:01
  Josh Eiserike: But it looks like Larry wants… Sorry, Lee wants to talk.
• 3:05
  Larry Woods: I, I… I love…
• 3:08
  Larry Woods: the mom. I was actually looking through the Volume 2 just to find her name, but the mom was just…
• 3:15
  Tad Eggleston: Ugh.
• 3:16
  Larry Woods: Just, like, hard ass, through and through.
• 3:21
  Larry Woods: And I could definitely see where, Marco gets his fire. So I thought it was just, like, a literal,
• 3:31
  Larry Woods: Tough-ass… tough-ass mom, tough-ass kid. Like, son. So, especially when you think about it, not to go too psychological here, but mom's supposed to be the more nurturing one.
• 3:42
  Larry Woods: Typically, now Marco is just like, oh.
• 3:46
  Larry Woods: Okay, I understand you, just a little bit better. This is, this is really wild for me.
• 3:53
  Larry Woods: But.
• 3:54
  Tad Eggleston: And when he goes head-to-head with her, is also… like…
• 4:01
  Tad Eggleston: Wasn't there… there was a point where, like, he was not quite violent, just, like, blew the thing up right at her feet, and it is like, if you ever disgrace, or, you know…
• 4:16
  Tad Eggleston: Ever disparage the mother of my child again.
• 4:20
  Larry Woods: Yes.
• 4:21
  belle price: That was pretty cool of him.
• 4:22
  Tad Eggleston: And it's like… I mean, it's incredibly cool of him, but it's like…
• 4:26
  Matt: That to their mothers.
• 4:27
  Tad Eggleston: But, but it's like, wow.
• 4:31
  Tad Eggleston: Your mom is the one that can get you to… to nearly break your… your… Oh. Vow of pacifism.
• 4:42
  belle price: I think that, though, shows that, like, how much of a hard-ass she really is. Like, she's not gonna let up, so he has to step up the ante.
• 4:49
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 4:49
  belle price: to get her.
• 4:50
  Tad Eggleston: Well, that big.
• 4:51
  belle price: behavior. Like, it's a push and pull between them, and I like seeing it even after, you know, his dad passes away. Like, it continues. Like, they still have that.
• 5:00
  belle price: That, because, oh, spoiler alert, yeah, I was just about to say…
• 5:04
  Tad Eggleston: Dad dies, guys. It is this… this issue, so, like… There's almost two deaths. If you're listening to Saga Volume 2 on 22 panels, 13 years.
• 5:17
  Larry Woods: Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 5:18
  Tad Eggleston: came out and didn't know that Bar dies, we apologize.
• 5:24
  Larry Woods: That's on you. I'm not gonna… I'm not taking responsibility for that.
• 5:28
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 5:28
  belle price: Fiona, though, that we still have… we still have Lioncat in this issue.
• 5:31
  Matt: That's true.
• 5:32
  belle price: It's almost two days.
• 5:34
  Josh Eiserike: So, was… what… I have a question, and you may know this spell, it sounds like you do. Was this the moment that Linecat was supposed to die?
• 5:41
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 5:41
  belle price: Yes! I went downstairs and talked to my dad, and I was like, she better not be gone. And he was like, do you know why Lioncat's still here? And I remember my dad sitting me down and telling me the story of Fiona Staples saving Lioncat, and from then on, I loved Fiona Staples even more.
• 5:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:58
  Tad Eggleston: The, the, the image…
• 6:01
  Tad Eggleston: at the… at the end of Chapter 10 was supposed to be, like, the last we saw of Lioncat, and essentially Fiona refused to draw Chapter 11 until that was changed.
• 6:14
  Tad Eggleston: I'm.
• 6:15
  Matt: And, and…
• 6:15
  Tad Eggleston: At least that's the way they've told it.
• 6:17
  Matt: That was your last one. You don't get to do that again.
• 6:21
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I don't think you can get away with that. I think if she decided that there was another one…
• 6:29
  Tad Eggleston: he'd lose. That's just… that's just my thoughts, is at this point, he knows where the bread is buttered.
• 6:36
  belle price: I think, though, too, the fact that she got through to 10, or whatever it was in LineCat, like, if she had gotten through further, we might have saved Marco. If you really think about it. If she only got one… No!
• 6:47
  Tad Eggleston: We only had one.
• 6:50
  belle price: One could…
• 6:51
  Tad Eggleston: And talk about major spoiler bell. Sorry. Sorry.
• 6:57
  belle price: Sorry.
• 6:58
  Tad Eggleston: That's, like, seven bucks. I have to think about that.
• 7:00
  belle price: That still hurts me. That still hurts me.
• 7:02
  Tad Eggleston: Because it hurts that I'm not looking forward to getting to Volume 6.
• 7:07
  belle price: That's gonna hurt.
• 7:08
  Tad Eggleston: Wow.
• 7:08
  Tad Eggleston: It is. It is. I almost want to do Volumes 6 and 7 in the same month, so that, like…
• 7:15
  Tad Eggleston: We can get through the hurt and on to the rock and roll?
• 7:19
  belle price: But then I remember that 7's not actually all pleasant either.
• 7:24
  Matt: Right?
• 7:25
  belle price: Oh.
• 7:27
  Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry, Josh, we went off in all.
• 7:30
  Josh Eiserike: No, that's totally fine. I would like to add, I think I said this last time, I'm rereading these for the first time since they came out with floppies.
• 7:42
  Josh Eiserike: So, like, I have a vague memory of what happened, and what happened, you know, to the characters more recently, and I'm behind recently, and now I'm just, like, I'm just gonna wait till we get there.
• 7:53
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So be really careful about post-54, Bell. Yes, I'm looking at you.
• 7:59
  belle price: Okay, okay!
• 8:01
  Josh Eiserike: So, I know that.
• 8:05
  belle price: I'm certainly caught up through there. It's, just like the last few.
• 8:09
  Josh Eiserike: issues, single issues, I've fallen off a little.
• 8:11
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 8:13
  Josh Eiserike: They're just sitting on my giant stack behind me to read pile. But anyway, I said this last time.
• 8:19
  Tad Eggleston: Your bookcase of to repile? Yes. I have a bookcase of to repile.
• 8:25
  Matt: We all.
• 8:26
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah, I said this last time, and like, it hit me even harder. I'm looking at the page right now.
• 8:33
  Josh Eiserike: I didn't know this.
• 8:35
  Josh Eiserike: when I… because I wasn't, emotionally mature enough, but, I mean, this is just about parenting. That's… that's all this is.
• 8:41
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 8:42
  Josh Eiserike: Everything, from…
• 8:44
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 8:44
  Josh Eiserike: to the will, to the robot people. Do they even have names, or are they just robot people?
• 8:50
  Tad Eggleston: It's the Robot Kingdom.
• 8:52
  Josh Eiserike: The road?
• 8:53
  Matt: He does have a name, he's 4.
• 8:55
  Josh Eiserike: Yes, but like, but like…
• 8:56
  Tad Eggleston: Prince Robot 4.
• 8:58
  Josh Eiserike: But, like, there's, like, Landfall and Crest in the Robot Kingdom, but they don't have, like, like, elves or dwarves or anything.
• 9:03
  Josh Eiserike: robots.
• 9:04
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 9:05
  Josh Eiserike: They're just robots.
• 9:06
  belle price: I mean…
• 9:08
  belle price: some of the robots have black and white screens, and some of them have colored screens. There's, like, races in within the robot kingdom, there's, like, a hierarchy there, but, like.
• 9:15
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 9:15
  belle price: Largely, it's just the robot kingdom.
• 9:17
  Tad Eggleston: But…
• 9:18
  Josh Eiserike: The moment that just, like, Killed me.
• 9:21
  Josh Eiserike: is at the end of chapter 11, I'm looking at it right now, right as, Marco's father is dying, and you go to that quick flashback, it's like 2 pages and a panel of… and I did, I had no idea when I was reading this the first time, I didn't get it.
• 9:37
  Josh Eiserike: I don't know if what… it looks like… I don't know what they're speaking. It looks a little bit Spanish, I'm not sure.
• 9:43
  Tad Eggleston: It's actually Esperanto.
• 9:45
  Josh Eiserike: Veronto. I think we did talk about that last time, too. Yeah. And it's, it's, like, there's this grasshopper, it's just Dad's.
• 9:51
  Tad Eggleston: Josh, you keep moving back and forth from your microphone.
• 9:55
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 9:56
  Josh Eiserike: There we go. Yeah, I am looking at the book, which is not in front of me now. I have it in front of me.
• 10:01
  Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
• 10:03
  Josh Eiserike: Sorry, guys. I, no, it's the… it's a two-page scene, two pages in one panel, flashback right before he dies, he's teaching him how to ride a bike.
• 10:12
  Josh Eiserike: I'm teaching my 6-year-old how to ride a bike right now, and I can't read Esperanto. You don't need to, like, the scene, it's beautiful.
• 10:20
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 10:21
  Josh Eiserike: And then he dies. So yeah, so I mean, I… I have…
• 10:25
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and… and I will say that I have gone through once with Google Translate to read all of the Esperanto.
• 10:33
  Josh Eiserike: And…
• 10:34
  Tad Eggleston: as Brian has said many times, it's kind of designed so you don't have to. Like, there was almost never a time where there was even a single word that I was surprised that they'd said that. Like, I'd been able to kind of…
• 10:49
  Tad Eggleston: you know, if I recall correctly, and I'm not gonna do it again, you know, Barr is telling him, no, no, you gotta get back on.
• 10:56
  Tad Eggleston: Some things are hard, but they're worth doing.
• 10:59
  Josh Eiserike: You don't need it. It was kind of the same thing he did on, why the last man?
• 11:05
  Josh Eiserike: I speak a little Hebrew.
• 11:07
  Josh Eiserike: And the scenes with the, I don't remember the name of the villain, Alter, I think her name was? Where it's, like, it's all written in transliteration, and, like, I know what she's saying, and, you know, hats off to…
• 11:21
  Josh Eiserike: Brian came on for getting it right, but, like.
• 11:23
  Josh Eiserike: You don't need to know what she's saying.
• 11:26
  Josh Eiserike: Like, you get it. You get it through just the character interaction, and…
• 11:31
  Josh Eiserike: I mean, the grasshopper scene just killed me this time. The only other thing I would say was…
• 11:39
  Josh Eiserike: And maybe this is because, you know, I was reading them in floppies.
• 11:43
  Josh Eiserike: To me, like, the Volume 1, like, when Marco's parents showed up, that felt like a more definitive ending to…
• 11:51
  Josh Eiserike: an arc, whereas this just feels like, oh, it's another cliffhanger, and the adventure's gonna continue at the end of 12.
• 11:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, and I think that's kind of what I was talking about at the beginning, in terms of, like… or maybe off-air, I don't remember if we started recording. Volumes 2 and 3 feel like they're smashed together. Like, that's an arc that… I mean, that's a cliffhanger that really goes into Volume 3 stuff that, like.
• 12:16
  Tad Eggleston: until I re-read Volume 2,
• 12:20
  Tad Eggleston: about half of what I think we're gonna read in Volume 3, I had thought was in Volume 2, even though I've reread Volume 2 many, many times.
• 12:29
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 12:30
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I'm really glad I reread it this time, because I was… I was all prepared to talk about scenes that haven't happened yet.
• 12:39
  Tad Eggleston: And there were a couple things that did happen that I thought were farther away, because they're not strictly part of this story, and I crammed all the action together, and that's actually one of the beauties of Saga, is, like, there are separate arcs.
• 12:54
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, this is… I used to talk about this…
• 12:58
  Matt: That talk… that touch on similar stuff.
• 13:01
  Tad Eggleston: touch each other.
• 13:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right. I used to… I used to talk about this with the West Wing, too. Like, the number of times I would say, oh, don't you know this episode? And then I'd be talking about this other episode, and then I'd realize that those were the same episodes, just different plot threads of…
• 13:19
  Matt: Yup.
• 13:20
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, depending on when I was watching it, like, one plot thread would be what that episode was about. At a different time, this plot thread was what that episode was about. So when I'm just thinking about and talking about it, and don't have it in front of me, I think that this plot thread and that plot thread.
• 13:39
  Tad Eggleston: are separate from each other, rather than intertwined with each other. And that's really, like.
• 13:47
  belle price: Particularly…
• 13:49
  Tad Eggleston: I had forgot… and you're right, it's all about parenting, particularly… but also, this is where you get the beginning of the will in parenting. I had forgotten… I had forgotten that before Quietus, he had gone to save Slave Girl.
• 14:05
  Tad Eggleston: That he had gone and, like, got on his nutso because he lost the stock.
• 14:13
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I had thought that was Volume 3, and that, like, this was focused on…
• 14:20
  Tad Eggleston: getting to quietus, and that sort of thing, and then the will came back, and nope, nope, they were all threaded together. Including, and I gotta call it out, because it's one of those things where, like.
• 14:32
  Tad Eggleston: This is one of my favorite pages in all of Saga. It's… it's page 22 in the trade paperback.
• 14:39
  Tad Eggleston: So… White…
• 14:43
  Matt: numbers near me.
• 14:43
  Tad Eggleston: or…
• 14:45
  belle price: I got the omnibus.
• 14:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I… I… I have the digital in front of me.
• 14:50
  Larry Woods: Oh, boy.
• 14:51
  Tad Eggleston: So, it's… The fifth page from the end of volumes… er, Chapter 7.
• 15:01
  Tad Eggleston: It's the page with the will. It's actually the only page with the will in there.
