Latest / 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast / 22 Panels Episode #234 - Copra Round Five

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22 Panels Episode #234 - Copra Round Five · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  McLovin: Hey everyone, welcome back to 22 Panels. This is the podcast that aims to examine, explore, and elevate the medium of comics. I am McLovin, and across the interwebs.
• 0:15
  McLovin: From me is Thaddeus and Phillip. Hello, Thaddeus and Philip.
• 0:19
  Phil: Well, hello, distinguished Mr. McClevin, gentlemen.
• 0:23
  Tad Eggleston: why do you need a fake ID?
• 0:27
  McLovin: I don't know. When I logged in, I'm like, I just changed it.
• 0:32
  Tad Eggleston: I'm just trying to figure out, like, McLovin's the fake ID from Superbad.
• 0:36
  McLovin: Yes, that'.
• 0:38
  Tad Eggleston: You're old enough to do… I mean, are you trying to get into AARP?
• 0:42
  McLovin: Yeah, I was thinking of this. Wouldn't that be hilarious? If there was a comedy that… that shows somebody our age, like, trying… that's needing a fake ID when they don't need one, right? That seems like some kind of Saturday Night Live skit or something, you know?
• 0:57
  Phil: Or, or maybe.
• 0:58
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, I figured it out. You got the fake ID so you can get the senior discount.
• 1:03
  Phil: See, and here, I was thinking he needed a fake ID because, booze hasn't tasted as good since then, you know? Like, without…
• 1:11
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, maybe?
• 1:13
  Phil: Much of the illegal, it's not fun anymore.
• 1:16
  Tad Eggleston: No, that's it. You need two fake IDs. You need the one to get the senior discount, and the one where you have to convince the guys at the store…
• 1:28
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, look at the date. I turned 21 yesterday. I just had…
• 1:33
  Phil: I haven't.
• 1:33
  Tad Eggleston: got into the DMV.
• 1:37
  McLovin: Funny.
• 1:38
  Tad Eggleston: And they're looking at you going, sir, we don't need to see your ID. No! Look at my ID!
• 1:43
  McLovin: Look at it! I, yeah, it's funny, though, because when we go to somewhere where I need an ID, half the time, because I don't buy alcohol virtually ever, and, you know, pots just become legal in Minnesota, so, I mean, so it's new for me to have to show my ID to places.
• 2:02
  Phil: Have you been, have you been enjoying the, the recreational?
• 2:07
  McLovin: Since I was in high school, yes.
• 2:09
  Phil: Oh, okay.
• 2:09
  Tad Eggleston: I think he was implying that he used to not have to show his ID to get his pie.
• 2:16
  Phil: Oh!
• 2:16
  Tad Eggleston: His, his previous…
• 2:18
  Phil: Your dealer didn't…
• 2:19
  Tad Eggleston: Buyers didn't carve it. That's irrespons.
• 2:22
  Phil: That's really irresponsible of your dealer not to card you.
• 2:25
  McLovin: No, I would go.
• 2:26
  Tad Eggleston: On a side note, this is actually my strongest argument for the legalization of All drugs.
• 2:35
  Phil: Yeah, no, no, no, I… actually, that's a really good point, because, like, having a system that's like, hey, you need to be of this age, keeps it out of kids' hands way more easily than depending on the honor of regulars.
• 2:46
  Tad Eggleston: Ask a kid, I mean, now that marijuana's legal, it's a little bit different, but…
• 2:52
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, 5 years ago, ask a kid whether it's easier to get beer or marijuana, and, like, across the board, it's marijuana.
• 3:00
  McLovin: Yeah. So.
• 3:02
  Tad Eggleston: in Tyler's neck of the woods, if you ask a kid whether it's easier to get Beer or math.
• 3:10
  Tad Eggleston: They're gonna tell you mess.
• 3:12
  McLovin: It's meth. It's meth, yeah. So listen, so because of…
• 3:15
  Tad Eggleston: And their dealer doesn't care.
• 3:18
  Phil: No.
• 3:18
  McLovin: before 2025, I would go to Chicago to see my son all the time. Oh, 2024, he graduated in 24. So I'd be in Chicago 2 or 3 times a year, and I would, drive it back to my house.
• 3:33
  McLovin: That… I'll take that out later. No, I'm just kidding Just kidding, everybody.
• 3:38
  Tad Eggleston: Well, that's semi-legal.
• 3:40
  Phil: So… What date?
• 3:43
  Tad Eggleston: That's semi-legal.
• 3:45
  McLovin: Anyway, so then, Sean graduated.
• 3:49
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's like buying fireworks in Wisconsin.
• 3:52
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 3:53
  McLovin: Then Sean graduated in 24, so then in 25, Minnesota, finally… back in 2022, 23, they voted in legalized marijuana, but it took a couple years to establish the guidelines on what they wanted as far as, like, how to structure this. I mean, they couldn't have.
• 4:11
  Phil: Right.
• 4:12
  McLovin: like, looked at Colorado and been like, let's copy them.
• 4:15
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, they…
• 4:16
  Phil: They…
• 4:16
  Tad Eggleston: They did, but they looked at all of the states, because, like.
• 4:20
  Phil: Hmm.
• 4:21
  Tad Eggleston: The advantage of not being first on something, and this is something I remind everybody who wants the Constitution that was designed to be changed and refined to be the perfect document written in 1789. The advantage of not being first is you get to kind of look at what worked, what didn't.
• 4:40
  Tad Eggleston: Take the best of. This is why many other countries have better constitutions than we do.
• 4:45
  McLovin: So, it's really funny, because I went from having to go to Chicago, right, 500 miles from my house.
• 4:52
  Phil: Wow.
• 4:53
  McLovin: to my dispensary is a block from my house. It's halfway in between my store and my house.
• 5:02
  Tad Eggleston: Now he can place up on his way to work, because…
• 5:05
  McLovin: I'm not… I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie.
• 5:08
  Tad Eggleston: Doesn't have to… It doesn't have to drive.
• 5:11
  McLovin: I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, that, that is… What happens, yes.
• 5:17
  McLovin: I walk everywhere now, because I don't leave town, usually. And… yeah.
• 5:23
  Phil: How does it feel to be in the mythical, walkable city?
• 5:27
  McLovin: I am really getting in great shape. You guys can't see it, but, like.
• 5:31
  Tad Eggleston: You just called it a city.
• 5:33
  Phil: I did.
• 5:34
  McLovin: Haha!
• 5:34
  Phil: I'm sure it's more of a town.
• 5:36
  McLovin: It… okay, it technically classified as a town. Village… we are bigger than a village, but the last, I mean, it is called the City of La Verne, but yeah, it's… it's.
• 5:49
  Tad Eggleston: because it's…
• 5:49
  McLovin: Townsize.
• 5:50
  Tad Eggleston: It's got, it's got, it's, it's got delusions of grandeur.
• 5:57
  Phil: Hmm.
• 5:57
  McLovin: Yeah, we… we only have…
• 5:59
  Tad Eggleston: Been to La Verne.
• 6:01
  McLovin: We only have 5,000 people, Phil, and there's, you know, like, where you guys, you'd be like, oh, yeah, we've only got 10,000, 20,000 in this… our area of…
• 6:12
  Phil: Sure, yeah.
• 6:13
  McLovin: Larger a metro, right?
• 6:14
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:15
  McLovin: where… outside of our town limits, it's cornfields, right? Yeah. So… so we don't have…
• 6:22
  Tad Eggleston: Inside of your town limits, I think there are some cornfields.
• 6:26
  McLovin: Probably. Probably.
• 6:28
  Phil: They got the town corn.
• 6:31
  McLovin: I mean… Do you… did you…
• 6:33
  Tad Eggleston: Don't forget the soybeans.
• 6:35
  McLovin: A lot of soybeans.
• 6:36
  Phil: You guys switching back and forth.
• 6:37
  McLovin: Phil, did you ever see that movie, with Pauly Shore in it in the 90s? Where,
• 6:44
  McLovin: he went to go stay on a farm of his, classmate. I'm trying to think of what it was called.
• 6:51
  Phil: Maybe? Anyway…
• 6:54
  McLovin: the movie took place in South Dakota.
• 6:56
  Phil: Huh.
• 6:57
  McLovin: Pauly Shore was, home on college break from his new… with his new friend. She's introducing him to her family. He doesn't fit, you get it, right?
• 7:08
  McLovin: on a farm.
• 7:09
  Phil: The shuttle.
• 7:10
  McLovin: Yeah, and if you've seen.
• 7:13
  Tad Eggleston: I am ashamed to say that I have seen Polly Shore movies, but I don't think I've seen that one.
• 7:19
  Phil: I'm struggling to think of who…
• 7:20
  McLovin: Son-in-law, son-in-law.
• 7:21
  Phil: Son-in-law, okay. No, don't think I'm… it's weird, I…
• 7:25
  Phil: I'm struggling to… to… to imagine, Paulie Shore's face, like, for some reason, Joe Pesci is just coming up instead.
• 7:32
  McLovin: Oh, no, Pauly Shore was this comedian that was always like, squeezing the juice, right? And he was always like…
• 7:38
  Tad Eggleston: Think carrot top with a different color hair.
• 7:42
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 7:43
  McLovin: Are you Googling him?
• 7:44
  Phil: I, I, I am, I am. I am also laughing because I'm imagining, okay, I see that he is very underwhelming, at least for his Wikipedia, picture here, but, okay, interesting.
• 7:59
  McLovin: Quite his 90s photos. His current look is tame, but…
• 8:02
  Phil: Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying Carrot Top didn't think things through, he really should have had green hair, not red hair, you know?
• 8:09
  McLovin: Top of a carrot, yeah.
• 8:11
  McLovin: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:13
  McLovin: Alright, guys.
• 8:14
  Tad Eggleston: But.
• 8:15
  McLovin: What's going on in the world?
• 8:17
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I first wanna, send out
• 8:20
  Tad Eggleston: thoughts and prayers to Tim Seeley and his family. I saw that…
• 8:25
  Tad Eggleston: not able to join us at Modern Age, Comics for Free Comics Book yesterday, yesterday, because, he made a pit stops in the hospital instead.
• 8:36
  Phil: Yikes.
• 8:38
  McLovin: I saw that, I was like, holy crap, Tim, what's get…
• 8:42
  Tad Eggleston: His official word, so sorry I missed Free Comic Week Day, this is me right now. There's a picture of him with, with, like, all done up with the oxygen, et cetera, at the hospital.
• 8:53
  Tad Eggleston: Don't worry slash worry a lot. Everything turned out. Turned out I have an allergy to rich foods, which really reared its head last night when I had a burger and red wine. Beer and oatmeal for me going forward.
• 9:06
  Phil: Damn.
• 9:07
  Tad Eggleston: And, and the comics community has, has definitely, reached out and, and, .
• 9:17
  McLovin: Stepped up, really.
• 9:19
  Tad Eggleston: Well, reached out and sent their love.
• 9:22
  McLovin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:24
  Tad Eggleston: Lots of comments on the Instagram post.
• 9:27
  Phil: Yeah, I hope he gets well soon, you know.
• 9:29
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, I… I tend to think if he's joking around about it, it wasn't… like…
• 9:39
  Tad Eggleston: horrible. Horrible, horrible, but it was, it was definitely something that was, unacceptable. Scary.
• 9:46
  Phil: Yeah.
• 9:47
  Tad Eggleston: So, like… What… like, like…
• 9:53
  Tad Eggleston: like I said, he was supposed to be at Modern Age yesterday, I booked him for Free Comic Book Day, so when I walked in, like, my first job was…
• 10:04
  Tad Eggleston: Drafting our statement, and, like, all we knew is what his… Wife who had a lot.
