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Book Club: The Low, Low Woods · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to Steffone never told you a production of iHeartRadio,
0:18
Speaker 2: and today we are here with another edition of book Club.
0:24
Speaker 2: Spoilers because this is from twenty nineteen, and also content
0:29
Speaker 2: warning for discussion of trauma, sexual assault violence. We're not
0:35
Speaker 2: going to go too into detail, but it will be there.
0:38
Speaker 2: Also say, this is weirdly similar to the plot of
0:41
Speaker 2: Blink Twice, the movie that just came out. Oh really,
0:45
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Also for horror fans, as we
0:51
Speaker 2: are moving into Halloween time, you all know I love
0:57
Speaker 2: Silent Hill. This is I could be wrong, but I'm
1:01
Speaker 2: very very certain that I'm not. That this is slightly
1:05
Speaker 2: inspired by, at least slightly what inspires out Hill, which
1:10
Speaker 2: is Centralia, Pennsylvania, which is a town where I'm still there,
1:17
Speaker 2: where coal mines are just burning from underneath and so
1:21
Speaker 2: there's like smoke and it's really creepy and no one
1:24
Speaker 2: lives there and you can look it up. It's freaky.
1:29
Speaker 2: But Okay, Today we're talking about the twenty nineteen graphic
1:33
Speaker 2: novel The Lolo Woods, Issues one through six, written by
1:38
Speaker 2: Carmen Maria Machado and with art by Dannye with Tamara Bonvillain,
1:44
Speaker 2: the colorist, Sam wolf Connelly who's the cover artist, and
1:47
Speaker 2: Steve WANs who is the letterer. It is a horror,
1:51
Speaker 2: coming of age story about trauma and it's lasting impacts.
1:55
Speaker 2: It really pulls you in. It's compelling, it's horrifying, it's poignant,
1:58
Speaker 2: and it's beautifully illustrate, which we'll talk about later. I
2:02
Speaker 2: really loved it, and this was funny because you had
2:05
Speaker 2: suggested several things and I immediately was like, I've been
2:09
Speaker 2: wanting to read something from this author, right we started
2:13
Speaker 2: doing this, yes, which.
2:15
Speaker 1: Was perfect timing. It popped up and I was like, huh,
2:17
Speaker 1: because we were also talking about we wanted to do
2:20
Speaker 1: some type of comics from by a woman, and not
2:23
Speaker 1: realizing until I was like, oh, this is a DC
2:26
Speaker 1: World comic and I was like, that's really really really
2:29
Speaker 1: really cool. And I was like, yeah, this like kind
2:31
Speaker 1: of covers all the things, including the fact that yes,
2:33
Speaker 1: we're jumping into fall that means spooky season for us all.
2:37
Speaker 1: And so this was almost perfect. I will say had
2:40
Speaker 1: no idea what this was about, just threw it out
2:42
Speaker 1: there and then I was like, oh, not what, I
2:45
Speaker 1: don't know what I was expecting. I think I had
2:46
Speaker 1: little to no expectation. But then like I was like, okay, yeah,
2:49
Speaker 1: it's definitely didn't know how that's where we were. This
2:52
Speaker 1: is where we were going.
2:52
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, like we said before we started recording, it goes.
2:59
Speaker 2: It goes to a lot of places. But I really
3:01
Speaker 2: loved it. So I'm just gonna run through the plot, Samantha. Yes,
3:05
Speaker 2: all right, So teen best friends Elladora or Elle and
3:09
Speaker 2: Octavia or V, residents of the Pennsylvania town shudder to think,
3:14
Speaker 2: wake up in a movie theater, not remembering watching the movie.
3:18
Speaker 2: When they confront Josh, the guy works there, he actually
3:22
Speaker 2: weird in like a complete jerk about it. Elle gives
3:25
Speaker 2: V a ride home on her bike, which is something
3:27
Speaker 2: that they often do, and when they crash after seeing
3:30
Speaker 2: a menacing looking bunny. They're then attacked by what appears
3:35
Speaker 2: to be a skinless zombie. They escape, discussing next actions,
3:42
Speaker 2: but ultimately kind of disagree on what to do next.
3:45
Speaker 2: Elle thinks that they should tell someone. V thinks that
3:48
Speaker 2: they should just move on. I kind of love how
3:51
Speaker 2: they were like, oh, you're not that out of the ordinary.
3:57
Speaker 1: But the thing that's one of the things that shocked me.
3:58
Speaker 1: I was like, what just happen? Yeah, why are they
4:01
Speaker 1: acting normal? There was a bunny, but it was a
4:03
Speaker 1: menacing bunny that like huh yeah.
4:08
Speaker 2: It was very like, well, what should we do about
4:10
Speaker 2: this zombie? And then we get a brief history of
4:15
Speaker 2: the town, which might explain some of their blaseiness. So
4:19
Speaker 2: for generations, people have gotten sick from the local mining industry.
4:24
Speaker 2: The company that runs that industry ignores that they've been
4:28
Speaker 2: replacing sick or unwilling workers. They've been buying up houses
4:32
Speaker 2: so that they can expand their industry. Then things seem
4:37
Speaker 2: to collapse and the mines catch on fire. It left
4:41
Speaker 2: a lasting impact on the town. People are sick, the
4:44
Speaker 2: town is damaged, and it seems there is this like
4:48
Speaker 2: hell void where monsters come out and people just sort
4:51
Speaker 2: of roll with it or don't talk about it. We
4:55
Speaker 2: later learned that V and l met fighting off one
4:59
Speaker 2: of these zombie and that once while they were camping
5:02
Speaker 2: there as kids, they promised to always believe each other. Anyway,
5:08
Speaker 2: v is really trying to get out of the town,
5:11
Speaker 2: eagerly awaiting college acceptance letters, while Elle doesn't think that
5:15
Speaker 2: there's any way that she can afford to go to
5:18
Speaker 2: get out. Meanwhile, V is really into someone, a girl
5:22
Speaker 2: named Jessica, and they share an intimate night together. When
5:26
Speaker 2: V wakes up in the middle of the night, Jessica
5:29
Speaker 2: has a huge void in her torso like a huge void.
5:37
Speaker 2: V and L confront Josh again, who's just generally creepy.
5:42
Speaker 2: But let's slip that they probably went to heaven on
5:45
Speaker 2: Earth in this time that they can't remember what happened
5:48
Speaker 2: and all but abandoned strip club.
5:52
Speaker 1: I don't know. It is like a nice, actual club
5:56
Speaker 1: for rich people. The way they describe it, it's only
5:59
Speaker 1: rich people would go there, So it wasn't necessarily a
6:01
Speaker 1: strip club. That's what it seemed to me.
6:05
Speaker 2: Yeah it was, but it was like it's a weird
6:08
Speaker 2: place people.
6:09
Speaker 1: Go now that now, yeah, that became like a party den.