• 15:07
  Tad Eggleston: And I've always loved this page, because…
• 15:12
  Tad Eggleston: I just love the idea of
• 15:16
  Tad Eggleston: cardboard boxes, and a camcorder and RCA cables plugged into what really looks like a tube television.
• 15:28
  Tad Eggleston: in space.
• 15:30
  Tad Eggleston: In the world of Saga. And somehow, what I had always missed is that he is not remembering
• 15:38
  Tad Eggleston: his time with stock. He is watching their homemade porn.
• 15:43
  Larry Woods: Yeah.
• 15:44
  belle price: Nope.
• 15:45
  Josh Eiserike: watching a sex tape. But, but also.
• 15:46
  Tad Eggleston: This was the first time that struck me, even though I have always loved
• 15:53
  Tad Eggleston: the camcorder and the RCA cables.
• 15:56
  Josh Eiserike: But also, Ted, look at his expression there.
• 16:00
  Josh Eiserike: Like, it's not titillating, he's sad, and that's…
• 16:03
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, he's definitely sad.
• 16:05
  Josh Eiserike: And, and, and…
• 16:05
  Tad Eggleston: I think that's…
• 16:06
  Josh Eiserike: form all of his choices going forward with this… Like, it's a beautiful.
• 16:10
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely!
• 16:12
  Tad Eggleston: But it's also just such a point of worldbuilding, that, like, yes, we're in space, and we have rocket ships made out of trees, and we have robots that fuck, and we have camcorders, and two televisions, and people still make…
• 16:29
  Tad Eggleston: Homemade porn using camcorders that they watch on tube televisions.
• 16:36
  Tad Eggleston: I mean… This universe just has so many levels.
• 16:41
  Matt: So, so much to offer, in such a, such a small amount of time.
• 16:48
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and we'll have little things, like… I mean, then you turn the page, and you've got, like.
• 16:56
  Tad Eggleston: It could be Endor, except that you know that it's on a spaceship, and that the plants are made almost on command.
• 17:04
  Matt: You know?
• 17:08
  Tad Eggleston: You turn the page back, and the spaceship is a skull.
• 17:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's your 3-page stretch there. You've got your skull ship.
• 17:17
  Tad Eggleston: Cardboard boxes in the new place with the tube TV,
• 17:22
  Tad Eggleston: And or inside of a wooden spaceship.
• 17:25
  belle price: And if you turn a couple pages forward, you get the nut monster.
• 17:28
  Larry Woods: That's right.
• 17:30
  Tad Eggleston: And I also love… I love Marco and his mother's interaction there, where he's like, Dollar!
• 17:40
  Tad Eggleston: And she looks up and she's like, this is nothing I haven't seen before.
• 17:46
  Matt: And you sound proud of that, Mom!
• 17:53
  Tad Eggleston: And then he won't let her kill it.
• 17:55
  Matt: Right.
• 17:56
  Tad Eggleston: And she's just like, seriously.
• 18:04
  belle price: There's actually a section of pages I… Sorry.
• 18:08
  Tad Eggleston: And then we have him drop lightning on her.
• 18:11
  belle price: Or near her.
• 18:13
  belle price: Yeah.
• 18:15
  belle price: I was gonna say, there's also this section, I don't remember where it was, but it's where the, the, I think it's the beginning of one of the chapters, it's… it's 4, he's down on the battlefield, and they're calling for a medic.
• 18:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, oh.
• 18:28
  belle price: And I want to talk about that.
• 18:29
  Tad Eggleston: See real quick.
• 18:30
  belle price: I was talking to my dad about that earlier.
• 18:33
  Tad Eggleston: A mouse that doesn't have a mask.
• 18:35
  belle price: Yes!
• 18:36
  Matt: Yes.
• 18:36
  belle price: Yes, because she expla- yeah, beginning of chapter 12.
• 18:40
  Tad Eggleston: at Chapter 12.
• 18:41
  belle price: you hear a lot of backstory about her, and she, in such a short time, is built into such a character. Like, she's… she's trying to make sure he's okay, she's calling him your majesty, she doesn't really know, she's tripping over her words, but he asks her why she's there, and she's like, oh, I'm getting my degree, like, that's why I'm in the war.
• 18:58
  belle price: And then, like, for me as a college student.
• 19:00
  Matt: You're like,
• 19:01
  belle price: Yeah, like, I'm rela- bro, I'm relating to this little mouse girl.
• 19:05
  belle price: And then all of a sudden, we realized she doesn't have a mask.
• 19:07
  belle price: And we watch her explode on, like, the fourth page!
• 19:10
  Tad Eggleston: She doesn't have a mask because they didn't give her one. She wasn't deemed worthy of a mask.
• 19:15
  belle price: Yeah!
• 19:16
  Tad Eggleston: You can come fix us, but like… Yeah.
• 19:20
  belle price: Okay.
• 19:20
  Tad Eggleston: Let's find other people to fix us.
• 19:23
  belle price: Right.
• 19:23
  Tad Eggleston: And I guess it would have to be sensitive.
• 19:25
  belle price: Yeah, and for that to be something that 4 is thinking of, and, like, remembering and recalling, like, just the amount of things that 4 has been through and seen that we don't experience as readers, it really builds 4 as this in-depth character that…
• 19:40
  Matt: You feel bad for?
• 19:42
  belle price: Yeah, like, you understand that he is carrying a lot of trauma, despite.
• 19:45
  Matt: That's so bad for him. Yeah.
• 19:50
  belle price: It's horrible for him!
• 19:51
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you wind up… I mean, throughout this series, the number of different things we feel for the Will is…
• 19:58
  Tad Eggleston: Ridiculous.
• 20:00
  Matt: Thank you.
• 20:01
  Larry Woods: I can say that I don't know if the wheel ever got on my good side in this part. I fucking hated this guy.
• 20:09
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 20:10
  Matt: collapsed the guy's head and explodes it. I was like, alright, so we'll.
• 20:14
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes the way he… he was good to…
• 20:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right now, she's slave girl, but I hate calling her slave girl, so she'll become Sophie, and I'll spoil that. Sometimes the way he behaves with Sophie is really sweet.
• 20:31
  Tad Eggleston: And there are times where he tries to get away, and, you know, then…
• 20:39
  Tad Eggleston: winds up coming back. I have the same thing with Prince Robot, you know?
• 20:43
  belle price: Like…
• 20:44
  Tad Eggleston: particularly at this point, I don't think there's any way I could possibly… you know, like, I feel for him a little bit when he's getting blackmailed by… by the… the…
• 20:54
  Tad Eggleston: the… Secret Service guy who's…
• 20:59
  Larry Woods: Hmm?
• 21:00
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I'm gonna go dance with this glowing… are you threatening my wife? Just reminding you what you've got to…
• 21:08
  Matt: There's more to this than just you.
• 21:11
  Josh Eiserike: I'm… I'm psychoanalyzing myself right now, because my recollection, and so far, is I love the will, like…
• 21:18
  Josh Eiserike: I know he's an antagonist, but, like, I'm with him. Like, to me, he's… he's a hero, so far. I… again, I haven't read this in a long time. And I never… I remember also never liking Prince Robot, and I psychoanalyzed myself, I wonder if it's simply because the Will has a face and Prince Robot doesn't.
• 21:35
  Josh Eiserike: And, and I, and I never…
• 21:37
  Tad Eggleston: I was about to say, are you forgetting…
• 21:43
  Tad Eggleston: Who was holding the blade in issue 54?
• 21:49
  Josh Eiserike: I don't forget that!
• 21:50
  Tad Eggleston: But…
• 21:51
  Josh Eiserike: But he's… but also, I mean… And, and, and that's.
• 21:55
  Tad Eggleston: Spoilers again, everybody.
• 21:57
  Josh Eiserike: And that's also why I said, I recognize he's an antagonist, but, I mean, it's something I tell my students all the time, like.
• 22:04
  Josh Eiserike: The best villains are the heroes of their own story, and…
• 22:07
  Matt: Nope.
• 22:07
  Josh Eiserike: He's so much more complicated than just, you know, like, Captain Hooked whirling a mustache or whatever.
• 22:12
  Tad Eggleston: Well, as it turns out, we have a psychoanalyst here. Lee, what do you… what do you think of Josh and his thoughts on…
• 22:20
  Larry Woods: My first thing is I charge by the hour, that's my first time.
• 22:23
  Matt: Enjoy the hour. Ouch.
• 22:25
  Josh Eiserike: 50 minutes, 50 minutes.
• 22:28
  Larry Woods: No, I think there's something.
• 22:29
  Tad Eggleston: No, he's a nice guy, he might keep you a whole hour.
• 22:33
  Larry Woods: But yeah, that is something that's interesting, too, because, like.
• 22:37
  Larry Woods: For me, I definitely felt a lot of things up and down, and I'm not just saying for this volume, but as a whole, of Prince Robot.
• 22:45
  Larry Woods: Right? I definitely felt like he thought he was important. He believed that he was important.
• 22:51
  Larry Woods: And at the same time, I think he got, if I remember correctly, he got humbled very quickly.
• 22:57
  Larry Woods: when he's trying to commandeer this ship. So…
• 23:01
  Larry Woods: In that case, it was like, man, you're…
• 23:06
  Larry Woods: In a monarchy, you're… think you're hot shit, and then…
• 23:11
  Larry Woods: You get quickly put down as like, no, you're just another grunt, in a way.
• 23:16
  Larry Woods: Which I found interesting, versus the will, maybe it was that. At least, I'm thinking back to my previous, my first read of it.
• 23:26
  Larry Woods: The will was much more, like.
• 23:29
  Larry Woods: You're doing this for why? Is it just money?
• 23:33
  Larry Woods: like… Granted, he does have a lot more growth that comes from that.
• 23:38
  Larry Woods: And obviously, like, in that picture, I get that he's… they're trying to make me feel bad for him, but I'm like.
• 23:44
  Larry Woods: Bro, this is the life you chose, like, what… What'd you expect?
• 23:48
  Larry Woods: So, I don't know. Maybe it is a face, but I'm also looking at, like, intent and motives, I guess.
• 23:55
  Josh Eiserike: Is there… and I'm literally… I could be completely full of it. I wonder, is there, like, the Han Solo of it all, too? Like, I grew up with Han Solo, so I see a character like the Will, who's, you know, rugged and good-looking, and also kind of a jerk, and I'm like, oh, well, of course I'm supposed to like him, because I like Han Solo.
• 24:13
  Matt: Anti-hero.
• 24:14
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 24:15
  Larry Woods: Very much so. And maybe it is because I…
• 24:18
  Tad Eggleston: Well, it could also be that.
• 24:20
  Larry Woods: I think my fucking dick, I don't know.
• 24:22
  Tad Eggleston: Hmm, good.
• 24:23
  Matt: It could be…
• 24:24
  Tad Eggleston: the Boba Fett effect. You know, he's a bounty hunter.
• 24:27
  Matt: Speaking of Han Solo, has anyone heard of the Han Solo Paradox?
• 24:33
  belle price: Is this a joke?
• 24:34
  Matt: autism.
• 24:35
  Matt: Is that where the…
• 24:36
  Josh Eiserike: Is… is… is… is that where your supporting character's more interesting than your lead?
• 24:41
  Matt: No, that's where you feel bad for the guy, because the whole time Leah is in her slave outfit, he's blind.
• 24:48
  belle price: Oh my god. Oh my god, I knew it! I covered it! It's a joke setup.
• 24:53
  Tad Eggleston: It's true!
• 24:54
  Matt: I know my father. He's in her same way of costume, he's blind and can't see her.
• 25:01
  Tad Eggleston: Two things, Matt.
• 25:04
  Tad Eggleston: The, the, the, the acceptable term is… her… Hutt Slayer outfit.
• 25:15
  Matt: Okay, fair enough.
• 25:17
  Tad Eggleston: And second,
• 25:20
  Tad Eggleston: there's the implication that he's seen more of her already, and even if he hasn't seen more of her already, he soon will.
• 25:30
  Matt: I'm not sure anymore.
• 25:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, yes.
• 25:33
  Larry Woods: I just have to say this to the audio listeners, that Matt had both me and Josh, like, like, leaning in towards the camera, saying, what is this paradox? Tell me more.
• 25:43
  belle price: Yeah.
• 25:44
  Tad Eggleston: And Belle's sitting there going, this is not gonna be worth it, guys.
• 25:49
  belle price: I go, this is a joke setup, and everyone's like.
• 25:51
  Matt: But it's not a joke!
• 25:53
  Matt: We got to… the viewers of Return of the Jedi got to enjoy Princess Leia, Indeed.
• 26:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, let's, let's be real…
• 26:04
  belle price: guy.
• 26:05
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I don't know if you read, The Princess Diarist?
• 26:11
  Matt: No.
• 26:12
  Tad Eggleston: Okay. Carrie Fisher's last biography, or autobiography, she revealed that Han Solo got to see a lot of her way back in the New Hope days.
• 26:26
  Matt: I'm sure he did.
• 26:28
  Tad Eggleston: I think that's how she figured out who was a nerf herter.
• 26:33
  belle price: Getting back onto the Saga track, I have a.
• 26:35
  Tad Eggleston: That's on this woman.
• 26:36
  belle price: We were talking about the robot, Prince 4.
• 26:39
  Matt: my generation has a…
• 26:42
  Tad Eggleston: You mean you don't want to go straight to the page where Hazel says, yes, my parents had sex once.
