Transcript
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Speaker: bound to all Rocket Ajax to bring back his body. Terminate! Go!
Speaker: Hello everybody and welcome to War Rocket Ajax, the internet's most explosive comic book and pop culture podcast. My name is Matt Wilson and with me this week is guest host Benito Serino. Benito, welcome.
Speaker: Thanks Matt, I'm glad to be here. I'm very excited to ring some swords.
Speaker: ah Unfortunately, we are not raking swords on this show this week. Matt, we i I did so much research into Skofnung, the greatest play ever in the Northern Lands, and ah Brain Biter, the legendary sword of Heroward the Wake.
Speaker: And you're telling me I can't talk about those on this podcast? Yeah. We do have checks and recs coming up. um if that wants to be If you want that to be your check about how you read up on some swords, you can do that. Yeah, my rec is I recommend you let me talk about swords on this podcast.
Speaker: But we do have a guest on this week's show. We are going to be talking to Jeremy Whitley a little bit later in the show about ah his upcoming Zoop podcast.
Speaker: crowdfunding project, which is coming up very quickly. i believe it was starting on February 3rd. is for two first issues. ah One is for a book called Slay, and the other one is for a book called The Girlfriend Survives. They both sound very cool. But the trick is, it's one book.
Speaker: it is It is two first issues in one book. That's right. It's two and one at the same time, like a magic trick. Yeah, it's it's um what happens when two become one, like in that Spice Girls song.
Speaker: Yeah, and in the the movie Together, featuring Dave Franco and Alison Brink. Yes, and that was a reference to a horror film, and we're going to be talking about a lot of horror.
Speaker: in our interview with Jeremy coming up. ah Because at least Slay is is certainly horror-adjacent. It's a horror-Western kind of story. And then The Girlfriend Survives is a send-up, if you will, a satire of ah some superhero tropes. But but but both share a bit of a bloody palette So that's what those books have in common. We'll talk about that a little bit later when we talk to Jeremy.
Speaker: ah But first, Benito, before we get into our interview with Jeremy, I do have to discuss our Patreon, our War Rocket Ajax Patreon.
Speaker: Okay. Would these be the people who went on down to 754 Gimmick Street and then a bunch of other bullshit that Chris says? Yes. These are the people who went on down to seven 54 gimmick street, which is the home of the bow Berry biscuit, Sullivan Sims Memorial dog park.
Speaker: Uh, uh, if you were wondering why Chris isn't on the show this week, uh, that is why. um and I'm sure Chris will have more to say about it when he's back.
Speaker: Uh, next week or whenever that may be, I don't quite know how long Chris is going to take, but, but he and AC did lose biscuit this week.
Speaker: In fact, the day we were recording this, um it happened. Yeah. And we ah are very sorry for both Chris and ac We feel very bad for them. And,
Speaker: I've expressed that we'll do whatever they need and and help them in any way we can. 2026 has been a succession of rough ones for J. Sims.
Speaker: january Just January has been a terrible year. um and so ah We are putting at 754 Gimmick Street the Bowberry Biscuit Sullivan Sims...
Speaker: Memorial Dog Park. that is That is what's there. I do not have any new names to read out as Patreon backers on the show this week, but we do currently have... Let me let me find the number of paid Patreon supporters that we currently have.
Speaker: It is 432.4. ah four hundred and thirty two paid Patreon supporters. There are 596 total. um So that is 164 free subscribers to our Patreon. i want to be I want to stress there is nothing available at the free tier.
Speaker: Yeah. there's it's just people They just want to feel like they're part of something, Matt. I i guess so, but if you subscribe at $1 month, $1 a month, one dollar a month you get ad-free feed of this show, the weekly War Rocket Ajax show, every story ever, comics catch up, and eventually, if we ever do them again, movie fighters and snack situations. so I would say that's worth a dollar a month compared to nothing, just to get that. like That...
Speaker: Again, that is all you have to toss in to get that free feed. Or not free feed. That $1 feed of ad-free episodes of all of those shows. i think that's pretty good. As Robocop famously said, I would give you $1 for that.
Speaker: Yep, that is the perfect and exact line from Robocop. That Robocop says. Yeah. He's always going around paying people a dollar.
Speaker: That's why he's better than regular police. That's true. um He's got that special compartment in his leg that holds dollar. That's just full of singles, yeah. Yeah. ah But at the $1 level...