6:14
Speaker 2: So L and V decide to investigate, and in doing so,
6:17
Speaker 2: they passed through a graveyard dedicated to those who have
6:20
Speaker 2: died in service to the town or by suicide. While
6:25
Speaker 2: exploring the old club, V discovers glowing blue mushrooms and
6:30
Speaker 2: pocket some of them. There is a party going on
6:34
Speaker 2: when they're there, but things just seem off about it.
6:37
Speaker 2: V and L get into a big fight about college,
6:40
Speaker 2: all the strange stuff going on, whether or not they
6:43
Speaker 2: should try to get to the bottom of it, and
6:45
Speaker 2: L reveals that that night after the theater her underwear
6:49
Speaker 2: was inside out. V walks off furious about all of this.
6:54
Speaker 2: The next day, she goes to visit the local Witch,
6:57
Speaker 2: which was a real twist I wasn't expected, who is
7:02
Speaker 2: described as a local fixture similar to like a postman.
7:07
Speaker 2: She looks like a little girl, but in fact is
7:10
Speaker 2: quite old. She makes a concoction that she says can
7:13
Speaker 2: smooth out the frayed edges of the forgotten memories, which
7:18
Speaker 2: Vee takes. Unsure if she'll use it, she just takes
7:21
Speaker 2: it and pockets it. The witch takes interest in the
7:24
Speaker 2: mushroom sample that V collected. Meanwhile, Elle goes to the
7:29
Speaker 2: park where she and V met with her dog Pearl,
7:32
Speaker 2: and is attacked by another of the zombies. Her injuries
7:36
Speaker 2: seem to mirror inexplicably on V. She kind of see
7:41
Speaker 2: this through contrasting panels in the comic. Elle and Pearl escape,
7:46
Speaker 2: while V goes to visit Jessica, who shows her the
7:49
Speaker 2: bedridden body of her mother, who looks like she's transforming
7:53
Speaker 2: into something else not good. Jessica tells the whole story
7:58
Speaker 2: of how her mom would just disappear when she was
8:00
Speaker 2: a kid until she got Jessica into the beauty pageant circuit.
8:04
Speaker 2: She later told Jessica that she was turning into a
8:08
Speaker 2: void and one day Jessica would too, especially if she
8:12
Speaker 2: felt too big of emotions, like after their first time together.
8:17
Speaker 2: After Jessica and V's first time together, and this leads
8:20
Speaker 2: to them having sex, which el across town seems to
8:25
Speaker 2: feel something of or she just happens to be masturbating
8:28
Speaker 2: at the same time.
8:30
Speaker 1: I don't know.
8:31
Speaker 2: It's mirrored, so I feel like it was saying that
8:34
Speaker 2: they're they're feeling each other's emotions somehow, Elle and V makeup.
8:40
Speaker 2: V comes over to Elle's house to have dinner. The
8:43
Speaker 2: house is attacked and Elle's dad is attacked and taken
8:47
Speaker 2: to the hospital. They go back to visit the Witch,
8:50
Speaker 2: who opens up about her own past. When she was
8:53
Speaker 2: actually young, the foreman of the local sanatorium convinced her
8:57
Speaker 2: to come with him to visit the facility, trying to
9:00
Speaker 2: get her to drink water that flowed in a cistern
9:04
Speaker 2: there and she screamed and a woman intervened. The foreman
9:09
Speaker 2: was arrested and the girls was confined to a few
9:13
Speaker 2: months in the sanatorium, and there Circe, the woman who
9:17
Speaker 2: rescued her, a trans woman who was there because she
9:20
Speaker 2: wore something quote questionable, took her under her wing. Circe
9:25
Speaker 2: called herself a witch and told the girl to never
9:28
Speaker 2: drink the water, that it makes you forget. The doctors
9:32
Speaker 2: and nurses push it, they were like it heals you,
9:35
Speaker 2: but yeah, Circe and the girl started to do experiments
9:39
Speaker 2: to reverse it, and eventually they returned to the girl's home,
9:44
Speaker 2: Circe calling herself the girl's aunt. They experimented until they
9:49
Speaker 2: found a way to return the girl's memories, and it
9:51
Speaker 2: turned out the foreman had been visiting her for a
9:54
Speaker 2: very long time and it is heavily implied sexually assaulting her.
9:58
Speaker 2: They figured out how to still the blue mushrooms to
10:02
Speaker 2: bring people's memories back, but then men came and tortured
10:06
Speaker 2: and killed Circe. The men started to become sloppy, not
10:11
Speaker 2: returning women to where they found them before they drugged them.
10:14
Speaker 2: So that was part of the Oh when you hit
10:17
Speaker 2: puberty you'll just wake up in a church parking lot.
10:21
Speaker 2: The witch was understandably furious about this, and to dispel
10:25
Speaker 2: for men who had transgressed to go beneath the earth,
10:29
Speaker 2: but it sort of backfired, and it bought the fire
10:32
Speaker 2: up through the ground. Meanwhile, a word remembering would break
10:37
Speaker 2: those who had suffered. The witch tried to send the
10:39
Speaker 2: women away, but turned them into quote half things, half rabbit,
10:44
Speaker 2: half deer, so the menacing rabbit from earlier. One of
10:48
Speaker 2: those V is furious the witch took away their choice,
10:53
Speaker 2: and she gives the witch gives V the mushroom sample back.
10:58
Speaker 2: V and L learned that Jessica is that heaven on earth,
11:01
Speaker 2: and they go to help her. When they get there,
11:04
Speaker 2: Jessica has obviously been assaulted, but is dazed and doesn't
11:07
Speaker 2: remember anything. Josh is there and reveals that V and
11:11
Speaker 2: L quote drink deeply on that night in the theater,
11:16
Speaker 2: some of the zombies show up, attacking the women, but
11:19
Speaker 2: they fight back, as do some of the women monsters.
11:23
Speaker 2: Elle eats one of the mushrooms, bringing back her memories.
11:26
Speaker 2: She then asked Jessica if she wants to remember, and
11:29
Speaker 2: when Jessica consents, feeds Jessica a mushroom. As the memories
11:34
Speaker 2: come back, Jessica screams and her body turns into a void,
11:39
Speaker 2: swallowing up some of the men and zombies inside it.
11:44
Speaker 2: V and LL gather a bunch of the mushrooms and
11:47
Speaker 2: offer women a choice. Drink me to forget, eat me
11:51
Speaker 2: the mushrooms to remember, very Alice. In Wonderland, people make
11:56
Speaker 2: different choices. V gets into college. LL ask you what
12:00
Speaker 2: she's going to do, remember or forget. It's unclear what
12:05
Speaker 2: she chooses in the end, but they hold each other
12:08
Speaker 2: in bed and they say that they love each other,
12:11
Speaker 2: and that's how it ends. Yeah, so it definitely glows places.
12:18
Speaker 2: I really liked it though.
12:19
Speaker 1: I really liked them.