• 10:12
  Tad Eggleston: more to do than talk to us. It told us that morning, as she was…
• 10:20
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know, because I wasn't on the phone, but, but, like…
• 10:23
  McLovin: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 10:23
  Tad Eggleston: Either as she was getting him into the hospital, or right after she'd gotten him into the hospital, kinda sounds like they hadn't heard anything when she was talking to Edgar, etc, so, like…
• 10:33
  Phil: Yeah.
• 10:34
  Phil: Toughest part.
• 10:36
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, so, you know, you got that weird thing where, like, You're panicking because you're big…
• 10:45
  Tad Eggleston: headliner for your store's first comic… free comic book day is having to bow out, and… and you're going, but my problems are small, because…
• 10:57
  Tad Eggleston: Because the reason that he's not here is much scarier.
• 11:02
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, that's…
• 11:03
  Tad Eggleston: I can…
• 11:04
  Phil: I understand that.
• 11:06
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah, it made for an interesting free comic book day for me.
• 11:13
  McLovin: I, also had my first free comic book day out.
• 11:16
  Tad Eggleston: How was your free comic book day? We'll go right into the second news of note. Free Comic Book Day! How was the first Free Comic Book Day at the Nexus Vault?
• 11:25
  McLovin: Well, it's obvious that I'm gonna have to build the excitement every year, right? Add to it, because I… while it was a great day for sales for me, it was nowhere near what, you know, a lot of comic shops do for Free Comic Book Day, you know?
• 11:42
  McLovin: And I just didn't have the money to put a lot of, coupla into it, like cosplayers and stuff like that. And on top of it, my friend's benefit was yesterday, too, so…
• 11:55
  Tad Eggleston: See, cosplayers will also often come for pizza.
• 11:59
  McLovin: That's true, but not.
• 12:00
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not joking.
• 12:01
  McLovin: if they… here's the thing, all of the Sioux Falls shops where all these cosplayers live, they've already got them, you know what I mean, hooked up for these shops, year after year.
• 12:11
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So you gotta meet some of them personally.
• 12:14
  McLovin: I gotta get myself a costume.
• 12:17
  Phil: Me too.
• 12:18
  McLovin: And I… I can, be the Boba Fett, or whatever.
• 12:23
  Tad Eggleston: No, you should be the bearded Xavier.
• 12:26
  Phil: I was gonna say, you're pretty close to being able to cosplay as Jason Aaron, you know? I think you could pull that one off.
• 12:32
  McLovin: Yeah, if I, was a little bit bigger, I was probably thinking, Alan Moore, but…
• 12:39
  Phil: Okay, yeah.
• 12:40
  McLovin: Nope.
• 12:41
  Phil: I hear he's a tall fellow.
• 12:43
  Phil: They need to win…
• 12:44
  Tad Eggleston: He'd be way more likely to sue you rather than kick your ass, though.
• 12:48
  Phil: I don't… I don't think he's litigious. He'd probably, you know, your… your, eggs might be funny for a few weeks after.
• 12:57
  McLovin: He's a wizard.
• 12:58
  Phil: Yep. You need a wig, though, to pull that one off.
• 13:01
  McLovin: I know.
• 13:02
  McLovin: He's that shaman, right, with his gray hair, coming down his face down.
• 13:05
  Phil: I actually, I did, I dressed up as Alan Moore for Halloween when I was in college one year.
• 13:10
  McLovin: Did people recognize you?
• 13:11
  Phil: No. I didn't think so. Yeah, it was fine.
• 13:14
  Phil: It was just for me.
• 13:16
  Tad Eggleston: They went, hey, Gandalf!
• 13:20
  Phil: I didn't have a staff, unfortunately.
• 13:23
  McLovin: That's funny.
• 13:23
  Tad Eggleston: But they didn't know.
• 13:25
  Phil: No. They could tell I was a wizard, but not what kind.
• 13:31
  McLovin: No.
• 13:34
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, we had an active free comic book day, we still had Victor Farrow, and Greg Petrie, and…
• 13:42
  Tad Eggleston: And, the folks from Calamity Comics. And because Modern Age is a huge store, and actually, I'm gonna give a MASSIVE shout-out
• 13:57
  Tad Eggleston: to our food truck, who, like, I, like, legit am going to ask on as a guest, because the pizza was so fucking good.
• 14:07
  McLovin: Pizza from a food truck is an interesting concept. You don't see it a lot. Yeah.
• 14:12
  Tad Eggleston: Ethi.
• 14:13
  Tad Eggleston: Pizza della pie. Okay. And, like…
• 14:20
  Tad Eggleston: Think of all of your different favorite pizzas.
• 14:24
  Phil: Huh.
• 14:25
  Tad Eggleston: And it's got, like, a little bit of each of them somehow.
• 14:29
  Tad Eggleston: Because, like, technically it's a Chicago-style deep dish. Really?
• 14:34
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, the very bottom of the crust is…
• 14:39
  McLovin: spin.
• 14:39
  Tad Eggleston: Crispier, like a thin crust.
• 14:43
  Phil: Interesting.
• 14:44
  Tad Eggleston: And while it's got… The heft and doughiness?
• 14:49
  Tad Eggleston: It.
• 14:50
  Tad Eggleston: It's still lighter, so you're not feeling like the crust is weighing you down.
• 14:55
  Phil: Hmm…
• 14:56
  McLovin: That's crazy on a food truck, too, because, you know.
• 14:59
  Tad Eggleston: It's the perfect.
• 14:59
  McLovin: They're so big, you know.
• 15:01
  Tad Eggleston: It's the perfect amount of…
• 15:07
  Tad Eggleston: of mozzarella, which is, you know, a lot. Yeah.
• 15:12
  Tad Eggleston: It… It.
• 15:14
  Tad Eggleston: has that… Just slightly sweet, just slightly tangy sauce with a little bit of, not quite completely…
• 15:27
  Tad Eggleston: Blended tomato, you know, you know, you know what I'm talking about. Slightly chunky sauce.
• 15:32
  Phil: The, yeah.
• 15:34
  Phil: It's usually generous with the past.
• 15:35
  Tad Eggleston: pepperoni.
• 15:36
  Phil: Okay.
• 15:37
  Tad Eggleston: they've got.
• 15:37
  McLovin: Yeah, the pepperonis, or the chunky sauce is usually kind of on top of the cheese.
• 15:42
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly, exactly. They've got hot honey to add to it if you want. It, like… Blew my mind.
• 15:51
  Phil: This is making me want pizza for breakfast.
• 15:53
  Tad Eggleston: I literally had to go back and get another one to take home with me.
• 15:58
  Phil: Wow.
• 15:58
  McLovin: Do they have, pizza food trucks in Nashville, Phil? Is that where you're at?
• 16:04
  Phil: Yes, I am. I haven't seen any pizza ones. The… my… so, I haven't been there in a minute, because I enjoyed it more than my wife, but there's… there's one that had a… it's a Mexican food truck that had burria ramen.
• 16:19
  Phil: Oh, okay. Yeah, so which was, like, a giant wad of marinated meat in, like, a.
• 16:23
  McLovin: water.
• 16:24
  Phil: Yeah, in, like, an instant ramen cup, that was pretty awesome. And they had a really great burrito, too. So yeah, so I mean, I drive past more than I try, but gas stations usually have a food truck parked out, parked in the parking lot.
• 16:37
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 16:37
  McLovin: We get them so infrequently that when we get a food truck, whether it's an Asian thing or a Mexican, those are the two we get. Everybody floods there, because food trucks.
• 16:49
  Tad Eggleston: They get 5,000 customers.
• 16:51
  Phil: Yeah.
• 16:52
  McLovin: Pretty much.
• 16:53
  Phil: There you go.
• 16:54
  McLovin: Oh, I was good.
• 16:55
  Phil: I'd say you should send, you should send, a pizza della pie, down to La Verne, and, and, you know, just, just,
• 17:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's a long drive, so we'd have to see what we can do, but I will also point out, and this is amazing, like.
• 17:10
  Tad Eggleston: They do the whole thing, like, it takes, like, 10 minutes after you order, because, like, when you order is when he takes out a ball of dough and starts work.
• 17:18
  McLovin: starts, yep.
• 17:20
  Phil: Wow, that's fresh.
• 17:21
  McLovin: Fresh to order.
• 17:22
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 17:22
  Phil: Yeah.
• 17:23
  Phil: That's awesome. That's exciting. No, I've never seen it done with pizza.
• 17:27
  McLovin: No, that's what I'm saying, like, really?
• 17:29
  Tad Eggleston: I've seen pizza food trucks, but, like.
• 17:32
  Tad Eggleston: not only have I not had pizza this good from a food truck.
• 17:37
  Phil: Yeah.
• 17:37
  Tad Eggleston: It's way high on the best pizzas that I've ever had, period.
• 17:43
  Phil: Wow.
• 17:43
  McLovin: I will say that, Lou Malnati's in Chicago, same for me, right?
• 17:48
  Phil: That's pretty tough.
• 17:48
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I have Malnati's all the time. I'll put this up against Malnati's.
• 17:53
  Phil: Wow, that's some fighting words. I'd love to try it, though.
• 17:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I will totally put this up against Malnati's.
• 17:59
  Phil: Yeah, all the best pizza I've ever had was in Chicago.
• 18:02
  Tad Eggleston: Well, again, like…
• 18:03
  McLovin: Yes.
• 18:03
  Tad Eggleston: One of the big deals to me, though, is that… like, somehow…
• 18:12
  Tad Eggleston: The crust feels just a little bit lighter.
• 18:15
  Phil: Interesting.
• 18:16
  Tad Eggleston: You know, most deep, deep pizza.
• 18:18
  Phil: Yes.
• 18:19
  Tad Eggleston: that, like, really… Heavy crust.
• 18:23
  Phil: It's like…
• 18:23
  Tad Eggleston: up a lot of space in your stomach, and…
• 18:26
  Phil: Practically focaccia bread.
• 18:29
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 18:29
  Phil: the deep dishes, yeah. Yeah.
• 18:31
  Phil: Which, so I'm now think… so the best… the best pizza outside of Chicago I've ever had, three quick places. One, there was, in Texas, when my mom and I were driving through, we stopped at a town that had a pizza and barbecue place, and the guy could tell we were out of town, and he talked up his pizza, and it was actually pretty dang good.
• 18:47
  Phil: Nice. Then in Chicago, it's closed now, but there was a place called Joey's House of Pizza that was only open for lunch. It was open from, like, 11 to 3 every day, and they were, like, an authentic New York family, and they have the best tomato sauce I've ever had. Yeah, it was… it was… it was great.
• 19:06
  Tad Eggleston: You know, it's gonna be good when they can have that kind of limited hours and still pay their rent.
• 19:10
  Phil: That was exactly it, where it's like, okay, this.
• 19:12
  Tad Eggleston: And it's Donut place that closes when they run out.
• 19:16
  Phil: Exactly, yeah, and that's… that's how dang good it was. And then there's a place called, St. Vito's that does focaccia bread pizza, where it's like a giant loaf, and so it's huge, and they've got, really great ingredients. They have one that's, like, a white sauce with tomatoes and sausage pie. It's really interesting. But yeah, so those are… those are some good non-.
• 19:36
  McLovin: I don't think I've ever had pizza with focaccia bread.
• 19:39
  Phil: Ugh.
• 19:39
  McLovin: the bread, you know, portion, but that would be awesome.
• 19:42
  Phil: Yeah, you soak the… they, like, put a ton of sauce on it, so it, like, soaks through, so it's, like, basically a giant, soggy dough ball. It's a good time.
• 19:50
  McLovin: Unconventional.
• 19:51
  Phil: No, but great.
• 19:52
  McLovin: Oh, man, guys, let's keep rolling. What kind of a week has it been?
• 19:57
  Tad Eggleston: Did you guys…
• 19:58
  McLovin: Did you guys know… That.