• 26:49
  Matt: I mean…
• 26:50
  belle price: I mean, we also, we also do get a panel of that in this chapter, it's great. However, however.
• 26:55
  Matt: Sure.
• 26:55
  belle price: I have two things on the, on the Prince Robot.
• 26:57
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 26:58
  belle price: One, my generation actually has a lot of, like, qualms with AI, so it's interesting reading this in the age of how AI is becoming bigger, and seeing how the robot kingdom functions. That's been really interesting. And secondly, we're talking about how the will is an anti-hero, right?
• 27:12
  belle price: I kinda like the Will in a BoJack Horseman way, just like I like Thor in a BoJack Horseman way. Like, I hate these guys. They're terrible people. I don't want them to win!
• 27:21
  belle price: But they're Bojack horsemen. You see them screw up, you see them do bad things, and you say they can get better. They can get better, and you want them to get better, and you hope that they get better, and they suck anyway.
• 27:34
  Tad Eggleston: And then they don't get better. No! Well, they tease getting better for a moment, and then something bad
• 27:43
  Tad Eggleston: And they use that as the excuse to not be better anymore. All the way back to non-redeemable.
• 27:46
  belle price: They give… they induce the reader with a syndrome I like to call, I can fix him. I can fix him syndrome. They're like, oh, but I can fix him, but you can fix it, but he's good! He's good at… he's good at heart, guys, I promise. He's not good at heart, he's not gonna get better.
• 27:59
  Tad Eggleston: But it's why I was so happy when you asked to join us, Belle, and why I keep hoping that more of the women that are on the list show up, because man, do we need to be put in our places with stuff like that. Because it is! It's true! It's true! We're sitting there going.
• 28:18
  Tad Eggleston: He's a nice guy, he'll get better! He's a white male! He's a… he's right! He can do it!
• 28:25
  belle price: And you're watching as Gwendolyn is falling for this loser, who is clearly not over.
• 28:29
  Tad Eggleston: Right!
• 28:29
  belle price: who is clearly upset and going on a spiral, who almost loses his cat and his newly saved daughter thing, person girl, who's not quite his daughter yet, and almost kills her, who's like…
• 28:42
  belle price: quite emotionally distraught herself because of him lacking the decision-making skills to make, you know, clear choices toward the end of.
• 28:50
  Tad Eggleston: So you are starting to get into Volume 3 here.
• 28:54
  belle price: Toward the end of this chapter, we almost lose Lion Clay here. I'm in volume.
• 28:57
  Matt: Oh, isn't he neat.
• 28:58
  Tad Eggleston: No, but…
• 28:58
  Matt: Isabel stayed up late and ran past where we were supposed.
• 29:01
  Tad Eggleston: I know.
• 29:02
  belle price: I read it in chapter 25, but I promise.
• 29:04
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So, like, 3 and 4.
• 29:08
  belle price: No one!
• 29:09
  belle price: No, because you see Gwendolyn…
• 29:11
  Tad Eggleston: Peace.
• 29:12
  belle price: Because you kinda see Gwendolyn… because you kinda do see Gwendolyn, though, start to… start to interact with him in this…
• 29:18
  Tad Eggleston: A little bit.
• 29:19
  belle price: In this vib.
• 29:19
  Tad Eggleston: But it happens more in the next book.
• 29:22
  Matt: You know, the funny thing about Gwendolyn, you don't like her, you don't want to like her, and then she.
• 29:27
  Tad Eggleston: And then you wind up liking her, and then she actually… she actually, like, does get better.
• 29:32
  Matt: Exactly!
• 29:33
  belle price: I love Glenda.
• 29:34
  Tad Eggleston: It's kind of.
• 29:35
  Matt: Well, yeah, that's why I love the way he writes, the way Brian Kayvon writes these characters. It's like, shit!
• 29:41
  Tad Eggleston: Though, I did not like her much in issue 55.
• 29:48
  belle price: Thankfully, we're not there yet.
• 29:52
  belle price: Thankfully, that ain't where we are.
• 29:54
  Tad Eggleston: That's true.
• 29:55
  Josh Eiserike: What's awesome to me is, like, I mean, we've just been talking about the will, and Gwendolyn is, like.
• 30:00
  Josh Eiserike: we haven't really touched that much on Marco and Elena, a little with the mom, but it's like, if this story were just about the Will, Gwendolyn, Sophie, like, I think it'd still be pretty great.
• 30:12
  Tad Eggleston: Probably, yeah.
• 30:14
  Josh Eiserike: It'll still be pretty great.
• 30:16
  Matt: Like, they could do a mini-season, or what is it, a follow-up?
• 30:21
  Matt: arc, you know… One off, one shot. Exactly, of just that storyline, and everyone would buy it and be like, this is great.
• 30:28
  Josh Eiserike: That'd be great.
• 30:29
  belle price: It's kind of like how Bone by Jeff Smith.
• 30:31
  Matt: Not serious.
• 30:32
  belle price: Yeah, it's kind of like how Bone by Jeff Smith did their Rose prequel, where it's.
• 30:36
  Tad Eggleston: just…
• 30:37
  belle price: Grandma Ben's storyline in the beginning, because Grandma Ben is such a good character that even just reading about Grandma Ben is that good. Like, they could
• 30:44
  belle price: They could do that with the robot kingdom, they could do that with just Landfall. You know how much I'd kill for a Landfall backstory, just to understand the goddamn origins of this war that's been waged for so long that we barely understand as readers? Like, I would love to get a prequel to this war to understand how it all started, but it's…
• 31:01
  Matt: And J… and JR also…
• 31:04
  belle price: Yeah, I think it is.
• 31:05
  Matt: broken?
• 31:06
  Matt: We'd love to hear that, because he wrote the Silmarillion just for you.
• 31:10
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah.
• 31:13
  Tad Eggleston: I was actually gonna say, she's invoking bone, so Matt, you owe her a trip to Cartoon Crossroads sometime.
• 31:20
  Matt: Dawn.
• 31:22
  belle price: I love both.
• 31:23
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's next weekend, you could pick her up and just meet me in Columbus.
• 31:28
  Tad Eggleston: We'll be there, too.
• 31:29
  Matt: I can do.
• 31:31
  Tad Eggleston: I'm free next weekend. I bet you there are still rooms available.
• 31:35
  Tad Eggleston: What is that? Matt? Matt?
• 31:37
  Matt: Alright, how would I come?
• 31:39
  Tad Eggleston: Cartoon Crossroads is… is… is Jeff Smith's Comic Con.
• 31:46
  belle price: I'm sorry, audio people, my face just went crazy. I had a jaw-dropping moment.
• 31:51
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Jeff… Jeff isn't actually tabling this year, but he will almost certainly be around.
• 31:58
  Tad Eggleston: It takes place between the Ohio State University Billy Ireland cartoon Library and Museum, and the…
• 32:11
  Tad Eggleston: Columbus Public Library, and the Columbus Art Museum, and the Columbus Art College, and, like, this year.
• 32:20
  Tad Eggleston: I don't even remember everybody who's coming this year. I'll go with last year. Those are the people that I saw. Last year, Art Spiegelman was interviewed by Jeff Smith.
• 32:32
  belle price: Okay, aside from the con, though, Josh had something to say, and I totally cut him off with my bone stuff.
• 32:37
  Josh Eiserike: Doesn't matter, I'm like, I'm like, I wish I was in Ohio, that sounds great.
• 32:43
  belle price: Okay, I'm sorry, I just don'.
• 32:44
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is… this is totally the con that I tell everybody that they owe it… owe it to themselves to go to at least once, and it's the con that I try… I mean, this'll only be my…
• 32:57
  Tad Eggleston: Third year, but it's my, my, my sincere intention to never miss another one.
• 33:04
  Tad Eggleston: Which is… But… but here, I… I'm gonna drop a gift into… V…
• 33:13
  Tad Eggleston: the chat box, because they have a YouTube channel where they put the talks up, In the run-up to…
• 33:22
  Matt: The next year.
• 33:23
  Tad Eggleston: So, so the, the… the, Jeff Smith ba, ba, ba-ba.
• 33:35
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, speaking of a talk actually went up recently.
• 33:41
  Tad Eggleston: So… but other people talk, because I'm… I'm looking at things.
• 33:46
  belle price: Dad, I'm texting you about this con now.
• 33:48
  Larry Woods: Yep.
• 33:49
  Matt: Okay, text away.
• 33:50
  Larry Woods: I just saw that in the chat.
• 33:53
  belle price: Yes.
• 33:57
  belle price: I don't know, there's just so much to talk about in this chapter, man. Like, it was… it's… it's so interesting, because it is when Saga is kind of speeding up that we… it's kind of like a whiplash. Like, I was reading last night for two and a half hours, I couldn't stop myself.
• 34:10
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 34:12
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. I… I… I did. I had to make myself stop at the end of this chapter. I know your feeling.
• 34:20
  Tad Eggleston: But…
• 34:22
  Matt: I told her, I said, that's why I'm glad I'm reading the trade paperbacks, because if I had the address, I keep going.
• 34:28
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 34:29
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Well, I mean, like, I've said it before, and I'm starting to come up again, like…
• 34:38
  Tad Eggleston: This is literally the first time
• 34:42
  Tad Eggleston: And partially because we decided to start the book club, this is the first time that I haven't re-read all of Saga during one of their breaks.
• 34:52
  Tad Eggleston: You know, because they've had the publishing schedule of 6 issues on, 3 months off, 6 issues on, 3 months off.
• 35:02
  Tad Eggleston: And historically, when they go into their 3 months off, is when I start reading again, so it's all fresh in my mind.
• 35:08
  Matt: Oh my gosh.
• 35:09
  Tad Eggleston: When the next issue comes out.
• 35:11
  Tad Eggleston: I re-read it, I think, 3 times during their 3-year hiatus, including a… Including, including… A 54-issue binge.
• 35:26
  Tad Eggleston: the Monday and Tuesday before.
• 35:31
  Larry Woods: 55 came out. Hi, everybody!
• 35:33
  Tad Eggleston: I showed up at Challenger's Comics in Conversation at midnight.
• 35:39
  Larry Woods: Welcome, everyone, to Crossroads… Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2024!
• 35:43
  Tad Eggleston: Did I accidentally start playing Cartoon Cross?
• 35:46
  Matt: restaurants.
• 35:47
  Tad Eggleston: Video.
• 35:47
  Matt: or didn't…
• 35:48
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 35:50
  Tad Eggleston: But, the… the… I,
• 35:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I binged the 54 issues, and then I was at Challengers for Midnight Opening.
• 36:03
  Tad Eggleston: to buy my copy of Saga, which I read Issue 55,
• 36:09
  Tad Eggleston: I think 3 times before noon the next day.
• 36:18
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah.
• 36:20
  Josh Eiserike: That's I had totally forgotten, like, the book was even on hiatus, like…
• 36:27
  Josh Eiserike: for the other dads on here, like, man, having kids just, like, mess with my relationships at time. I go, oh, cool, saga! Oh yeah, it's been a while, it's been 3 years? What? And I just…
• 36:39
  Matt: For a little bit. I know.
• 36:41
  Josh Eiserike: No idea.
• 36:42
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, thankfully, like, like, my… grandkids were born during the hiatus, so, like, I didn't have the same…
• 36:55
  Tad Eggleston: Like, the kids took up all the time.
• 36:58
  Josh Eiserike: Right.
• 37:00
  Josh Eiserike: I did not re-read before any of the hiatus, but, you know, to, Brian K. Vaughan's testament.
• 37:08
  Josh Eiserike: usually, like, if I haven't picked up a book in a while, I either have to go back and re-read it and catch up.
• 37:14
  Josh Eiserike: Or, God bless them if there's a recap page in there, but for whatever reason, like, the writing just… it just grounds me in the story, and I figure out everything as I go, and that's great.
• 37:25
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, if, like, Morning Glories decided to come back after all of these years…
• 37:31
  Matt: I would be all over that.
• 37:33
  Tad Eggleston: I would too, but I totally have to reread it.
• 37:36
  Matt: We read it twice!
• 37:39
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right. But, like, Matt, am I the only one bothered by the fact that, like, if they chopped two pages off of that, that would be just perfect 50-issue series?
• 37:53
  Tad Eggleston: They actually pretty much wrap up the first 50 issues, and then they give you this… this big twist and turn in, like, the last 2 or 3 pages.
• 38:04
  Tad Eggleston: And now it's like, what, 15 years later, and we haven't gotten anymore?
• 38:09
  Matt: Stop!
• 38:11
  Matt: I just… I just… I just friended Joe Isima on Facebook because of Tyler's connection, and I want to text him and be like, dude.
• 38:20
  Matt: Ever? Please?
• 38:23
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's more on Nick's side.
• 38:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I'm sure. Busy at Marvel, and then busy at Substack, and I don't even know what he's doing now.
• 38:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I'm sure it is, but it's like, that would be my connection to get the answer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:37
  Matt: Please, help me out.
• 38:41
  belle price: I did want to say…
• 38:43
  Josh Eiserike: No, please fail, please, please.
• 38:44
  belle price: Positive, I'm gonna… I'm gonna totally divert this conversation. We're gonna go off the road.
• 38:47
  Tad Eggleston: We were… we were… we were talking about non-Saga stuff, so…
• 38:51
  belle price: I know, I'm bringing us back, don't you worry.
• 38:53
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 38:54
  Matt: exactly what I'm doing.
• 38:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 38:56
  belle price: a snack, and now I'm gonna talk about Sagamore. So, I want to talk about the beginning of Chapter 8. We get a full panel shot
• 39:05
  belle price: of Alana reading, A Nighttime Smoke.