Speaker: ad-free episodes of the show, and you support us here on War Rocket Ajax in the Kaleidos Media family of podcasts. And you help us keep paying those bills. Nope. Fuck.
Speaker: Chris does this and I don't. Keep paying those gimmicks. They keep sending in the mail call bills. um And then you could subscribe, be a patron at other levels and get other stuff. You could be a patron at the $5 level to get bonus audio and bonus content. That's stuff that Chris and I have recorded over the years for Patreon, as well as stuff we've written and put on Patreon.
Speaker: There's a pretty decent backlog of bonus content on Patreon. That um is absolutely worth checking out. um And soon, whenever Chris is back, um we are going to do some bonus content with some Gordy categories that we didn't get to during the Gordy Awards.
Speaker: ah So the only place that you'll be able to hear that is at the bonus content level of our Patreon. At the $10 level, you can get...
Speaker: Line stepping privileges for our segments, which currently include every story ever and one to 10 of swords, which is, we're not doing on this episode. Sorry, Bonito. At the $15 level,
Speaker: you get to join the Gimmick Street Preservation Society. And you get to name what is at an address on Gimmick Street.
Speaker: We named what was at 754 Gimmick Street this week. But if you were in the Gimmick Street Preservation Society at the $15 level, you get to just say, here's what I want to put at Well, you don't get to say which address it's on. It's just luck of the draw as far as that goes. But you could get to name what was at 755 Gimmick Street because we don't currently have any Gimmick Street Preservation Society suggestions in the queue. So if you send one right now, it'll probably be on the show next week.
Speaker: So if you're at the $15 level now or you join at the $15 level, you can you can say Here's what I want to put at 755 or 756 Gimmick Street. So that's at the $15 level. At the $20 level, you can also join the Gimmick Street Preservation Society.
Speaker: You get the bonus audio, and also you get an annual t-shirt. So if any of that sounds good to you, go join the Patreon. If you're unable to help us monetarily, which, look, we understand.
Speaker: We understand why you might have to be at the free level right now. I'm not i'm not trying to shame you about that too much. You can help us out in other ways, though. You can leave us a five-star review on the podcasting app that you use, whatever that may be.
Speaker: Or you could just spread the word about the show, tell your friends and family, get on social media, talk about it, let people know that they should listen to War Rocket Ajax. And then maybe they can back our Patreon.
Speaker: Because ultimately that's what we're in this for.
Speaker: The cash. That's right.
Speaker: Everyone knows podcasting, now that they're an official category on the Golden Globes. Yeah. We all know it's we're all just at the money teat. suck hey Hey, i I don't know if you've seen this but a lot, Benito, but when I watch Jeopardy every day on like regular local terrestrial television, antenna broadcast television, Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker: There are multiple ah advertisements, commercials for podcasts while I watch Jeopardy now, and it's weird. Wow. I usually watch Jeopardy via the live TV streaming app on my television because i can't make the antenna work for some reason, so I'm not getting local ads.
Speaker: It would be very strange to see a podcast add They're almost all for podcasts about sports. Huh. would be like It would be like that time in the 90s when there was the one TV commercial for Ultraverse Comics, and it's the only time comics have ever had a TV commercial.
Speaker: They did do TV commercials for the New 52. Oh. Well, there you go. what What company to be in? Ultraverse and New 52. A couple of initiatives that will live forever in the memory of ah this beloved medium.
Speaker: Benito, now that we have ah talked up the Patreon, let's do some checks and wrecks. What do you say? i you yeah You mean I can chickity-check myself before I wreck myself? That's right.
Speaker: All right, Benito, here's your chance to talk about swords. What would you like to check in with? um Well, I'm not going to... man. All right. It's cold.
Speaker: ah Is the main thing. There's a bunch of snow and ice in the majority of the eastern half of this country. I mostly have been snowed in at my house. like It took me three days to get my car out of the ice hole that it was stuck in.
Speaker: um But I did finally, yesterday, ah get out of the ice hole. so i um i i I hate the idea that like you know American car culture is a disease.
Speaker: But once I got my car out of that ice hole, I was like, I feel like a human again. Yeah, well, I mean, you know would we prefer to not to have to use cars? I think so. But we this is the world as it is. And to go anywhere or do anything, we have to drive them.