• 20:02
  Tad Eggleston: I hate that we.
• 20:03
  McLovin: Wait, did you know Donald Trump went to Iran, personally, with a machine gun.
• 20:08
  Phil: Oh, no.
• 20:09
  McLovin: And, and…
• 20:10
  Phil: Oh, no.
• 20:10
  McLovin: Did you guys see this picture? It's him in front.
• 20:13
  Phil: No.
• 20:13
  McLovin: explosion.
• 20:14
  Phil: No.
• 20:15
  McLovin: It looks so good, you guys.
• 20:17
  McLovin: He is on the front lines, holding…
• 20:20
  Tad Eggleston: The White House split this out, didn't they?
• 20:23
  McLovin: It's an AI image of Donald Trump in front of an explosion with an AR.
• 20:28
  Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute, like, but I thought he was Jesus.
• 20:32
  McLovin: Nope, this one is… he's in a suit in this one.
• 20:36
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it would have been funnier if he was a Jesus with AI.
• 20:39
  McLovin: I will say.
• 20:40
  Phil: That's work.
• 20:41
  McLovin: Kristi Noem, she actually dressed up in her outfits, he just…
• 20:44
  Tad Eggleston: That's true.
• 20:45
  McLovin: self in AI.
• 20:46
  Tad Eggleston: That's true.
• 20:48
  Phil: respect Kristi Noem for anything, please.
• 20:50
  McLovin: I will say this, you know, she did actually put the clothes on for her costume change.
• 20:58
  Phil: For a legit cost. Even… even George Bush got in that flight suit that one.
• 21:02
  McLovin: I know! He did, didn't he?
• 21:05
  Phil: Oh, no.
• 21:06
  McLovin: You know, it was funny? My favorite…
• 21:08
  Tad Eggleston: Neither of them wear diapers.
• 21:09
  McLovin: Much harder to make constant changes.
• 21:14
  Phil: Oh, God.
• 21:15
  Tad Eggleston: When you have a full diaper.
• 21:17
  McLovin: Oh, man. My favorite thing about Bush, I gotta say this before I forget about the George Bush thing, when Hurricane Katrina hit…
• 21:26
  McLovin: He literally went on and goes… someone, a reporter, this is before he… he knew what was happening.
• 21:34
  McLovin: But he played it off brilliantly when the reporter asked him about Katrina. He said, Katrina, we're gonna find her.
• 21:43
  Phil: I don't remember that perfectly.
• 21:45
  McLovin: We're… we're gonna find her. Holy shit. Holy shit. We're gonna bring her home.
• 21:50
  Phil: Oh, boy.
• 21:50
  McLovin: It's like, holy shit, dude, no, it's a hurricane!
• 21:53
  Phil: Oh…
• 21:53
  McLovin: -
• 21:54
  Phil: Where… where was she, though?
• 21:56
  McLovin: I don't know.
• 21:58
  Phil: I'm sorry, we've gotten so far off this week. Tad, did you, did you have, a…
• 22:05
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I was gonna condemn some political violence, but yes.
• 22:09
  Tad Eggleston: But mostly, no, I'm exhausted. Like, the political violence, and then my school had a…
• 22:16
  Tad Eggleston: Closed campus for a,
• 22:21
  Tad Eggleston: What most likely was… was an attempted swatting, but… but, like…
• 22:26
  Phil: Damn.
• 22:28
  Tad Eggleston: You gotta spend time…
• 22:33
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, my week was exhausting. My PTSD went into overdrive.
• 22:39
  Phil: Yeah. Yeah, it was, it's weird because, like, I… because, you know, last weekend was so packed for me, I felt like I missed it happening.
• 22:51
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I will say that, like, one of the things that…
• 22:58
  Tad Eggleston: We should be learning from this.
• 23:02
  Tad Eggleston: And unfortunately, I feel like too many people are going the opposite direction.
• 23:07
  Tad Eggleston: is… There's no amount of security.
• 23:16
  Tad Eggleston: that, like, will stop something like this. I mean, the reason there wasn't more damage done is because, like, the shooter…
• 23:25
  Tad Eggleston: Had a specific objective.
• 23:30
  Tad Eggleston: He didn't come in with an AR-15 blazing.
• 23:34
  McLovin: Correct. Yep.
• 23:36
  Tad Eggleston: If he'd been willing to shoot his way in, this would be a whole different ballgame.
• 23:42
  Phil: Yeah, so… No one… was anyone… how many people were hurt?
• 23:48
  McLovin: 1, I think?
• 23:50
  McLovin: I…
• 23:51
  Tad Eggleston: Two if you count the shooter, but, I mean, he wasn't shot, he was…
• 23:55
  McLovin: Tackled, but…
• 23:56
  Tad Eggleston: tackled.
• 23:59
  Tad Eggleston: And an officer got shot in the vest, though it is still not clear.
• 24:06
  Tad Eggleston: if… The suspect fired a shot.
• 24:10
  Phil: Hmm.
• 24:11
  McLovin: Yeah, I mean, what do you guys think?
• 24:13
  Tad Eggleston: There's a lot of reasons to believe that he didn't.
• 24:16
  Phil: Yeah, I…
• 24:17
  Tad Eggleston: Other things, he wasn't charged with any crime that he would be.
• 24:20
  Tad Eggleston: If… I wasn't charged with shooting a federal agent.
• 24:24
  Phil: Wow.
• 24:26
  McLovin: Do you guys think this is legit, or do you think this is.
• 24:28
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I definitely think it's legit. I mean, the stuff that's come out, it's legit.
• 24:33
  Phil: I mean, I haven't looked at it enough to… I've heard rumors, conspiratorial rumors, but I don't know…
• 24:38
  Tad Eggleston: Tons of conspiratorial rumors, and I get that, but no, this was a really… I mean, Caltech guy, you know, engineer, etc, like…
• 24:48
  Tad Eggleston: devout Christian… Like, his explanatory letter had, like.
• 24:58
  Tad Eggleston: explanations for how, like, this wasn't a situation to turn the other cheek, because turn the other cheek is what you do when somebody oppresses you. This is about somebody oppressing others.
• 25:11
  Phil: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Phil: My, my inner,
• 25:15
  Phil: George Carlin wants to… wants to make a joke about, like, oh, so… so now… now that guy's God can't, be pro-violence. Okay. You're not… not jesting of how just the last… last couple weeks, you know, we were trying to… our… our government was trying to say that God was… was on our side.
• 25:33
  Tad Eggleston: What? Military.
• 25:34
  Phil: early.
• 25:35
  Tad Eggleston: What it feels like to me is, like, a really smart guy.
• 25:42
  Tad Eggleston: who… Was left of center, but not, like… Hard.
• 25:51
  Tad Eggleston: And also Devout, so he's watching…
• 25:54
  Tad Eggleston: All of these people who are horrible people do some horrible things.
• 26:00
  Phil: Yeah.
• 26:00
  Tad Eggleston: And likely, also, like, is one of those people who…
• 26:05
  Tad Eggleston: And this drives me up the wall, and I'm gonna use an analogy in a second that I think is an important one that we need to think about more. There's so many people, particularly smart people, who will say the words.
• 26:17
  Tad Eggleston: It's not like I can change it.
• 26:22
  McLovin: Right.
• 26:23
  Tad Eggleston: do matters.
• 26:25
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not the one writing the laws. I'm not…
• 26:29
  Tad Eggleston: Who take… who take their jobs as a voter, as a citizen, as a human being, sometimes not as seriously as they could, because…
• 26:38
  Tad Eggleston: they're doing the stats and going, oh, I'm a little guy, and this is where I wanna… I wanna, like, throw out a different set of stats.
• 26:46
  Tad Eggleston: Crowds always sing in tune.
• 26:51
  McLovin: That's true.
• 26:53
  Tad Eggleston: You know why?
• 26:55
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's a scientific fact, the crowds always sing in tune.
• 26:59
  Tad Eggleston: And it's because the more people you have, the more the sharps.
• 27:03
  McLovin: Cancel the… cancel the flat.
• 27:05
  Tad Eggleston: the flats.
• 27:06
  Phil: Interested.
• 27:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yep. So…
• 27:08
  McLovin: Or vice versa.
• 27:09
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, just doing good… the more people who do good action.
• 27:15
  Tad Eggleston: Whether it's taking care of your neighbor, whether it's…
• 27:18
  Tad Eggleston: Just breaking down an argument for somebody, pushing back against
• 27:23
  Tad Eggleston: some idiot that, that, like, has fallen for Fox News, or, you know, and not rudely, not, like, doing so with respect and with…
• 27:33
  Tad Eggleston: You know, the more people do things like that.
• 27:38
  Tad Eggleston: the more power it has, but that means that, like, every person's small contribution matters, because if nobody makes the small contribution, you…
• 27:48
  Tad Eggleston: Don't have any… I mean, even as simple as pushing back when somebody says, both parties are the same.
• 27:56
  Phil: Right?
• 27:59
  Tad Eggleston: Which is the most common reason for political apathy.
• 28:03
  Phil: Yeah.
• 28:04
  Tad Eggleston: And not one that's not rooted in…
• 28:08
  Phil: Some bits of reality.
• 28:10
  Tad Eggleston: some realities.
• 28:11
  Phil: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Tad Eggleston: you know…
• 28:14
  Phil: Yeah.
• 28:16
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah, no, this has just been a rough week for me.
• 28:20
  Tad Eggleston: So I'm ready to move on to new comic series, if you.
• 28:24
  McLovin: Alright, Phil, you're up.
• 28:27
  Phil: Oh yeah, first up in a new series, we've got, the… the surreal, I feel like, I feel like I've been here before, but this is Banana number 1, a one-shot from Joshua Dysert and Kevin McGuire with a
• 28:42
  Phil: At least the cover I pulled up by Michael Allred, from the team that brought you Unknown Soldier, Maxwell Lord, Spider-Gwen, Army… er, Amy Racecar, Madman.
• 28:51
  Phil: Eisner-nominated writer Joshua Dysart, legendary illustrator Kevin McGuire, superstar colorist Rico Renzi, Eisner Award-winning artist David Lapham, and comics icon Michael Allred would like to introduce you to, perhaps, their ultimate creation.
• 29:06
  Phil: Banana number one, into the Fundament Zone. Brace yourself for the startling story of a genetically mysterious 7-foot-tall sentient banana, raised in secret, turned race car driver, turned sex symbol, turned global celebrity, and ultimately turned revolutionary icon.
• 29:25
  Phil: caught between human civilization, fruit rebellion, and the coming war between the two. This has a final order cutoff of June 15th in stores July 15th, from, once again, Bad Idea.
• 29:38
  McLovin: I want to point out that the title of the comic is Banana No. 1. Yes. You're not saying Banana.
• 29:45
  Phil: No.
• 29:45
  McLovin: number… number.
• 29:45
  Tad Eggleston: Technically, it's banana number one, number one. Yeah. Tyler…
• 29:50
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 29:50
  Tad Eggleston: I want to dare you to order 1,000 copies, because this is the 1 in 1,000 variant.
• 29:57
  McLovin: Okay, so the 1 in 1000th variant is a spoof off of that art project where that guy…
• 30:02
  Tad Eggleston: Nice!
• 30:03
  McLovin: that guy duct-taped a banana to a gallery wall, and then people just showed up and started visiting it as it was art. Then he sold the rights to it. So what that.
• 30:14
  McLovin: is you don't get that exact banana, you don't even get the duct tape. What you purchased for the guy that won the auction was the right to hang a banana on your wall with duct tape in that same configuration.
• 30:30
  McLovin: But… So, yeah.
• 30:31
  Phil: Does… does that preclude the rights to hang a banana from your comic book in that precise orientation?
• 30:39
  McLovin: I doubt it.
• 30:41
  Phil: I'm also imagining it'd be way funnier if you only ordered, like, 5 copies of this, but.