• 39:10
  belle price: And I think that in this volume, we really get a lot of,
• 39:17
  belle price: what is his name? Shit, it's… I'm blanking. The author. I don't know.
• 39:21
  Tad Eggleston: Ice.
• 39:22
  belle price: Yes, we get the Oswald Heist introduced, thank you, in this volume in a really big manner. It's kind of like their Bible, and I think it's really interesting to watch these characters,
• 39:35
  belle price: kind of bond and build this deep connection. We learn how old Marco and Alana met. Like, we should talk about Marco and Alana on this issue, in this volume, because this is their backup.
• 39:44
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and… and, like, we… throughout the book, we get just enough of a nighttime smoke that I, like.
• 39:53
  Tad Eggleston: kind of hope that Brian's secretly written it, and will publish it at some point, because…
• 40:01
  Tad Eggleston: even though I think that it's exactly what it's described at a couple of times here, where, yes, it's boring, but that's kind of the point.
• 40:09
  Tad Eggleston: It's so beautifully boring. I mean, I'm just gonna read this page, because this is our first… our first big glimpse of the nighttime smoke, and it's the end of the book, but it's just… with… with matching indifference, they watch the purple stains' relentless march across the helpless rug.
• 40:27
  Tad Eggleston: Will you judge me if I open another bottle?
• 40:30
  Tad Eggleston: I will, though I think you'll approve of the verdict, Eames said.
• 40:35
  Tad Eggleston: Contessa went to uncork something with a duck on the label, while Eames fisted couch cushions in search of the remote.
• 40:43
  Tad Eggleston: Hey, did you take K-Caters?
• 40:46
  Tad Eggleston: Shit, she yelled from the kitchen. Sorry, I spaced.
• 40:51
  Tad Eggleston: Eames just shrugged as Contessa returned to refill their glasses.
• 40:55
  Tad Eggleston: It's fine. This season has kinda sucked anyway. I know, right? Hey, should we go to your brother's opening instead?
• 41:04
  Tad Eggleston: Definitely not, he said. He smiled.
• 41:08
  Tad Eggleston: Eames then patted the bin next to him, and grinning.
• 41:13
  Tad Eggleston: Contessa took her place to his right.
• 41:16
  Tad Eggleston: Always the right.
• 41:18
  Tad Eggleston: just, like…
• 41:21
  Tad Eggleston: To be poetic about, like, spilled the wine, don't feel like cleaning it up, gonna go get more wine.
• 41:30
  Tad Eggleston: Are we gonna watch our reality TV? No, we forgot to tape our reality TV.
• 41:35
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, well…
• 41:36
  belle price: Want to support your brother? No.
• 41:39
  Tad Eggleston: thing.
• 41:41
  Tad Eggleston: But… but to manage.
• 41:42
  Matt: I can't want you.
• 41:43
  Tad Eggleston: Like, that rhythm and beauty to it.
• 41:47
  Tad Eggleston: Even for just the painting.
• 41:50
  belle price: They take salad.
• 41:52
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but… Well, and, and like… Go ahead, Matt.
• 41:59
  Matt: So, then, when you actually get to talk to the author, and Robot 4 is talking, he's like.
• 42:06
  Matt: I was just putting words on a page so I can get paid, bitch. It's like, oh, really?
• 42:12
  Matt: Well, but that was what he was telling Robot 4. I know, but that's why it's funny, because it's like, oh man.
• 42:17
  Tad Eggleston: It is.
• 42:17
  Matt: you know, feedback.
• 42:18
  belle price: And we technically don't learn more until Volume 3.
• 42:23
  Tad Eggleston: That's right.
• 42:23
  belle price: So all we know now…
• 42:24
  Tad Eggleston: we know that the family is hiding under… under… underneath. That's the last page. Yep. Robot was wrong. We've been there for two weeks already. Two weeks!
• 42:33
  belle price: But all we know right now is that a nighttime smoke is words on a page.
• 42:36
  Tad Eggleston: That's true.
• 42:37
  Matt: trouble.
• 42:38
  Tad Eggleston: But, I mean, they have interesting con… I mean, I like the conversation between robot and… And…
• 42:48
  Tad Eggleston: Heist. Oh, brilliant. Where robot… where heist, like, accurately predicts the…
• 42:55
  belle price: the PTSD, and like…
• 42:58
  Tad Eggleston: Really kind of pisses him off about it.
• 43:00
  Matt: Yup, he knew just… he knew just where to apply the pressure.
• 43:05
  Larry Woods: Right. I like to say, know how to push his buttons?
• 43:08
  Matt: Yes!
• 43:12
  belle price: I love that.
• 43:17
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, why I am impressed by that page is, like, you've known that they were attached to this book, and as a MacGuffin, it's still great, right? But to show you that page that's so beautifully done, even in telling you
• 43:35
  Tad Eggleston: absolutely nothing.
• 43:37
  Tad Eggleston: And as you learn more later, you realize that that's what it's about. It's about, oh, these two people that are supposed to hate each other can just be normal people together.
• 43:48
  Tad Eggleston: Which is really kind of Marco and Alana to begin with. It's like, it's not just that, hey, we can fucking have a baby, it's that…
• 43:56
  Tad Eggleston: We can laugh, we can have dinner, we… we… we can… we can have a life where the whole war going on doesn't matter to us except that they want us dead.
• 44:08
  Tad Eggleston: But when we can forget that, because they're not actually here with us, We can do dumb shit.
• 44:16
  belle price: And it, like, shows us that, like, their life can still be beautiful. That's why I love A Nighttime Smoke, and why we get this panel, is because it proves to us as readers that this is how Marco and Alana strive to live. Before we even know any more of what D. Oswald Heist is writing, before we even know the
• 44:33
  belle price: deeper meaning behind this book, we realize that this is how Marco and Alana both want to live.
• 44:39
  Matt: But doesn't… doesn't there come a point where the author is like.
• 44:42
  Matt: If this is the only book you've read, you really shouldn't read some more books.
• 44:46
  Matt: Like, there's more.
• 44:48
  Matt: Right? Am I missing?
• 44:50
  Tad Eggleston: There is.
• 44:51
  Matt: No.
• 44:51
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 44:52
  Matt: And that's, like, the religious tie-in for me. It's like, oh yeah, okay, I'm glad you have your Bible, thump it all you want.
• 44:59
  Matt: trust me, there's more out there, you know? It's like, man, this makes sense.
• 45:03
  Tad Eggleston: Go live some, read some other things.
• 45:07
  Matt: Exactly! Expand your knowledge!
• 45:09
  belle price: True.
• 45:09
  Matt: I broaden those horizons!
• 45:13
  belle price: Yeah.
• 45:16
  belle price: But I do think it's funny that, when Four goes in to Heist's house, he comes in thumping that Bible, a nighttime smoke, he comes in, book in hand, slamming it on the table, raving it in his face, like, hey, you wrote this!
• 45:31
  belle price: da-da-da, you wrote this! You wrote this! And then Heist is like, you're traumatized from the war. Bam!
• 45:37
  Matt: I'm gonna push over.
• 45:39
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but also…
• 45:41
  Tad Eggleston: I think, and I forget whether you ever have it fully acknowledged by Prince Robot, but, like, one of the things that comes through when they're talking is that not only did Robot read the book.
• 45:59
  belle price: But he likes the book.
• 46:01
  Matt: Yeah, he does.
• 46:03
  Matt: He sees… he sees the value, he sees the threat of the book.
• 46:09
  belle price: Because his wife is pregnant, and he's gonna be a dad!
• 46:13
  Tad Eggleston: And he sees all going on.
• 46:16
  belle price: We meet his dad later. We know that not all dads are good dads.
• 46:21
  belle price: We see that he has this desire to have a small life with his wife, with his son, and settle down, and have calmness, and have peace.
• 46:29
  belle price: I think he relates on a deeper level to this novel that his superiors wouldn't relate on, that his.
• 46:34
  Matt: Well, he won't admit it.
• 46:35
  belle price: I just wouldn't relate on. No!
• 46:36
  Tad Eggleston: No, he's not allowed to admit it.
• 46:38
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, Jack Horseman.
• 46:41
  belle price: It's cause he's BoJack Horseman. He's not gonna be better. We can't fix him.
• 46:46
  Matt: Yep.
• 46:47
  Matt: Because he would rather retain that royalty title Yup.
• 46:55
  Matt: He knows the right thing! He's like, this is so convenient to do it this way, though.
• 47:00
  belle price: Yep.
• 47:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 47:06
  Tad Eggleston: Is…
• 47:08
  Josh Eiserike: Can I, can I sort of shift, shift gears for a moment?
• 47:12
  belle price: Yeah.
• 47:12
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 47:13
  Josh Eiserike: I want…
• 47:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, okay.
• 47:16
  Josh Eiserike: Alright, I wanna…
• 47:17
  Matt: You, Josh?
• 47:18
  Josh Eiserike: Yes, I want to call out one other moment in,
• 47:22
  Josh Eiserike: chapter 8, where we see Elena and Marco meeting for the first time. And this is my other really, like, favorite moment in this volume.
• 47:33
  Josh Eiserike: Like, we get these, like, 3 pages, she's his guard, they're, like, looking at each other, like, we know that they're gonna wind up together, there's this beautiful panel, this is how my parents met, their eyes connecting.
• 47:44
  Josh Eiserike: Yo.
• 47:45
  Matt: And then she fucks them up with a gun.
• 47:47
  Josh Eiserike: And then she beats the shit out of him, like, it's a wonderful page turn, you get this great splash page, and it's… he's taking your expectations, Brian gave on, and he's just completely inverting it, and it works so well. And, like, we don't even…
• 48:02
  Josh Eiserike: need to get the aftermath of that, like, the scene's perfect. It's… it's just… it's great.
• 48:08
  belle price: Do you want to know if.
• 48:09
  Matt: and watch.
• 48:09
  belle price: about that panel, the This Is How My Parents Met panel. I have an iOS. My iOS is Saga, so I have little widgets of Saga panels and little apps with Saga characters on them. That's how much I'm into Saga. Anyway, This Is How My Parents Met is one of those panels that I've looked at for the last four years.
• 48:26
  belle price: And I totally forgot about her bashing him in the face with a gun until we read this, and I laughed so hard, I was like.
• 48:34
  belle price: Oh yeah, no, they're not… they're not as cut and dry as I ever have imagined them to be in these last 3 years, because they're just… they're Marco and Alana.
• 48:43
  Josh Eiserike: I think about something one of my old bosses said to me a long time ago.
• 48:47
  Josh Eiserike: In terms of writing, is…
• 48:51
  Josh Eiserike: You know what the reader expects you to do.
• 48:53
  Josh Eiserike: do the opposite. Yep. Like, the exact opposite.
• 48:58
  Matt: hurt… hurt them, and hurt your character, so it hurts them some more.
• 49:02
  Josh Eiserike: Yes.
• 49:03
  Matt: Exactly.
• 49:05
  Larry Woods: And just to point out, too, like.
• 49:07
  Larry Woods: That sort of cut-and-dry sort of moment.
• 49:10
  Larry Woods: It's… she responds so bluntly, like, you see her sort of…
• 49:16
  Larry Woods: face of warmth, and the connection in their eyes, and then I said no talking.
• 49:21
  Matt: Yeah. Is the line. It's like…
• 49:24
  Josh Eiserike: Yes.
• 49:25
  Matt: I don't know… I don't know what the word is. I wish someone would… could tell me. So, if you pistol whip someone, you hit them with a pistol, but when you hit them with a rifle, what is that? Because that's a…
• 49:39
  Josh Eiserike: There is a word for this.
• 49:41
  Larry Woods: Yeah.
• 49:42
  Matt: I don't know it, but I want to.
• 49:44
  Josh Eiserike: This is gonna drive me crazy.
• 49:46
  belle price: We lost Tad, I don't know how.
• 49:48
  Larry Woods: You're losing fat.
• 49:51
  Larry Woods: I'm the host now.
• 49:52
  Matt: I'm the host now! That sounded so ominous!
• 50:00
  belle price: Wield your power carefully.
• 50:01
  Larry Woods: Yeah.
• 50:04
  belle price: Sorry, what was going on?
• 50:05
  Matt: parks today.
• 50:06
  belle price: Conversation got derailed.
• 50:09
  Larry Woods: Yeah, I just.
• 50:11
  Tad Eggleston: I… I got booted and came back.
• 50:15
  Matt: Are you like Jesus? We were looking.
• 50:17
  belle price: I'm looking for the word for banging a guy in the face with a gun.
• 50:20
  Larry Woods: Yeah, just like you… No, no, I said if you…
• 50:22
  Matt: If you pistol-lip someone, you hit them with a pistol. What does it cost if you hit them with a rifle?
• 50:27
  Josh Eiserike: According to Wikipedia, which is never wrong, ever.
• 50:32
  Josh Eiserike: Nope. It's called… I'm holding up my screen so you can maybe see that I'm not lying, maybe, if that…
• 50:38
  belle price: Really, when you're done.
• 50:39
  Matt: No, we got nothing.
• 50:40
  Josh Eiserike: It's called a butt stroke.
• 50:42
  Matt: A butt stroke?
• 50:44
  Josh Eiserike: That's what… that's what… that's what my…
• 50:45
  Matt: As long as you hit them with the bottom of the gun, I get it.
• 50:48
  Larry Woods: Hell yeah.