12:30
Speaker 3: So themes.
12:34
Speaker 2: Obviously often when we do these, coming of age was
12:38
Speaker 2: a big one, right because this was a time when
12:43
Speaker 2: they're talking about going to college or not going to
12:46
Speaker 2: college and what that will look like. I did notice
12:51
Speaker 2: Elle had like a favorite teacher and she her name
12:56
Speaker 2: was on one of the greats at the like people
13:00
Speaker 2: who died in service to the town or by suicide.
13:02
Speaker 1: Graves her full name or her last name, her name.
13:06
Speaker 2: I wonder if people, I don't know, if it was her,
13:09
Speaker 2: but I noticed her name was on one of the graves. Yeah,
13:14
Speaker 2: but having them kind of talk about that, because that
13:17
Speaker 2: is one of the one of the scary parts about
13:22
Speaker 2: going to college is when you have a really good
13:24
Speaker 2: friend and you know you might go on separate paths, right,
13:28
Speaker 2: and that might be you might not stay in touch,
13:32
Speaker 2: your friendship might change or disappear. So having that very
13:37
Speaker 2: clear dichotomy of v wanting to get out of this
13:41
Speaker 2: town and EL being like, well I can't though, so
13:45
Speaker 2: they might have to split, right, go on different paths.
13:51
Speaker 2: I also appreciated that they've talked about the Awakening the
13:54
Speaker 2: book because I read that in high school too, right,
14:01
Speaker 2: I feel like so many of us did, And I
14:04
Speaker 2: was just nodding my head. But I remember in my
14:11
Speaker 2: class we had an assignment where we had to write
14:13
Speaker 2: whether we thought the main character died at the end
14:18
Speaker 2: by suicide or she died because she just swam too
14:24
Speaker 2: far and then was too tired. So we had to
14:27
Speaker 2: write essays about that. So oh yeah, oh.
14:31
Speaker 1: The legend is that, like what's stuck in most people
14:34
Speaker 1: will reference is like, yeah, I'm gonna go take myself,
14:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go for swim, like and implying that that means, yeah,
14:40
Speaker 1: you're gonna die by suicide, So that's interesting. Yeah.
14:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, she had a bunch of she had a bunch
14:48
Speaker 2: of points that were on either side of the argument.
14:51
Speaker 2: So I can't remember which I said, but I can
14:56
Speaker 2: see either. I can see either and and and and
15:00
Speaker 2: that whole argument too, was just class because obviously Elle
15:05
Speaker 2: was saying she couldn't leave because she couldn't afford to leave, right,
15:09
Speaker 2: she couldn't afford to go to college. And just a note,
15:14
Speaker 2: there was a lot of pop culture things that I
15:16
Speaker 2: liked in the background. There was some X file stuff,
15:20
Speaker 2: sailor Moon stuff. There was Zena mentioned, So I liked that.
15:27
Speaker 1: I liked that.
15:27
Speaker 2: I was thinking the other day about when I went
15:30
Speaker 2: to college, and I like took down my room and
15:33
Speaker 2: like those kind of dorky posters. I was like, I
15:36
Speaker 2: don't know if I'll bring this to college. Oh yeah.
15:41
Speaker 2: Then there was also the theme of just pollution and capitalism.
15:50
Speaker 2: So here's a quote. Soot and smoke filled the air
15:53
Speaker 2: and dirtied the glass and the curtains, and you were
15:56
Speaker 2: grateful for it. You were grateful that the company gave
15:59
Speaker 2: you the opportunity to clean their messes, which is a
16:05
Speaker 2: big thing because also throughout you see people who have,
16:11
Speaker 2: through some way or the other, been impacted by this company,
16:15
Speaker 2: whether they've lost someone, whether they're sick. L goes to
16:19
Speaker 2: visit someone who is sick because of the pollution left
16:25
Speaker 2: by this company, and you know the town is on fire, right,
16:30
Speaker 2: So yeah, and then the graveyard of people who have
16:35
Speaker 2: died in service to the town, as we mentioned, which
16:39
Speaker 2: I think is also leads into gentrification because the company
16:44
Speaker 2: comes in and they're trying to buy up the houses.
16:46
Speaker 2: They're bringing in people to mind when locals refused. I
16:52
Speaker 2: think V's mom was even saying, like, the company is
16:57
Speaker 2: looking at buying our house, all.
16:59
Speaker 1: Right, we should do it for a lot more m yep.
17:05
Speaker 2: Then there's also generational trauma and memory in this. So
17:14
Speaker 2: it's interesting because when you first well when I first
17:17
Speaker 2: started reading it, the beginning obviously to me obviously invokes
17:26
Speaker 2: a Night of the Living Dead when they wake up
17:29
Speaker 2: the theater and then everything is like wrong, and then
17:34
Speaker 2: there's zombies. There's these tales of women waking up standing
17:42
Speaker 2: in a stupor and church parking lots after puberty, and
17:46
Speaker 2: so I wasn't sure, but then when you find out
17:49
Speaker 2: the truth of what's going on, like that really sticks
17:52
Speaker 2: with you. It started with me like that they were
17:54
Speaker 2: church parking lots. Yeah, yeah, that it basically they're being
18:01
Speaker 2: drugged to forget, right, and this is where these horrible
18:04
Speaker 2: things were happening to them. Here's a quote some women had.
18:09
Speaker 2: It happened so many times they forgot their own names.
18:12
Speaker 2: Environmental dementia. Doctors told them something in the air maybe
18:16
Speaker 2: or the water. Oh foreboding because yeah, don't drink the water.
18:23
Speaker 2: It erases your memory. It's supposed to heal you. And yeah,
18:28
Speaker 2: it's revealed that this is because been we're abusing them
18:32
Speaker 2: and just giving them this water, this drug to forget,
18:36
Speaker 2: which is also interesting because that feels very like there
18:41
Speaker 2: are so many stories of the water that heals you
18:45
Speaker 2: or gives you eternal life, right, and it was being
18:50
Speaker 2: used in this really horrific, horrific way. And then you
18:56
Speaker 2: see one of the things that stuck out to me
18:59
Speaker 2: is body memory, because even though people were being made
19:04
Speaker 2: to forget, it seems like their body is still remembered.
19:10
Speaker 2: So like when Jessica takes the mushroom decides to remember,
19:17
Speaker 2: she has this scream that has described quote, it was
19:21
Speaker 2: rage and grief and something bigger, older, primordial, like the
19:26
Speaker 2: earth itself had been waiting to cry out since creation.
19:31
Speaker 2: And then the girl, the witch, when she screamed at
19:36
Speaker 2: the side of the water, it was like, it felt
19:39
Speaker 2: like to me like her body was just reacting, even
19:42
Speaker 2: if she couldn't remember. Something in her body was like, no, no, no,
19:48
Speaker 2: this is this is really bad, this is unsafe.
19:52
Speaker 1: And that.
