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With Great Power #361... 22 Panels with Sherman Alexie · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:01
  Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. I'm joined again by Sherman Alexie, who most people know for his poetry. I really liked your 60 poem.
• 0:14
  sherman irw diane: Oh, thank you. Everybody.
• 0:15
  Tad Eggleston: I laughed my ass off.
• 0:18
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, I love to combine. I love to write series.
• 0:23
  Tad Eggleston: Last Tuesday, I think. Yeah.
• 0:24
  sherman irw diane: Serious poetry. That's funny, that's all I love.
• 0:27
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, that… it reminded me a lot of… Ogden Nash.
• 0:35
  sherman irw diane: I'll take that as a huge compliment.
• 0:37
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, where it's like, if… because I couldn't find your meter. Did you have a meter?
• 0:44
  sherman irw diane: Or did you just…
• 0:45
  Tad Eggleston: I feel like that.
• 0:45
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 0:46
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, because it… because it… it felt like there was a meter, but I couldn't…
• 0:51
  Tad Eggleston: Actually peg the specific meter.
• 0:55
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, I bounced around.
• 0:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that… that's a very Ogden Nash thing. Yeah. It's like, meter, meter, meter.
• 1:02
  Tad Eggleston: Three sentences in one line.
• 1:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09
  Tad Eggleston: And just, like, the wit.
• 1:12
  Tad Eggleston: The wit and the humor about something that was clearly a serious subject, because you.
• 1:17
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 1:17
  Tad Eggleston: You're talking about your aches and pains.
• 1:20
  sherman irw diane: Yes. So, yes. So for those of you who want to know, it's on my Substack, Sherman Alexie Substack and the poems.
• 1:27
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:28
  sherman irw diane: I turned.
• 1:29
  Tad Eggleston: 6.
• 1:29
  sherman irw diane: It's the last Wednesday and it's about the indignities of getting older and your body falling apart. And yeah, and it's a poem that includes gray pubic hair.
• 1:41
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 1:45
  Tad Eggleston: So… so that was… that was fun. I had to remember to… to… to toss that out. What have you been reading lately? Because I know you're a comic guy.
• 1:53
  sherman irw diane: Oh, yeah, I'm a big comic guy, but I've been. I've been negligent.
• 1:57
  Tad Eggleston: been negligent.
• 1:58
  sherman irw diane: Yes, I'm working on a crime novel.
• 2:02
  sherman irw diane: So I've been reading a lot of old school noir the last six months.
• 2:06
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 2:07
  sherman irw diane: So.
• 2:08
  Tad Eggleston: You know that there's a hell of a lot of great crime comics, too.
• 2:11
  sherman irw diane: Yes, so you can recommend some to me. I'd love it.
• 2:14
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 2:14
  sherman irw diane: reasons why I chose this one.
• 2:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, if you're not reading That Texas Blood. By Chris Condon. That Texas Blood by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips.
• 2:25
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 2:27
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Jacob is Sean's son, so, like, you probably already know Criminal from Brubaker and Phillips. Yes. But, like, I have been one of the ones…
• 2:39
  Tad Eggleston: For a while, saying that, that…
• 2:42
  Tad Eggleston: Condon's starting to approach Brubaker, even though he's 20 years younger.
• 2:47
  sherman irw diane: -Oh. -Oh.
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: And.
• 2:49
  sherman irw diane: claims.
• 2:50
  Tad Eggleston: And, and, and, and Sean's better, er, Jacob's better than his dad already.
• 2:56
  sherman irw diane: -Oh, getting Shakespearean.
• 2:58
  Tad Eggleston: And I and I love Sean.
• 3:01
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 3:02
  Tad Eggleston: Don't get me wrong, this is not supposed to be in any way, but, like.
• 3:09
  Tad Eggleston: Jacob felt like he came out fully for… like, like, that Texas blood initially came out
• 3:16
  Tad Eggleston: It was one of the first books after they came back after the pandemic.
• 3:20
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 3:21
  Tad Eggleston: It was supposed to be released just as pencils went down, and it was one of the first books that Image came back. So… so that's when it started, was roughly late 2020. Okay. And, like, from that first issue, it's like, oh, wow.
• 3:34
  Tad Eggleston: This… this kid's been drawing a… I mean, you can see that he's his father's son.
• 3:40
  Tad Eggleston: But I also feel like he's already just taken it to that next level. Yeah.
• 3:47
  Tad Eggleston: He also… he was the one tapped to do,
• 3:53
  Tad Eggleston: If.
• 3:55
  Tad Eggleston: Francis Ford Coppola is a comics fan.
• 3:59
  Tad Eggleston: So, so when… when he was making Megalopolis.
• 4:03
  Tad Eggleston: He wanted a comic.
• 4:05
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Tad Eggleston: But he wanted a comic that was a comic, not an adaptation of the film. So he tapped…
• 4:12
  Tad Eggleston: Chris Ryle to write, and Ryle hooked him up with Jacob Phillips.
• 4:18
  Tad Eggleston: And they were given the script.
• 4:20
  Tad Eggleston: And the background information.
• 4:23
  Tad Eggleston: And they were making it at the same time that he was filming.
• 4:26
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, oh, wow, has that come out?
• 4:28
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah!
• 4:29
  sherman irw diane: Oh, I didn't even not see… I've been barely…
• 4:32
  Tad Eggleston: I'm one of the… I'm one of the handful of people out there that really, really appreciates the Magalopolis movie.
• 4:38
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 4:38
  Tad Eggleston: And I still like the comic better.
• 4:40
  sherman irw diane: Okay, okay, I will…
• 4:41
  Tad Eggleston: It gets all of the, the nuances that sometimes get lost when
• 4:46
  Tad Eggleston: When you can't gaze at the page for a minute. Yeah.
• 4:49
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, so, okay. So, yeah.
• 4:51
  Tad Eggleston: Those are, those are my big, big, big recommendations, is go find anything by Condon Phillips. And to a certain extent, anything by Phillips. Most of what Phillips has done has been crime stuff in different, different levels. He did a book with, Chip Zdarsky called New Burn.
• 5:07
  Tad Eggleston: He did, something recently with Tate Brombolt called Everything Dead and Dying.
• 5:16
  Tad Eggleston: That's kind of a mix between a mystery and a zombie book.
• 5:20
  sherman irw diane: Oh.
• 5:21
  Tad Eggleston: And, and he, he and Chris also did, like.
• 5:28
  Tad Eggleston: It's almost like a mashup between Sam Spade and Indiana Jones.
• 5:32
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 5:34
  Tad Eggleston: They did, like, a… they did, like, a 30s noir comic, but with just a little bit of a supernatural…
• 5:42
  Tad Eggleston: Twist to it.
• 5:44
  Tad Eggleston: That's…
• 5:45
  sherman irw diane: Mine has a little bit of a supernatural twist to it.
• 5:48
  Tad Eggleston: Right, called The Peril of the Brutal Dark. It just finished up. It was one of the… the relaunch of Vertigo books. Oh, okay, okay. So those are my big crime recommendations.
• 5:59
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 6:00
  Tad Eggleston: If I think about it, I'll type them up and send it to Diane.
• 6:05
  sherman irw diane: Okay, yes, please. And,
• 6:08
  sherman irw diane: Although, as we were talking, I thought, wait a second, you know, I've been rereading fables.
• 6:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, Fables is great.
• 6:14
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. So.
• 6:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 6:17
  sherman irw diane: I was just… I got a notice about something, you know, on my comics app, and then I saw Fables. I thought, wow, it's been years since I've read Fables.
• 6:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 6:26
  sherman irw diane: Right. So I've been going back through fables and that has a noir quality to it.
• 6:29
  Tad Eggleston: It does.
• 6:30
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, so.
• 6:32
  Tad Eggleston: No, I haven't gotten to talk to Willingham yet, but I've talked to Shelly Bond a number of times, and she adores his work, and loved shepherding that project.
• 6:42
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. So that, that, that, and actually that sort of fits with one of the characters in my novel, the whole thing.
• 6:48
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I can't… I can't… can't wait to read it. I can't wait to read it. I love that… I love that you're doing genre.
• 6:54
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 6:55
  Tad Eggleston: you know, it's always fun when somebody who knows how to write decides to go do genre fiction. It both… it both elevates the…
• 7:04
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 7:05
  Tad Eggleston: Too many… I think we've gotten away from it more now, but, like, 20 years ago, like, there was this snobbish attitude that, like, if you were a writer, you didn't write genre fiction.
• 7:16
  sherman irw diane: yeah.
• 7:17
  Tad Eggleston: you.
• 7:18
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, I have none of that in me. I love it all.
• 7:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right. No, but I think that's started to, like, people… I mean, A, people have started to, to…
• 7:30
  Tad Eggleston: to recognize more of the genre masters, you know? The Elmore Leonards and the Dashiell Hammets get a lot more credit for just being great writers than they did even in my lifetime. But B, and I'm certain there were other people, but I think, like.
• 7:48
  Tad Eggleston: Michael Chabon's two books after… I mean, first of all, he wins a Pulitzer Prize about… with a book that involves comic book writers.