Speaker: yeah like i could Where we live, anyway. Yeah, like i couldn't go to I couldn't go to work. I couldn't go to the store. I couldn't go to the pharmacy. you know And it was just like, oh. I would go outside. i would try to drive out of the hole.
Speaker: um It would make a lot of noise. And nothing would happen. And then I would just go back inside. And I'd be like, I guess I'll try again tomorrow. and yeah ah And now they're saying more weather will be happening. Although I think this weather is probably more likely to hit you than me this time.
Speaker: Yeah. and And the weather did not hit me so good or so hard um last time as it did you. so yeah we'll see what happens this time. Yeah. Like last time we recorded, i was like, Oh, we we have to do this because my power go up, might go out because of ice.
Speaker: And, ah and really we basically got nothing. yeah from that previous storm. Very fortunately, we never lost power, ah which is a little surprising because we live in an older neighborhood with a lot, a lot, a lot of trees. and so yeah i mean Our power will go out in a heartbeat.
Speaker: We fine. we we we were fine ah which you know like it's i wouldn't be so worried about it if it wasn't like we have to have it for heat.
Speaker: And it was like 10 degrees. Yeah. That was, yeah, that's the other, that was the issue, right? Cause like the apartment I live in is, is old and we have radiator heat, but like the thermostat that makes the heat beyond requires power.
Speaker: And so if the power goes out, yeah, the heat goes out and it was going to be like single digit, cold. like It's not supposed to get above freezing until like the middle of next week.
Speaker: um so yeah Very fortunate so far. Knocking on wood, etc. um two Two things I want to mention here. yeah One, um very funny that this that Chris isn't on this episode. And we're talking about weather, yeah. And we're talking about weather because he would hate that. He would hate it.
Speaker: Two, um It's the funniest thing to me that um when the ice storm was happening last week... like the national weather service and like, um, federal emergency services were having to avoid say, saying like, watch out for ice. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't want there to be viral photos of, of, you know, yeah road signs that said like ice is dangerous or whatever.
Speaker: Yep. Uh, so, you know, frozen rainwater accumulating on the ground parts. Um, but, uh, Yeah, Chris isn't going to like this. He probably won't like that I said that he says bullshit earlier. um He won't like that part either.
Speaker: um Take care of yourself, Chris. I love you. Yes, we love you very much, Chris, and we're thinking about you and and your family. yeah so yeah i I haven't done anything except try to dig my car out of ice and then eventually dig my car out of ice after three days.
Speaker: Well, I'm glad you got it done. I'm glad it happened. I'm glad you did it. Thanks, bud. Congratulations. what What have you been up to? Well, Benito, I've made ah an effort here in 2026. I didn't quite make a ah resolution to do this, but I sort of made a like a small promise to myself, which I guess that's a resolution.
Speaker: Yeah, it Distinction without a difference, I suppose. Correct. But um I've been trying to read more. I'm going to try to read more in 2026. Oh, yeah, that's a good idea, in my opinion.
Speaker: Yeah, and not just like stuff I have to read for the show or for work. Because like I sort of got into this rut where I was only reading things – well, that's not true. i was doing I was still doing some reading for leisure, but it was basically just Berserk.
Speaker: It was just my ongoing constant berserk reread where I'd just finish it and start it over again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was in a rut where I was doing a lot of like, if there was something I had to read for work, for this show, for something like that, that was what I was reading. And then I was spending the rest of my time just like,
Speaker: Playing video games, watching TV and movies and stuff, and watching YouTube videos and stuff like that. And so this year I was like, I'm going to spend a better chunk or a bigger chunk of my leisure time reading like comics and actual books.
Speaker: Because I realized like I hadn't like sat down and read like a novel and finished it in way too long. Yeah. ah Which I used to do all the time. I used to recommend books on this show all the time.
Speaker: um So I'm doing that now. And so since like the start of January, I've been reading – I finally have sat down and read House of Leaves. I've been reading House of Leaves. Oh, nice. I i think – It'll probably wreck later, so I'm not going to talk about it too much. But just like the act of sitting down and reading for like an hour or an hour and a half before I go to bed... Man, that's nice. It's nice, right?