• 50:49
  Matt: Stroke, that's gonna be my new fucking gamertag.
• 50:51
  belle price: So a lot of strokes his butt?
• 50:54
  Matt: bloodstroke at gmail.com.
• 50:56
  Josh Eiserike: Hey.
• 50:57
  belle price: giving him a buttstroke at the end of this scene? Is that what we're talking about right now?
• 51:00
  Josh Eiserike: There it is, there it is on the screen.
• 51:02
  Matt: Love it.
• 51:03
  belle price: Alana's buttstroking him? Dude.
• 51:05
  Matt: Yup.
• 51:05
  Josh Eiserike: That was… that was not what I had remembered it was called. This is… this is new to me.
• 51:09
  belle price: Crazy.
• 51:09
  Matt: That's crazy. But I'm glad that I know it now.
• 51:13
  Josh Eiserike: So, yeah, Alana is buttstroking Marco on their MeCue.
• 51:17
  Larry Woods: Which, which still.
• 51:19
  Josh Eiserike: last minute no one, because I'm still a 13-year-old boy.
• 51:22
  Larry Woods: I am more highly incorporating that into how I talk now. And two, is that…
• 51:29
  Larry Woods: Tell me a word that better describes the relationship between these two.
• 51:33
  belle price: Yeah, right?
• 51:35
  Larry Woods: I mean, wow.
• 51:37
  belle price: That's ideal. I don't even know if he did that on purpose, but knowing how Brian Kayvon writes, I wouldn't be surprised.
• 51:43
  Larry Woods: Yep.
• 51:44
  belle price: Like, he would go to that level.
• 51:47
  Larry Woods: Oh.
• 51:48
  Larry Woods: I wouldn't put… I always assume, like, everyone's smarter than me, so I'm just gonna say, yeah, he did.
• 51:54
  belle price: Yeah.
• 51:54
  Larry Woods: That tracks.
• 51:56
  Larry Woods: And hopefully we get Tad back, because I don't know if we could really close out this app without them.
• 52:03
  Larry Woods: Okay.
• 52:04
  Josh Eiserike: You're the… you're the captain now, Lee.
• 52:06
  Larry Woods: Well, now I'm concerned of, like, is it still recording?
• 52:11
  Josh Eiserike: It says it is.
• 52:12
  belle price: Yeah, it's recording.
• 52:13
  Larry Woods: Oh, cool. Oh, okay, I can read, I swear.
• 52:19
  Larry Woods: So then, let me just kind of ask y'all this, because I know this sort of sparked my interest, what we talked about earlier, in terms of characters that like the will, don't like the will, like Prince Robot IV.
• 52:33
  Larry Woods: Is there any particular character that, like, really stands out to y'all? Like, okay, at this point.
• 52:40
  Larry Woods: I'm really liking them, I like their growth, or is there a character that you don't like?
• 52:46
  Larry Woods: I don't like where they're going.
• 52:52
  belle price: Hmm.
• 52:54
  Matt: Offhand, only mama, son.
• 52:57
  Matt: And she gets what she deserves, so… I mean, really, all the, like, main and tertiary… main through tertiary characters?
• 53:03
  Matt: I'm totally on board with.
• 53:05
  Larry Woods: Hmm.
• 53:08
  belle price: I love…
• 53:09
  belle price: Sorry, I love Marco's mother. I know we've already mentioned her, but I really love how she comes in hot in this, in this, this volume.
• 53:20
  belle price: And how she rescues Isabelle. Isabelle's one of my favorite characters in the whole series, and I love how she comes in and saves one of my favorite characters and brings him back with Marco.
• 53:29
  Josh Eiserike: I know we touched on the Will and, Prince Robot before, so I'm not gonna repeat myself.
• 53:35
  Josh Eiserike: But I will say that because I am so invested in
• 53:40
  Josh Eiserike: Marco and Alana. At this point, just 2 volumes in.
• 53:45
  Josh Eiserike: I don't like Gwendolyn. Now, I know that I will, because I know where the story's going, but I see her as a foil for this couple that I'm rooting for.
• 53:55
  belle price: Yeah.
• 53:56
  Larry Woods: Okay.
• 53:57
  belle price: She does have a homewrecker vibe in this volume, it really does show through. Like, she's meddling where she doesn't belong, her fingers are in the bag, she needs to get out, like, I do see that.
• 54:07
  Josh Eiserike: And, and for sure, like, Marco was a dick to her.
• 54:10
  belle price: Oh, yeah.
• 54:11
  Josh Eiserike: But… Marco's the guy. I like Marco. I'm with Marco. I root for Marco.
• 54:17
  Larry Woods: Yeah.
• 54:18
  Matt: Tim Marco! Hashtag Team Marco!
• 54:22
  Josh Eiserike: I mean, I don't know if I was just reading about it the other day, but it's like, oh, it's like Scott Pilgrim. Like, he's totally a dick, but it's his story, and I like him, so there we go.
• 54:32
  belle price: On the topic of talking about Marco, I don't think we've at all spoken about Marco's dad, who both lives and dies in this entire.
• 54:38
  Matt: I love Marco's dad. Marco's dad is the most relatable character for me in this arc, this volume, whatever, because…
• 54:47
  Matt: in his final moments, he gets it. Everything comes together for him. And I understand it, and it's hard.
• 54:55
  belle price: Like, all he wants to do is help his family, not stress anybody out, get the job done, and show up for his people. And he holds the ship together, gets them through it.
• 55:03
  belle price: Makes everybody armor!
• 55:05
  Matt: deck.
• 55:06
  Matt: There's no in-law bullshit drama with him, he's just like, dude, I'm here to help.
• 55:11
  Matt: Yup.
• 55:12
  belle price: I love barre, and I also love that…
• 55:14
  belle price: we get that little tidbit where Hazel goes, and now a little snippet of that armor he made me is a bookmark. And, like, she still talks about it, and she gives you, like, to date relations to, like, the things that happened a long time ago. No, Bar is great. Bar is a fantastic character.
• 55:29
  Matt: Yep, bar, love bar.
• 55:31
  Larry Woods: I gotta say, too, I loved…
• 55:35
  Larry Woods: I opened straight to the panel, where it was, like, the panels were, as they're being attacked by that sort of, missile.
• 55:44
  Larry Woods: She's like, Barb, be careful, your heart, and he interrupts with, is down in the engine room.
• 55:50
  Tad Eggleston: I was never a great father to that boy, but I was always loyal to his mother.
• 55:56
  Larry Woods: That probably counts for something, right?
• 55:58
  belle price: And it's like…
• 56:00
  Larry Woods: Fuck! That is so deep, and it's like…
• 56:05
  Larry Woods: man, I know where Marco gets his harshness from.
• 56:10
  Larry Woods: and that violence and that temper, but also know where he gets a softness. And that was like, wow. That…
• 56:17
  Larry Woods: Yeah.
• 56:19
  belle price: Like, we love Marco because we love barre, secretly.
• 56:22
  Matt: That's where it comes from.
• 56:24
  Larry Woods: Basically.
• 56:25
  Matt: It's because when Barr was younger, it wasn't acceptable to show emotion, but now that he's at the end of his days, he gets it, and it's okay, so…
• 56:36
  Larry Woods: generational.
• 56:38
  Matt: That's that generational trauma, yeah.
• 56:41
  Larry Woods: Ted, just the question was, is I… I just kind of posed it to the group because we had the conversation earlier about the Will and Prince Robot IV of… in this sort of volume, is there a character that you felt really drawn to, or wanted to sort of know more about, or was there a character that you didn't really like, and maybe kind of plan for their downfall?
• 57:00
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I always love Hazel. I think I even love her more when she's narrating before.
• 57:08
  Tad Eggleston: She, she gets older. I love the…
• 57:12
  Tad Eggleston: The fact that we know that this is her telling this story from some… Some point in the future.
• 57:20
  Tad Eggleston: It always makes me wonder, like… How much of this…
• 57:28
  Tad Eggleston: You know, because it's definitely been passed down, so, like, how much is… is… is this, like…
• 57:36
  Tad Eggleston: This is like, is she the narrator, and we're seeing the reality, or are we seeing the view that she got to write because it was passed down, and it's…
• 57:47
  Tad Eggleston: Truth is she knows it.
• 57:49
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I still continue to wonder about the… the…
• 57:58
  Tad Eggleston: The panels with the clipped corners.
• 58:01
  Tad Eggleston: For a second, I thought I knew what they meant, because there were a couple of times where they seemed to be there.
• 58:08
  Tad Eggleston: when… when…
• 58:10
  Tad Eggleston: he went into a flashback sequence, but then they were there for something else. I'm like, okay, no, that's not it.
• 58:16
  Tad Eggleston: you know, for a second I thought it was like, oh, we're in two different places on the same page, but then I came across one that didn't fit that.
• 58:25
  belle price: I'm at one of those right now.
• 58:27
  Tad Eggleston: is…
• 58:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, at some point, I'm gonna, like, literally start keeping track of, like, which corner is clipped to see if they mean different things.
• 58:38
  belle price: I mean, the one that I'm on, it's Alana, and it says, Karak, and there's, like, the ship is cracking, and she's saying, so maybe it just means danger, maybe it just means there's, like, extreme violence happening, maybe these are the.
• 58:49
  Tad Eggleston: Well, except that the extreme…
• 58:50
  belle price: is uncomfortable.
• 58:52
  Tad Eggleston: It could be that, and I'll have to take that, and the violence itself is crooked panels.
• 58:58
  belle price: It's fard, it's fard.
• 59:01
  Matt: But then there's that one, where the corner's cut, and it's not danger.
• 59:05
  Tad Eggleston: Well, have they heard about the fact that they're on an egg yet?
• 59:08
  Matt: No.
• 59:09
  Tad Eggleston: tip out.
• 59:09
  Matt: It's just your own age.
• 59:11
  Josh Eiserike: I went even more tinfoil hat, and I'm wondering if the corner that's clipped has an indication, too.
• 59:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 59:18
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah. Like, if it's, like, top left, bottom left…
• 59:22
  Tad Eggleston: Top right, bottom right…
• 59:25
  Larry Woods: I'm looking at… 3 right now.
• 59:29
  Larry Woods: And there's two where it's clipped in the top left, and one where it's clipped in the top right, and they're almost, like, towards the, I guess the binding?
• 59:39
  Larry Woods: So I'm like, I don't know, what does it mean now? Right.
• 59:44
  Larry Woods: I didn't get my tinpole hat on or something.
• 59:47
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 59:49
  Tad Eggleston: But also, I, I… I feel like we got…
• 59:57
  Tad Eggleston: like, if we're looking at the two main characters, which at this point are Marco and Alana, you know, Hazel becomes a more prominent main character later. Right now, she's the narrator. I feel like we got…
• 1:00:16
  Tad Eggleston: to know Alana more in the last book, and this is the book that we get to know
• 1:00:21
  Tad Eggleston: Marco a little bit more. So seeing the difference between him with his chosen family and his…
• 1:00:31
  Tad Eggleston: Birth family, and the way they come together.
• 1:00:35
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, really, just the Marco family dynamics are so great in this book.
• 1:00:43
  Tad Eggleston: But I think, you know, I don't even think I'd looked at it
• 1:00:51
  Tad Eggleston: Until Josh said it earlier, as this volume is all about fatherhood.
• 1:00:56
  Tad Eggleston: Every, every thread of this volume.
• 1:00:59
  Tad Eggleston: Whether it's Robot, or Will, or Marco, or Bar, what is centered in this volume?
• 1:01:07
  Matt: Or the office.
• 1:01:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:01:10
  Matt: Yup.
• 1:01:12
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no.
• 1:01:13
  Matt: Absolutely.
• 1:01:13
  Tad Eggleston: And that made me, even as we were talking, start looking at some of the pages differently.
• 1:01:19
  Tad Eggleston: You know? Which is, again, like, that's…
• 1:01:24
  Tad Eggleston: you know, Josh talked about how, like, any one of the story arcs could be its own book, and it'd still be a great book. That's one part of what makes Saga great. Another part of what makes Saga great is every time you read it, you notice
• 1:01:41
  Tad Eggleston: new things. Whether it's new things in the art, or new things in subtleties of the…
• 1:01:47
  Tad Eggleston: The story itself, or the characters themselves, or… You know,
• 1:01:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you, you, you notice both, both?
• 1:01:58
  Tad Eggleston: Both new story things and new craft things.
• 1:02:02
  Tad Eggleston: You know, because what you have is…
• 1:02:05
  Tad Eggleston: one of the greatest stories I've set, ever seen told in any medium.
• 1:02:12
  Tad Eggleston: put together by two absolute master craftsmen. Three. Phonographics. We can't… we can't leave…
• 1:02:18
  Tad Eggleston: Can't leave our letterers out. Letterers are important, and Phonographics does a hell of a job here.
• 1:02:23
  belle price: I was just gonna mention how the lettering impacts the book. I was looking at a page where we end with a panel where it's handwritten by Fiona Staples or whoever.
• 1:02:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, the… is it.
• 1:02:32
  belle price: phonographics?
• 1:02:33
  Tad Eggleston: You know, Phonographics does the bubbles, but when, like, Hazel and the handwriting…
• 1:02:39
  belle price: Yeah.
• 1:02:39
  Tad Eggleston: is… is Fiona.
• 1:02:42
  belle price: But that… even that, like, even Fiona's handwriting ties in with, like, it said end chapter 11, in this very, like, like, sans-serif, like, really, like, uniform
• 1:02:51
  belle price: But, like, it works, and it works, like, almost too good. Like, there's no… you don't even… you can't even tell you're transitioning, you're just like, alright, this one's over, moving on. Like, you… it's so good, you can overlook it.