• 7:56
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 7:56
  Tad Eggleston: But then his next two books are…
• 8:01
  Tad Eggleston: He calls them the Jew Detective Book and Jews with Swords.
• 8:05
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 8:06
  Tad Eggleston: Because it was the Yiddish Policeman's Union and Gentlemen of the Road. Yes. You know, where he leaned heavily into the genre. He's like, oh, I can write anything I want right now? Yeah. This is what I'm gonna do.
• 8:21
  sherman irw diane: Yes, so I want to head in that direction, so…
• 8:24
  Tad Eggleston: I'm looking forward to it.
• 8:25
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. One of the other books I'm considering working on, you know, I've got a few chapters, is in the fantasy realm.
• 8:33
  Tad Eggleston: Oh. Do you have a favorite fantasy writer?
• 8:37
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I'm more of a serious guy.
• 8:38
  sherman irw diane: I'm old school.
• 8:39
  Tad Eggleston: school.
• 8:39
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, I mean, I reread Tolkien all the time.
• 8:42
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, okay.
• 8:44
  sherman irw diane: And, and, you know.
• 8:47
  sherman irw diane: Game of Thrones, of course, is a big part.
• 8:50
  Tad Eggleston: No, I love Game of Thrones, I, I, I…
• 8:52
  Tad Eggleston: I read the Wheel of Time as it came out.
• 8:55
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. And Conan, Conan everywhere.
• 8:58
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 8:58
  sherman irw diane: time.
• 8:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I've gone back and done some… Jim Zub's doing really good comics for that right now. Conan Comics right now are, like, as good as they've been since the height of the, like, Archie Goodwin.
• 9:12
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 9:14
  sherman irw diane: Oh.
• 9:14
  Tad Eggleston: Era, yeah.
• 9:17
  sherman irw diane: I will check those out too.
• 9:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 9:20
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I gotta ask you, like, when are you gonna write a graphic novel?
• 9:24
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you've included some… you've included some comics in your… in your books, but, like.
• 9:31
  sherman irw diane: Well, if I was going to do it, I'd really want to be the artist.
• 9:36
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 9:36
  sherman irw diane: So I have.
• 9:37
  Tad Eggleston: You need to take that much more time to do it. Yes, and…
• 9:41
  sherman irw diane: And, you know, I am… I am a talented amateur.
• 9:46
  Tad Eggleston: Talented amateur. So.
• 9:49
  sherman irw diane: I am, I have, I'm, I have set plans now to start,
• 9:55
  Tad Eggleston: So, so what you're saying… what you're saying is it will be…
• 10:00
  Tad Eggleston: Inked, and touched up, and published posthumously.
• 10:05
  sherman irw diane: That's a good way to put it. So I've begun daily practice of drawing and sketching again like I did when I was young.
• 10:18
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 10:19
  sherman irw diane: continued along that path, I think I'd be good enough now to not to be acclaimed as an artist, but to do a graphic novel.
• 10:26
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, like, one of the beauties of comics is that, like.
• 10:32
  Tad Eggleston: You can be a great artist and not be able to make a good comic.
• 10:36
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 10:36
  Tad Eggleston: And you can be a mediocre artist and make a great comic.
• 10:39
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 10:42
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, like, to me, that's where it's like baseball, where, like, there isn't a… a sure path.
• 10:51
  Tad Eggleston: You know, like, you look at a row of Hall of Famers, and you have so many different shapes and sizes and skill sets and whatnot, and… Yeah.
• 11:03
  Tad Eggleston: you know.
• 11:04
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, that's… That's, That's definitely…
• 11:10
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, I hope you get it done before you die, just so we can talk about it on 22 Panels.
• 11:17
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, well, the sequel to True Diary, I'm done with the pros.
• 11:20
  Tad Eggleston: That… that I've heard.
• 11:21
  sherman irw diane: I'm done with the prose part, and we are looking at illustrators.
• 11:28
  Tad Eggleston: Okay. Ellen's not going to do it again.
• 11:30
  sherman irw diane: No, no, no, I'm going in a different direction, so…
• 11:33
  Tad Eggleston: Different direction. Okay, okay.
• 11:35
  sherman irw diane: So.
• 11:36
  Tad Eggleston: Lot of good ones out there.
• 11:38
  sherman irw diane: Yes. So if you know somebody who might be interested, let me know.
• 11:42
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, I'll kick ideas around in my head.
• 11:47
  Tad Eggleston: For that matter, like, I'll have to flip through it. There was just an Indigenous anthology put out. That would be a…
• 11:57
  Tad Eggleston: Something to go look at and see if anybody strikes your…
• 12:01
  sherman irw diane: You know, I know.
• 12:02
  Tad Eggleston: information.
• 12:03
  sherman irw diane: I've, I've, I've… A few native people I've, I've talked to and we've
• 12:10
  sherman irw diane: Had meetings, and it didn't… our artistic vision for it didn't work out.
• 12:15
  Tad Eggleston: Didn't work out yet. That's fair.
• 12:18
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, no, it's in, you know, I don't.
• 12:23
  sherman irw diane: You know, I would prefer a Native artist, but that's not…
• 12:26
  Tad Eggleston: it.
• 12:27
  sherman irw diane: That's not a that's not a a deal breaker.
• 12:30
  Tad Eggleston: No, I understand that, I just, like, because it… Mad Cave literally released…
• 12:37
  Tad Eggleston: I forget what it was called,
• 12:43
  Tad Eggleston: Of course, I don't have my tablet next to me, so I can't just pull it up. Yeah.
• 12:49
  sherman irw diane: Well, and one of the things is working with Ellen is that.
• 12:54
  sherman irw diane: She… Never drew in stereotypes because she wasn't even aware of what a stereotypical native image would be.
• 13:02
  Tad Eggleston: That's true, that's.
• 13:03
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, so she… that never entered her head how she was supposed to represent something.
• 13:09
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 13:10
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 13:11
  sherman irw diane: So I think in some ways, with another native artist, since we're going to be so similar in what we know and don't know.
• 13:19
  sherman irw diane: That there won't be as much,
• 13:21
  Tad Eggleston: Do you know Jim Terry's work at all?
• 13:24
  sherman irw diane: No, I don't.
• 13:26
  Tad Eggleston: Jim Terry's memoir was called Come Home Indio.
• 13:31
  Tad Eggleston: Which is fantastic.
• 13:34
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 13:35
  Tad Eggleston: And he's kind of got the reverse story of you. He mostly grew up in the suburbs and found his native roots.
• 13:43
  Tad Eggleston: As he grew older.
• 13:45
  Tad Eggleston: You know, he'd go to the reservation to visit relatives from time to time during his childhood, but, like, it wasn't… Yeah.
• 13:54
  Tad Eggleston: But he's been doing a lot of stuff. He also… he's done The Crow, he did.
• 14:00
  Tad Eggleston: If you like swords and sorcery, slash!
• 14:04
  Tad Eggleston: From, from Guns N' Roses acquired the rights to.
• 14:12
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, God, it was this horrible… Sword and Sorcery movie in the 80s, you know, when they were… when everybody was making
• 14:21
  Tad Eggleston: When everybody was making stuff because of the… The, success of Conan.
• 14:28
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 14:30
  Tad Eggleston: What?
• 14:32
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, God, what was it? Paul, give me a second.
• 14:37
  sherman irw diane: Who are the terrible ones from back there? Beastmaster, which is.
• 14:40
  Tad Eggleston: No, no.
• 14:41
  sherman irw diane: Horribly great.
• 14:44
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, this one actually managed to have 4, 4 volumes. Deathstalker.
• 14:50
  sherman irw diane: Oh my gosh, I remember the name, I don't remember.
• 14:52
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 14:53
  sherman irw diane: the, yeah.
• 14:54
  Tad Eggleston: No, the comic is recently.
• 14:56
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 14:56
  Tad Eggleston: recent.
• 14:57
  sherman irw diane: But I remember the name.
• 14:58
  Tad Eggleston: Deathstalker. Oh, the, yeah, the movies. Movie, there were four Deathstalkers.
• 15:03
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 15:03
  Tad Eggleston: And like.
• 15:05
  Tad Eggleston: The consensus is 3 socks.
• 15:08
  sherman irw diane: And.
• 15:09
  Tad Eggleston: And… And 1, 2, and 4…
• 15:13
  Tad Eggleston: Like, 80% of people think they suck, and 20% of people think that they're masterpieces.
• 15:19
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 15:20
  Tad Eggleston: But the 20% of people that thinks like one is a masterpiece think two and four suck. Okay. Okay. That's how completely different the four.
• 15:33
  sherman irw diane: Okay, I'm going.
• 15:33
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 15:34
  sherman irw diane: I'm gonna look that up too, so…
• 15:36
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, but, but, but no, Vault Comics slash Jim Terry and Tim Seeley did a Deathstalker book.
• 15:44
  Tad Eggleston: A few years ago, that's just outstanding.
• 15:47
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 15:48
  sherman irw diane: Awesome.
• 15:49
  Tad Eggleston: So that's.
• 15:50
  sherman irw diane: where I'm at.