• 30:45
  McLovin: Yeah, Jack.
• 30:46
  Phil: And got one of those, but then, like, it was somehow mashed under the weight of… so then you just had, like, a box full of banana gunk comics.
• 30:54
  McLovin: I would love that.
• 30:55
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, the one in a thousand variant, Tyler.
• 30:57
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 30:58
  Tad Eggleston: An actual banana.
• 31:01
  McLovin: It's so funny.
• 31:02
  Phil: It's pretty good.
• 31:05
  Tad Eggleston: I'm just… I'm just.
• 31:08
  Phil: I mean, I'd even love it…
• 31:09
  Tad Eggleston: Hell yeah.
• 31:09
  Phil: I'd love it.
• 31:10
  McLovin: That's funny.
• 31:10
  Phil: There was one-on-one.
• 31:11
  Tad Eggleston: 100 is pretty cool, too.
• 31:13
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 31:13
  Phil: It's a bit.
• 31:13
  McLovin: And a bat signal, yeah.
• 31:16
  Tad Eggleston: And you'd get all of these along your way.
• 31:18
  Phil: Holy cow.
• 31:19
  McLovin: Oh man, I love the Spider-Man tribute one. That's great.
• 31:22
  Tad Eggleston: I ordered the glow-in-the-dark one.
• 31:25
  Phil: looks fine.
• 31:26
  McLovin: I… good lord, these are funny. Holy buckets. All right, listeners, I encourage you guys to go out and check out the different.
• 31:35
  Tad Eggleston: $3 a piece. $3,000, and you can have that banana. Just keep it as, like, the thing that has people come to the Nexus Vault. We have the banana.
• 31:46
  McLovin: I gotta be honest, $3,000 is about all the cash my little, little, little store has total.
• 31:54
  Tad Eggleston: Okay…
• 31:56
  McLovin: That would wipe me out at this moment.
• 31:57
  Tad Eggleston: So take out a loan.
• 31:59
  McLovin: Some might even say… It's funny.
• 32:00
  Phil: That's a bad idea.
• 32:01
  McLovin: I don't get paid, right? This is a laboring love right now.
• 32:06
  Tad Eggleston: I dig the, the, the Bowie banana.
• 32:09
  McLovin: Yeah, the boat.
• 32:10
  Phil: Boeing animals.
• 32:11
  McLovin: Very cool. Yeah, with the lightning bolt painted up, that's.
• 32:14
  Tad Eggleston: J.G. Jones.
• 32:15
  Phil: It's nice, yeah.
• 32:16
  McLovin: Alright, Phil, what do you got?
• 32:20
  Phil: What do I got?
• 32:20
  McLovin: For us, that feels tad.
• 32:22
  McLovin: That was Phil's. That's Tad. Tad, what do you got for next.
• 32:25
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna start with some exquisite corpuses. Or Brascal Randy!
• 32:33
  McLovin: What a great deal.
• 32:33
  Tad Eggleston: out of Aurora Springs, New York, is exactly one claim to fame. It's the birthplace of Rascal Randy. Not the man in the suit. The man has never mattered. He was no one until he put the mascot head on for the first time, until he felt the life leave someone else's body
• 32:52
  Tad Eggleston: Through the thickly furred gloves of the suit.
• 32:55
  Tad Eggleston: No, Aurora Springs is the birthplace of Rascal Randy the Rabbit, who once upon a time was poised to become the greatest animated character this country had ever seen, until greed and tragedy changed his trajectory forever.
• 33:10
  Tad Eggleston: Now, before the events of Exquisite Corpses Season 1, witness the final murder spree of this iconic killer, as chaos hops into town with buck teeth bared and ears flopping, and the secret, sordid history.
• 33:26
  Tad Eggleston: of Rascal Randy is finally revealed.
• 33:30
  Tad Eggleston: And that… is exciting to me, but what's really exciting to me is…
• 33:38
  Tad Eggleston: Written and drawn by Tyler Boss.
• 33:41
  McLovin: That's awesome.
• 33:43
  Tad Eggleston: Final order cutoff is June 15th in stores on July…
• 33:51
  McLovin: Awesome. Next up, we've got Minotaur by.
• 33:54
  Tad Eggleston: No, next up, we have Jughead. I'm again!
• 33:59
  McLovin: You… you son of a… No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead.
• 34:02
  Phil: Back to back.
• 34:03
  McLovin: Ugh.
• 34:04
  McLovin: I'm so ready to go.
• 34:05
  Tad Eggleston: Primageddon!
• 34:07
  Tad Eggleston: From Tom King, Dan Parent, Rich Kozlowski, Jack Morelli, and Rosario Titapena. Tito Pena.
• 34:14
  Tad Eggleston: This is it. The hottest comic of the summer, fresh out of the oven. The incomparable writer Tom King, of the upcoming Archie movie, teams with the legendary artist Dan Parent to present one of the wildest events to ever take place in the Archie universe.
• 34:29
  Tad Eggleston: Picture it, Riverdale, some year AD. What was supposed to start out as a showcase of Jughead's pie-eating skills morphed into the wildest food fight…
• 34:39
  Tad Eggleston: America, no, the world has ever seen. Betty vs. Veronica, kind of. Reggie being, well, Reggie. Hot dog, lounging. Friends turning to enemies, hearts broken, crumbs everywhere. What's to become of Rubydale?
• 34:56
  Tad Eggleston: And will Jughead ever get to taste a sweet morsel of his pie?
• 35:01
  Tad Eggleston: All this and a peek at Old Man Archie and Jughead. No matter what your favorite flavor is, this issue has something for you. Have a taste for yourself in Jughead.
• 35:13
  Tad Eggleston: Pimageddon.
• 35:15
  Tad Eggleston: Initial orders are… May 28th, final order cutoff is June 22nd, in stores July 10th.
• 35:26
  McLovin: Awesome!
• 35:27
  McLovin: Alright, now it is ministry.
• 35:29
  Tad Eggleston: Now it's your turn, yeah.
• 35:31
  McLovin: comic script is written by Simon Spurrier and illustrated by Michael Fowling.
• 35:36
  McLovin: Five years ago, a government supercomputer triggered the singularity, an explosion of technological superintelligence heralding an unimaginable tomorrow. I think we're there right now. At least, it almost did.
• 35:50
  McLovin: Within moments of fail-safe activated, the plug was pulled, the future was aborted. But something leaked in those first picoseconds through wire and wave.
• 36:00
  McLovin: And now, the future fights back inexplicable events, miracles and monsters, harbingers of revolution or apocalypse?
• 36:09
  McLovin: Minotaur is the tale of Gloria Monday, a photojournalist documenting the lives of those, like her, who are haunted, tortured, and transformed by outbreaks of the future, along with the no-nonsense ex-military muscle who watches her six, and the reformed tech bro secretly bankrolling their global mission to expose it all.
• 36:29
  McLovin: From Simon Spurrier and Mike Dowling comes Minota X-Files for the forward-looking era with science fiction ideas ripped from the pages of new scientists, manifesting among human societies in spooky, unsettling ways.
• 36:44
  McLovin: This final order cutoff is, June 8th, and will be in shops on July 15th.
• 36:51
  McLovin: And this is from IDW.
• 36:55
  Phil: Nope, that's it.
• 36:56
  Tad Eggleston: ignition efficiency.
• 36:57
  McLovin: I said, I said Ignition. You guys, you need to listen.
• 37:00
  Phil: Ignition without…
• 37:03
  McLovin: My bad.
• 37:04
  McLovin: ignition.
• 37:06
  McLovin: Yep.
• 37:06
  Phil: Alrighty, next up, we've got another one from Ignition. This is Sicko, number one, from Teenie Howard and Amelcar Pina, with belt covers by Pena as well. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. At least, that's what healthy people say.
• 37:23
  Phil: Valentin Virago has always struggled with her health.
• 37:27
  Phil: Her rare autoimmune disorder has defied all treatment as she grew older, it defied even classification. You see, Valentin can take her immune system and weaponize it. You would just be a normal sneeze to the rest of… er, what would just be a normal sneeze to the rest of us, she can turn into a projectile of bloody miasma, just as a start.
• 37:46
  Phil: Fed up with being a test subject, poked and prodded by pushy doctors, Valentin has gone on the lamb in search of freedom to be herself.
• 37:54
  Phil: Unfortunately, interested parties want her back in their care, and they are sending goons in hazmat suits. Led by Jono, her one-time nurse and potential love interest, they're offering her a spot in a private medical facility run by Jono's parents.
• 38:09
  Phil: Val isn't one for institutions, however, and what some may see as a safe haven, she sees as a prison. And who wants to be trapped in a prison when you're already trapped in your own body?
• 38:19
  Phil: Writer Tini Howard teams up with artist Amilkar Pina and colorist Amanda Razzini for their new series Sicko, a surreal story perfect for fans of Doom Patrol and mutant adventures of all kinds.
• 38:32
  Phil: That's gonna have a final order cutoff of June 15th in stores July 22nd, once again, from Ignition.
• 38:41
  McLovin: Awesome! Next up, because I'm obsessed with the X-Men, X- The Hive, the Hellfire Murderer,
• 38:49
  McLovin: Number one, from Saladin Ahmed and Erica Schultz. This will be illustrated by Tony Daniel and Luciano Vecchio.
• 38:57
  McLovin: A homicide at the Hellfire Gala, when an iconic mutant power player is murdered at an exclusive masquerade hosted by Sebastian Shaw, it falls to Wolverine and Jubilee to solve a locked room mystery that has dire consequences for all mutantkind.
• 39:15
  McLovin: Everyone is a suspect, and the party isn't over yet.
• 39:20
  McLovin: In shops, or excuse me, final order cutoff of June 22nd.
• 39:24
  McLovin: And in shops on July 22nd.
• 39:29
  McLovin: From Marvel.
• 39:31
  Phil: Alright, next up we've got some graphic novels, first of which is Beware Her Fury by Miriam Malet. Hell hast no fury like a woman harmed. Clemens is angry, and it's driving her mad. It's not that life isn't good. In fact, life is pretty great. Movie nights with her besties, trading Tinder horror stories.
• 39:51
  Phil: Inking folks day in and day out as a tattoo artist. She's even got herself the perfect new girlfriend. But not even the overwhelming atmosphere of love in her life can shake the specter of her trauma loose. When she begins habitually confronting catcallers, preying on young women on the streets of Montreal, her therapist suggests she join a support group for fellow survivors. Will the flames of her own fury consume her, or will her community save her by
• 40:16
  Phil: Keeping her company one week at a time.
• 40:18
  Phil: It's gonna have a final order cutoff of June 22nd, and in stores August 12th from Drawing Quarterly.
• 40:28
  McLovin: Awesome. My imaginary duck. This is from the I Can Read comics. From Graham Annabelle. Annabelle?
• 40:36
  McLovin: My Imaginary Duck is the newest offering from I Can Read Comics, an early reader line that familiarizes children with the world of graphic novel storytelling and encourages visual literacy in emerging readers.
• 40:49
  McLovin: Comics powerhouse Graham Annabelle introduces readers to Mavis and her best imaginary friend, Duck.
• 40:57
  McLovin: The inseparable pair love nothing more than playing together, but soon discover that letting others into your world might just be even more fun. Final order cutoff is July 6th, and this will be in stores July 29th.
• 41:16
  McLovin: From Momparallel.
• 41:19
  McLovin: Who's putting this out? HarperCollins, there we go.
• 41:22
  Tad Eggleston: HarperCollins.
• 41:23
  McLovin: Yep.
• 41:26
  Tad Eggleston: New York Times bestselling and Eisner Award-winning author Hope Larson's next book, Very Bad at Math.
• 41:33
  Tad Eggleston: Verity, very Nelson can do it all. She's student body president, debate club whiz, and first chair clarinetist. She can even do more push-ups than anyone at her school.