Speaker: Yeah. yeah It's relaxing in a way that like watching something or playing a video game is not. like If I'm playing a video game before I go to bed, I got all this like like weird energy...
Speaker: That I have to get out before I can go to sleep. But like if I've just been reading a book, I'll just like i'll read the book and then like finish, get to a finishing stopping point, you know put put in my bookmark and like put my book down, turn off the lamp, and then I'm like, I'm ready for sleepy time.
Speaker: Yeah, dude. it's It's nice. Yeah, I feel like so i have a reading I have a reading light that I keep clipped to the the bed frame and stuff. I kind of wish I could do that.
Speaker: Sarah almost always goes to sleep before me, and she does so she doesn't even like the light from my phone. So I know I couldn't get away with having a reading light on, because I would definitely prefer to be sleeping and not looking at my phone when I'm trying to sleep at night.
Speaker: But hey, a suggestion for the newly resolved Gotta Read Them All Matt Wilson. Yeah, that's right. What if you had...
Speaker: A friend who cared about you and knew your tastes and got you some like cool books for recent gift-giving occasions. I mean, you have done that, my friend, and I appreciate that. And you should read those books. is I'm going to. like They're next. they' They're next. Books of the New Sun is like basically the most...
Speaker: a bloodborne thing I could have given you. The most bloodborne coded thing. i i part of the but Part of my resolution to read more is because I have all these books now that I really want to read.
Speaker: yeah um nice not that like I have books like that I haven't read that I want to read. i had that already, but now I have like some that I'm like, I have to read these. like Because I got House of Leaves.
Speaker: like the The mysterious gift givers last year who who like bought a bunch of shit off my yeah Amazon wishlist and it just showed up randomly, a lot of that stuff was books that I had on my Amazon wishlist. And now that I have them, I'm like, I have to read them. Yeah.
Speaker: I have to read like I house of leaves was in there. i have to read that. I have to read those gene wolf books. I have like a bunch of Raymond Chandler books now.
Speaker: Oh, nice. that Like I've read some of those before, but I'd like to read them again. um I've got all of chainsaw man. Like I've got so much stuff. That's like, I got to read this stuff. So when I'm going to try to get, when are we going to start our 20th century boys podcast?
Speaker: Once I read it. yeah it's I think it's you know later on the docket since I got that book later, but yeah but but I'm going to get to it. i'm Also, there's ah there's a lot of 20th century movies. There is. It's a lot longer than ah like Pluto or even Monster.
Speaker: Yeah. it's I was looking for the first volume in bookstores so often that I saw how much of it there is, for sure. Yeah. there's So I got you the... um I think they're called the Perfect Edition, and each of those contains like two of the standard Tonkaban volumes. yeah So there's like I think there's 11 or 12 of them.
Speaker: Well, to compared to Berserk, that's not that bad. No, sure. Yeah. yeah ah Okay. Yeah. I'll get to it. I'm going to get to it soon, I promise. All right. Time for some recommendations. Benito, what would you like to recommend on the show this week?
Speaker: ah Well... ah So I have two micro recommendations first. I don't need to talk about these because these are things people will know. But the best show on TV is back.
Speaker: The Pit. Season 2. On HBO Max. And it ah it's so good. There's like four episodes out? Three or four. um So go watch The Pit. If you haven't watched The Pit.
Speaker: It features so many strange connections to Chucky. That's true it' true. It comes up a lot. on go go Go listen to Fred Cillian to learn about all the Chucky connections in the pit.
Speaker: Yeah, you would' you would think, oh, this Chucky podcast is probably not going to give a lot of information about this highly acclaimed ah real-time medical drama. Well, guess what? Wrong.
Speaker: We contain multitudes, motherfucker. One of those multitudes is the pit. Great show. Also on HBO Max, my second micro-rec is Dunkin' Egg, baby.
Speaker: Night of the Seven Kingdoms. The new show in the Game of Thrones universe. It's got two episodes out so far. It'll be three by the time this episode goes out. But it is so good.
Speaker: Even if you got tired of Game of Thrones, even if you got tired of House of the Dragon, Dunkin' Egg brings the quality. it's It's funny. It's fun.
Speaker: Dunk is maybe the one... genuinely good human in the entire world of Westeros. Even my wife liked likes watching it.