• 15:51
  Tad Eggleston: There's another recommendation. Particularly if you're doing fantasy stuff, you can go… Have ideas for…
• 15:57
  sherman irw diane: I mean, that's one of the things I want in the,
• 16:01
  sherman irw diane: In the sequel, I want the art to go into other genres. I mean, you know, the True Diary, the first book, it was, you know, indie art, indie graphic art.
• 16:10
  sherman irw diane: pretty.
• 16:11
  Tad Eggleston: consistent.
• 16:12
  sherman irw diane: Pretty consistent.
• 16:14
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, if you want to go multiple genres.
• 16:18
  Tad Eggleston: There's nobody better at imitating anything at all.
• 16:23
  Tad Eggleston: than our Socorriac.
• 16:26
  Tad Eggleston: He did.
• 16:28
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he's probably most famous for Terms and Conditions, Constitution Illustrated, and recently Declaration Illustrated, which all of those are literally… like, the first one was the iTunes Terms and Conditions. That's… that's all of the text, is the iTunes Terms and Conditions. But each page.
• 16:49
  Tad Eggleston: is… a pastiche.
• 16:52
  Tad Eggleston: Or homage to an actual comic book page from somewhere.
• 16:57
  Tad Eggleston: Only with Steve Jobs put in.
• 17:00
  Tad Eggleston: As one of the characters.
• 17:02
  sherman irw diane: Oh my gosh.
• 17:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 17:04
  Tad Eggleston: And Constitution Illustrated.
• 17:07
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 17:08
  Tad Eggleston: Is the Constitution.
• 17:10
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 17:11
  Tad Eggleston: Except that each page is in a different comic style.
• 17:15
  Tad Eggleston: Through the year.
• 17:17
  sherman irw diane: That's incredible.
• 17:17
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, from the yellow kid to Raina Telgemeier.
• 17:21
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 17:22
  sherman irw diane: Oh my gosh, that's brilliant.
• 17:24
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, if you want somebody who can do a lot of… the other thing you can look at from him that will show this off is.
• 17:32
  Tad Eggleston: Tom Hanks wrote a novel recently.
• 17:34
  Tad Eggleston: called The Making of the Next Motion Picture Mastery.
• 17:37
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 17:38
  Tad Eggleston: It's actually a really good novel.
• 17:39
  Tad Eggleston: But it's got 24 pages of comics in it, and they needed 3 different styles, so they… they tapped Bob, and Bob did…
• 17:48
  Tad Eggleston: did 4 different, or 3 different comics in 3, like, one of them is, like, very EC war comic-ish, one is…
• 17:58
  Tad Eggleston: Like… late 70s… Hard edge, and one feels like a early 90s image book.
• 18:07
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 18:09
  sherman irw diane: So, I mean, that's what's in my head right now is that kind of thing.
• 18:12
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Yeah.
• 18:14
  sherman irw diane: Well, he's a kid. I mean, he's 16, so he's experimenting. He's not sure where he wants to go.
• 18:18
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:20
  sherman irw diane: I like some, you know, even some hyper realism.
• 18:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, Bob Sikoriak might be your guy.
• 18:26
  sherman irw diane: Okay, okay.
• 18:27
  Tad Eggleston: I just said that on air Bob, so don't feel pressured. Bob's a regular on 22 Panels.
• 18:34
  sherman irw diane: You're allowed to say no.
• 18:35
  Tad Eggleston: to sherman.
• 18:36
  sherman irw diane: I don't know if they'd be interested, if anybody would be interested, so…
• 18:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:41
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 18:42
  sherman irw diane: It's… it's a massive book!
• 18:45
  sherman irw diane: I mean, it has this True Diary has sold millions of copies.
• 18:49
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's… that's the… that's the way to go with it. I mean, and it still sells copies, because, like…
• 18:56
  sherman irw diane: I.
• 18:56
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I know my school… my school alone buys, like.
• 19:01
  Tad Eggleston: 2 or 300 every year.
• 19:03
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, yeah, so.
• 19:04
  Tad Eggleston: Because we give them to the students to mark up and keep.
• 19:09
  sherman irw diane: Shalom.
• 19:09
  Tad Eggleston: know.
• 19:10
  sherman irw diane: Which I love!
• 19:11
  Tad Eggleston: You know, we're big on our kids annotating books, and when you're doing that, you… you…
• 19:18
  sherman irw diane: You you've followed you. I mean, that's a relation.
• 19:20
  Tad Eggleston: Don't use the same books every year.
• 19:21
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, that's a relationship with a book.
• 19:24
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 19:25
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 19:25
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 19:28
  Tad Eggleston: I… I'm so… like, I don't get to do this very often. We read a book together. I gave you a list of books, and you picked one, and it's one of my favorites, so we're gonna talk about Huge Detective.
• 19:39
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. I mean, like I said earlier, you know, I said, well, let's talk about a book. Send me some recommendations.
• 19:45
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 19:45
  sherman irw diane: the list and immediately the title, Huge Detective, immediately caught me. I thought, whoa, what is that? And then I looked it up and thought, oh my gosh, the log line, you know.
• 20:00
  sherman irw diane: You know, doll-sized human being, being human being.
• 20:04
  Tad Eggleston: means.
• 20:05
  sherman irw diane: And, Beans and Giants,
• 20:08
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 20:08
  sherman irw diane: Huge is solving a murder mystery, and it immediately appealed to me. It would have appealed to me anyway, but like I said, because I'm working on a murder mystery, a crime novel, it had double meaning for me, and I ordered it, and it came, and the cover… you know, I didn't look at… I didn't look online, because I wanted to be surprised by it.
• 20:28
  sherman irw diane: So I didn't explore it at all. I just went off your list, and when it arrived, the cover is amazing.
• 20:34
  Tad Eggleston: It is.
• 20:35
  sherman irw diane: Yes. You know where this because when you say.
• 20:40
  sherman irw diane: I hadn't grasped or didn't know what huge meant. I mean, we're we're not talking giants, we're talking godlike behemoths.
• 20:49
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, we're… I mean, like, one of the things that I actually, like, it didn't click to me, I think, until my second read is they became intercontinental transportation.
• 21:03
  sherman irw diane: Yes! Which, which…
• 21:07
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, one, you know, I that was one of the things that had my mind stretching, like how big are these? I mean, I thought.
• 21:13
  Tad Eggleston: you.
• 21:13
  sherman irw diane: And then it occurred to me at one point in the, you know, I thought, well, how big are they? And then of course I hadn't pondered it, but there's a section where somebody talks about you're smaller than I thought you'd be, where a human says that to the huge detective.
• 21:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 21:26
  sherman irw diane: You're smaller than I thought you'd be, which made me laugh.
• 21:29
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 21:30
  sherman irw diane: It's also an homage to Roadhouse, the Patrick Swayze version, if you remember that.
• 21:35
  Tad Eggleston: Vaguely.
• 21:36
  sherman irw diane: He sees him. You're Dalton. You're smaller than I thought you'd be. But I, I thought, oh my so I kept thinking, you know, like, I think there's at one point where somebody says he can walk across the Atlantic in eight steps, and I thought, how big are they? And I think Right. So they're they come in different sizes.
• 21:54
  Tad Eggleston: Hey.
• 21:55
  sherman irw diane: So I don't think we've seen the big one.
• 21:58
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 21:59
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 21:59
  Tad Eggleston: They're just, yeah, they're…
• 22:01
  Tad Eggleston: They're… they're… they're not your average… I mean, I… I love… I mean, just right at the beginning, like, the first time you see the giant.
• 22:10
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Tad Eggleston: He's sitting on the ground in a parking lot, and A, it takes a whole parking lot, and B, he's got a skyscraper next to him.
• 22:21
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 22:22
  Tad Eggleston: It's barely taller than him while he's sitting on the ground.
• 22:27
  sherman irw diane: Yes, I'm filling up the whole parking lot.
• 22:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 22:32
  sherman irw diane: You know, I love the… like, that page, that introduction page is so brilliant, too, because, how are you going to show… show a conversation between.
• 22:40
  Tad Eggleston: No, I know. You have to have the inset of the… of the…
• 22:45
  sherman irw diane: of the perfume.
• 22:47
  Tad Eggleston: Person, right.
• 22:48
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 22:49
  Tad Eggleston: Like, and then the next panel, it gives you… gives you another great view, because, like, you've got the chopper.
• 22:56
  sherman irw diane: Yes!
• 22:56
  Tad Eggleston: That looks like a gnat.
• 22:58
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 22:58
  Tad Eggleston: And the.
• 22:59
  sherman irw diane: Of course, then that starts bringing up King Kong imagery. Right. Yes, so, which… which… and King Kong is a tiny, tiny thing compared to these… these… Yeah. Huge. And, you know, in that first panel, I love that he has Detective.
• 23:13
  sherman irw diane: Detective Giant, he has a name tag, which cracked me up. I thought, oh my God, who sewed that? Think about the amount of thread.
• 23:23
  sherman irw diane: All right.
• 23:24
  Tad Eggleston: That's a good question! I mean, just think about the coat!