19:54
Speaker 2: Sort of because from there that guy did get arrested.
19:58
Speaker 2: But there's this all also through line of it's less
20:03
Speaker 2: about people do cover up for the men who were
20:07
Speaker 2: caught using it, but it's like they shouldn't have gotten
20:09
Speaker 2: themselves caught, right, We're allowed to keep doing this. It
20:14
Speaker 2: was on them that they got caught. And here's another quote.
20:19
Speaker 2: It isn't that no one believed us. It's worse than
20:22
Speaker 2: that they knew and they just were, well, it's on him,
20:28
Speaker 2: he got caught, but we're all gonna came doing right.
20:33
Speaker 1: Well. It almost implied that all the men were in cohotes,
20:37
Speaker 1: And it's like a generational learned things. Younger generations knew
20:41
Speaker 1: about the water and kept using it and kept using it,
20:43
Speaker 1: which made me wonder because ELL's parents have a beautiful relationship.
20:48
Speaker 1: They're so great, they love each other, all these things,
20:51
Speaker 1: wouldn't he have known, like he was a part of
20:55
Speaker 1: the crew as well, Like it kind of applies that
20:57
Speaker 1: all the men, all the people there was not really
21:00
Speaker 1: outside of the father being so loving with the mother
21:03
Speaker 1: and great and all. There seemed to be an implication
21:07
Speaker 1: that it was all the men in that society, which
21:09
Speaker 1: was why the witsh was like, yeah, burnham, burn them all,
21:13
Speaker 1: because it's not that they didn't care or they didn't know.
21:16
Speaker 1: It was because they were trying to cover up. And
21:18
Speaker 1: also the cardinal sin of probably her being a minor
21:22
Speaker 1: may have been what played into him being arrested because
21:25
Speaker 1: he got caught. But I don't know, because I don't
21:27
Speaker 1: think it doesn't seem like any of the other men
21:30
Speaker 1: were caught or were punished, because we know that Circe
21:35
Speaker 1: had gone through some things whatever it may have been.
21:37
Speaker 1: Like of course her story is a little different, but
21:39
Speaker 1: in that partially like they came and killed her because
21:42
Speaker 1: she refused to take the water because she knew what
21:45
Speaker 1: it did, and so they had to like finally make
21:50
Speaker 1: her like just like okay, we just have to get
21:51
Speaker 1: rid of her because she's causing problem for the rest
21:53
Speaker 1: of us. So instead of doing that to the young witch,
21:58
Speaker 1: they arrested the man who died by suicide later or
22:01
Speaker 1: maybe not, there was like the conspiracy theory, like they
22:04
Speaker 1: just had to get rid of him because he was
22:05
Speaker 1: doing something that was a step too far in this
22:07
Speaker 1: whole plot. I didn't know for sure, but like it
22:09
Speaker 1: did make me wonder about the father. I was, like,
22:11
Speaker 1: he had to have known he grew up in this era,
22:15
Speaker 1: he grew up in this timeframe. Sure he was not
22:17
Speaker 1: one of the elite rich, but doesn't sound like that
22:19
Speaker 1: had anything to do with anything because a lot of
22:22
Speaker 1: them were coal miners who were not the elite, who
22:25
Speaker 1: were a part of this problem as well.
22:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's certainly true that largely other than him,
22:36
Speaker 2: I mean, men are absent from this story and are villains. Yeah,
22:41
Speaker 2: And I know I read that the kind of skinless
22:47
Speaker 2: zombies are supposed to represent, like older generations teaching that
22:55
Speaker 2: to younger generations of men, and so it is something
22:59
Speaker 2: that is sort of passed down. And it felt to
23:06
Speaker 2: me very just when we talk about like rape culture
23:13
Speaker 2: or the patriarchy or things like that, it felt very
23:17
Speaker 2: we're sort of drinking this kowit to put it that way,
23:21
Speaker 2: because that's what we're raised in, right, and that there
23:25
Speaker 2: the men in the town are being taught this and
23:27
Speaker 2: the women are having are being forced to forget and
23:33
Speaker 2: then later either choosing to forget or to remember, just
23:36
Speaker 2: to deal with.
23:38
Speaker 1: This whole thing, right, And also kind of this conversation
23:42
Speaker 1: about rape culture in general, where if it can be
23:46
Speaker 1: swept under the rug, it will be and that that's okay.
23:50
Speaker 1: That makes everything okay, and that is the preferred uh
23:54
Speaker 1: like way of dealing with it, especially for the men
23:58
Speaker 1: who think that they are allowed to do this, which
24:00
Speaker 1: is again like the same level of conversation which it
24:02
Speaker 1: took years and years and years to realize, Hey, this
24:06
Speaker 1: is really really a heinous crime and trauma. We should
24:10
Speaker 1: be talking about it instead of just dismissing this as
24:13
Speaker 1: a eh, boys will be boys, which in a lot
24:15
Speaker 1: of cultures teach this culture like yes, to show that
24:19
Speaker 1: you are masculine. This type of culture should be practiced
24:24
Speaker 1: but not talked out aloud about.
24:27
Speaker 2: Right, right, and then and then and we'll talk about
24:30
Speaker 2: this more in a second. But also if you do
24:35
Speaker 2: talk out about it, then go to the sanatorium, my friend.
24:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's on you. We're not gonna we're not
24:44
Speaker 1: gonna stop anything, right essentially, right, and unless it's like
24:48
Speaker 1: cramping all of our styles.
24:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, if it's getting in the way of me
24:53
Speaker 2: continuing to do my horrible things.
24:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.
25:06
Speaker 2: There's also a conversation about women believing women. This is
25:09
Speaker 2: kind of big, and there's sort of flashbacks between V
25:13
Speaker 2: and L's friendship, and there's one where they talk about
25:18
Speaker 2: like believing each other. Elle has a knife that says
25:24
Speaker 2: told you so, which comes up later is very important.
25:32
Speaker 2: But here's a quote.
25:34
Speaker 1: You're a liar.
25:35
Speaker 2: I would never lie to you about something like this.
25:38
Speaker 2: You can't just skip down and forget that something happened.
25:40
Speaker 2: You can't forget that you forgot. And that was Lle
25:44
Speaker 2: to V would be it's like, I don't want to
25:47
Speaker 2: I don't want to deal with this. But yeah, going
25:49
Speaker 2: back to what I was saying earlier, there is also
25:52
Speaker 2: this theme of trans and homophobia or just like women
25:56
Speaker 2: not behaving in quotes to the men's liking, because people,
26:03
Speaker 2: largely women, are being sent to this sanatorium to quote,
26:07
Speaker 2: get well, for being gay, for dressing inappropriately, for just
26:12
Speaker 2: noticing something's wrong.