Speaker: And that kid playing Egg, he's got a dome on him. He's got a real egg-like dome. Have you watched it, Matt? No, because I definitely had the like, I'm not going to let Game of Thrones burn me again ah since to it but you're one of multiple people whose taste i trust yeah you can said knight of the seven kingdoms is actually very good it is you can if yeah if you have that kind of game of thrones burnout uh skip house of the dragon but do watch knight the seven kingdoms because it's much simpler um in terms of storytelling like it's a very straightforward
Speaker: It focuses on these characters doing this stuff, and it's not jumping all over the place. There's no dragons in it. All the dragons are dead at this point. It's just about a good dude and a weird kid having fun adventures.
Speaker: um And it's funny. It's very funny. They they really make clear that in the opening minutes of the first episode, they're really making clear that This is not that kind of like lofty, highfalutin stuff about lords.
Speaker: This is about a guy out there sleeping in a ditch um just trying to do some good so he can give his horse an apple. Come on.
Speaker: Anyway, ah so that was that was my second micro-rec. My full rec is for ah the new motion picture by Samuel Ramey. Send help.
Speaker: starring ah Rachel McAdams and some dude, Dylan O'Brien. It's good, Matt. Yeah, I mean, i I imagine so. I haven't seen it.
Speaker: I will probably see it when it is streaming somewhere. It is. but It's difficult to classify genre-wise, right? like it's not It would be very difficult to call it a horror film.
Speaker: But it's going to appeal to horror fans. ah It definitely includes elements of splatter comedy, right? they If you want to see fluids coming out of humans and animals alike, um that is going to happen.
Speaker: Yeah, i mean i I feel like with Raimi in particular, like any movie he makes is going to be a little bit horror. Yeah. like And that includes all three Spider-Man movies that he made. oh sure. Yeah. and like I mean, definitely, definitely Doctor Strange, really. Yeah, and Doctor Strange and, like, Darkman.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah You know, like, Darkman is not a horror movie in genre, but... In practice. Yeah. um I saw somebody describe Send Help as ah like a mashup between Cast Away and Misery.
Speaker: And um that's not too far off. That kind of that kind of gives you the idea. um And yeah, it's... a and In the in the in the fandom...
Speaker: the fan circles of the show survivor, there's a concept of what they call Island hot, which is like each season you try to predict which of the contestants are going to be the one who their time on the Island will make them hot.
Speaker: You know, whether it's just cause they kind of, you know, they take off a little bit of weight or their beard comes in or just because they're walking around in their underpants all the time. Uh,
Speaker: you know, whatever, right? Like who's going to get Island hot. and this that that That is a baffling concept to me. Yeah. Every day like i I haven't watched survivor in a very long time. Uh, since 50 is coming up the second season or something like that. Uh, but season 50, Matt, you've missed 48 seasons. You gotta catch up. Yeah. Um, my mom loves survivor and, uh, talks about it constantly.
Speaker: yeah But my recollection of like survivor is that nobody is hot. Well, I don't know, but the, the premise of this movie, what if Annie Wilkes got Island hot?
Speaker: That's kind of, that's kind of the movie. Okay. um It's very funny. It's very fun. I rec, I recommend it. I know Matt, you'll see it eventually. I will see it eventually, but I do, I do recommend it to you specifically.
Speaker: Okay. Well, I ain't going to miss a Raimi. No, right. but yeah But i i i doubt that I'll be going to to a movie theater to see it. um Largely because um I don't leave the house much lately.
Speaker: Yeah. Because I have a a wife with a broken ankle that I got to look after. But ah but I will see it for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, the the my theater offered it in 3D, and I'm like, all right, slow down.
Speaker: I don't know what that was about. What a novelty. Yeah, but it's like, I mean, I guess, but there's not, I don't, why? I don't know. i Also, the Markiplier movie was in theaters this weekend, and I was like, I guess I'm going to see the Sam Raimi, but boy, I had to stop myself.
Speaker: from going to see Markiplier's venture into feature filmmaking, adapting independent horror video games, I guess, or whatever it is. Yeah, it's... Video horror video game YouTuber Markiplier made a movie. yeah's I've heard the movie is pretty good, and also, as guys whose job is to pretend to be scared at video games, Markiplier seems like a genuinely good person, so like I'm not going to begrudge him the success if this movie is actually good.
Speaker: I just wanted to make a goof about it.