• 41:45
  Tad Eggleston: You could say she's pretty much the best at everything. Well, almost everything. Everything except math. It's not like she doesn't try. Math just doesn't make sense in her brain.
• 41:55
  Tad Eggleston: But it better start soon, or else she can kiss her presidency and her campaign promises goodbye. Soon, she finds herself enrolled in a remedial math class where, despite her best efforts, failure persists. All seems lost until a teacher helps her discover the truth.
• 42:11
  Tad Eggleston: Verity has dyscalculia, a learning disability that causes her to mix up numbers. Armed with a new perspective, can Verity pass math? Keep her presidency and make good on her word to the student body she loves so much? Or will the presidency and perfect reputation all come crashing down?
• 42:29
  Tad Eggleston: Final order cutoff is June 1st, in stores on July 1st. This is also… from HarperCollins.
• 42:40
  McLovin: So, collections are next up, but I'm typing something real quick. Okay.
• 42:44
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 42:44
  McLovin: Whatever! For collections, dork, Volume 1 from Brett Bean.
• 42:51
  McLovin: Or… Diorke. Hilarious, vivid, endlessly clever, and filled with heart.
• 42:57
  McLovin: The best new comic I've read in forever, from Matt Dineman, or that quote is Matt Dineman, from Dungeon Crawler Carl, you had me at Magic Talking Eyeball Shield. Brett Bean creates a fantasy world like no other. Don't be a dork.
• 43:14
  McLovin: Bye, dork. That was Robert Kirkman.
• 43:16
  McLovin: I'm gonna read all these comments. No, I'm gonna skip down. Armed with nothing but a magical, yet ambitiously violent shield, and a chicken with its head cut off.
• 43:27
  McLovin: Dork is thrown dead center into Sunderain's never-ending war between the Light and Dark Elves… the Light and Dark Elves vs. Orcs, Wizards vs. Common Sense.
• 43:38
  McLovin: Dragons versus literally everyone. Can he survive being hunted, blamed, and beaten by every human, elf, goblin, dwarf, witch, time lord, ice giant, three-headed dog, and at least three unpronounceable magic creatures?
• 43:52
  McLovin: Join fan-favorite artist Brett Bean, colorist, Jean-Francois Belieux.
• 44:01
  McLovin: and letterer Nate Pico's for a hilarious high fantasy romp, perfect for fans of Conan, The Lord of the Rings, and, of course, Gert's deadpan Humor. This final order cutoff is June 29th, and will be in shops July 22nd.
• 44:18
  McLovin: From… is this image?
• 44:21
  McLovin: It is image, yep.
• 44:25
  McLovin: Great!
• 44:26
  McLovin: That was fun.
• 44:30
  Phil: Yeah, to speak up.
• 44:32
  Tad Eggleston: It's…
• 44:32
  McLovin: Jeez!
• 44:33
  Tad Eggleston: John Le Carre's The Circus, Losing Control.
• 44:38
  Tad Eggleston: From Matt Kent and Ibrahim Mustafa at Dark Horse Comics. All-new modern-day comic set in the high-stakes world of espionage created by John LeCare A.
• 44:50
  Tad Eggleston: London, 2025. Every day, the intelligence agents of the circus are enmeshed in high-stakes wire… high-wire acts that the average citizen would never notice. They protect Britain's most sensitive secrets, and in modern Britain.
• 45:05
  Tad Eggleston: Secrets are everything. At the head of it all is control.
• 45:09
  Tad Eggleston: The all-powerful Putnam Master, who decides who goes where, who does what, and sometimes, of necessity, who lives and who dies. But now, control has vanished. He doesn't show up at the office. He misses his meetings. He won't or can't answer his phone. He is simply nowhere.
• 45:27
  Tad Eggleston: Control's assistant Maggie, is the only one who knows he's gone, and with an imminent and critical mission in Vienna, the clock is ticking. Maggie knows every protocol, every password, and every operative, but whether something has happened to Control, or whether this is part of his plan, she has no idea.
• 45:43
  Tad Eggleston: Either way, she can't trust anyone with the knowledge of his absence. Can she even trust him?
• 45:48
  Tad Eggleston: Secrets within the circus have a way of coming unraveled, and Maggie will have to act fast, or risk the walls tumbling down around her.
• 45:57
  Tad Eggleston: I… Anna.
• 46:02
  Tad Eggleston: speak.
• 46:03
  Tad Eggleston: Highly enough of this.
• 46:05
  Tad Eggleston: And it looks like David Lapham is involved in some level, too, because I'm looking at this. New York best-selling writer Matt Kent joins Eisner Award-nominated artist Ibrahim Mustafa and Eisner Award-winning artist David Lapham in this thrilling tale of espionage, so I'm assuming
• 46:24
  Tad Eggleston: that Lapum has some sort of… Sequence in Issue 3.
• 46:29
  Phil: Did you do covers, maybe? Or… oh, oh, okay, Sequence Industries, yeah, okay.
• 46:33
  Tad Eggleston: I'm thinking sequence, because it's only the first two issues that are out so far.
• 46:37
  Phil: Gotcha. Interesting.
• 46:39
  Tad Eggleston: Matt and I talked about this on the recent episode of 22 Panels. I was terrified of John LeCary being adapted, because, well, I do think that… that…
• 46:54
  Tad Eggleston: comics are the perfect medium, and there's nothing you can put in prose that can't be in comics. And therefore I knew there could be a great LeCare adaptation. I also know that… that most people think spy espionage and think super high-paced action, and that is not what John LeCare is.
• 47:16
  Phil: I mean… For some, digging through documents is as high-paced action as you can get.
• 47:22
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, yes, but not generally what you see in…
• 47:27
  Phil: Yeah.
• 47:29
  Phil: Watch, watch James Bond actually try to, you know, put together, put together a dossier.
• 47:35
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, I was, I was, I was much less worried because it was Matt Kitt and Ibrahim Mustafa, but I was really worried about, okay, what level of editorial influence is gonna say, oh, like, we need more action, we need more this, we need more that.
• 47:52
  Tad Eggleston: And, and… It's…
• 47:56
  Phil: Good news.
• 47:56
  Tad Eggleston: We need a spike on…
• 47:58
  Phil: We need exploding pens.
• 47:59
  Tad Eggleston: And talking to Matt about it was… because he's a huge fan, and he was like…
• 48:05
  Tad Eggleston: He almost didn't want to do it.
• 48:07
  Phil: Oh.
• 48:08
  Tad Eggleston: Because he's that much of a fan.
• 48:10
  Phil: Interesting.
• 48:12
  Tad Eggleston: So he's really, really happy that they've been able to do it the way they did it. Worth listening to, worth reading, and I will now shut up and pass it off to whoever.
• 48:21
  Phil: That's okay. Finally, yeah…
• 48:24
  Tad Eggleston: You're whoever. This is what happens when you leave for two weeks. You become whoever.
• 48:28
  Phil: You've lost, object permanence on… on who I am.
• 48:32
  McLovin: No name.
• 48:33
  Phil: That's okay.
• 48:36
  Tad Eggleston: with no name.
• 48:37
  Phil: Phil wouldn't know. That's good. I like that.
• 48:40
  McLovin: It's Philip today, and you are Thaddeus, so…
• 48:43
  Phil: Oh, boy. Oh, there we go. We forgot to keep that up. Yep.
• 48:47
  McLovin: And if… if I had a… No, no, no, there was no…
• 48:50
  Tad Eggleston: name.
• 48:51
  Phil: The Philist Money.
• 48:53
  McLovin: had a cool, longer name instead of just Tyler, we would go with it, but it's not like people.
• 48:58
  Tad Eggleston: Well, you're like Tyler No. 4.
• 49:01
  McLovin: No, there's…
• 49:02
  Tad Eggleston: There's Tyler Boss, there's Tyler Crooks, there's Tyler Jenkins, and then there's you.
• 49:07
  McLovin: My parents and siblings call me Ty, but outside of that, nobody does. Everybody calls me Ty.
• 49:14
  Tad Eggleston: I should just start calling you Cobb.
• 49:16
  McLovin: Or just lure.
• 49:18
  Phil: I just…
• 49:19
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, Cobb, Ty Cobb.
• 49:21
  McLovin: Shop, yeah.
• 49:22
  McLovin: Yep. Hummina, hummuna.
• 49:25
  Phil: Anyway, this is, the last of our collections, we have Nectar, Volume 1 from Jeremy Robinson, Annipella Martello, and Francesco Francini, with covers by Chris Sheehan.
• 49:39
  Phil: An island village off Salem, Massachusetts is inundated by a strange species of butterflies that spread the dancing plague and have a very particular taste in nectar, human blood. New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Robinson and Italian phenom artist Annapolo Martello and Francesco
• 49:58
  Phil: Frencini, horrify readers with a quaint village's descent into madness. A final order cutoff of July 6th, in stores August 5th from Vault Commons.
• 50:12
  McLovin: Alright, we are… that Nectar story, did you read the issues yet, Phil?
• 50:18
  Phil: I haven't. I heard you say it was good, and the covers have really caught me, so yeah, that one sounds very interesting.
• 50:24
  McLovin: Issue 3 is about to drop soon, but it is really good.
• 50:29
  Phil: Nice.
• 50:29
  McLovin: Issue 1 is in the second and third printings already.
• 50:33
  Phil: Oh, wow.
• 50:34
  McLovin: Let's get some. Yeah, but, yeah, it's really good. Alright.
• 50:39
  McLovin: Tad, are you gonna do the final order cutoff?
• 50:42
  Tad Eggleston: I can… I can do the final order cutoff. I talk fast. We'll let you guys have the shorter list.
• 50:48
  Tad Eggleston: Final alert cutoff for Monday, May 11th, we have the Black Schooner, Rebellion on the Amistad from David Lester, Marcus Rediker, and Paul Booley at Beacon.
• 50:59
  Tad Eggleston: Out in… on June 9th. Chisakobi, Volume 1 from Minotaro Mochizuki at Abrams, out on June 24th. Concrete, Stars Over Sand, number 1, from Paul Chadwick, out from Dark Horse on June 17th. Dead Man, number 1 from W. Maxwell Prince, and Martin Mrazzo, out from DC, June 3rd.
• 51:20
  Tad Eggleston: Declaration Emancipation Illustrated from Bob Sikoriak, our Sikoriak.
• 51:24
  Tad Eggleston: Drawn and quarterly, out June 10th. Gigs from Mark Mosdale, IDAW, out on June 16th. Hellboy in Love.
• 51:33
  Tad Eggleston: Obsidian, number one, from Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, and Alex Nieto, out from Dark Horse on June 17th, Jay and Silent Bob, Jays of Future Past, number 1, from Kevin Smith, Giuseppe Camencouli, and Marco Tichetto, out from Marvel on June 10th.
• 51:52
  Tad Eggleston: Junk Punch No. 1 from Paul Tobin, Carlos, Javier, Olivares, and Colleen Coover, out from Mad Cave on June 3rd. Mary Sue, the collection from Megan Fitzmartin and Lisa Sterl, out from Boom on August 11th. Tankers.
• 52:08
  Tad Eggleston: collected from Robert Venditti and Juan Jose Ripp.
• 52:12
  Tad Eggleston: out from Bad Idea on June 10th, just in time for Tankers vs. Ancient Aliens, number 1, from Robert Venditti, Thomas Giarello, Trevor Harrison at Bad Idea on June 10th, that Texas Blood, number 21, the return
• 52:30
  Tad Eggleston: of Joe Bob,
• 52:34
  Tad Eggleston: From Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips out from Image Comics on June 3rd, and as Tyler was just talking.
• 52:42
  Tad Eggleston: X-Men Elsewen Volume 1 from John Byrne, out from Abrams, and I forgot to set the date there, but we can go up…
• 52:53
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, it was the Hellfire one. Out sometime.