26:14
Speaker 1: Right. Oh, I thought it needs to be noted, and
26:16
Speaker 1: I'm sure it has something kind of some kind of
26:18
Speaker 1: symmetry as well, that the sanatorium was then turned into
26:22
Speaker 1: Heaven on Earth. Yes, that is now the place that
26:25
Speaker 1: people like that is the same place, So it needs
26:28
Speaker 1: to be noted that this is kind of reverted back
26:30
Speaker 1: to what it was intended, a place to abuse women.
26:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I felt like the example of the
26:39
Speaker 2: Witch when she was a young girl been revealed. She's
26:42
Speaker 2: gone through this horribly traumatic of it, and they're like
26:47
Speaker 2: butter in the sanatorium, right. I think that's pretty telling.
26:52
Speaker 2: It is well, there are some positive things though. Friendship
26:58
Speaker 2: and love is a big theme in this obviously between
27:01
Speaker 2: Octavia and Hellidora VNL the shared sensations. I thought this
27:07
Speaker 2: was really interesting because I think this is something on
27:11
Speaker 2: the lines of you know, when you're really close to
27:15
Speaker 2: someone or when you even go through a generational trauma,
27:19
Speaker 2: those they are those things that you share. So I
27:23
Speaker 2: thought that's what was trying to be conveyed. There could
27:29
Speaker 2: just be me also the believing believing each other line.
27:34
Speaker 2: I love this quote. Sometimes you've got to listen, but
27:37
Speaker 2: sometimes you've got to write your own endings, And that
27:42
Speaker 2: was when they realized Jessica was at the club. They'd
27:45
Speaker 2: listened to the Witches story, like, we can't wait around anymore.
27:49
Speaker 2: We've got to We've got to write our own ending
27:53
Speaker 2: and then just seeing their friendship over the years and
27:58
Speaker 2: seeing them fights, but the make up. Uh, I'm not
28:03
Speaker 2: entirely sure at the end what was going on, but you.
28:07
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, Well in the story too, they go from
28:11
Speaker 1: L's perspective to V's perspective, to El's likely you get
28:14
Speaker 1: a lot and obviously, and then to Jessica's perspective because
28:18
Speaker 1: she's telling her story as well, which is kind of
28:20
Speaker 1: a sideline explanatory of like how things will be solved
28:24
Speaker 1: at the end essentially. But I think that makes it
28:27
Speaker 1: interesting because you do get two different perspectives. To me,
28:30
Speaker 1: it looked like Elle was in love with V. Yeah,
28:33
Speaker 1: and knew that she was in love with V, but
28:35
Speaker 1: like V was in love with Jessica at that time
28:38
Speaker 1: and Elle was just kind of waiting it out. Elle
28:41
Speaker 1: was also the one, like you have that person, And
28:44
Speaker 1: I think we see this a lot, especially think about
28:46
Speaker 1: like the me Too era who was ready to face
28:50
Speaker 1: their trauma, who was ready to do it in order
28:53
Speaker 1: to get justice, as where there are other survivors who
28:56
Speaker 1: are not ready to deal with that to troscess that
28:59
Speaker 1: trauma or there's a level of trauma that they can't
29:03
Speaker 1: afford to take at that moment or it'll make it worse.
29:06
Speaker 1: So I feel like those two represented really interesting takes
29:09
Speaker 1: in that, and so Elle's maturity in her like feelings
29:15
Speaker 1: for v I think it was a big part of
29:19
Speaker 1: the story. But also Elle is also a lot more
29:22
Speaker 1: realistic and a little more pessimistic because she's like, the world,
29:25
Speaker 1: I can't leave this area because my parents, as much
29:28
Speaker 1: as I love them, they're amazing parents, they can't afford
29:32
Speaker 1: to send me. And so instead of like, I don't
29:35
Speaker 1: want to go through this because it's worse to be
29:37
Speaker 1: accepted and not being able to go to a college
29:39
Speaker 1: because I know I can't afford it, and likes that's
29:41
Speaker 1: so real because this is based in the nineties too.
29:44
Speaker 1: So that's the other part is this is based in
29:45
Speaker 1: the nineties and you have that time, Like we've talked
29:48
Speaker 1: about this repeatedly with all the nineties comedies, like college
29:52
Speaker 1: was different, Like it was a lot harder for you
29:55
Speaker 1: to afford because it was a privilege. It was those
29:59
Speaker 1: who had my it was more for that, or those
30:01
Speaker 1: willing to get debt and hope that they can pay
30:04
Speaker 1: it back one day, which is not always the case.
30:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. That was my vibe I
30:09
Speaker 2: got as well, was that L was really into V
30:13
Speaker 2: and V was into Jessica, which I have to say,
30:18
Speaker 2: I'm glad.
30:19
Speaker 1: I kind of thought they.
30:20
Speaker 2: Were going to turn Jessica into like a bimbo or something.
30:26
Speaker 1: Right. There really was no girl against girl on this,
30:29
Speaker 1: and I.
30:30
Speaker 2: Like that now that you say it. I hadn't really
30:32
Speaker 2: thought about it, but it was. We got a lot
30:35
Speaker 2: of different perspectives of women experiencing this trauma in different ways.
30:40
Speaker 2: Because you heard the Witch's story, you heard Jessica's story,
30:45
Speaker 2: obviously you heard V and L.
30:46
Speaker 1: So one review implies that I don't know if I
30:50
Speaker 1: don't know if I didn't catch it, because reading straight
30:53
Speaker 1: through the comic when you're not used to it me,
30:56
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, oh, I get where to go in
30:58
Speaker 1: these boxes. I know this sounds so like trivia, but
31:03
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I think I read ahead, let
31:05
Speaker 1: me go back down here. I did that a couple
31:07
Speaker 1: of times. But like that the actual Circe was actually
31:12
Speaker 1: a trans woman. Okay, so like that's not like the
31:16
Speaker 1: way they kind of because I did appreciate. I really
31:19
Speaker 1: appreciated it. I think they I know they did this.
31:21
Speaker 1: They did this on parbas as much as it's horrid
31:23
Speaker 1: and must as this is about trauma, they didn't want
31:26
Speaker 1: to replay trauma, so they kind of bypassed it. And
31:30
Speaker 1: I had to like, oh, oh, they're insinuating this because
31:33
Speaker 1: it took me a minute to figure out that the
31:34
Speaker 1: young witch was being molested. I was like, what's happening?
31:38
Speaker 1: She just went to it? Oh oh, and what that was?
31:42
Speaker 1: And I actually really appreciated the way they handled that
31:45
Speaker 1: because you know, oftentimes it becomes like trauma porn in
31:48
Speaker 1: that measure, because we know, we know, but it took
31:52
Speaker 1: me a minute to figure out, oh, well, she's also trans. Okay, okay,
31:56
Speaker 1: because they never discribe at her trans this, you know,
32:02
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? Like, they don't ever
32:03
Speaker 1: dead name her, they don't ever like mis gender her,
32:06
Speaker 1: which obviously they as I think I believe they're quick
32:09
Speaker 1: queer writers as well. They're like, no, like this is
32:11
Speaker 1: the first time I think I've seen it done so
32:13
Speaker 1: well that I was like, oh, that's what they're implying.