Speaker: All right, Matt, what what do you think that other people should do on your recommendation? My recommendation, Benito, is we're we're really going hard for the stuff that's available on Homebox Office Maximum.
Speaker: yeah um I'm recommending a movie that like I didn't really have any interest at all in seeing. ah when I heard about it. Well, that's not true. I figured I would probably eventually watch it, but I didn't know ah when or how I didn't, i I wasn't exactly going to go out of my way for it. Sure. Because i did kind of have a sense that it was going to be maybe corny, maybe feel like a cash maybe just a bunch of celebrity cameos and,
Speaker: couldn't possibly as funny be as funny as the original, and that is Spinal Tap 2. oh The end continues. I was like, what movie is he talking about? i yeah i was like, Happy Gilmore 2 is not on HBO.
Speaker: It's on Netflix, that's right. um But I haven't seen Happy Gilmore 2. It is a thing that you said. Yeah, that's right. i i And I had a thought that like maybe Spinal Tap 2 would be that as well.
Speaker: But because of recent tragic events, I was like, well, fuck, I'll watch it. let's Let's see what it has in store.
Speaker: and Because it was on HBO Max. And I watched the original Spinal Tap 2 almost exactly the same time. Is Spinal Tap 2 as good as the original Spider Tap? No, not even close. Like...
Speaker: You cannot capture that lightning in a bottle again. But... Spinal Tap 2 is surprisingly good. Like, shockingly good. Like, Rob Reiner still had it.
Speaker: Like, it is now his last movie. And... Like, I... You know, he had his string of, like... Basically perfect movies.
Speaker: Yeah. In the eighty s and 90s. And... and like I don't know that if you can ever recreate that. um And then he had some some movies that didn't do as well in later years.
Speaker: um but But Spinal Tap 2, I think, really proves that he could still ah find that magic. Because it does it have some of those celebrity cameos and stuff? Absolutely, yes. like Paul McCartney's in it.
Speaker: Elton John is in it. Even though their roles are more than cameos, they're they're like actual roles in the movie ah to a degree. um And then there's some other like celebrities who pop up and that kind of stuff. But it's it's not that like ah sort of cringey...
Speaker: they so They pop up, they say like a canned line, and then they disappear. Right, yeah. know um it's it's It's more thought out than that. It's more thoughtful than that.
Speaker: the The characters of Nigel Tufnell, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls are like explored and and thoughtfully like brought to the film and like You end up really feeling for these guys 40-some years after the original movie.
Speaker: um It's got like the heart to it that I think is the component that so many of those like let's cash in and return to a franchise projects almost never have. I was just like very, very pleasantly surprised to...
Speaker: watch Spinal Tap 2 and have enjoyed it. So if you were thinking what I was thinking and saying like, I don't know, I think it might be corny and bad.
Speaker: um Spinal Tap 2 really surprised me with how good it ended up being. So I would recommend checking it out on HBO Max if you can. Nice. All right, Benito, with that, those are our Checks and Recs.
Speaker: which means it's time to talk about some of the comics that came out this week. What do you say?
Speaker: First up, Benito, let's talk about Wrestle Heist No. 2 by our friend, Kyle Starks. The franchise. stars the franchise Three-time Eisner-nominated creator, Kyle Starks. like Look, there ain't that much to say about this book. like If you're listening to this show and you're not reading Wrestle Heist, I don't know what you're doing.
Speaker: like yeah yeah read Read the comic. it's ah It's a comic about plans for a heist at ah essentially WrestleMania. Yeah, the audience for this show is the audience for this comic.
Speaker: like it's It's the perfect one-to-one Venn diagram overlap. ah But just briefly, issue two is about recruiting a luchador and his son to participate in the in the heist.
Speaker: And like it's ah it's all like to get back at this evil wrestling promoter um who is Vince McMahon, even though he looks like Paul Heyman.
Speaker: And the whole reason that the luchador hates this this promoter is because he got stuck with a gimmick where he was a wrestling baby. Yeah, El Baby Fuerte. Yeah. ah Excellent. Incredible. Amazing.
Speaker: i do want to – I just – there's one detail of this issue, though, that I have to bring up. Is it the sensational character find of 2026? Okay, no, but who is the sensational character find of 2026 in your eyes? Suplex Brian.