• 23:28
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 23:29
  Tad Eggleston: Like, they're actually fully clothed here. He's got a… he's got a shirt on under his coat, he's got…
• 23:33
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 23:34
  Tad Eggleston: He's got boots! Like…
• 23:36
  Tad Eggleston: It's one thing to know that there are giant tailors and shoemakers and that sort of thing, but where do they get the materials?
• 23:47
  sherman irw diane: How many… how much cotton do they have to grow?
• 23:51
  sherman irw diane: But then it just occurred to me, there's that thing where they sort of…
• 23:56
  sherman irw diane: That sort of thing is not explored deeply, but I realize there's a line in the thing about
• 24:01
  sherman irw diane: The deal made about the human resources they need.
• 24:05
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 24:06
  sherman irw diane: Giants, part of their treaty, their peace treaty with humans is about
• 24:10
  sherman irw diane: Getting the resources they need from humans and of course massive fields of cotton would be an absolute necessity.
• 24:19
  Tad Eggleston: Right. No, no, no, they get certain resources in exchange for being intercontinental transportation.
• 24:27
  sherman irw diane: Yes. And you the images of them when the water holding the, ships on their shoulders.
• 24:31
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 24:32
  sherman irw diane: Oh, it, it's, it's brilliant and, and then on top of that making them telepathic.
• 24:39
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 24:40
  Tad Eggleston: Though, I mean, in some ways, that makes sense, because, like.
• 24:45
  Tad Eggleston: If you're that big, how loud would you be?
• 24:49
  sherman irw diane: Oh, yeah.
• 24:51
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I gotta imagine that, like, for Giant actually using his language rather than his mind to talk to the humans, the problem is, is…
• 25:05
  Tad Eggleston: Partially like forming the words, but, but mostly whispering the words so, so that they only sound like sonic booms rather than.
• 25:18
  sherman irw diane: Oh, man. Yeah.
• 25:20
  Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry.
• 25:22
  sherman irw diane: So so yeah. So that that that whole thing, right, is is is and the the the red herring, the misleading to make you think the dude is a is a is a is a is a is a huge?
• 25:36
  sherman irw diane: Right.
• 25:38
  sherman irw diane: What's his name? I'm blanking on his name.
• 25:39
  Tad Eggleston: The kid I don't remember his name right now. Yeah.
• 25:42
  sherman irw diane: I'm looking.
• 25:42
  Tad Eggleston: Clearly was just abused beyond belief by his… Mother, who…
• 25:49
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, his mother.
• 25:49
  Tad Eggleston: Essentially, raised him to be… To be… her revenge.
• 25:55
  Tad Eggleston: But what a terrible… what a terrible way to raise a child.
• 25:58
  sherman irw diane: Yes. And to have that delusion that you're a human.
• 26:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 26:04
  sherman irw diane: But also, as the comic goes on, they start…
• 26:07
  sherman irw diane: You know, what's happening… you know, there's this magical relationship between what he can see and not see in his telepathy.
• 26:16
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 26:17
  sherman irw diane: And the way in which he's hearing and seeing, and that song that keeps playing from everywhere.
• 26:22
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 26:22
  sherman irw diane: And, and, and…
• 26:24
  sherman irw diane: So the mysticism of this, and you know what I kept thinking? This is like a new Greek mythology.
• 26:31
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. Yeah, and I thought, this is a theological story. I mean, what are these huges except gods? I mean…
• 26:39
  Tad Eggleston: That's.
• 26:40
  sherman irw diane: how they would be perceived by us, but as humans, but but but they are angry gods, and and we are jealous worshipers.
• 26:49
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and, like.
• 26:53
  Tad Eggleston: every time I flip through it, like, I just… I just hit a page where… where, like, they're at the lake, and… and they're… they're pointing guns at him, as if… as if a pistol is gonna do anything.
• 27:11
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm sitting there going, like.
• 27:13
  Tad Eggleston: The hubris to not realize that, like.
• 27:17
  Tad Eggleston: If there's peace with the Huges?
• 27:21
  Tad Eggleston: It's because they decided To be peaceful. Not because we earned it.
• 27:29
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes.
• 27:30
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 27:31
  sherman irw diane: So yeah, so I mean.
• 27:33
  Tad Eggleston: And.
• 27:33
  sherman irw diane: That's a powerful God. Yeah.
• 27:36
  Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean? I mean, I…
• 27:40
  Tad Eggleston: Is it possible that humans could kill Huge? Maybe. Maybe you could nuke a huge.
• 27:46
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 27:47
  Tad Eggleston: But… but you'd kill a lot of humans in the process.
• 27:51
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes, yes.
• 27:53
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, like, it's not even mutually assured destruction, because long before the humans could destroy the huges.
• 28:05
  Tad Eggleston: They would wipe themselves out even if the huges weren't fighting back.
• 28:09
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 28:10
  Tad Eggleston: But if the Huges decided to fight back, it would be, like, game over.
• 28:15
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 28:16
  sherman irw diane: And how many are there? That I yeah, that how it's Australia, right? How many?
• 28:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 28:21
  sherman irw diane: Australia.
• 28:22
  Tad Eggleston: It's not 100% clear, but it's not… Insignificant.
• 28:27
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes. So I thought, how many of them are there? And how do they reproduce? What do the babies look like?
• 28:33
  Tad Eggleston: Well, we do get to see a child. Yeah. I don't think we get to see a baby, but we do.
• 28:38
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, a baby, yeah, a child, but it's the baby that really… I mean, Detective Giant's kids, you know, his family, his wife.
• 28:45
  Tad Eggleston: trial.
• 28:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I imagine the babies are pretty… pretty big?
• 28:53
  sherman irw diane: makes me it just it you know there's a whole world. I don't know if they're going to continue with other stories in this world.
• 28:59
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I… you know, I,
• 29:03
  Tad Eggleston: I remember asking that question. I don't 100% remember the answer. I think Adam said it's not Possible?
• 29:13
  Tad Eggleston: You know, just like, if you notice, it's a different artist for that last section.
• 29:20
  Tad Eggleston: And that was… that was partially as a way of…
• 29:25
  Tad Eggleston: Setting it up to be, oh, this is actually significantly in the future from where we were before.
• 29:31
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 29:32
  Tad Eggleston: But it's also partially…
• 29:38
  Tad Eggleston: To tease the idea that there are other stories that could be told.
• 29:42
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I mean, one of the… one of the problems with great worldbuilding
• 29:49
  Tad Eggleston: Is it makes me want.
• 29:51
  Tad Eggleston: All sorts of stories in the world.
• 29:54
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 29:54
  Tad Eggleston: And so rarely do we ever get that.
• 29:59
  Tad Eggleston: You know, when they opened up the Star Wars universe, I'm like, great! Like.
• 30:07
  Tad Eggleston: the solo movie. I'm like, this is something different, and it could lead to a movie that doesn't even have Solo. It's just a Star Wars Underworld movie.
• 30:19
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 30:20
  Tad Eggleston: It didn't!
• 30:26
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, I mean, if you look at it, like, probably the most acclaimed show is Andor, which has the least to do with the Skywalkers and the main…
• 30:35
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, and that, that, I mean, that's the, that's the Star Wars world built, world part.
• 30:42
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 30:42
  sherman irw diane: show that I've most loved over the last.
• 30:45
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 30:45
  sherman irw diane: or.
• 30:45
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly! So it's like, when you've got… so, so, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love more huge mysteries, but I'd also love, like.
• 30:55
  Tad Eggleston: The.
• 30:57
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, now we have a huge… That's adopted, A bean. Yes.
• 31:09
  Tad Eggleston: I would love to have, like.
• 31:12
  Tad Eggleston: Jeffrey Brown, draw the book where they go to school together.
• 31:19
  sherman irw diane: Or, or, or Dawesville! A whole story in Dawesville! What's that like?
• 31:23
  Tad Eggleston: actually.
• 31:23
  sherman irw diane: A human being in dolls?
• 31:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right, but not even like the slice of life story in Dawesville.
• 31:31
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes.
• 31:32
  Tad Eggleston: Or the coming-of-age story in Dollsville, or, you know…
• 31:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, again, like, I… I can't think of any great universe where we get
• 31:47
  Tad Eggleston: Where we get the true breadth of stories that are available in the universes.
• 31:52
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, and you know, I know it comes down to how many copies did this sell?
• 31:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. How many copies it sells is a lot. And another part of it is, is.
• 32:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is actually… it's one of the things I sometimes talk about that is an appeal to a Marvel or a DC universe, particularly in comics. Because those might be the universes that we come the closest.
• 32:13
  Tad Eggleston: To getting… All of the different types of stories that you could get inside the universe.
• 32:20
  Tad Eggleston: Because… because they're not owned by a person.
• 32:24
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 32:26
  Tad Eggleston: And therefore, anybody can pitch, hey, I mean, how good was Gotham Central?
• 32:31
  sherman irw diane: Oh, yeah.
• 32:33
  Tad Eggleston: to Brubaker and Rucka going, hey, what if we…
• 32:37
  Tad Eggleston: Had a Batman book without Batman.
• 32:40
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, yeah. And they do it. So yeah.