• 52:58
  McLovin: Sometime. It's coming out.
• 53:01
  Phil: sweaty.
• 53:02
  Tad Eggleston: I'll look that… I'll look that up while somebody runs through the.
• 53:06
  McLovin: Alright, so, you do the crowdfunding, I'll do the humble bundles.
• 53:10
  Phil: Sounds good. First up, there is The Forgotten Five from Alex Segura, Sarah Sentry, and Pat Kennedy, and Dean Kotz, with New Pain Productions on Kickstarter through May 11th.
• 53:23
  Phil: Then Runaway to the Stars from Jay Eaton, with Iron Circus Comics on Kickstarter through May 14th, and then, of course, Steven Frank's
• 53:33
  Phil: Stefan Frank's Complete Palomino, Dark Planet Comics on Kickstarter through May 15th, and The Forgotten Divine from Mark Russell and Russ…
• 53:42
  Phil: Ron, with Ahoy on Kickstarter, launching soon, but that sounds good enough that we gotta, we gotta get as many eyes and ears on it as possible. So, Humpa Bundles!
• 53:54
  Tad Eggleston: We are, we are also, doing Stefan Frank's Palomino on…
• 54:05
  Tad Eggleston: the Pope Blotter Book Club, so you can check out those episodes.
• 54:09
  Tad Eggleston: over the next 3 months. Elsewan comes out on June 24th.
• 54:17
  McLovin: Alright, I got… we have 4 days left, you guys, on the collected peanuts.
• 54:22
  McLovin: $25 gets you 43 items. Your, purchase goes towards the canine companions, and then this has been extended to May 6th, so like I said, it's the 3rd today, so 3 days left.
• 54:40
  McLovin: Then, the boys, the grand finale has, again, 3 days left. For $18, you get 13 items, and that goes toward the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
• 54:54
  Phil: Have you guys read The Boys? It's, pretty good. Pretty good.
• 54:58
  Tad Eggleston: Very good.
• 54:59
  McLovin: Strange Romance from Image Comics, $18 gets you 59 items, including Falling in Love on the Pathway to Hell, Everlasting, Saga, Sex Criminals, I mean, all of the big hits of the last 15 years, or more. This goes towards the big… the book.
• 55:18
  McLovin: Book Industry Charitable Foundation. This is going for May 7th, so you got another 4 days.
• 55:25
  McLovin: This one is really cool, though. Complete Terry Moore, $16, gets you 54 items, and that goes to the World Central Kitchen, and that, we have a couple weeks left, that ends May 15th.
• 55:43
  McLovin: That is it for Humble Bundles. Tad, what are your three amazing books this week?
• 55:50
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, it was actually a kind of tough week for this.
• 55:54
  Tad Eggleston: But, yeah.
• 55:55
  McLovin: But…
• 55:55
  Tad Eggleston: Well, both, because I wound up reading so intermittently with so much stuff in between that I felt like I hadn't read 3 books until, like, I was going through them, like, oh, I've read a lot of these, and they were all fucking good.
• 56:09
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, my apologies to things like reincarnation stories, and Is Ted OK? and Farrell, and Exorcism at Buckingham Palace. Russell Heist No. 5 was amazing.
• 56:22
  Tad Eggleston: That sort of thing.
• 56:23
  Tad Eggleston: But my top 3, our Warbird from Robert Venditti, Derek Kolstead, and Jesse Lonergan.
• 56:32
  Tad Eggleston: Warbird No. This is probably the only time ever that I have been disappointed to discover that Alex Maleiv is the full-time artist on a book.
• 56:43
  Tad Eggleston: Because… Jesse Lonergan had the zero issue, and, well… Jesse Loner again.
• 56:49
  Phil: Right?
• 56:50
  McLovin: Well, that's all you gotta say. Jesse Lonergan, okay.
• 56:55
  Tad Eggleston: Exploit number 2 from Laura Hudson, Tim Leong, and Emiliana Pina at Mad Cave. I'm loving this story,
• 57:08
  Tad Eggleston: It's like a near-future… Cyber reporting story… With evil billionaires.
• 57:19
  Tad Eggleston: no privacy. That sort of thing. All too real, in other words.
• 57:25
  Phil: I was about to say, we have privacy?
• 57:28
  Tad Eggleston: This is what I'm saying.
• 57:33
  Tad Eggleston: And then, the free comic book day of the future is… Which I believe is…
• 57:39
  McLovin: is what? Zero.
• 57:43
  Tad Eggleston: I'm pulling it up right now because I neglected to put… the artists down.
• 57:54
  McLovin: Sorry for the yawning, guys, I am sleepy.
• 57:57
  Phil: You need to do more due, man.
• 57:58
  Tad Eggleston: It's The Future Is Annual 2026.
• 58:02
  Tad Eggleston: From… Fred Van Linty and Juan Gedion with a Paul Pope cover.
• 58:09
  Tad Eggleston: Was standalone introductory one-shot, so good.
• 58:15
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, everybody knows that I love this.
• 58:19
  Tad Eggleston: This book to begin with, and we'll continue to… to,
• 58:28
  Tad Eggleston: We got 60 issues.
• 58:30
  McLovin: Yes.
• 58:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, so, so, like… 40-some-odd to go, and I… I will… Continue…
• 58:40
  Tad Eggleston: Plugging it hard until it finally gets… The love that it deserves.
• 58:48
  Tad Eggleston: Which isn't yet.
• 58:50
  McLovin: You know, as far as the future is, I gave away so many of those free comics for that title yesterday. It was crazy.
• 58:58
  Phil: Nice.
• 58:58
  Tad Eggleston: Hey, it's great.
• 59:00
  McLovin: Second up was Street Fighter. People loved that thing. Holy buckets.
• 59:04
  Tad Eggleston: Hell, yeah.
• 59:07
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 59:08
  McLovin: Phil? Gonna walk with… Yeah.
• 59:10
  Phil: I do.
• 59:11
  McLovin: What did you think last week, or the week before, about the picks that I picked?
• 59:15
  Phil: I, I mean, they… I… I was like, oh, that makes sense that, that you, you know, you'd have, you'd have read more… more stuff than me. Let me, let me take a look at them, at them, you know.
• 59:25
  Phil: Real quick, a little more, last week's, we're gonna…
• 59:28
  McLovin: So I had a theme both weeks. Okay.
• 59:31
  Phil: Oh, let me see if I… I love a good theme, so let me see if I can, narrow that down in our… in our notes here. So, let's see here, okay. Halloween Boy, it's Jeff, Lucky Devils, I mean, that seems like a… a little bit of a…
• 59:45
  Phil: like, Monster Theme, I don't know what Record Journey is, but Halloween Boy and Jeff and Lucky Devils all sound a little,
• 59:53
  Phil: Potentially Halloween Monster themed.
• 59:56
  Phil: Turn my way off.
• 59:57
  McLovin: Does that sound? That doesn't sound right. Is that what I picked? Oh, I don't.
• 1:00:01
  Phil: Yeah, it says, Halloween Boy, Last of the Halloween Boys, It's Jeff, Brand New Week, Lucky Devils, and Record Journey.
• 1:00:07
  McLovin: Alright, alright.
• 1:00:08
  Phil: Oh, I know, that's final word cutoff, never mind, hold on, hold on, what am I?
• 1:00:11
  McLovin: I'm like, I was, like, listening to you, I'm like, well, okay, if you.
• 1:00:15
  McLovin: No.
• 1:00:15
  Phil: Okay, you've got, Zatanna.
• 1:00:18
  McLovin: There you go.
• 1:00:18
  Phil: Swamp Thing, and Final Boss. Interesting.
• 1:00:23
  Phil: Yeah, I'm… I'm… I mean, it's funny, because the Tana and Jubilee, I feel like, go together, but then Swamp Thing and Final Boss, what was, what was the theme there?
• 1:00:31
  McLovin: Okay, so it was… since we're doing a walk with Phil, and we're baseball-themed.
• 1:00:37
  McLovin: These are heavy hitters.
• 1:00:38
  Phil: Oh, nice.
• 1:00:41
  McLovin: These are… So does that mean it's.
• 1:00:43
  Phil: If we, if we give you a segment, do we want foul balls with Tyler?
• 1:00:47
  McLovin: That one sounds like it needs to be something that kind of missed a little bit, right?
• 1:00:52
  Phil: Right.
• 1:00:54
  Phil: I don't know.
• 1:00:54
  McLovin: Not at all. Things that were not right on. It was a little bit off.
• 1:00:58
  Phil: I mean, I feel like, I feel like you could put sex criminals in foul balls, but, like, it's actually good.
• 1:01:03
  McLovin: It's actually… Good, yeah.
• 1:01:04
  Phil: That's actually good. No, no, no, I promise you guys.
• 1:01:07
  McLovin: Yup.
• 1:01:07
  Phil: But yeah, no, I've just been… I… the past two weeks, I've been… I've been overwhelmed more… more days than not. You know, I… I am, trying to start looking for
• 1:01:20
  Phil: for a new job, my wife and I are moving in November, at least our lease is up in November, and we're most likely moving to a different city. right now, we're looking… yeah, we're looking at,
• 1:01:32
  Phil: Cincinnati, opened up.
• 1:01:35
  McLovin: Bio!
• 1:01:36
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, that should be, you know, we like it there, the few times we've been, and, like, the weird thing is of…
• 1:01:44
  Phil: anytime we go anywhere, my wife always asks people, how do you like living here? How do you like living here? Like, when we went to Denver, and in Denver, it was weird, like, every single person was like, I don't really like the city, I like… I like outside the city, but it's a little more expensive.
• 1:01:57
  Phil: Cincinnati's the only place that we've had multiple people say, I love it here.
• 1:02:01
  Phil: you know, like, ringing endorsements of, this is great, even someone who's like, I grew up, like, 3 blocks from here, and have lived here my whole life, and even though I'm planning to move away, it's gonna be real hard, you know? So I'm like, damn, okay, so… people love Cincinnati, so… and the job market should be great for graphic design, because that's what my wife does, so…
• 1:02:20
  Phil: You know.
• 1:02:20
  McLovin: Great.
• 1:02:21
  Phil: And then, yeah, and then just, just, you know, I gotta say, Tad, I really loved, your, moment early, talking about what kind of week has it been, pointing out that, like, everybody's small kindnesses slowly adds up, you know, and, and pointed out that, like, even if you don't think…
• 1:02:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's not even slowly, it's accumulating.
• 1:02:42
  McLovin: Good jugs, man, yo.
• 1:02:43
  Phil: No.
• 1:02:44
  McLovin: So, Phil, I know you're stressed, and I know you've got a lot.
• 1:02:47
  Phil: Complete.
• 1:02:48
  McLovin: So… Hang in there.
• 1:02:52
  Phil: Thank you.
• 1:02:52
  McLovin: It'll get better.
• 1:02:53
  Phil: Trying, trying, yeah, right?
• 1:02:55
  McLovin: Because, look, here's my best advice. Yeah. Put a… put a smile on your face.
• 1:03:01
  Phil: Yo, you told me to smile through it.
• 1:03:04
  McLovin: It'll work.
• 1:03:05
  Phil: Yeah, okay.
• 1:03:06
  McLovin: Fake it till you make it, brother.
• 1:03:09
  Phil: There we go. Also…
• 1:03:11
  McLovin: Also, clonazepam helps me.
• 1:03:14
  Phil: Okay, okay.
• 1:03:16
  McLovin: Maybe a little bit of.
• 1:03:18
  Phil: Maybe a little too much?
• 1:03:22
  McLovin: Clonazepam and marijuana.
• 1:03:25
  Phil: There we go.
• 1:03:26
  McLovin: Peanut butter and jelly.
• 1:03:28
  Phil: Talk about let the good times roll.