32:16
Speaker 1: But it took me a minute. I was like, oh, okay,
32:19
Speaker 1: which brings to a whole level of like because they
32:22
Speaker 1: don't even talk about her trauma, just like she was
32:25
Speaker 1: just there right. I did to say the way she dressed,
32:29
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what that meant. In my mind,
32:31
Speaker 1: I thought she was dressing like a man m so
32:35
Speaker 1: that's what I thought was happening. I was very like, huh, okay, Yeah,
32:40
Speaker 1: it did take me a minute.
32:41
Speaker 2: I get that. There was a bunch of things that
32:42
Speaker 2: I was like, wait, does that be what I think
32:47
Speaker 2: it means?
32:48
Speaker 1: And I was looking up at it. Okay, yes, okay, okay.
32:51
Speaker 1: I think that's probably the way I missed out is
32:53
Speaker 1: I didn't look up everything and I waited till the
32:55
Speaker 1: end because a lot we know this, a lot of
32:57
Speaker 1: books and movies like they have that at the end
32:59
Speaker 1: where it makes since after the fact and that you
33:02
Speaker 1: have to go back and re reading, like, oh, I
33:04
Speaker 1: get it. That makes more sense now, that kind of
33:06
Speaker 1: that kind of level of like coming back to it. Ah,
33:09
Speaker 1: that makes a lot like wow, because in my head
33:11
Speaker 1: is why is it subdraumatic that well, first of all,
33:13
Speaker 1: maybe they just slept as a theater and why it
33:16
Speaker 1: was so big. I was like, what's what's happening, what's happening?
33:20
Speaker 2: Well, that's why. I mean again, it's clear that the
33:22
Speaker 2: people who made this, at least some of them, well
33:25
Speaker 2: obviously the author because she's written. Look if you don't
33:28
Speaker 2: know her, the reason I wanted to talk about her.
33:30
Speaker 2: She has written a lot of really critically acclaimed horror books.
33:37
Speaker 2: It's clear that they know their horror. And so again,
33:41
Speaker 2: like I feel like the waking up in the theater
33:44
Speaker 2: that was kind of a red herring for horror fans
33:47
Speaker 2: because that is the exact blot point. Yeah, so I
33:55
Speaker 2: was like zombies and then there were zombies, but they weren't.
33:59
Speaker 2: They weren't I was expecting.
34:02
Speaker 1: Right, Like, no there was because none of it because
34:05
Speaker 1: it kind of gave that not True Detective field. But
34:07
Speaker 1: you know what we're talking about with that creature, that
34:10
Speaker 1: the ant liter creature that no one knew what was happening.
34:12
Speaker 1: And I say this as a person who've never fully
34:14
Speaker 1: watched the entire season of Indy True Detective. I just
34:16
Speaker 1: know that creature because someone dressed up like that, and
34:18
Speaker 1: I was like, what are you and why are you
34:20
Speaker 1: like this? And they did a great job too, They
34:25
Speaker 1: were like hell is this but in that like that's
34:30
Speaker 1: where I even was like, is that where we're going?
34:32
Speaker 1: Because that's interesting.
34:46
Speaker 2: Well, that does lead me to the next team I
34:49
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about, which is just kind of a
34:50
Speaker 2: run through of some horror elements that were in here.
34:54
Speaker 2: The zombies and creatures were one of them. I did
34:58
Speaker 2: think it was interesting that the men or sort of
35:01
Speaker 2: mindless monsters, whereas the women are intelligent being trapped in
35:06
Speaker 2: animal form, right, they're being objectified.
35:09
Speaker 3: Yes.
35:10
Speaker 1: I also thought that was interesting that they were obviously
35:12
Speaker 1: very protective and so they would protect Like the rabbit
35:15
Speaker 1: was trying to stop them from going to Varhead because
35:19
Speaker 1: she knew that zombie was ahead of them, and so
35:21
Speaker 1: like she like that creature stopped them, as well as
35:25
Speaker 1: the deer protecting L and V when they were being
35:29
Speaker 1: attacked by all the zombies, but attacking her father. Yeah,
35:33
Speaker 1: because it was a man.
35:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's at the end you see at least
35:40
Speaker 2: one of them. I believe the bunny rabbit taking the
35:44
Speaker 2: mushrooms and remembering and becoming a woman again. And then
35:47
Speaker 2: you see another.
35:48
Speaker 1: One is that what happened?
35:49
Speaker 2: Yeah? And look yeah, and then the other one does
35:53
Speaker 2: not take it. So I thought that was interesting, kind
35:57
Speaker 2: of the dichotomy of what happened there. Also, the void
36:04
Speaker 2: I thought was interesting because a lot of people had
36:08
Speaker 2: a lot to say about the void.
36:10
Speaker 3: Uh.
36:11
Speaker 2: Jessica described it as it opens when women are feeling
36:14
Speaker 2: large emotions. But I when she remembers and the void
36:21
Speaker 2: becomes so huge that men and the zombies they fall
36:26
Speaker 2: in it, presumably.
36:27
Speaker 1: To their dead, yes, or to become zombies.
36:29
Speaker 2: A lot of people like wrote about you know, her
36:32
Speaker 2: body becoming like.
36:35
Speaker 1: Justice the most, like she was.
36:37
Speaker 2: She was revenge, yes, yeah, but that void, Like I
36:44
Speaker 2: just feel like a void invokes so many it just
36:50
Speaker 2: feels so empty it can never be filled, like her justice,
36:53
Speaker 2: like it'll never given what happened to her. She could
36:57
Speaker 2: do this all day and still never go away.
37:02
Speaker 1: I wonder too, like for some survivors, is about that
37:05
Speaker 1: feeling when you come to the point of realizing the pain,
37:09
Speaker 1: so the truth of it all, to just want to
37:12
Speaker 1: be swallowed up, you know, just just wanting to become
37:16
Speaker 1: nothing because nothing is better than pain, like it really
37:20
Speaker 1: like you know, obviously we talk out of experience. In
37:22
Speaker 1: a lot of this, there's so much that once you
37:25
Speaker 1: are in the depth of that pain, you would you
37:28
Speaker 1: would do anything you feel like you could do and
37:30
Speaker 1: would do anything to make it go away, Which is
37:34
Speaker 1: part of the big trauma that like we talk about
37:36
Speaker 1: often is that if you can get past this, and
37:39
Speaker 1: you can't, eventually you can with time, Like healing takes
37:43
Speaker 1: so much time and it may never could be complete,
37:46
Speaker 1: but it does happen. But at that point before that,
37:50
Speaker 1: it feels so impossible that you just wish to become nothing.