• 32:46
  Tad Eggleston: You know, Marvel had a book for a while that was about the people that came and cleaned up after the…
• 32:52
  Tad Eggleston: I think it was Damage Incorporated, something like that, like Tony… the premise was Tony Stark had put together a fund to, to.
• 33:01
  Tad Eggleston: to, like, pay…
• 33:05
  Tad Eggleston: Cleanup crews, essentially, so where there were superhero battles, they'd be the ones that came in and cleaned up everything and put it back together.
• 33:14
  sherman irw diane: Which, which, yeah, that's, that's kind of stuff where sort of the working class world underneath the superhero world. So, yeah, yeah. So I would love the working class world of the huge world as well.
• 33:25
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:26
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, so I'm gonna have to pitch that.
• 33:27
  Tad Eggleston: To Adam, I'm going to say.
• 33:29
  sherman irw diane: Yes. Working class. What is a working class huge story?
• 33:33
  Tad Eggleston: right.
• 33:33
  sherman irw diane: And also, why were they why were they why had they buried themselves?
• 33:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 33:40
  sherman irw diane: Why had they emerged? Also, even, you know, when they allude to the Omega event or the Seattle event or, or.
• 33:46
  Tad Eggleston: All right.
• 33:47
  sherman irw diane: What happened?
• 33:48
  Tad Eggleston: There are so, so many things to learn still.
• 33:51
  sherman irw diane: Yes. And, you know, being from Seattle, I love that image of them, you know, in the Space Needle staring out as huge as they're walking through in an angry manner. I mean, I love that. I love that panel. Oh.
• 34:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 34:06
  sherman irw diane: You know, I can fully see that here. And you look at the scale, because I'm from here, so I know the scale.
• 34:12
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 34:13
  sherman irw diane: Look at how big they are. And you're like, oh my God. So they do a great job of representing the scale.
• 34:21
  sherman irw diane: Of, of, of how big these huges are, and, and, you know, I really appreciate.
• 34:27
  sherman irw diane: That. That we… that the humans really do look like insects.
• 34:32
  sherman irw diane: Compared to these.
• 34:34
  Tad Eggleston: And they also do it without taking away from the storytelling, and this is one of those things that, like, would be very hard to do in another medium. If you were doing prose, it would be, like, without the images, it would be almost impossible to truly…
• 34:56
  Tad Eggleston: express the scale.
• 34:58
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 35:00
  Tad Eggleston: But in moving pictures, it would be almost impossible to have the scale expressed and still really tell a story.
• 35:10
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:12
  Tad Eggleston: You know, because you can also… you can also tell that magenta plays with the scale sometimes.
• 35:18
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, like when she's riding on, on.
• 35:22
  Tad Eggleston: on Detective Giant.
• 35:24
  Tad Eggleston: She's bigger than she should be on his shoulder.
• 35:28
  sherman irw diane: It's true, that's true.
• 35:30
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 35:31
  Tad Eggleston: You know?
• 35:32
  sherman irw diane: Even on the car.
• 35:32
  Tad Eggleston: the.
• 35:33
  sherman irw diane: Bigger than she should be. Right. Yeah.
• 35:35
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 35:37
  Tad Eggleston: But that's, I mean, that's, again, that's the, like…
• 35:41
  Tad Eggleston: We talked briefly about art and comics, and like…
• 35:44
  Tad Eggleston: It's not necessarily about making perfect art, it's about telling the story the best.
• 35:49
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 35:52
  sherman irw diane: I mean, yeah, my favorite image, I think, is that one.
• 35:55
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, that's so good. I was just looking at that one, too. It's… it's… it's the… the… Sherman is pulling up the… the last page of, I think, issue… is it issue 2?
• 36:07
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Tad Eggleston: I think, where the huge skeleton that has emerged from the moon has finally…
• 36:18
  Tad Eggleston: Stood all the way up, and you can tell that, like.
• 36:22
  Tad Eggleston: There are gonna be problems if it doesn't move out of the way of the space station, because it's much bigger than the space station.
• 36:32
  sherman irw diane: Yes, and yeah, and then you… and then the whole… you know, and it's gonna break orbit, it's coming down, it's gonna have the power of a massive nuclear…
• 36:41
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 36:41
  sherman irw diane: It's a meteorite. It's a meteorite hitting the earth. It's going to bring nuclear winter. And it's like, oh, my God. So how did Adam think of this shit?
• 36:50
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 36:51
  sherman irw diane: I'm.
• 36:52
  Tad Eggleston: That's exactly what I… I mean, again, it's been a while since I talked to him, and my memory's for shit. I have things pop up and then go away and whatnot, but I remember being like that. I'm like, Adam, like, how? How? How did this all come to you?
• 37:09
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. What fever dream were you in?
• 37:15
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, I think it started, like, he just had the idea of, like, what if you messed with scale on this level, and then he just started…
• 37:23
  Tad Eggleston: Playing with it more.
• 37:27
  sherman irw diane: Now is this.
• 37:27
  Tad Eggleston: first.
• 37:28
  sherman irw diane: book?
• 37:29
  Tad Eggleston: I think it might be his first comic, but I feel like he's done television writing.
• 37:36
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 37:39
  Tad Eggleston: We will look up Adam Rose really quick.
• 37:42
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, looks like he's, he's, he's done some acting, too.
• 37:46
  sherman irw diane: Oh, wow. So he's happy.
• 37:48
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Tad Eggleston: He pops up on IMDB first.
• 37:55
  Tad Eggleston: And… He was a writer on
• 38:03
  Tad Eggleston: Up in the Air? Or no, that might be… that might be… he had an acting part in Up in the Air and Behemoth.
• 38:20
  Tad Eggleston: Looks like… looks… looks like he's… he's actually got more acting credits than…
• 38:25
  sherman irw diane: Oh, wow. So I'm going to.
• 38:27
  Tad Eggleston: Writing credits.
• 38:28
  sherman irw diane: Take a little more look at him then. Yeah, but.
• 38:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:32
  Tad Eggleston: Most recently in a movie called Behemoth.
• 38:35
  sherman irw diane: Okay, I don't know that one, but…
• 38:37
  Tad Eggleston: No, I have, I don't know either A life in pieces.
• 38:40
  sherman irw diane: Behemoth when he wrote Huge Detective.
• 38:43
  Tad Eggleston: It's got… it's got Pedro Pascal and Olivia Wilde, so he's… he's kind of down the list.
• 38:49
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 38:50
  Tad Eggleston: But still, I mean, being that.
• 38:52
  sherman irw diane: That kind of movie means he's doing well. And you know what?
• 38:55
  Tad Eggleston: unless.
• 38:56
  sherman irw diane: The Gullah.
• 38:57
  Tad Eggleston: stuff.
• 38:57
  sherman irw diane: in here, because of course you have to do Gulliver, but they do it in a way.
• 39:01
  Tad Eggleston: Unless… wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm trying to remember if it's the same Adam Rose, though. It might not be.
• 39:07
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 39:09
  Tad Eggleston: It might not be. Let me throw Writer in. Adam Morrow's Writer.
• 39:18
  Tad Eggleston: Adam Harry Rose.
• 39:20
  sherman irw diane: There you go. Not the same.
• 39:23
  Tad Eggleston: It looks like he's got some call coming.
• 39:28
  Tad Eggleston: from Titan.
• 39:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 39:32
  Tad Eggleston: I still feel like he's done something in Hollywood, because he managed to get the Patton Oswalt
• 39:39
  sherman irw diane: Oh, look at that. Yeah, the blurb.
• 39:41
  Tad Eggleston: The blurb.
• 39:44
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so you gotta be… oh yeah, no, this is the right picture.
• 39:48
  Tad Eggleston: Writer and comic book creator living in Los Angeles, written comics Playground, Attack of the Gurgle Box for Marcosia, Corollary at SourcePoint, and Huge Detective.
• 39:59
  Tad Eggleston: Pers writing.
• 40:00
  Tad Eggleston: has been featured in literary journals such as Gravel, The Cabinet of Heed.
• 40:06
  Tad Eggleston: The door is ajar, Pilgrim Press, West Wind, and in parenthesis.
• 40:12
  Tad Eggleston: And he was a story consultant for the Craven the Hunter film.
• 40:18
  sherman irw diane: Wow.
• 40:19
  sherman irw diane: So…
• 40:21
  Tad Eggleston: So, now… Yeah, so… And again, I'm trying to remember, I've talked to him a couple times, but, like.
• 40:29
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if you've noticed. I do a lot of podcasting.
• 40:33
  sherman irw diane: You do. You do. Every time I bring up anybody, you know them.
• 40:37
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like.
• 40:40
  Tad Eggleston: This might be… Let me, let me check really quick.
• 40:46
  Tad Eggleston: This is the 950th recording that I will be posting.
• 40:54
  sherman irw diane: There you go, there you go.
• 40:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 40:57
  sherman irw diane: Does it.
• 40:58
  Tad Eggleston: In less than 5 years.
• 41:02
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, so, stuff, stuff…
• 41:05
  Tad Eggleston: swirls. I feel like Adam's one of the writers in and around Hollywood that isn't, like.