• 1:03:31
  Phil: But yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm glad to see you've picked up One Piece again.
• 1:03:38
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, this week was becalmed.
• 1:03:40
  Phil: I see, but since I've been gone, you know…
• 1:03:43
  McLovin: Forward, right? There we go.
• 1:03:44
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I've moved a few volumes forward. I thought that started before you.
• 1:03:49
  Phil: You did, it did. Well, it started… it started one, and then I noticed that the number was higher than that, so I'm like, oh, you've read more, you've read more still.
• 1:03:56
  Tad Eggleston: No, I've been doing about a volume a week until this week, so…
• 1:04:00
  Phil: Ow.
• 1:04:00
  Tad Eggleston: This week was… Rough week.
• 1:04:04
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:04:05
  McLovin: I'm gonna grab my water, be right back.
• 1:04:07
  Phil: Alright, is that… Just because we're getting a great response.
• 1:04:09
  Tad Eggleston: responsibility. Tyler's bailing out.
• 1:04:12
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 1:04:13
  Phil: We're diving in.
• 1:04:14
  Tad Eggleston: Have you kept up on your COPRA?
• 1:04:16
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, I… it was… it was a little bit of a…
• 1:04:19
  Tad Eggleston: You'd have to beat your ass if you came back.
• 1:04:21
  Phil: I have to imagine.
• 1:04:22
  Tad Eggleston: iodine copper.
• 1:04:23
  Phil: you would give me a Copra-style beatdown if I was like, oh yeah, I've been on.
• 1:04:26
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you would go from being the Phil with no name to…
• 1:04:31
  Phil: The paste with no name?
• 1:04:33
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah…
• 1:04:35
  Phil: The, the… the indiscernible smudge in… in the side of the wall.
• 1:04:41
  Tad Eggleston: The beard with no name.
• 1:04:42
  Phil: There we go. Me?
• 1:04:45
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, I was just telling, because as we move on to Great Responsibility, and Copra, I was making certain that Tyler, or Phil, was up to date, because if he'd fallen behind, just because he was on the show, we were gonna.
• 1:04:58
  Phil: Right?
• 1:04:58
  Tad Eggleston: Demote him even further, from the fill with no name.
• 1:05:02
  Tad Eggleston: To the beard with no name.
• 1:05:04
  McLovin: There we go. Oh, yep. Even…
• 1:05:06
  Phil: Even my title doesn't have a name, you know? He's just gonna be the awkward pause.
• 1:05:11
  McLovin: Have the awkward pause. That should be your supervillain name?
• 1:05:17
  Phil: Oh, yeah.
• 1:05:17
  McLovin: Awkward pause! Hey, guys.
• 1:05:21
  Phil: There's, like, there's just, like, a blank panel before… before I show up anywhere, you know?
• 1:05:25
  McLovin: I was like… Hey guys, and then it's just like, it's so low-key, you're just like, hey guys.
• 1:05:30
  Phil: Yep. Just kind of… one of those… one of those creepy kind of villains that… that doesn't really fight, but, you know, if he could just be the mysterious person at the end of every issue, that's… that's… that's the… that's the sweet gig in comics world, you know? But no, I… I have kept up, my thoughts…
• 1:05:47
  Phil: Leading off at this point is, like.
• 1:05:50
  Phil: you know, how far this series has come from humble beginnings as, like, a weird revenge squad. It has somehow dialed up both the weirdness and the revenge in incredible ways.
• 1:06:04
  Tad Eggleston: No, because, I mean, you don't put together a weird revenge squad without, like… and this is one of the things that I like that it's exploring, you know. This volume gets deep into some of the questionable-type things that happen when…
• 1:06:18
  Tad Eggleston: when, like… Covert government agencies are decided
• 1:06:25
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. To be used for various things, as they… You know…
• 1:06:32
  Tad Eggleston: help regain the… the… the country of the Doctor Doom-like character who was a member of…
• 1:06:40
  Tad Eggleston: Copra as well, only to have some of them go, oh, wait a minute, is he actually a good ruler? Right. Were these people better without him?
• 1:06:50
  Phil: Oh…
• 1:06:51
  Tad Eggleston: What have we done?
• 1:06:52
  Phil: Oh… Yeah, it's also got me thinking about, like.
• 1:06:57
  Phil: how the hell is this story gonna end? Because it's just been such, like, a bonkers…
• 1:07:04
  Phil: you know, like, I'm thinking about how, between the weeks I missed.
• 1:07:10
  Phil: where Volume 3 starts out with, like, you know, Lloyd chasing down… I'm blanking on his name, but the guy who killed his kid, and then it's like the end of Volume 4 ends with them picking up that same chase, you know? So it's like… it's like so much of it is… is kind of moment-to-moment.
• 1:07:28
  Phil: Just stringing together these, these acts of strangeness and violence, but, it's, it's also very clearly, you know, building to something, because it's, it's, you know.
• 1:07:38
  Phil: it's a… it's a veritable epic at this point, you know? The way that it has, like.
• 1:07:46
  Phil: an overall focus of looking at, hey, there's no minor characters, there's no… there's no bit players, even the people who, you know, look like, hey, this is just a dude that looks like Kraven, you know, is… is gonna have something… some significance there.
• 1:08:03
  McLovin: Bill, did you read Astro City ever?
• 1:08:05
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, I've read most, but not all, of Asterisk.
• 1:08:09
  McLovin: Okay, so what Astro City really excels on is exploring some of those characters that you think is minor, right?
• 1:08:16
  Phil: Oh, yeah.
• 1:08:16
  McLovin: and all of a sudden, you've got a whole run of just… whatever, right? That… whatever character. This hasn't done that yet, but I could see that kind of thing, where it's like, you said, there's no small characters, and it feels… it feels large. I mean, Astro City felt huge right from the.
• 1:08:34
  Phil: Oh, yeah.
• 1:08:35
  McLovin: You know what I mean?
• 1:08:36
  Phil: But… but… and that was the thing that Astro City does well, is that, you know, it starts out with that… that big top-up, okay, you're literally following the Superman of this world, and then… and then starts honing in, and you find all those different.
• 1:08:49
  McLovin: Wrong level.
• 1:08:50
  Phil: Yep. Yeah, yeah, whereas this one definitely felt like, okay, you started at that ground level, and then you… you went up, and now it's kind of like.
• 1:08:58
  Phil: A giant swirling,
• 1:09:01
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 1:09:01
  Phil: It's like watching the fallout from a disaster, but played out, like.
• 1:09:07
  Phil: It's… it's a really good point, because, like, I'm thinking of, of, you know, the… the original,
• 1:09:16
  Phil: I was gonna say dichotomy, but, like, the dichotomy between character-driven stories and world-building-type stories that you guys have talked about a lot. Yeah. And this really feels like almost an exact midpoint.
• 1:09:28
  Phil: Because, like, Every character is used to build out the world, you know?
• 1:09:37
  McLovin: Agreed. So, again, yeah, going back to Astro City, I felt like that too, you know what I mean? Yeah. You look at, like, something that has a lot of characters, like.
• 1:09:48
  McLovin: Spawn. It's kind of the opposite. Spawn is the main character for 20 years, and then since then, they've tried to branch out, but nobody cares, because…
• 1:09:58
  McLovin: It's always been Spawn, Spawn.
• 1:10:00
  Phil: Rosenberg cares.
• 1:10:01
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 1:10:02
  Tad Eggleston: I, I've been digging the, the,
• 1:10:07
  Tad Eggleston: Jimmy Palmiati's writing the… the… Tales of the Gunslinger spawn?
• 1:10:12
  McLovin: It's good, yeah. That is good. I like the medieval spawn, that was, it's not con… is it coming out now? Probably not, but it was good.
• 1:10:21
  Phil: I thought so. Did, did Liam Sharp do Medieval Spawn? Am I… Misremembering that?
• 1:10:27
  Tad Eggleston: Know if he's done any… Spawn…
• 1:10:33
  Phil: Talk about Spawn at a time like this.
• 1:10:35
  McLovin: I don't know. Okay, back to what we were talking about, Copra. Right. Okay, so what I liked about, Volume 5, right, was we're bringing back members who were lost, and bringing them all back, and they make their way back to Earth.
• 1:10:50
  McLovin: And then we have a conflict between COPRA and their replacements, right? I mean, team…
• 1:11:00
  Phil: Who's the real co-pro?
• 1:11:02
  McLovin: Yeah, Team X, yeah, it was cool. I… every volume, or every round, excuse me, feels like.
• 1:11:09
  Tad Eggleston: No, you're right, Spawn Dark Ages was Liam Sharp, sorry, I had to…
• 1:11:14
  Phil: You know, it was one of those things where I'm like, I thought I saw this. Was it a dream?
• 1:11:20
  Tad Eggleston: Not quite.
• 1:11:22
  McLovin: No.
• 1:11:25
  Phil: I am.
• 1:11:26
  McLovin: every volume, or round as they call it, feels… okay. They feel independent, as far as, like, oh, we're going this way now.
• 1:11:36
  McLovin: But at the same time, it's definitely not independent.
• 1:11:40
  Phil: Right.
• 1:11:40
  McLovin: But each round is very distinctive in the style and the way that they tell the story. Like, not style so much, but more so, like…
• 1:11:50
  Phil: I think he's conscious of, like.
• 1:11:53
  Phil: both the individual issues, because every… every individual issue feels like a packed unit of… of theme and character and story, and then… There you go.
• 1:12:02
  McLovin: Packed unit, that's a good way of putting it for the rounds that I'm talking about.
• 1:12:05
  Phil: Yeah, yeah, and, well, and then… and then it builds to, then, the whole round, because I remember it's like, I think it was Volume 3 was following
• 1:12:13
  Phil: like, each issue was just a focus on one character for a bit, you know? And so now that it's… it's like…
• 1:12:20
  Phil: But it didn't keep up until, you know, I could imagine other people being like, oh, you know, halfway through Volume 4, it then stops doing that. But he didn't, you know, he just ended it with Volume 3 at that point. So, like, I think… I think, you know, and that's what makes me think that, okay, there's gotta be some kind of…
• 1:12:36
  Phil: master plan to this, in… in that, okay, it's… it feels like…
• 1:12:41
  Phil: it's too structured for him to not know where he's going. And if he indeed didn't know where he's gonna go… where he was going, then it's like… huge round of applause, because that sounds…
• 1:12:52
  McLovin: Have you finished this before? I've never.
• 1:12:53
  Phil: I've ridden.
• 1:12:54
  McLovin: Okay.
• 1:12:55
  Phil: No.
• 1:12:55
  McLovin: So we're…
• 1:12:56
  Phil: This is the newest volume for me, I'd only read through Volume.
• 1:12:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, this is… this is… yeah, I think I'd only gone through 3 previously, so yeah.
• 1:13:04
  Tad Eggleston: We're, we're into new territory for me.
• 1:13:07
  McLovin: Okay, and I've never read any of it, so this is really fun. Michael Fyfe, for those that don't under… don't know, understand, don't know, he… he's got this…
• 1:13:17
  Tad Eggleston: FIFA.
• 1:13:18
  McLovin: FIFA? Really?
• 1:13:19
  Phil: Yes.
• 1:13:20
  Tad Eggleston: I'm actually at the Cobra FAQ right now, and it starts with, how do you pronounce it? Your last name, too. Copra rhymes with Cobra.
• 1:13:30
  Tad Eggleston: FIFA. FIFA.
• 1:13:34
  McLovin: You know, I, I believe it's kind of,
• 1:13:40
  McLovin: it's all him, right? From writing to the whole aesthetic of the whole book, right? It feels…
• 1:13:49
  Phil: It's a one-man show?
• 1:13:50
  McLovin: It feels loose, but it's not.
• 1:13:52
  Phil: Yeah. You know what I mean?