37:57
Speaker 1: And because oftentimes not for everyone, I think like obviously
38:02
Speaker 1: people are people, so therefore they're going to have different
38:04
Speaker 1: emotions and reactions and all of that. But a lot
38:07
Speaker 1: oftentimes that pain is just like you just want to
38:10
Speaker 1: take everything with you sometimes too, like not only do
38:14
Speaker 1: you wish that you could like either you could get
38:18
Speaker 1: rid of that pain or you can give that pain
38:21
Speaker 1: like that that level. Yeah, And I feel like that
38:24
Speaker 1: kind of is part of that symbolism of like her realizing,
38:27
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, and that allowing it too far along
38:30
Speaker 1: kind of like her mother. Yeah, like incapacitates you completely.
38:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when you're talking about like we were earlier
38:40
Speaker 2: in her generational trauma.
38:41
Speaker 3: Her mom.
38:44
Speaker 1: I mean, she looked dead. She looked like I thought
38:47
Speaker 1: she was dead. I was very confused about what was happening.
38:49
Speaker 2: She might have been, but she was like a void
38:52
Speaker 2: that looked like stuff was growing out of her.
38:55
Speaker 1: Right.
38:55
Speaker 2: And also just like the idea of all of those
39:01
Speaker 2: memories coming back to you at once, on how overwhelming
39:07
Speaker 2: that must be. I really appreciated the different ways this
39:13
Speaker 2: graphic novel showcased the different ways people who have gone
39:17
Speaker 2: through things like this do experience it. Because Jessica chose
39:24
Speaker 2: to remember, and it's you know, the jury is out
39:29
Speaker 2: on how she will handle that in the end. Will
39:33
Speaker 2: she become like her mom, will she have a healthier outcome?
39:37
Speaker 2: We don't know, but she did choose to remember it.
39:42
Speaker 2: So seeing those different the different ways people were trying
39:47
Speaker 2: to just really survive this horrible thing that happened to.
39:51
Speaker 1: Them, right, and it could be a conversation too about
39:56
Speaker 1: her mom and Jessica. Her mom analyzing so much that
40:01
Speaker 1: she got engulfed in that because she had no other
40:04
Speaker 1: choice at that point and she didn't know she could
40:06
Speaker 1: remember as where Jessica did remember and became kind of
40:09
Speaker 1: like rage and then came back to herself like kind
40:14
Speaker 1: of interesting. Just now that I've looked back at the book,
40:17
Speaker 1: y'all to have I look back at the books, I
40:18
Speaker 1: saw the rabbit turning into a woman, but then you
40:21
Speaker 1: also see the next one, the deer not not needing
40:25
Speaker 1: that mush women just becoming an actual deer and moving on.
40:28
Speaker 1: So like the people, how they react, how they deal
40:31
Speaker 1: with all these things, it's there's no right or wrong,
40:36
Speaker 1: like this is all about what they can handle and
40:41
Speaker 1: how they can handle it. And in the level of
40:43
Speaker 1: like being given a choice, obviously that's that bigger, bigger conversation.
40:47
Speaker 1: But yeah, just like you were saying too, it feels
40:50
Speaker 1: like their personality type is what makes them become whatever.
40:54
Speaker 1: So if you've become the rabbit, the bird, the deer,
40:58
Speaker 1: or for Jessica the void and her mom the void,
41:01
Speaker 1: and maybe that's generational as well, but it felt like
41:04
Speaker 1: a conversation about how women may deal with that trauma,
41:07
Speaker 1: whether it's wanting to get revenge, whether it's to protect
41:10
Speaker 1: other women, whether it's to take everything out like it
41:16
Speaker 1: just it just allowing that rage to be Like it
41:19
Speaker 1: was an interesting conversation, especially in regards to a woman,
41:24
Speaker 1: because you don't see that.
41:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think that choice, as you mentioned,
41:30
Speaker 2: was very very important to the whole thing of like
41:34
Speaker 2: how you choose to deal with this, and it was
41:37
Speaker 2: a choice that so many of them hadn't ever had.
41:42
Speaker 2: I also thought it was interesting. I'm still not sure
41:46
Speaker 2: what I think about this, but about Jessica's mom putting
41:49
Speaker 2: her in the pageant circuit, because that just feels so
41:54
Speaker 2: like hmm, but I mean, I guess she didn't remember,
42:00
Speaker 2: but it feels like you're putting your daughter in a
42:03
Speaker 2: lot of danger that situation in this particular town.
42:07
Speaker 1: Right, And her daughter didn't really necessarily care about any
42:11
Speaker 1: of that. She wanted to dance. But yeah, her mom
42:14
Speaker 1: made her mom happy and the first time seeing her
42:16
Speaker 1: mom happy, because she hadn't been happy until her daughter one.
42:19
Speaker 1: But it did seem interesting because that conversation, once again
42:23
Speaker 1: was her avoiding so much and being miserable and so
42:28
Speaker 1: like caught up and trying not to be the void.
42:31
Speaker 1: But then her daughter doing this and being like, oh,
42:33
Speaker 1: we can still have normal lifely how beautiful, and like
42:35
Speaker 1: she gets to gloat about this, and then that gave
42:37
Speaker 1: too much, too much void where it came kind of
42:40
Speaker 1: popped out. That was an interesting There was a lot
42:43
Speaker 1: of side things that I was like, huh, because that
42:45
Speaker 1: we never really get a story about what Elle's mother
42:49
Speaker 1: did for the witch in which she was indebted to
42:51
Speaker 1: her to save the husband. And I was like, yeah,
42:54
Speaker 1: what is this about? Yeah? I could also Elle was
42:59
Speaker 1: all about out the witch because Elle was like, thank
43:02
Speaker 1: you so much for sharing. Well, V was like, what
43:04
Speaker 1: the what did you do? And like V obviously had
43:07
Speaker 1: never met her because when she came in, She's like,
43:10
Speaker 1: I'm here to see your mother. She's like, girl, what,
43:12
Speaker 1: I'm the witch. I'm one hundred years old, why are
43:15
Speaker 1: you talking to me? Or seventy years old? But like
43:18
Speaker 1: these connectedness with that world is reticence as versus Elle
43:24
Speaker 1: has always been a bar in that world. Whether it's
43:25
Speaker 1: her mom again, her mom has a relationship, some type
43:29
Speaker 1: of relationship with a witch. We just don't know what.
43:31
Speaker 1: It's never mentioned. We just know that Elle knew that
43:35
Speaker 1: there was a contingency plan that if something were to happen.
43:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was specific to her father,
43:41
Speaker 1: Like this is the way they were protecting the father
43:43
Speaker 1: because they knew these animals hated men or what, but
43:47
Speaker 1: like something was there and her being like, you know
43:51
Speaker 1: what to do? I need you to do this, like
43:53
Speaker 1: without even mentioning the witch, not like nothing, she just
43:57
Speaker 1: said you know what I need you to do and
43:59
Speaker 1: then that's the end in your like what and not
44:02
Speaker 1: realizing they had a connection. So that felt like a
44:05
Speaker 1: side story that I was like, huh. Also, Pearl, by
44:08
Speaker 1: the way, I skipped ahead to make sure I didn't die.