Speaker: Suplex Brian, who was mentioned in the previous issue. Yeah, he was selling you a videotape of different types of suplexes. Yes. ah But yeah, Suplex Brian is great. i I wonder if that is... i we need i need to ask Kyle if that's a joke about Brian Danielson, or if it's just...
Speaker: something he thought was funny. Because I'm not sure. You never know with Kyle. it's You never know with Kyle. Equally lovely. Yes. um But there's one detail in this issue that I think is very telling just about what Wrestle Heist is, what Kyle Stark's comics are.
Speaker: So there is... Okay, so there's a bit where the the the the luchador's son... I keep calling him the luchador... he oo bolo is the He has a name. It's Ocho Bolo, which is 8-Ball. His name's 8-Ball. And his son is Elijo de Ocho Bolo. Ocho Bolo, which is wrestling. That's wrestling. Yeah. yeah But Elijo de Ocho Bolo is wrestling at like a small indie show.
Speaker: And they have to try to get him out of the show. And as it turns out that that show is happening at a strip club. Yeah. And the st strip club is called Titty House. Yes, it sure is.
Speaker: Like, I can't describe of Kyle Starks comic or styleyle Kyle Starks' approach to comics more than the strip club is called Titty House. yeah and the sign says, we got them, you want them.
Speaker: ah Wrestle Heist. It's so good. The book is so good genuinely worth reading just for the wrestler names. like The Alpha Male Guy Grudges is such a funny, perfect, but also plausible wrestler name.
Speaker: yeah um Alpha Male Guy Grudges. Buster Chops. In the back matter of this issue, there's a ah thing where it's like the 10 worst wrestling gimmicks of all time.
Speaker: And um one of them is the Fart Collector. The Fart Collector, the Secretary Terry Secre. and And there's also No Consent Tony Roderick, which is – the whole gag of that is like, we don't talk about No Consent Tony Roderick.
Speaker: Yeah. He's he's he's forgotten. don't Let's not talk about him. The angry geezer Dave Smithhardt. If you love wrestling, you will love this comic book. If you don't love wrestling, I think you could read this comic book and kind of understand what's fun and enjoyable about wrestling.
Speaker: Yeah, i' I'm not a wrestle guy. and yeah I think this book is very good. Yeah. Next up, another one of our friends' comic books.
Speaker: Harley and Ivy number three by Erica Henderson, our cohost on friends till the end. Yeah. And this one's got a great, uh, like homage to classic, like fifties DC romance books.
Speaker: Well, right on the cover. I mean, yeah, right on, yeah, right on the cover. She told me they were through. Yep. I don't think anyone has made face-off Joker as cool as Erica has.
Speaker: I'm saying this with love. There's not a lot of competition. no No, that's true. but But she's making him cool, though, right? Erica is making him cool in a way I never would have anticipated was possible.
Speaker: Like that bit where he sticks his fingers up under his skin mask and like adjusts the attachments. Yeah. Crazy.
Speaker: Crazy. ah But great. Yeah. great Really good. um I mean, phenomenal art. Just the way that she you know lays out the pages so conducive to oh forward motion and stuff. like There's a great two-page spread of ah Harley and Ivy diving through the collapsing Ace Chemical Factory and And it all promises to be full of them unwittingly streaking throughout Gotham City in the next issue. the the the ah the part The page that turns into a half page of an editor's note yeah of of censorship is
Speaker: really ah just just so good I love that part. Also, the whole concept of like, like this issue, a huge chunk of it is about Harley and Ivy kind of like playing a trick on or doing a scam on the Joker.
Speaker: um But, you know, if if you haven't read this issue, I'm giving it away at this point. But I love how it sort of sets up you as the reader to not quite be sure.
Speaker: Yeah, whether they they can trust each other and that kind of sort stuff. Or whether Harley is like really being charmed and coerced by the Joker, or if this is all part of the plan. And then and then it ultimately reveals that it it is all part of the plan and they they ah succeed. But it's really well done.
Speaker: Erica's so good. Erica's so good. More awards for Erica, please. Yeah. Please. Harley and Ivy. Read it. Harley and Ivy, life and crimes. We should say the whole title. Yeah. And then ah finally, we're going to talk about Absolute Batman number 16.