• 1:13:54
  McLovin: As far as the artwork, as far…
• 1:13:57
  Phil: It has that, like, Kirby energy.
• 1:13:59
  McLovin: Yeah, it's very DIY aesthetic to it, like, you just found it at a flea market, and somebody's like, here, read my comic book.
• 1:14:06
  Phil: Right.
• 1:14:07
  McLovin: But it's not. It's…
• 1:14:08
  Phil: Oh, it's so good, too, because, like, the way he keeps using new techniques and, and, like.
• 1:14:18
  Phil: Different panel breakdowns, and like…
• 1:14:22
  Phil: different expressions of minimalism. Like, it never feels stale at any moment. It's always, like, a fresh, new, exciting adventure, every… every page. Seriously, it's like, the… the art is… is…
• 1:14:38
  Phil: Oh, he… I feel like his art is perfect for comics.
• 1:14:42
  Phil: And especially the way he's been doing it, and, you know, it's one of those things where, like, now that it's over, it makes me wonder what he's gonna do next, and also thinking, like, okay.
• 1:14:52
  Phil: what had he done before this? Like… You know,
• 1:14:58
  Phil: What… what kind of work was… did he do,
• 1:15:02
  Phil: you know, because this doesn't feel like his first time. It's not his first rodeo. I'm sure he's done other books before Cobra.
• 1:15:09
  Phil: You know, but it makes me very interested.
• 1:15:11
  McLovin: It feels like, as I look at the different artwork from the different
• 1:15:16
  McLovin: things. It feels like you're reading some kind of, zine where people all contributed to the…
• 1:15:23
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:15:24
  McLovin: To the production of it, but it's all the same guy.
• 1:15:27
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:15:27
  McLovin: It definitely has that vibe, especially on pages that, are partially colored, but partially not, and they're super busy with action. You're just like, oh my goodness, what is happening?
• 1:15:40
  Phil: Totally, yeah.
• 1:15:41
  McLovin: But yeah, I… I'm really loving Copra, you guys. How many… how far does this go? Like, how much left do we have?
• 1:15:47
  Tad Eggleston: it's 8.
• 1:15:48
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  McLovin: Okay.
• 1:15:49
  Phil: 8 or 9… let me check real quick, because I just had it pulled up.
• 1:15:56
  McLovin: Because I'm gonna be honest, I haven't looked up anything beyond what we're reading for that week, so I'm like, oh, round 5, okay, here we go, you know. Right.
• 1:16:06
  Phil: Yeah, it's… I think it is just 8, if this is indeed… it looks like the last one.
• 1:16:11
  Phil: Right here. But, but yeah.
• 1:16:14
  Phil: I did know it, and it… it recent… relatively recently ended.
• 1:16:21
  McLovin: Okay.
• 1:16:22
  Phil: So yeah.
• 1:16:22
  McLovin: Well, let's keep rolling along, guys. I, would like to be done in about 20 minutes.
• 1:16:29
  Tad Eggleston: Not allowed.
• 1:16:31
  McLovin: to move on… to move on with my things for the day.
• 1:16:34
  Tad Eggleston: Just… just because you said that, I have decided that… We're gonna talk for… about…
• 1:16:44
  Tad Eggleston: 50 or 60 more days.
• 1:16:46
  McLovin: You could do it. I'm not gonna lie. You… you have the gift.
• 1:16:52
  Phil: Gift of the gale.
• 1:16:53
  McLovin: Tad, what are 3 books you hope will be spectacular?
• 1:16:59
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, you mean I have to go away from my… my…
• 1:17:03
  McLovin: I'll read them for you.
• 1:17:04
  Tad Eggleston: a website.
• 1:17:05
  McLovin: Michael Fifa, you're looking up Michael.
• 1:17:08
  Tad Eggleston: rabbit hole that I was on, and come back to our rundown.
• 1:17:12
  Tad Eggleston: I suppose I can do that. It was a weird week, where, like, two of my three titles are really well-known books, but…
• 1:17:19
  McLovin: True! I'm looking at them going, dude, Marvel and DC? What the hell? That's not you.
• 1:17:24
  Tad Eggleston: Not just Marvel and DC, Daredevil and Batman.
• 1:17:27
  Phil: Well, I mean, that's a heck of a double feature, you know, they go together like, chocolate.
• 1:17:32
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, Dog Tag No. 1 from Mark Russell and P.J. Holden is in my top spot. Daredevil number 2 from Stephanie Phillips and Lee Garbett is in my second spot. The first issue was really good, I wanna see how it goes. Batman number 9 from Matt Fraction and Ryan Sook.
• 1:17:49
  Tad Eggleston: is doing a fill-in issue. That's gonna be helpful. Ryan Sook does fantastic work. Yeah.
• 1:17:55
  Tad Eggleston: So, yeah, looking forward to that. I already know that Hank Howard, Pizza Detective, and If Destruction Be Our Lot are… spectacular.
• 1:18:04
  Tad Eggleston: We got some dye loaded, collected this week, and Violet Kitchen's Crawl Space.
• 1:18:11
  Phil: Mmm. Graphic.
• 1:18:11
  Tad Eggleston: novel, as well as Joanna Mosey's Physical Education.
• 1:18:15
  Tad Eggleston: Coming out this week. So, phil, what's your…
• 1:18:20
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, oh, I don't even need… I know. That's okay. This is so obvious.
• 1:18:26
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:18:26
  McLovin: It's not even fun.
• 1:18:28
  Phil: That's an easy one.
• 1:18:28
  Tad Eggleston: It's so obvious, it's not… Particularly… see, I have a problem, though.
• 1:18:33
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:18:35
  Tad Eggleston: Phil's all-new giant-sized trade waiter slash graphic novel pick. Did you wait for the trade?
• 1:18:42
  Phil: I couldn't!
• 1:18:43
  Phil: And I'm…
• 1:18:44
  Tad Eggleston: This is what I'm telling you that if.
• 1:18:45
  Phil: if you.
• 1:18:45
  Tad Eggleston: So, it was not a trade waiter book for you?
• 1:18:49
  Phil: You know, here's one, I will…
• 1:18:52
  Tad Eggleston: See, this is why we have the fill with no name. Not only do you bail on us for two weeks, you're constantly breaking the rules.
• 1:19:00
  Phil: Ivy, this is… I thought we had no rules.
• 1:19:03
  McLovin: Heh.
• 1:19:03
  Phil: This is the podcast with nobody.
• 1:19:05
  McLovin: God damn it, Phil. Have you learned nothing? There's so many rules.
• 1:19:10
  Phil: I know.
• 1:19:11
  Tad Eggleston: Rule number one is the low man on the totem pole gets beat up on a regular basis, verbally.
• 1:19:18
  McLovin: Wait, wait.
• 1:19:19
  Phil: We're used to this.
• 1:19:20
  McLovin: I… I always lately have thought of myself as the low man because of my unavailability, but…
• 1:19:26
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, you're still the top man on the totem pole. This never would have happened without you.
• 1:19:31
  Tad Eggleston: Like an angel on top of the tree.
• 1:19:33
  Phil: Here we… Wow.
• 1:19:35
  McLovin: No.
• 1:19:35
  Phil: Just a… just a glowing, glowing baldness and flowing beard, you know? A beard that turns into robes.
• 1:19:42
  Phil: and Angelic Baldness, but no, this is where I feel the need to call out the collection you're looking forward to that I haven't read, that would be a great trade waiter pick is Galaxy of Madness omnibus from Magdalene Visaggio, Michael Avon Oving, and Victor Santos over in Mad Cave. That sounds really awesome, but the one I put down was definitely Die Loaded Volume 1, you know, the book that I talk about every chance I get, because
• 1:20:05
  Phil: It's more of, if you haven't read this, if you have waited for the trade, then now…
• 1:20:10
  Tad Eggleston: But you are a trade waiter. You turned it into, if you are a trade waiter, rather than, I am a trade waiter.
• 1:20:16
  Phil: Well, and that is because, unfortunately, you know, I know that, I know that it's the trade waiter pick, but I'm not… I'm not much of a trade waiter, unless it's from the library, you know? So, like…
• 1:20:27
  Phil: Although, at the same time, you know, it's…
• 1:20:30
  Tad Eggleston: You are… you are a lot of a trade waiter, because, like, you get.
• 1:20:33
  Phil: Yeah, there's some stuff that I do.
• 1:20:35
  Tad Eggleston: books a month.
• 1:20:36
  Phil: Yeah, that's true.
• 1:20:37
  Tad Eggleston: Everything else you read and trade from the library.
• 1:20:40
  Phil: That's the definition of a trade writer. It's just hard to see myself that way, you know? I'm living… I'm living in the.
• 1:20:48
  Tad Eggleston: You don't even read half of the advanced PDFs that I send your direction.
• 1:20:54
  Phil: I know, I know, I need to.
• 1:20:57
  McLovin: No, Phil, you're… you and I are in the same boat. We don't have time to do all that.
• 1:21:01
  Phil: Life is too crazy. I wish I had a job where I could read on the job.
• 1:21:05
  McLovin: I'm becoming much more of a trade waiter, and, honestly, I'm enjoying it. It feels less stressful.
• 1:21:12
  Tad Eggleston: trying to slide more that way? I mean…
• 1:21:15
  Phil: I… here's the thing, it… I…
• 1:21:18
  Phil: I guess the reason why I struggle to fully identify as a trade waiter is because I don't ever want to fully give up on single issues. Like, single issues, I love them so much. Correct.
• 1:21:28
  McLovin: I agree, man.
• 1:21:29
  Phil: month space, you know, having a… even if it's, like, a tiny stack of two or three little pieces of story to read at a time, it's… it's so nice. It's so nice. So that's… that's why… that's why I struggle with it, but,
• 1:21:42
  Phil: But yeah.
• 1:21:43
  McLovin: for… for me, I grab… I don't enjoy reading digitally very often, so if I could just grab a trade, because I don't really care about the condition of a trade.
• 1:21:54
  McLovin: So, I will throw it in my bag or backpack.
• 1:21:57
  McLovin: to go read. Whereas my issues, you know, I've got them in bags and boards, and I gotta put them in a box, and then it can go in my backpack, and then…
• 1:22:06
  Phil: You can put a whole long box or short box in your backpack? That's kind of.
• 1:22:09
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, no, no. No, carrier boxes.
• 1:22:12
  McLovin: Carrier box, yeah, like, Chad probably got one. Yes, one of those.
• 1:22:15
  Phil: Okay, that's pretty cool, actually.
• 1:22:17
  Phil: Yeah.
• 1:22:18
  Tad Eggleston: I have them in… I have them in magazine size, too, because of all the…
• 1:22:22
  McLovin: the bigger.
• 1:22:22
  Tad Eggleston: the…
• 1:22:24
  Phil: Especially lately.
• 1:22:25
  Tad Eggleston: like this.
• 1:22:26
  Phil: Right?
• 1:22:27
  Phil: Ho ho!
• 1:22:29
  Phil: I remember I read… I should read that at some point, because I read The Humans back in the day.
• 1:22:33
  Phil: Tad held up a copy of The Jungle.
• 1:22:36
  Tad Eggleston: Good.
• 1:22:36
  McLovin: jungle.
• 1:22:37
  Phil: Continuation of the humans.
• 1:22:39
  McLovin: But yeah, so trades, have been easier for me to get reading done, because I can… I bring it more places.
• 1:22:47
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is why I do so much more digital, too.
• 1:22:51
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 1:22:52
  Tad Eggleston: Because then I just have to carry my tablet places.
• 1:22:55
  McLovin: Yeah.
• 1:22:57
  McLovin: Alright guys, this has been fun, but I'm gonna go eat something.
• 1:23:02
  Phil: Sounds like a plan.
• 1:23:03
  McLovin: And, yeah, we'll, catch you guys after the next page. See ya!