44:10
Speaker 1: I was so worried. I was so upset. I think
44:14
Speaker 1: I yelped at one point when she got attacked when
44:17
Speaker 1: they were in the dog. Yeah, Pearl the dog. I
44:20
Speaker 1: was always I was on edge because I'm like, look
44:23
Speaker 1: at this therapy dog. They take this dog to elderly
44:28
Speaker 1: places the like nursing homes or whatever whatnot, and like
44:32
Speaker 1: she just hangs out with all of them. That's a
44:34
Speaker 1: part of her duty. And I was like, they killed
44:36
Speaker 1: this dog, I'm gonna fight somebody. Everything else is fine,
44:42
Speaker 1: but not Pearl. Damn it was. But also that was
44:48
Speaker 1: also another side story that I was like, huh huh. Also,
44:53
Speaker 1: I think it's also that scene with the older woman
44:56
Speaker 1: talking about losing her son again. It came after a boy.
45:00
Speaker 1: It just came after boys, so her son and her
45:03
Speaker 1: her husband, but she lived above a cold sinkhole essentially
45:10
Speaker 1: kind of as she was okay with it mm hmm,
45:13
Speaker 1: because she was like let line where she talks about
45:15
Speaker 1: I'm glad we can breathe this and for us to
45:18
Speaker 1: cleim because it gave them jobs, but it was killing her.
45:21
Speaker 1: But at the same time she was like, Nah, my
45:23
Speaker 1: family's gone. I'm good. But it was an interesting conversation
45:26
Speaker 1: about that gentrification that you were talking about, because she
45:29
Speaker 1: was so grateful to have a job but not realizing
45:33
Speaker 1: they were killing her as well.
45:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's in this nursing home dying. It was I
45:43
Speaker 2: think there's I think there's more of them. This was
45:47
Speaker 2: one through six, so I'm confused.
45:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone tell me, I did not realize that this
45:54
Speaker 1: was like just one. Is there several more books continuations
45:59
Speaker 1: of this one's or is it now complete and we're
46:01
Speaker 1: gone to a different because I know Hillhouse Comics that
46:05
Speaker 1: is with d C is horror. Yeah, a lot of
46:08
Speaker 1: horror stories horror comics. So she do we continue on
46:13
Speaker 1: with L and B.
46:16
Speaker 2: I don't know, because like I tried to look into it.
46:22
Speaker 2: Because I didn't want when we were choosing this, like
46:25
Speaker 2: a fear of mine was we would get to the
46:27
Speaker 2: end and it would be like whoa Edition two? But
46:31
Speaker 2: it's a very complete Yeah.
46:34
Speaker 1: It does. It felt like it was an ending.
46:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I looked into it and I didn't see
46:40
Speaker 2: anything else. But yeah, correct is if we're wrong, because
46:45
Speaker 2: it does feel like there was a bunch of little.
46:49
Speaker 1: I asked, So what I'm seeing is it is six
46:53
Speaker 1: parts in one. They were all individually issued, it is,
46:57
Speaker 1: and it is a limited series. It's limited run comic series.
47:00
Speaker 1: So it's done and the final and the like the
47:04
Speaker 1: final one was released or not final. It was the
47:08
Speaker 1: hardcover edition. Collected edition was released in twenty twenty. Oh
47:13
Speaker 1: actually September twenty nine to twenty twenty, so we're coming up.
47:16
Speaker 2: On anniversary Congress Congress get.
47:20
Speaker 1: Finally once again. But yeah, so it shows all of that.
47:24
Speaker 1: And I'm looking at the comics as they were released
47:27
Speaker 1: and they different had different Huh. Yeah, we see it.
47:31
Speaker 1: We see the if you if you buy I don't
47:36
Speaker 1: know because you've got the kindle version. I actually bought
47:38
Speaker 1: the paperback version, but in each one, it shows the
47:41
Speaker 1: cover as they had as the same as they had
47:45
Speaker 1: released it, I believe. Yeah, that's the same that as
47:48
Speaker 1: they had the cover for the release, So it's in there,
47:50
Speaker 1: but like chapters cool, Yeah, how'd you look at it
47:53
Speaker 1: when you come over? Anye?
47:55
Speaker 2: Okay, oh that does lead me into my final thing.
47:59
Speaker 2: I just want to call out the illustrations. They were amazing.
48:02
Speaker 1: They're beautiful.
48:03
Speaker 2: They're beautiful, They're like haunting, Yes, they they're haunting, but
48:10
Speaker 2: I really love the like there's different illustration styles based
48:14
Speaker 2: on like, yes, the covers, but it's certain like emotions,
48:18
Speaker 2: there are different illustration styles. The contrast. I really like
48:23
Speaker 2: there's kind of like a set of colors that they
48:26
Speaker 2: use a lot, but then when another color pops in there.
48:30
Speaker 2: I really really enjoyed that as well. And there were
48:35
Speaker 2: just so many panels that illustrated so much in like
48:37
Speaker 2: a small panel. I remember one is when you see
48:40
Speaker 2: V with Jessica for the first time. Who again, I
48:45
Speaker 2: was like worried they were going to make into some
48:46
Speaker 2: kind of you know, horrendously girlween girl. Yeah, but you
48:50
Speaker 2: see them and V's wearing her converses, it's just their shoes.
48:54
Speaker 2: V's wearing converses and Jessica's wearing like nice like stilettos
48:59
Speaker 2: or like he but that just communicates so much in
49:02
Speaker 2: that one like frame, because so I feel like the
49:06
Speaker 2: illustration was really fun and it was really vibrant, and
49:11
Speaker 2: it did a lot of different things which kept it exciting.
49:14
Speaker 2: So really really enjoyed it.
49:17
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm hm.
49:19
Speaker 1: It was very good.
49:20
Speaker 2: This was a good pick. This was a good pick.
49:21
Speaker 2: It's good for any time, but especially good for as
49:25
Speaker 2: we are moving into Halloween times. I highly recommend it.
49:31
Speaker 2: So yes, yes, go check it out if you have
49:35
Speaker 2: any interest, and as always, if you have any suggestions
49:39
Speaker 2: for what we should do next. If you have any
49:41
Speaker 2: thoughts about this, please let us know. You can email
49:44
Speaker 2: us at stepanem Mom and stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
49:46
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at momstaff podcast, and
49:50
Speaker 2: on TikTok and Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You.
49:54
Speaker 2: We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store,
49:57
Speaker 2: and we have a book you can get wherever you
49:59
Speaker 2: get your books. Thanks as always too, our super producer
50:01
Speaker 2: Christina or executive produce to my and our contributor Joey.
50:04
Speaker 2: Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Steffian Never
50:06
Speaker 2: Told You is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
50:08
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50:10
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50:12
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