• 41:12
  Tad Eggleston: He's more of a consultant script doctor guy than… Yeah.
• 41:17
  Tad Eggleston: than a strictly…
• 41:19
  sherman irw diane: I did that.
• 41:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So he doesn't have the deep credits, but he's… I have steady work.
• 41:27
  sherman irw diane: I've worked enough to have a modest pension from the Screenwriters Guild.
• 41:31
  Tad Eggleston: Take care.
• 41:33
  sherman irw diane: Very modest.
• 41:34
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 41:35
  sherman irw diane: I'll, you know, I'll be able to buy dinner for people.
• 41:38
  Tad Eggleston: I'll remember to ask him. We're already talking about having him come back again.
• 41:42
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 41:43
  Tad Eggleston: Because, you know, when I told him that we were doing this, and he wasn't able to make it tonight, he's like, but I'll be back on this date, so let's set up a time to hang out.
• 41:54
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, so, so yeah, so I, I think,
• 41:58
  sherman irw diane: I mean, what huge detective, what great books do is they make you want to explore the genre more, right?
• 42:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
• 42:04
  sherman irw diane: So I've been… I've been reading prose!
• 42:07
  sherman irw diane: noir. Right. Now, I really want to go ahead into the comics version, too, because it's gonna bring me different ideas.
• 42:15
  Tad Eggleston: There are so… I mean, comics… like, like, comics noir is, like, rooted in comics history, too. Yeah, yeah. One of the first.
• 42:25
  Tad Eggleston: Truly great.
• 42:28
  Tad Eggleston: Comic strips was Dick Tracy.
• 42:30
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 42:31
  sherman irw diane: I mean, the shadow,
• 42:33
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 42:34
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 42:34
  Tad Eggleston: Came some after that, but yeah.
• 42:36
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 42:38
  Tad Eggleston: You know, EC Comics Horror Line. Oh my god.
• 42:44
  sherman irw diane: gosh.
• 42:44
  Tad Eggleston: Or not… well, their horror line was outstanding, but their crime line was… was… Over the moon good.
• 42:54
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, I, I, I mean, and I mean, it, it work, it, it's the, you know, it's the in between, right? If you got pros and then you got movies and then you got graphic, graphic work in between.
• 43:03
  Tad Eggleston: We.
• 43:04
  sherman irw diane: And you can do things with a still image.
• 43:07
  sherman irw diane: That works so well. Like, I can imagine a movie with that that image of the of the huge skeleton floating through space.
• 43:15
  sherman irw diane: You know, massively bigger than,
• 43:19
  sherman irw diane: The space station and it would be amazing in a movie, but in that still drawing in a comic, I think it has more power than a movie.
• 43:25
  Tad Eggleston: I think it does, too. Particularly because you don't actually… completely lose…
• 43:37
  Tad Eggleston: The sense of motion.
• 43:39
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 43:40
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, we're… we're very good at
• 43:48
  Tad Eggleston: Filling in the gutters in comics.
• 43:50
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:51
  Tad Eggleston: being able to… and even… I mean, here, I'll throw my screen up, and this is literally just a random page.
• 44:00
  Tad Eggleston: The one that I left Left on.
• 44:05
  Tad Eggleston: You know, where, where you've got.
• 44:11
  Tad Eggleston: Her… her… you can see the motion as she's tasing the guy coming out.
• 44:16
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 44:18
  Tad Eggleston: You know, even though it's a still image, it doesn't feel still.
• 44:23
  sherman irw diane: It has all the power.
• 44:24
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 44:26
  Tad Eggleston: And and.
• 44:27
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. And one of the, you know, I mean, you know, I can bring, I can bring this years ago, you know, I did work on some Marvel treatments and screenplays before, before, before anybody wanted to make them.
• 44:37
  Tad Eggleston: I tell your Daredevil story often.
• 44:42
  sherman irw diane: And, one of the I worked on a treatment for, a Silver Surfer movie.
• 44:47
  Tad Eggleston: Oh!
• 44:48
  sherman irw diane: And Galactus, who…
• 44:51
  sherman irw diane: you know, how do you present Galactus in all of his forms, right? How do you… how do you create a Galactus where you understand the universe level power he has?
• 45:02
  sherman irw diane: I mean.
• 45:03
  Tad Eggleston: Galactus is also, like, a huge.
• 45:06
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, and how do you make him… how do you make him work in a movie?
• 45:10
  sherman irw diane: Right. You can't have…
• 45:12
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah.
• 45:13
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. And my opening scene had him floating through the universe.
• 45:19
  sherman irw diane: And actually eating a planet, you see him eat a planet.
• 45:23
  sherman irw diane: And then he's getting smaller and smaller as he comes to Earth.
• 45:27
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 45:27
  sherman irw diane: And then he gets to earth and he lands on earth and he's Hulk size, on Earth.
• 45:34
  sherman irw diane: So to give you… give you the idea that you don't have… I tried to figure out a way to make Galactus where you could keep filming him and make him part of the plot all the time without needing to make him this epic
• 45:47
  sherman irw diane: sized person that you get the sense that this is a dude who can eat planets, but it's also somebody who can share the frame with the humans that you need to have him share the frame with.
• 45:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 45:56
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So… No, we're rereading, or we're reading Secret Wars for one of my book clubs right now.
• 46:03
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I've always thought that, like. Galactus preparing to eat Battleworld is one of the things that really.
• 46:11
  Tad Eggleston: drives home how big Battleworld is.
• 46:15
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 46:19
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, that's not a snack. No.
• 46:23
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 46:25
  sherman irw diane: Yeah. Yeah. So so and and and, you know, in a comic, you don't have to worry about that.
• 46:30
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, you know, you write a comic and you don't have to worry about how… how am I going to make Galactus fit into a movie frame with a human? Right. You know, like in a movie of Huge, how are you going to fit the Huge into the frame with a human?
• 46:45
  sherman irw diane: But in a comic, you don't have to do that, and you can represent it in such a more powerful way. It maintains.
• 46:52
  sherman irw diane: I think a comic…
• 46:54
  sherman irw diane: In this sort of instance, when you're dealing with disparity in size, I think a comic more accurately reflects it, more poetically represents it than film would.
• 47:03
  Tad Eggleston: Well, there's just… there's… there's so many more options that don't feel cheesy.
• 47:07
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:09
  Tad Eggleston: You know, whether it's inset panels, whether it's going ahead and messing with perspective, but doing it sparingly enough that
• 47:20
  Tad Eggleston: That you know what the real perspective is.
• 47:24
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 47:25
  Tad Eggleston: And your head is adjusting.
• 47:27
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 47:29
  Tad Eggleston: You know… I mean, it's not until you study this comic that you go, oh, wait, no, she would be much smaller on his shoulder.
• 47:37
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 47:39
  Tad Eggleston: Because you're aware of how, like, their size discrepancy. You still think of it as that size discrepancy, but when you're reading it, you're focused on the conversation that they're having.
• 47:49
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 47:51
  Tad Eggleston: You don't think that she's suddenly grown. I mean, I'm certain that some people do, but in general.
• 47:57
  Tad Eggleston: In general, you focus on the, On the story itself.
• 48:02
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 48:04
  sherman irw diane: Oh.
• 48:06
  sherman irw diane: Mrs. Stubbs. Mama.
• 48:09
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, so, and, and, you know, I love the,
• 48:13
  sherman irw diane: You know, the exploration, you know, of mental illness. Yeah.
• 48:18
  sherman irw diane: You know, what that means for anybody, what that can cause you, her headaches, which are mysterious.
• 48:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 48:24
  sherman irw diane: And now she's.
• 48:25
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I… I actually… are they? Or are they that he's really loud?
• 48:32
  sherman irw diane: I hadn't even pondered that.
• 48:33
  Tad Eggleston: This is going back to what I was saying earlier.
• 48:35
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 48:36
  Tad Eggleston: about like.
• 48:39
  Tad Eggleston: I imagine part of it is having to form words when they don't form words a lot, but part of it is, if he does anything more than whisper.
• 48:47
  sherman irw diane: It's kind of rocky.
• 48:48
  Tad Eggleston: Freeze over.
• 48:50
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, and it also just occurred to me, too, that maybe there's… even if he's not trying to telepathically communicate with her, there's a residual effect.
• 48:59
  sherman irw diane: If you're around a telepathic person.
• 49:02
  sherman irw diane: Is it going to be like blue tooth waves in the air? Are telepathic waves going to be in the air messing with your brain, even if you're not telepathic? So, you know, is there, I have a conspiracy theory inside the comic book now.
• 49:17
  Tad Eggleston: Oh!
• 49:18
  sherman irw diane: that.
• 49:19
  Tad Eggleston: Let's hear it.
• 49:20
  sherman irw diane: That huge is telepathy causes cancer in humans.
• 49:28
  Tad Eggleston: Man, it feels realistic.
• 49:31
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, you know, one thing that's missing, though, and it's interesting, I don't know Adam's ethnicity, or Magenta's ethnicity.
• 49:39
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 49:40
  sherman irw diane: But it's pretty interesting that they, take over Australia, and there's no mention whatsoever of where the Aboriginals went to.