• 1:03:03
  belle price: Because you don't think about it, because it's that interwoven.
• 1:03:06
  Tad Eggleston: And again, like… I mean, this is another thing that I love, just flipping it through. I'm…
• 1:03:12
  Tad Eggleston: On the second-to-last page right now.
• 1:03:15
  Tad Eggleston: where… where… robot is reading to Heist, who he's already shot.
• 1:03:22
  Tad Eggleston: In the middle of this multicolored circle…
• 1:03:27
  Tad Eggleston: Almost feels like it's a swirl, but it's not, because they're actually concentric circles, but because of the color, because of the placement of
• 1:03:35
  Tad Eggleston: of…
• 1:03:36
  Tad Eggleston: robot, you know, the entire rug on the floor is bringing your attention to him, and, like, he's got just the holier-than-thou, I've got all the time in the world to wait, and I don't care that you're bleeding and scared of me. And then I notice there's a fucking manual typewriter on the desk.
• 1:03:55
  Josh Eiserike: Yup.
• 1:03:56
  Matt: Yup.
• 1:03:56
  Larry Woods: Yep.
• 1:03:57
  Matt: Yep.
• 1:03:59
  Tad Eggleston: Which I love, because I have my manual typewriter, and it's, like, one of my…
• 1:04:03
  Matt: And you have your VCL and your RCA cables.
• 1:04:06
  belle price: And your camcorder! Don't forget your camcorder!
• 1:04:09
  Matt: That's fine.
• 1:04:10
  Matt: burger.
• 1:04:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, and this is a handmade wooden chair.
• 1:04:14
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is, like, real craftsmanship on this chair.
• 1:04:20
  belle price: I also want to say, just aside, in this panel, I think, I think, his boots, Pors' boots, are really cunty. I think he's giving fashion, he's giving the moment. I think these boots are high fashion.
• 1:04:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah?
• 1:04:33
  belle price: I think I really like… I just need to mention, I love Four's fashion in this entire comic. I love his character design, I love his outfit, I love the way the colors play with his, like, the grays of his, like, you know, kind of tube TV head. I just… I love it, and his boots are very, very highlighted in this scene, and his little cross-legged stature is just very, like, I am the moment.
• 1:04:51
  belle price: And I'm reading to you, and you're bleeding out, and I don't even care.
• 1:04:54
  Matt: Holds.
• 1:04:57
  Josh Eiserike: Sorry, I'm really stupid, I just realized she does her coloring too, yeah?
• 1:05:01
  Matt: Yep.
• 1:05:02
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 1:05:02
  Josh Eiserike: Right?
• 1:05:05
  Josh Eiserike: I was like, who's the colorist on this? Oh, she is.
• 1:05:07
  Tad Eggleston: She does everything but the word balloons.
• 1:05:11
  Josh Eiserike: I love it.
• 1:05:12
  belle price: She's incredible, man.
• 1:05:13
  Josh Eiserike: Absolutely love it.
• 1:05:15
  belle price: I also love the quietness. If you really look in that same page, the panel, after he reads, it says, but he was dead wrong about my family coming to quiet us anytime soon, and it's just the stairs.
• 1:05:26
  belle price: I really like their use of… of foreshadowing with the stairs at the very bottom panel.
• 1:05:31
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, they, they, I mean…
• 1:05:33
  Tad Eggleston: and Josh knows this, like, comics, you've got, like…
• 1:05:39
  Tad Eggleston: All sorts of places that you want to have
• 1:05:46
  Tad Eggleston: if not cliffhangers, at least, like, that thing that, like, compels the reader forward. And, like.
• 1:05:56
  Tad Eggleston: Brian and Fiona, I mean, yes, they're the king and queen of cliffhangers, they're the king and queen of opening splash pages, but they are also the king and queen of the page term.
• 1:06:10
  Matt: Yes. Yes!
• 1:06:13
  Josh Eiserike: I mean.
• 1:06:14
  belle price: Can we… Sorry, Bill, go ahead. No, you go.
• 1:06:18
  Josh Eiserike: I was gonna say, like, it's so cinematic, like, we see, you know, panel 4, we see the Prince Robot, the stairs behind him, kind of in silhouette, last panel, the stairs, you turn the page, up the stairs, draw our eyes to our, our heroes hiding in the lighthouse, or the attic, or wherever they are.
• 1:06:37
  Josh Eiserike: It's great.
• 1:06:40
  Tad Eggleston: Which is why I should try to remind myself,
• 1:06:44
  Tad Eggleston: Though it works well either way, and for that matter, I've also read Saga panel by panel. There is no way of reading Saga that doesn't work really well, and that would be another one of my questions for Fiona. Was she considering the different ways that people read comics? Because, like…
• 1:07:03
  Tad Eggleston: I know books that work really well digitally, and they're not…
• 1:07:08
  Tad Eggleston: they're not bad physically, but, like, you can tell that they were designed for a digital format. I know books that don't work as well digitally, because they were clearly designed to have the two-page spread as often as possible, that sort of thing.
• 1:07:28
  Tad Eggleston: Like, there is literally no way I've ever read this comic that I didn't enjoy every aspect of it.
• 1:07:35
  belle price: To add to that, I read Saga for the first time fully online.
• 1:07:39
  belle price: I had… I had access to it, for… on Read Comic Online. Love Read Comic Online. And I read it… I read it fully there, everything, and to have a physical copy is a very different reading experience, but not different enough that I noticed.
• 1:07:53
  belle price: I appreciate it more, because I'm turning pages, but it doesn't ruin the experience, and it doesn't make it any better. It's the same book.
• 1:08:01
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and… and I only start to notice because I'm on, like, Reed 7000 now.
• 1:08:09
  Tad Eggleston: I'd read it many, many times before I started noticing that, oh, this works really well digitally. This works even better physically. Did she know that people were gonna read this panel by panel?
• 1:08:27
  belle price: No, but that's really cool that you noticed that, because I… I've appreciated it the same way both… both formats, and I've read both formats.
• 1:08:33
  Tad Eggleston: There was a 3-hour, or there was a 3-year hiatus, and like…
• 1:08:39
  Tad Eggleston: It's only so long I could go without Saga.
• 1:08:47
  belle price: You also missed our conversation about bars.
• 1:08:49
  Tad Eggleston: the net.
• 1:08:51
  Tad Eggleston: I caught the end of it. I caught the end of it.
• 1:08:55
  Tad Eggleston: I might have to go back and listen to the podcast. I'm better at listening to podcasts when I'm not a part of them, so, like, I'll try to remember where I cut out and go…
• 1:09:04
  Tad Eggleston: Or I'll look at the transcript.
• 1:09:08
  Larry Woods: Yeah, we make a comment.
• 1:09:09
  Tad Eggleston: But… I think as you would. I'm just, like…
• 1:09:15
  Tad Eggleston: It's one of the reasons I record to the cloud rather than locally, is it seems like when I record to the cloud, the one downside is it sometimes has trouble when two of us are talking at once.
• 1:09:29
  Tad Eggleston: But the upside is, if somebody's got a bad connection, or somebody drops out, it just keeps going.
• 1:09:37
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, there are times where my guests can't hear me, but they talk to each other, and they're on the recording, and you can't hear me on the recording. Every once in a while, I have a time where we're both on the recording, but we didn't go through to each other.
• 1:09:52
  belle price: To go back to our bar.
• 1:09:54
  belle price: conversation, because I'm seeing… I have this page, it's… it's mainly red. It's where Alana yells, help, in the spaceship, and she goes, I broke her, and she's holding the umbilical stuff. And she runs it out to Barr, and she's freaking out, she's like, I broke my baby, what is wrong? And he is so tender and fine.
• 1:10:11
  Tad Eggleston: Totally.
• 1:10:11
  belle price: in this scene, and he's just… he cradles the baby, and he's like, you're fine. Your baby is fine, everything's okay. And in this scene, you go from freaking out with Alana, like, oh my god, what's wrong, to being like, oh, it's all good, and Grandpa's got it.
• 1:10:25
  belle price: So I think this is also part of why the reader gets so attached to him so quickly, is because he's just this serene, like, calm, chill guy that, like, knows what's going on and wants to help, like, so intensely.
• 1:10:37
  belle price: We'll soon we get it.
• 1:10:38
  Tad Eggleston: Don't discount that, like, we almost immediately learn That he's gonna die.
• 1:10:45
  belle price: Yeah, true.
• 1:10:47
  Tad Eggleston: And for that matter, we almost immediately learn that he's gonna die, and nobody knows he's gonna die, which just puts all of the.
• 1:10:54
  Matt: Correct.
• 1:10:55
  Tad Eggleston: that he does.
• 1:10:58
  Tad Eggleston: They all become defining actions.
• 1:11:03
  Tad Eggleston: In his final moments, he's…
• 1:11:05
  Matt: Yup.
• 1:11:06
  Tad Eggleston: embracing his…
• 1:11:09
  Tad Eggleston: son's wife, despite years of fighting her people. In his final moments, he's building armor for his family.
• 1:11:19
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 1:11:20
  Matt: It's, and it's, it's, it's, it's that.
• 1:11:23
  Matt: He realizes he wasn't perfect.
• 1:11:25
  Matt: But he's gonna do what he can to make everything right, or good, or as best as possible, as good as possible for…
• 1:11:33
  Matt: You know, the… generation to come. It's just that fatherly, instinct.
• 1:11:41
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I spent a lot of time in senior care, and unfortunately, I've also lost way too many people in my life too young, and, like…
• 1:11:52
  Tad Eggleston: It's a gift to both… no…
• 1:11:58
  Tad Eggleston: Roughly how long you have left, or have an idea of how long you have left, and still have the capability to do things with it.
• 1:12:10
  Tad Eggleston: You know, most of the time, by the time you're at a point where you're like, oh, I've got a month to go, you're like, really? I have a month to go? Can we speed that up, please? Because I'm in pain, and this sucks.
• 1:12:26
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so, like, to have one's faculties, to be able to continue doing what one's doing.
• 1:12:34
  Tad Eggleston: Even as you know that you've got a limited time to do it, is… is a gift.
• 1:12:42
  Tad Eggleston: And it's really… Character dividing how one uses that gift.
• 1:12:50
  Tad Eggleston: You know?
• 1:12:55
  belle price: I don't know how many time… how much, how much, how many time, how much more time we have left for questions, but there's a lot of men on this call. I am the only girl, and I'm a young girl. I don't know what I want to do.
• 1:13:04
  Tad Eggleston: out.
• 1:13:05
  belle price: But I wanted to ask, since there's fathers here, and this is a fatherhood issue, and we've danced around it, but we haven't asked any direct questions, what aspects of fatherhood
• 1:13:15
  belle price: Resonated the deepest with you guys.
• 1:13:18
  Tad Eggleston: Or what couple of aspects in this volume? Because there's a… it touches on so much of it. It's so overarching. Like, where did… are you drawn to the most? What do you relate to the most?
• 1:13:28
  belle price: what kind of makes you cringe just because you relate to it? What makes you feel good because you relate to it? Like, where do you fall?
• 1:13:34
  Tad Eggleston: bar for you.
• 1:13:36
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I was gonna say, I mean, even through all of them, really, how quickly, when you even know you're gonna be a father, you can get to that point where, like.
• 1:13:46
  Tad Eggleston: All that matters is that your child is okay.
• 1:13:52
  Matt: Or your grandchild is okay.
• 1:13:54
  Tad Eggleston: Right, and it doesn't even necessarily make you a better person. I mean, you hope that it makes you a better person, but I mean, like…
• 1:14:05
  Tad Eggleston: the will certainly didn't become… and, like, when he was suddenly confronted with the, oh, wait, you mean there's something to do after I saved the child? It, like, completely threw him off, and I think that there are lots of young fathers that are like that, too.
• 1:14:19
  Matt: I can't get through the whole way! Right.
• 1:14:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right. What he saw was this child in danger that he felt affinity for, and…
• 1:14:29
  Tad Eggleston: Nothing else mattered until that child was out of date.
• 1:14:32
  Matt: jump.
• 1:14:34
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I think even the worst fathers…
• 1:14:37
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I think even the worst fathers in some moments would literally, like, break through walls for their kids.
• 1:14:46
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly when, like.
• 1:14:52
  Tad Eggleston: they haven't started to understand what… because there's definitely a period, and I think it's even more with dads than moms, because, like, they're not growing in us, so they're… they're,
• 1:15:05
  Tad Eggleston: A mildly abstract thing?
• 1:15:08
  Matt: Where it's like…
• 1:15:12
  Tad Eggleston: We have all of these ideas of what it means to be a father, and we don't know which ones are true, and which ones aren't, and we want to do a good job, but we also don't want people to think we're dumb, and some of us don't want people to think we're not manly.
• 1:15:29
  Tad Eggleston: And… and… It gets even more complicated if there are relationship issues, or, you know…
• 1:15:38
  Tad Eggleston: Do you know the writer Michael Chabon?
• 1:15:44
  Josh Eiserike: I got his books on the shelf behind me. Those ones I've read.
• 1:15:47
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, Michael Chabon won a Pulitzer Prize for.
• 1:15:52
  Matt: Nope.
• 1:15:52
  Tad Eggleston: Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, he wrote Wonder Boys, Telegraph Avenue, yeah. But one of my favorite books of his is called Manhood for Amateurs.
• 1:16:05
  Tad Eggleston: And it's actually a selection of essays.
• 1:16:09
  Tad Eggleston: In one of the essays, he talks about being at the grocery store.
• 1:16:15
  Tad Eggleston: And having his kid screaming and yelling and crying and whatnot, and he opens up a box of Cheerios that he hasn't paid for yet, and he gives him a couple of Cheerios, and the kid is happy, and this old lady is like, you're such a good dad.
• 1:16:34
  Tad Eggleston: And he's sitting there going, I mean, thanks?
• 1:16:41
  Tad Eggleston: But in a million years, would anybody say to a woman, who…
• 1:16:47
  Tad Eggleston: had only placated her child by essentially thieving from the store. I mean, he intended to buy the Cheerios, but, like.
• 1:16:57
  Tad Eggleston: By giving them a few Cheerios to get them to shut the hell up. You're such a good mom.
• 1:17:05
  belle price: Yeah, never. In no world would that ever occur.
• 1:17:08
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, part of particularly those early…
• 1:17:12
  Matt: really…
• 1:17:13
  Tad Eggleston: father times.
• 1:17:16
  Tad Eggleston: Are, like, wanting to be a good dad, and…
• 1:17:20
  Tad Eggleston: And having no idea what that means. Yup.
• 1:17:24
  Matt: Like, none.
• 1:17:27
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm told that I was a good dad, and there's some evidence of it. My kids are doing pretty good.
• 1:17:34
  Tad Eggleston: My grandkids are doing pretty good. I still don't know if A I agree with them that I was a good dad, and B,
• 1:17:44
  Tad Eggleston: what it means.
• 1:17:48
  Josh Eiserike: Josh, Dad, where do you guys stand? I've… you know, we've touched on it. I,
• 1:17:54
  Josh Eiserike: The moment where he teaches the kid to ride a bike?
• 1:17:57
  Josh Eiserike: That was real for me, and the moment,
• 1:18:00
  Josh Eiserike: Where Alana's freaking out at bars, like, The kid's fine.
• 1:18:04
  Josh Eiserike: Totally fine. Everything's fine. Like, that is a conversation I've had with my wife so many times.
• 1:18:09
  Matt: conflict.
• 1:18:10
  Josh Eiserike: Kids are fine. They're fine.
• 1:18:12
  Josh Eiserike: Everything's fine.
• 1:18:14
  Matt: No, his… his quote… oh god, I'm probably not gonna be able to find it now, where he talks about it takes a lifetime to realize how to become a good parent, and then you get stopped short, and he doesn't finish it. It's like, fuck, I feel bad.
• 1:18:27
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, we lost Bell.
• 1:18:31
  Matt: Come back.
• 1:18:32
  Tad Eggleston: I know, but we're answering her question, and she fell off…
• 1:18:36
  Matt: Alright.
• 1:18:37
  Tad Eggleston: She fell out as you were answering. Yep, that's all good. The internet gods are not kind to us today.
• 1:18:48
  Matt: They never are, that's the problem.
• 1:18:54
  Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's…
• 1:18:56
  Matt: Bar, don't be so hard on yourself. It takes a lifetime to learn how to be a parent, and by the time you figure… by the time you finally start to figure things out.
• 1:19:05
  Matt: And he gets cut off. It's like, damn it! I can totally relate to that.
• 1:19:10
  Tad Eggleston: praying.
• 1:19:13
  Tad Eggleston: Nope.
• 1:19:15
  Tad Eggleston: There she is.
• 1:19:17
  Tad Eggleston: So you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to tell her which page again.
• 1:19:25
  Matt: The internet gods are so uncool. Look, if you're gonna ask a question, at least stay on and listen to the… I wanted to hear your answer the most, and my MacBook died.
• 1:19:38
  belle: My effin' MacBook died, I was so mad. My dad started speaking, I was like, this is the answer I'm waiting for, it's my dad, and it turns out that.
• 1:19:45
  Josh Eiserike: What happens in the comic?
• 1:19:47
  belle: I gotta wait for the podcast to come out, man!
• 1:19:50
  Tad Eggleston: No, because I've told him.
• 1:19:51
  Matt: It's unbelievably accurate!
• 1:19:54
  belle: Repeat yourself, go.
• 1:19:56
  belle: I'm here, I'm ready.
• 1:19:59
  belle: You know what?
• 1:20:00
  Matt: What was I saying, Ted? I forgot.
• 1:20:01
  belle: Oh my god, this guy.
• 1:20:03
  Matt: Don't you dare, Matt!
• 1:20:05
  belle: This guy, this dude. Are you serious?
• 1:20:08
  Matt: Hmm!
• 1:20:11
  Matt: That's so funny.
• 1:20:13
  Tad Eggleston: But you still have the book open to the page.
• 1:20:18
  Matt: I do. I do. It's raining.
• 1:20:23
  Matt: Ugh, no, it's, it's, it's… bar, when he's trying to tell Alana not to be so hard on herself.
• 1:20:30
  Matt: That it takes a lifetime to learn how to become apparent.
• 1:20:35
  Matt: And by the time you finally start to figure things out, he gets cut off.
• 1:20:39
  Matt: And it's like, he never gets to finish the thought, and it's like, fuck, I understand where you are!
• 1:20:46
  Matt: So, like, that is the most impactful panel in this whole volume for me.
• 1:20:51
  belle: Might it be because both your children are in college now?
• 1:20:54
  Matt: Maybe.
• 1:20:56
  Tad Eggleston: Probably some. I think one of the most interesting things I ever heard
• 1:21:03
  Tad Eggleston: from another parent, it was from my grandmother.
• 1:21:06
  Tad Eggleston: Talking about, like… How she thought she was a good parent, but at the same time, you know.
• 1:21:15
  Tad Eggleston: Her children had… Certain issues, and went through certain struggles, and whatever, and, like…
• 1:21:25
  Tad Eggleston: She knew she tried hard, but she also…
• 1:21:29
  Tad Eggleston: Knew that she probably contributed some to those.
• 1:21:34
  Matt: adverted.
• 1:21:34
  Tad Eggleston: And that it was hard sometimes when they'd… when they'd be calling for… for… advice, or… or…
• 1:21:42
  Tad Eggleston: Or help, or even just to… to have somebody to listen to, because…
• 1:21:48
  Tad Eggleston: She absolutely wanted to help, and she absolutely wanted to listen, and… and… she would… she would impart what advice that she had, but she's like, but also remember that, like.
• 1:22:02
  Tad Eggleston: I could be completely full of shit.
• 1:22:06
  Tad Eggleston: Seeing as you're… you are quite possibly having this issue, because I didn't deal well enough with it in my life for you to avoid making my mistakes.
• 1:22:20
  Matt: Again, yeah.
• 1:22:21
  belle: I think that's… I think, Tad, I think you just explained generational trauma. I think that's what you just…
• 1:22:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's part of it.
• 1:22:26
  belle: demand.
• 1:22:27
  Matt: I'm so glad I could explain generational trauma with extra steps.
• 1:22:33
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's…
• 1:22:34
  belle: With an anecdotal story and a great little… a great little tie-up, like, that's tad, man.
• 1:22:40
  Matt: It…
• 1:22:41
  Tad Eggleston: It is, you know, I mean, every generation can only parent as well, and the hope is that your kids are better parents than you are. The thing that I am proudest of my son for is, right now.
• 1:22:55
  Tad Eggleston: I have a 6- and 4-year-old grandchild.
• 1:23:00
  Tad Eggleston: And he's younger than I was when he was that age, and…
• 1:23:06
  Tad Eggleston: I think he's doing a better job than I was when he was that age.
• 1:23:13
  Tad Eggleston: And there's nothing that I'm prouder of in my life. And I have no idea how much I can actually take any credit for it.
• 1:23:20
  Tad Eggleston: I don't really feel like I deserve any.
• 1:23:24
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes disagrees with me.
• 1:23:26
  Matt: You're just staying.
• 1:23:28
  Tad Eggleston: But I don't want to speak for him, because who knows if he disagrees with me today.
• 1:23:32
  Matt: Yep, understood.
• 1:23:34
  Tad Eggleston: But,
• 1:23:36
  Tad Eggleston: I know I just blacked out, I was… I was waiting for that to happen. I have my… my lights are on a timer.
• 1:23:42
  Tad Eggleston: And because I liked them on that timer, I didn't want to turn the timer off, I wanted to wait for them to go off and then turn them back on.
• 1:23:49
  Tad Eggleston: But I can do it from my phone.
• 1:23:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, it's just, like, you just… but even, like, when I look at my own issues with my parents, as I get to know about their relationships with their parents, I can see, oh, well.
• 1:24:10
  Tad Eggleston: This is the next generation of a lot of that.
• 1:24:13
  Tad Eggleston: And that makes me wonder what their parents had to go through.
• 1:24:20
  belle: I can add to that, in getting closer with my grandma, I've understood more of my dad, and I've gotten closer with both of them in the meantime, and also understood more about myself. It's very interesting.
• 1:24:29
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:24:29
  belle: Like, you get to know the generations before you, and you, in doing so, get to know yourself.
• 1:24:34
  belle: better.
• 1:24:35
  belle: It's very interesting. And then you learn how to be a better person outwardly from that point on, because you can understand where you're coming from in your own brain, which is, like, so hard to figure out.
• 1:24:45
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:24:46
  belle: But I think that's just the point in my life where I'm at. I mean, I'm in my early 20s.
• 1:24:49
  Tad Eggleston: Yes?
• 1:24:49
  belle: It's gonna be a long ride.
• 1:24:52
  Larry Woods: My favorite phrase that I've come up with in the last decade is, humaning is hard.
• 1:25:01
  belle: Yeah.
• 1:25:02
  Tad Eggleston: I don't like to say adulting is hard anymore, because then I think back and go, no, college sucked. High school was worse.
• 1:25:09
  Matt: I don't know.
• 1:25:10
  Tad Eggleston: schools I wouldn't go back to for all the tea in China.
• 1:25:13
  Josh Eiserike: Middle schooling is hard.
• 1:25:14
  belle: rough.
• 1:25:15
  belle: Voluntary school was rough.
• 1:25:17
  Josh Eiserike: Cool as hell.
• 1:25:19
  Tad Eggleston: I barely even remember elementary school, but I assumed that if I hated middle school, and I can barely remember elementary school, it couldn't have been.
• 1:25:26
  Matt: There's a reason why.
• 1:25:27
  belle: No, I mean.
• 1:25:28
  Matt: Yeah…
• 1:25:30
  Tad Eggleston: It might not have been work.
• 1:25:31
  Matt: evil.
• 1:25:32
  Tad Eggleston: But it couldn't have been better.
• 1:25:35
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 1:25:36
  belle: There's a lot of ADHD in elementary school.
• 1:25:40
  Tad Eggleston: No, like, the biggest thing that I've learned through the years is I try to just be open with my kids. Like, I try not to have.
• 1:25:49
  belle: Can anything be off-limits?
• 1:25:52
  Tad Eggleston: And I also try to, like…
• 1:25:59
  Tad Eggleston: not be overbearing. Admit when I don't know.
• 1:26:06
  Tad Eggleston: Which is hard to do as a parent, particularly because there aren't many parents… generations of parents that think that way.
• 1:26:13
  Matt: Well, yeah, because most parents were raised to think their parents were right, so when they're parents, they think they're right.
• 1:26:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Exactly. Yeah.
• 1:26:24
  Tad Eggleston: And for that matter, I mean, I see it teaching, too. You know, the number of times I have
• 1:26:31
  Tad Eggleston: arguments about whether or not if we give them an inch, they're gonna take a mile, and I'm like, what kid has that actually been true for?
• 1:26:38
  Matt: Right, yeah, yeah. Show me the data. Right.
• 1:26:43
  Tad Eggleston: What kid has that really been true for?
• 1:26:47
  Tad Eggleston: Where if we take their stated needs.
• 1:26:54
  Tad Eggleston: And or there are obvious needs that maybe are outside of what other kids get.
• 1:27:01
  Matt: Yep.
• 1:27:02
  Tad Eggleston: And accommodate them, because it's going to make them feel comfortable, it's going to make them feel safe, it's going to make them feel special, whatever.
• 1:27:10
  Matt: That's gonna.
• 1:27:11
  Tad Eggleston: They're going to turn around and go, oh, you were nice to me, so I'm gonna use you. No kid's like that.
• 1:27:19
  Matt: No.
• 1:27:19
  belle: Hey, adults, your trauma is showing!
• 1:27:23
  Josh Eiserike: My wife… my… my wife is a therapist, and we joke that.
• 1:27:28
  Josh Eiserike: If our kids need less therapy than
• 1:27:30
  Josh Eiserike: We do, we've done a good job.
• 1:27:34
  Tad Eggleston: Okay. Yeah, I like that. Josh, I'm Gen X.
• 1:27:37
  Matt: I have no therapy, so I've already failed.
• 1:27:41
  belle: Aang, I have all the therapy.
• 1:27:44
  Tad Eggleston: Me too.
• 1:27:46
  Tad Eggleston: I had an emergency session today.
• 1:27:48
  belle: I love Jeff. I see him every Thursday.
• 1:27:53
  belle: Emergency session, I hope you're well.
• 1:27:55
  Matt: I sit push that shit down, and drink, and smoke weed.
• 1:28:00
  Tad Eggleston: I'm doing better. It was an interesting day.
• 1:28:04
  Tad Eggleston: I also have therapists on my podcast in case I need them.