• 49:49
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, maybe the Aboriginals are the huge.
• 49:52
  sherman irw diane: Oh, Wow.
• 49:56
  sherman irw diane: Wow.
• 49:57
  Tad Eggleston: if.
• 49:57
  sherman irw diane: Wow. Now that's an interesting theory.
• 50:00
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I'm just… I'm trying… I think… I think it was in a,
• 50:06
  Tad Eggleston: I think it was in an issue of Planetary, where it turned… what's that big flat rock in…
• 50:15
  sherman irw diane: Oh, the giant,
• 50:17
  Tad Eggleston: In Australia?
• 50:18
  sherman irw diane: It's not crack Australia. It's not Krakatoa. It's.
• 50:21
  Tad Eggleston: Something like that. No, no.
• 50:23
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, I can't think of the name.
• 50:26
  Tad Eggleston: But I, but I think it was, I think it was in… Planetary, that, that.
• 50:35
  Tad Eggleston: that they, they made that, like, essentially huge. It, like, wakes up.
• 50:41
  Tad Eggleston: Does something, and then goes back to sleep.
• 50:44
  sherman irw diane: So, okay.
• 50:47
  sherman irw diane: So, I like the idea of…
• 50:50
  sherman irw diane: Huge being the original inhabitants to stay.
• 50:54
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 50:55
  sherman irw diane: So, which… they come out of the ground, right? How many millennia… how many hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years, have they been buried?
• 51:05
  sherman irw diane: So they had no idea humanoids even existed, primates even existed, so…
• 51:12
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 51:12
  sherman irw diane: I like the idea of the.
• 51:14
  Tad Eggleston: YouTube.
• 51:14
  sherman irw diane: being.
• 51:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think it's clear that the huges predate humans.
• 51:20
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes.
• 51:23
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe.
• 51:24
  sherman irw diane: the.
• 51:24
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe they took a nap.
• 51:25
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, did they predate?
• 51:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 51:27
  sherman irw diane: originals.
• 51:28
  Tad Eggleston: You know, maybe, maybe they, they took a nap for an ice age and just didn't get up until.
• 51:34
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 51:36
  sherman irw diane: Ha ha ha.
• 51:37
  Tad Eggleston: They were hibernating.
• 51:38
  sherman irw diane: They had a big weekend.
• 51:39
  Tad Eggleston: And it took global warming for them to get up again.
• 51:42
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes.
• 51:45
  sherman irw diane: So, see, there's so many questions that I'd love to ask Adam.
• 51:53
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, it… it… yeah.
• 51:56
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 51:57
  Tad Eggleston: You have to go back and listen to the episodes because some of them were asked.
• 52:01
  sherman irw diane: Okay, this is what a mark of a great book, is that how many more questions you have about it, that it's fascinating with what you read, and then it just draws you into so much thought about.
• 52:15
  sherman irw diane: Everything around it and this is what I love about this book is that it gives you a dramatic.
• 52:22
  sherman irw diane: Cool story with cool characters, but it creates.
• 52:25
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, the mystery itself is satisfying. We've barely talked about it, and you know what? I don't even care to talk about it, because people should go read it for the mystery. Let's not spoil the mystery too much, except to say that, like, as much as we've been talking about everything around the mystery, the mystery itself was satisfying.
• 52:44
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, it's the.
• 52:45
  Tad Eggleston: You had this history without the huges and whatnot, it would still be a good story. Yeah. But when you add all of the.
• 52:55
  Tad Eggleston: All of the extra levels.
• 52:58
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 52:59
  sherman irw diane: It, it, yes. I mean, if you're gonna write a mystery, you have to have a really strong spine, and, and the spine.
• 53:05
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 53:06
  sherman irw diane: Of this is, is, is awesome so, I, I just, I, I think, I really think it's a theological story and that's, that the spiritual nature of this book really.
• 53:17
  sherman irw diane: as inspiring for me as I'm working on my book because my noir novel really has a theological element.
• 53:26
  Tad Eggleston: Theological element.
• 53:28
  Tad Eggleston: As Sherman Alexie It spoils his own.
• 53:32
  Tad Eggleston: Next book on air!
• 53:34
  sherman irw diane: Oh, nobody will know where this one's going.
• 53:42
  Tad Eggleston: No, I like that.
• 53:44
  sherman irw diane: People will be shocked.
• 53:52
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I'm… I'm just… I'm trying to think of what a Sherman Alexie Noir would be right now.
• 54:00
  sherman irw diane: know.
• 54:03
  Tad Eggleston: Ready a lot of your stuff, and And that…
• 54:08
  Tad Eggleston: Noir is… I mean, I know that you like noir, we've talked before, so, like, I'm not shocked that you're going that direction. Yeah. But if we hadn't talked before, I'd probably be a little surprised.
• 54:19
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, it obeys the conventions, in terms of first-person narration.
• 54:24
  sherman irw diane: And, and the, and the,
• 54:27
  sherman irw diane: Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard School of Dialogue.
• 54:32
  Tad Eggleston: Nice.
• 54:35
  sherman irw diane: And then it veers into native territory that is very different.
• 54:43
  sherman irw diane: So, I want… I want future graduate students to write papers like The Theology of Noir.
• 54:53
  Tad Eggleston: That actually reminds me, my sister-in-law is a librarian, and she gave me
• 55:03
  Tad Eggleston: a book one… one year for my birthday called Baseball as a Path to God.
• 55:10
  sherman irw diane: Oh!
• 55:11
  Tad Eggleston: That's a great title.
• 55:13
  sherman irw diane: title.
• 55:14
  Tad Eggleston: It is, and it's… it's like, it.
• 55:21
  Tad Eggleston: It's.
• 55:23
  Tad Eggleston: Based on, like, a class that the guy teaches.
• 55:27
  Tad Eggleston: At one of the IVs, I forget which one right now, every year.
• 55:32
  Tad Eggleston: That he finally put into a book.
• 55:36
  Tad Eggleston: It's, yeah, it's, it's really great.
• 55:40
  Tad Eggleston: It's really great.
• 55:43
  Tad Eggleston: I got to teach in the morning and my brain's starting to fry.
• 55:46
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 55:47
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 55:48
  sherman irw diane: I'm going at it a while.
• 55:49
  Tad Eggleston: We have, we have. So first, I'm gonna ask, any final thoughts on Huge Detective?
• 55:56
  sherman irw diane: I think Huge Detective took.
• 56:00
  sherman irw diane: The crime novel, the crime story, the noir world, and introduced these fantasy elements that elevated it into a classic work for me.
• 56:11
  sherman irw diane: This is, is in my top 20 graphic novels of all time. Graphic stories. And and I keep thinking about it, and I.
• 56:22
  Tad Eggleston: I love that.
• 56:22
  sherman irw diane: I'm going to keep thinking about it.
• 56:24
  Tad Eggleston: I love that.
• 56:25
  sherman irw diane: And the images stay with me.
• 56:27
  Tad Eggleston: It's definitely unique. I don't… I don't know where it would fit in… and this is… this is one of the reasons that I hate making lists, is, like… I can't make a good argument for it not being in the top 20, while at the same time, I don't know if I'd wind up putting it in my top 20, and… and…
• 56:46
  Tad Eggleston: And it's still the best at what it does, because nothing… nothing else does what it does.
• 56:52
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes. Yeah, I think it, you know, what it did is it, you know, it took all these familiar elements.
• 57:00
  sherman irw diane: Like, Giants, yeah. Murder mystery, yeah.
• 57:05
  sherman irw diane: Fantasy, noir, all these very familiar elements, put them in this amazing blender.
• 57:11
  sherman irw diane: And created something new.
• 57:14
  sherman irw diane: Out of those classic elements and, and, and.
• 57:17
  sherman irw diane: I would love to accomplish the same thing with my novel, so this is very much… it's inspired me.
• 57:24
  sherman irw diane: And maybe, you know, if I was gonna blurb it, I would just write one word on the cover. It would say, inspiring.
• 57:33
  Tad Eggleston: Inspiring.
• 57:35
  Tad Eggleston: I will have to email that to, to Adam. He's gonna… he's gonna love that.
• 57:40
  Tad Eggleston: All right. Before I let you go, I do have to ask.
• 57:46
  Tad Eggleston: My closing questions. I've got a pair of closing questions I like to ask everybody.
• 57:53
  Tad Eggleston: you're… you're more on the edge of the comic world, so I'm gonna expand this a little bit, and rather than have it be, like.
• 58:04
  Tad Eggleston: strictly about… about… Okay.
• 58:07
  Tad Eggleston: because of your work in comics. It'll be because of your work in the arts, because you're a writer.
• 58:12
  Tad Eggleston: But… but I've been doing this podcast for coming up on 5 years now. And I feel like I've fallen into the Twilight Zone.
• 58:20
  sherman irw diane: Hahaha.
• 58:21
  Tad Eggleston: You know, the experiences that I get to have on a regular basis that just, like.
• 58:26
  Tad Eggleston: If 6 years ago, you told me that
• 58:30
  Tad Eggleston: I could email Sherman Alexie and set up a conversation.