• 1:28:08
  Larry Woods: Wow.
• 1:28:11
  belle: Well, that's planning ahead.
• 1:28:12
  Tad Eggleston: I don't charge.
• 1:28:13
  belle: by the hour.
• 1:28:14
  Tad Eggleston: I have therapists… I have therapists and backup therapists.
• 1:28:20
  Larry Woods: Glad to know my role here.
• 1:28:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, no, you're also good for other things, Lee.
• 1:28:26
  Larry Woods: Whoa!
• 1:28:27
  Matt: Okay, I think it's time we wrap this up.
• 1:28:33
  Larry Woods: Is phrasing still a thing? No, no.
• 1:28:38
  Josh Eiserike: Listen, I learned about butt stroking tonight. This has been a great success.
• 1:28:43
  Larry Woods: Yep.
• 1:28:44
  Josh Eiserike: This is maybe my favorite podcast I've ever been on. Like, it's, it's, it's wonderful.
• 1:28:49
  Larry Woods: Only almost like a book club.
• 1:28:52
  belle: I was looking forward to this so much. I've had a rough week, man, I have, like, so many exams this week, and so much of college has been so stressful this semester, and I was just like, I have Saga Book Club, I have something to look forward to, I'll make it.
• 1:29:04
  belle: So…
• 1:29:05
  Larry Woods: Well, we gotta get you into more book clubs so you have more things to look forward to.
• 1:29:09
  belle: I would love to have more things to read, and more reasons to read them.
• 1:29:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, like, hit me up! I will… Matt, give her my phone number, she can text me. You got it. We'll rope her in.
• 1:29:21
  Tad Eggleston: I want younger voices. I mean, I like having as many different voices on this podcast as possible, because, like, the conversation is more interesting.
• 1:29:33
  belle: That is definitely one way to describe my voice, different.
• 1:29:36
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if you mean that.
• 1:29:38
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 1:29:39
  Matt: I was a kid, buying, reading, enjoying comics. Like, there aren't that many kids in the hobby.
• 1:29:47
  Matt: If they are, it does not mean…
• 1:29:50
  Matt: They could just be buying them.
• 1:29:52
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no. There aren't that many kids in the… Single issue hobby.
• 1:29:58
  Tad Eggleston: There are a lot of kids in the manga, in the Reina Telgemeyer, in the…
• 1:30:03
  Matt: Cross down.
• 1:30:04
  Tad Eggleston: Abrams, when it comes to all of comics, There are still…
• 1:30:11
  Tad Eggleston: Plenty of readers. Yes. The place where, where comic, er, Marvel and DC have… have…
• 1:30:20
  Tad Eggleston: And to a certain extent, your local comic shops. Not all of them, but, like, they have just failed to…
• 1:30:28
  Tad Eggleston: Prioritize new readers.
• 1:30:31
  Matt: Yep.
• 1:30:32
  belle: I also just think, too, though, like, when you're going to a comic book shop, there's also just, like, it is a lot of people from, like, my dad's generation. Like, your general comic book shop, you're gonna run into maybe, like.
• 1:30:42
  belle: 5 or 6 50-year-old dudes, and maybe one person that's younger, but, like, probably a millennial, and probably not my right.
• 1:30:49
  Matt: If you're lucky that day.
• 1:30:50
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely, but part of my point is so many comic shops have, rather than seeking out and trying to do things to capture their… the kids of their
• 1:31:05
  Tad Eggleston: customers or do outreach to schools and libraries have instead just been
• 1:31:13
  Tad Eggleston: Happy to sit back and keep their… Boomer, Gen X… older millennial… customers and…
• 1:31:23
  Tad Eggleston: Rest on the fact that they're making more money every year, and therefore can buy more shit.
• 1:31:28
  belle: Well, don't worry, I'm carrying the Saga fandom on my back. I bought the first issue, or first volume, and I've been loaning it out to every friend of mine. I think I've given it to 3 people now, and they've all read it, and are now reading it online. So, I sometimes get.
• 1:31:39
  Tad Eggleston: Nice, nice.
• 1:31:40
  belle: Why did… why did he do this? Why did Fiona draw that?
• 1:31:43
  Tad Eggleston: I.
• 1:31:44
  belle: And I'm proud of myself for that.
• 1:31:45
  Tad Eggleston: And I… when I worked in a comic shop, and I'm hope… I'm hoping…
• 1:31:50
  Tad Eggleston: Lee, Bug, Bug Edgar. I'm hoping to, to be working in, in one again
• 1:31:56
  Tad Eggleston: in the not-so-distant future, I… like, I used to have to convince my owner to get… to keep it in stock.
• 1:32:05
  Tad Eggleston: And I remember coming in one day, and there were 20 copies of Volume 1 on the counter.
• 1:32:13
  Tad Eggleston: And…
• 1:32:15
  Tad Eggleston: at 11… the store opened at 10. At, like, 11.45, he's like, are you happy now? He called and said, are you happy now? And I'm like, yeah, but you're out.
• 1:32:27
  Tad Eggleston: It's like, what?
• 1:32:28
  Tad Eggleston: I'm like, I sold them all.
• 1:32:29
  Tad Eggleston: It's like, how many customers have we had? 22? You sold Saga to 20 of the 22 customers? I'm like, yeah, I was out for the last 2.
• 1:32:40
  Matt: Yep.
• 1:32:48
  Josh Eiserike: It's also, like, was… was that one image… I don't know if they still do this, like, the first volume of their series, like, the trade would be, like, 10 bucks.
• 1:32:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yup.
• 1:32:56
  Josh Eiserike: Those days.
• 1:32:57
  Josh Eiserike: Yeah, of course you would buy that.
• 1:32:59
  Tad Eggleston: But by the end of the day, we had sold… I think at the time, 5 trades were available, and he had between 2 and 4 copies of each of the trades, and he also had…
• 1:33:15
  Tad Eggleston: or no, 6 trades were available, because the first 2 hardcovers were available. So… so we had 2 copies a piece of each hardcover, we had between 2 and 4 copies of each of the other trades. By the end of the day that day, we were completely out of saga from people who had come back to get caught up.
• 1:33:37
  Tad Eggleston: Like, zero saga.
• 1:33:40
  belle: I think Saga carries the same magic for…
• 1:33:44
  belle: just adults in general, that Diary of a Wimpy Kid carries for children. When I was a child, there was a period in my life where I didn't want to read a book. I didn't want… you couldn't pay me to pick up a book as a kid when I was, like, maybe.
• 1:33:56
  Tad Eggleston: 18 to 13.
• 1:33:56
  belle: Thanks, so…
• 1:33:57
  Josh Eiserike: Dog… dog man to this generation.
• 1:33:59
  belle: Yeah, so, like, I… Diary of a Wimpy Kid saved my, like, interest in reading as a child, and then I became… I got into high school, COVID hit, I was going through a lot, and my dad was like, hey, read Saga.
• 1:34:10
  belle: And at some points, I was like, there's robot sex, my dad recommended this. But at other points, I was like, this book is literally making me want to read again, and I have to thank him and the artist. Was it your dad that recommended it? I thought I recommended it, and he seconded it.
• 1:34:23
  belle: I don't remember. I think I might have been on a podcast that I got it recommended, to be honest. I was listening in his office to something.
• 1:34:30
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, but I thought I recommended it in person when I met you the first time.
• 1:34:35
  belle: Maybe. I'm not sure. It was the two of you, you conspired, the both of you.
• 1:34:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, it's…
• 1:34:43
  Tad Eggleston: And I don't want to take anything away from your dad, I just feel like I was involved in that one.
• 1:34:47
  belle: No, you, you conspired.
• 1:34:50
  Matt: funny.
• 1:34:51
  Tad Eggleston: Because you wound up on the podcast the last time we talked about Saga, too, because it was your dad and I that did a Saga talk on a Saturday morning.
• 1:35:01
  Tad Eggleston: podcast way back when, when Tyler was busy, and you're like.
• 1:35:06
  belle: I did, I did.
• 1:35:11
  belle: Yeah.
• 1:35:12
  Tad Eggleston: You're muted, Josh.
• 1:35:15
  Tad Eggleston: Josh, you're muted, if you're trying to talk to us.
• 1:35:18
  Josh Eiserike: Oh, I was not, I was tell…
• 1:35:19
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:35:19
  belle: up there, and I was telling my children, it is past your bedtime.
• 1:35:24
  Josh Eiserike: He's fathering! It's the fatherhood volume!
• 1:35:27
  Matt: Oh my god, Josh, sorry!
• 1:35:30
  Josh Eiserike: Watch TV.
• 1:35:32
  Josh Eiserike: You're allowed to watch TV while I'm doing this, but at 8 o'clock, you gotta go to bed. Oh, it is out.
• 1:35:36
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 1:35:37
  Josh Eiserike: somebody's not listening. It's the fatherhood one.
• 1:35:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it. I gotta work in the morning, so we should probably wrap up, but I love this book club. I hope that more people come and join us, just because this is…
• 1:35:51
  Tad Eggleston: This is a night… I mean… Lee, unfortunately, Dr. Ramos is one of the… the… the, like…
• 1:35:59
  Tad Eggleston: One in a million people who read Saga appreciates its greatness and still doesn't like it.
• 1:36:06
  Tad Eggleston: Because, like, I feel like we're managing to accomplish with this what I hope to someday fully accomplish with the Joy, Resistance, Hope, and Survival Book Club.
• 1:36:18
  Tad Eggleston: Which, by the way, like, Bell, that'd be another good one for you. What are we reading for next time? Do you even remember, Lee? I know I have it written down somewhere.
• 1:36:26
  Larry Woods: I have to pull up my calendar.
• 1:36:32
  belle: I could use more fun things, man, to be so honest.
• 1:36:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I get it. I get it. That's a Sunday night book club.
• 1:36:38
  Larry Woods: Yeah, I think the next one we're reading is, Bitch Planet.
• 1:36:42
  belle: Oh, that's right, oh god. Oh, God!
• 1:36:44
  Josh Eiserike: That's how- I'm literally reading that right now!
• 1:36:46
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you should join for Pitch Planet.
• 1:36:49
  Tad Eggleston: She totally joined for Bitch Planet. I will add you to the… to the invite.
• 1:36:54
  belle: I'm gonna cry, this is so exciting. This is so beyond exciting.
• 1:36:57
  Tad Eggleston: It's a couple weeks. I think that one's the first Sunday of the month at 7, so 8 o'clock your time.
• 1:37:07
  Matt: I love Kelly Sue, so…
• 1:37:09
  belle: First Sunday in October?
• 1:37:11
  Larry Woods: Yep.
• 1:37:12
  belle: Oh, wow, cool.
• 1:37:13
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 1:37:14
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Did you see that we finally had Kelly Sue on, Matt?
• 1:37:18
  Matt: No, I didn't.
• 1:37:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you gotta go listen to it. We finally had Kelly Sue on. Kelly Sue's awesome.
• 1:37:24
  Matt: She is.
• 1:37:25
  Tad Eggleston: Actually, are you reading FML? I am. Mel, are you reading FML?
• 1:37:29
  belle: What's FML?
• 1:37:30
  Josh Eiserike: It's great reading.
• 1:37:31
  Tad Eggleston: FML is Kelly Hsu's new book.
• 1:37:33
  belle: No, I'm not… I… guys, I'm literally reading Saga, and that's it, I'm being so honest. Tell me to read things, so I read… well, you're reading Bitch Planet right now. Yes, I'm in the first issue, er, volume, but I haven't finished it.
• 1:37:44
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, FML is Kelly Sue's current book.
• 1:37:49
  belle: Cool.
• 1:37:49
  Tad Eggleston: Matt, were you reading FML?
• 1:37:51
  belle: -
• 1:37:52
  Matt: I am.
• 1:37:53
  Tad Eggleston: I'm looking it up right now, I'll find it. Epic. Josh, have you read the new issue?
• 1:37:57
  Josh Eiserike: I have it, it's in my to-read pile. I'm… right now, like, I really enjoy FML, but the one that is totally jazzing me is, Seasons, the Rick Reminder series.
• 1:38:06
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I need to read that. I need to read that.
• 1:38:08
  Josh Eiserike: Awesome.
• 1:38:08
  Tad Eggleston: But… but I needed… I needed to brag, because… because not only did I get a letter prejuded at FML, Kelly Hsu wrote me the… the sweetest note in the world.
• 1:38:20
  Tad Eggleston: So… so yeah, I… I'm in the new issue of FML.
• 1:38:26
  Josh Eiserike: I'm…
• 1:38:26
  Tad Eggleston: And ironically, in it, she promises that she hasn't forgotten, and she will come on 22 panels, but she'd already been on 22 panels by the time that dropped.
• 1:38:36
  Matt: So just hold it around and do it again.
• 1:38:38
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, no, she plans on coming back. Make her do it for Bitch Planet so I can meet her?
• 1:38:42
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I might whisper it in her.
• 1:38:45
  Josh Eiserike: There you are!
• 1:38:46
  Tad Eggleston: come.
• 1:38:47
  belle: Yep.
• 1:38:47
  Tad Eggleston: There you are! But her note back to me at the top of the next column just… it made me cry. Particularly because she pointed out that librarians, teachers, and journalists have always been her heroes, and me too, so…
• 1:39:01
  belle: Me 3.
• 1:39:02
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:39:04
  Tad Eggleston: So, for all these folks, this has been the Saga Book Club on 22 Panels, and Matt, you gonna take us out?
• 1:39:12
  Matt: We'll continue after the next page.