• 58:33
  sherman irw diane: Ha ha ha.
• 58:34
  Tad Eggleston: multiple times.
• 58:35
  sherman irw diane: I.
• 58:36
  Tad Eggleston: I would have been like, What are you smoking?
• 58:41
  sherman irw diane: Oh, cool.
• 58:44
  sherman irw diane: Well, I love to talk about comics, so I'm, I mean, my, my, you know, in, in my Garden of Eden, I was, I was, I was snacking on comics. Right.
• 58:55
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, experiences like this have become routine for me. Yeah. You know, I mean…
• 59:01
  Tad Eggleston: It hasn't been published yet, because we're holding it for… for…
• 59:06
  Tad Eggleston: for when his new comic comes out, but I talked to a Pulitzer Prize winner last week. For the third time!
• 59:12
  sherman irw diane: yeah.
• 59:13
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 59:14
  sherman irw diane: Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, you're great at this, so I'm not surprised.
• 59:17
  Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean? I get to talk… I'm wearing a brewer's cap, because Dennis Kitchen is a friend of mine, and.
• 59:23
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 59:23
  Tad Eggleston: a big Brewers fan, and I want him to be happy this year. He turned 80.
• 59:28
  Tad Eggleston: He deserves it.
• 59:30
  sherman irw diane: Yes, yes.
• 59:31
  Tad Eggleston: So… but I found everybody in the arts.
• 59:38
  Tad Eggleston: Certainly everybody in comics.
• 59:39
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 59:40
  Tad Eggleston: lives this life.
• 59:42
  Tad Eggleston: Has these moments, has those things where they pinch themselves and go.
• 59:47
  Tad Eggleston: Was it really Sherman Alexie sitting in that room?
• 59:52
  Tad Eggleston: So I started collecting the stories. Tell me one of your surreal stories. Tell me one of your young Sherman would have gone, fuck you, that's never gonna be part of my life.
• 1:00:03
  sherman irw diane: Oh, wow.
• 1:00:05
  Tad Eggleston: Stories.
• 1:00:06
  sherman irw diane: Did I tell you, I don't, did I tell you the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar story?
• 1:00:10
  Tad Eggleston: I don't remember.
• 1:00:11
  sherman irw diane: Okay.
• 1:00:12
  Tad Eggleston: So you can tell it again if you did!
• 1:00:14
  sherman irw diane: Yes. So, well, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spent a year on an Apache reservation coaching high school basketball.
• 1:00:21
  sherman irw diane: And after that year.
• 1:00:23
  sherman irw diane: He and his agents thought maybe this will make a great movie.
• 1:00:27
  sherman irw diane: So, I met with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at his house.
• 1:00:31
  sherman irw diane: in Los Angeles to talk about the possibility of it becoming a movie. That didn't happen. You know, we had a great conversation. His house was sized for him.
• 1:00:41
  sherman irw diane: Now, I'm a large… I'm a big guy, I'm 6'2", you know, I'm taller than 98% of human beings on the Earth.
• 1:00:49
  sherman irw diane: But I am not taller than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He had this rocking chair he sat in.
• 1:00:55
  sherman irw diane: It wasn't a rocking chair. It was like the first rocking chair. It was like the rocking chair that gave birth to every other rocking chair that has ever existed.
• 1:01:06
  sherman irw diane: And and it was amazing. And my feet dangled off the couch. You know, I had to sort of sit in a way, so I had support from my feet, and then I had to go to the bathroom.
• 1:01:18
  sherman irw diane: So, where my feet dangled. But my dad was a huge fan of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So I called dad with my cell phone. I said, hey, dad, I'm in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's bathroom.
• 1:01:30
  sherman irw diane: And my dad said, does he know you're there?
• 1:01:37
  Tad Eggleston: You called your dad!
• 1:01:40
  sherman irw diane: So that's, that's one of my, surreal brushes with fame.
• 1:01:47
  sherman irw diane: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's bathroom.
• 1:01:52
  Tad Eggleston: Wow.
• 1:01:56
  Tad Eggleston: you All right.
• 1:01:59
  Tad Eggleston: Let me compose myself, because I wasn't expecting something… I should have!
• 1:02:04
  Tad Eggleston: You tell the best funny stories. It feels like all of your core memories are hilarious.
• 1:02:10
  sherman irw diane: Yeah, well, even the most horrible things in the world are comic.
• 1:02:17
  Tad Eggleston: Well, that's true, too. What's the Mel Brooks line? If I stub my toe, it's a tragedy. If you fall down and break your neck, that's comedy.
• 1:02:27
  sherman irw diane: Yep. Peter, Peter Ustinov said, you know, if it, what does, what did he say? You have to remember, that comedy is a very serious way of being funny.
• 1:02:45
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 1:02:47
  Tad Eggleston: You've had to answer this question before, but I don't remember your answer, so you might get away with using the same thing, unless it tickles in my brain as soon as you say it.
• 1:02:56
  Tad Eggleston: Tell me something you love.
• 1:03:00
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't have rules.
• 1:03:04
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably storytelling.
• 1:03:06
  Tad Eggleston: But again, with the rules.
• 1:03:08
  Tad Eggleston: But something that you love.
• 1:03:13
  Tad Eggleston: And not enough people around you have experienced it, and you really want them to, so you have more people to talk about it with.
• 1:03:20
  sherman irw diane: Oh my gosh.
• 1:03:23
  sherman irw diane: You know, what immediately popped into my mind was, I don't remember what they called him, the big
• 1:03:28
  sherman irw diane: Marvel DC Matchup Comics.
• 1:03:32
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:03:33
  sherman irw diane: The big size one, where it was… It was.
• 1:03:36
  Tad Eggleston: The, the, the, the, oh, the, the, they just reprinted those.
• 1:03:41
  sherman irw diane: Yeah.
• 1:03:42
  Tad Eggleston: I can't remember what they're called.
• 1:03:43
  sherman irw diane: And they had the…
• 1:03:44
  Tad Eggleston: Treasury editions.
• 1:03:45
  sherman irw diane: Treasury editions, yeah.
• 1:03:47
  Tad Eggleston: Treasury editions.
• 1:03:48
  sherman irw diane: The Superman versus, the Hulk.
• 1:03:52
  sherman irw diane: And, and I, I wish.
• 1:03:55
  sherman irw diane: I wish that younger kids… I wish I could get my kids and other kids to understand.
• 1:04:02
  sherman irw diane: the massive joy comics geeks felt when those came out, and the intensity of the arguments about whether the Hulk or Superman would win a fight.
• 1:04:15
  sherman irw diane: I, you know, I know as an adult that I still have those same passionate arguments with, my friends, my comic geek friends, and I certainly have those sort of arguments in the sports world.
• 1:04:27
  sherman irw diane: But… I don't think today's culture necessarily involves that sort of insane passion.
• 1:04:35
  sherman irw diane: Not among young folks, at least not in the general culture, not in the mass culture. I mean, there's always going to be comic geeks who argue this stuff.
• 1:04:44
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think part of the issue is just that
• 1:04:47
  Tad Eggleston: There's too much culture. And therefore, it's hard to, like.
• 1:04:51
  Tad Eggleston: There's a difference between when you've got 3 TV channels and when you've got 3,000.
• 1:04:57
  sherman irw diane: There you go. Yes, that's a good point, Dad. You know, the.
• 1:05:00
  Tad Eggleston: So I guess.
• 1:05:01
  sherman irw diane: I would say the, the… Overwhelming ubiquity.
• 1:05:05
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:05:06
  sherman irw diane: Of those of Superman versus the Hulk.
• 1:05:09
  Tad Eggleston: Amen.
• 1:05:10
  sherman irw diane: The, the massive influence that had on so many people at the same time.
• 1:05:18
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I like that.
• 1:05:20
  Tad Eggleston: I like that. That's a good one.
• 1:05:22
  Tad Eggleston: That's a good one.
• 1:05:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, Sherman, it has been a pleasure, as it always has… always is. We'll have to… we'll have to try to do this more often, because I think we had, like, 2 years in between, and like… This is too much fun to only do every two years. We gotta work on that. We gotta find a rhythm, Sherman.
• 1:05:42
  sherman irw diane: We will.
• 1:05:43
  Tad Eggleston: Or start a book club.
• 1:05:45
  sherman irw diane: That could be fun, yeah.
• 1:05:46
  Tad Eggleston: comics together.
• 1:05:47
  sherman irw diane: Yes.
• 1:05:48
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe you can just… I already have a noir comic club. You can just join it. It's one Sunday a month that it would… well, it'd be like 8 a.m. Seattle time. Are you a morning guy?
• 1:05:58
  sherman irw diane: Well, yeah, let me know what you're reading.
• 1:06:00
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, right now we're reading John Sable.
• 1:06:02
  sherman irw diane: Okay, send the info.
• 1:06:04
  Tad Eggleston: I can, I can. We'll look at that. Okay.
• 1:06:08
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, stick around for a minute afterwards, we'll chat, chat, and then I'll let you go entirely, but for everybody else, this has been Sherman Alexie on 22 Panels, and we will see you after the next page.