Speaker: And it was between this and Absolute Wonder Woman ah number 16. Yeah, this was there's a lot of Absolute books out this week. There was a version Hunter as well. But i i was I decided that we should talk about this one because it has both Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman in it.
Speaker: Yeah, this is the um the second team-up between those two characters after last month's Absolute Wonder Woman, I think. Yeah. um And in in that issue, Wonder Woman gives Batman an artifact that allows him to summon her, which he uses already.
Speaker: Yep, he's already using it here. And ah specifically, he is asking her to ah help him figure out a way to save Killer Croc.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. to To stop his transformation into Killer Because he's like, you Greek mythology people, you know all sorts of freaky animal people. Yeah. Surely you know a magic spell that can cure my alligator man friend.
Speaker: Wonder Woman takes Batman to meet a guy who can help with that. ah But he happens to be Centaur. Yeah. Who shoots arrows that can, like, ah transform...
Speaker: people into different like animal hybrids or so or cure them from it or or whatever. It's explained as like a progression yeah of what the arrows he shoots can can do. This is the issue where Batman goes to see a man about a horse, but the man and the horse are the same man horse.
Speaker: That's right. um And also he rides on a flying horse and it is badass. It is badass. It's extremely cool when Batman is on a skeleton Pegasus.
Speaker: Yes, very much so. When they encounter this ah this Pegasus, or not Pegasus, Minotaur. Nope, Centaur. Centaur. Minotaur is different guy.
Speaker: um Although he does have kind of like a bull head. Like a Minotaur. Yeah. But he is a Centaur. um He ah mistakes them as a couple.
Speaker: Batman and Wonder Woman. And there's just this splash page of them saying, we're not together. We're not that together. So good. it's it's a great It's a great splash. That's the one i i I texted you and Chris, and then it was like, oh, also sad things are happening at Chris's house right now, so maybe I won't send any more Batman pages.
Speaker: Yeah. ah Great issue. um The title page is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. It's just Batman on his Batcycle, kind of like skidding his Batcycle, and next to him it says, Bat Out of Hill. That's poster. Yeah, he's doing like... He's doing an Akira slide, but it's from a different angle. it's from it's from yeah It's from the side instead of the front.
Speaker: Or I guess it's from the front instead of the side. Yeah, yeah. but but Depends on how you how you look at it, I guess. Yeah. um But ah that's a poster, dude. like that That image is so fucking rad. yeah Nick Drogata is doing it.
Speaker: Yeah. He's doing it. um And Scott Snyder's no slouch either. Also, I love how in this issue, um every time Batman and Wonder Woman are shown together, like we know that Absolute Batman is a tank, right? Yeah, he's 6'9", 420 pounds, nice. Yeah.
Speaker: And Wonder Woman is taller than him. Yeah, like no notably on the cover. right They're standing next to each other and she's she's got a couple inches on him. ah Wild.
Speaker: Yeah, wild. man it's it's It's really interesting to me to compare and contrast this this issue to last month's Wonder Woman to see how the two different teams, the creative teams, approach the idea of these characters teaming up.
Speaker: And It's amazing that like they feel totally different, but also of a piece. And they're both really fun. um Well, it's it it does it it does that thing that I think should happen in like solo books for characters. where I think in that other story, the Absolute Wonder Woman story, um it was it was Diana who got to have the internality.
Speaker: h yeah And it's Bruce who gets to have the internality in this story. um yeah which is how it should be. Because, yeah, there's definitely him ah trying to come to grips with different things, his changing relationships with his friends, his ah his guilt over his father's death, and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: All of that comes into play into the the larger mythological adventure. Yeah, and and it's ah there's definitely like a a sense of of like him grappling with Dealing with his dad's death and like even like him going to kind into kind of a dream world to.
Speaker: To deal with that. ah That's great stuff. Three good comics. Yeah. This week. Love it when comics are good. Speaking of which.
Speaker: Jeremy Whitley's comics are always good.
Speaker: Let's talk to him, Bonito. Let's do that.
Speaker: Joining us for the program week is a longtime friend of the show, someone that we really love to talk to, and someone who has a new crowdfunding project for two books, two first issues in one.
Speaker: That's right. You get not just one, but two first issues if you back his new campaign over on Zoop. A site that I have also done crowdfunding campaigns on.
Speaker: Jeremy Whitley is here Jeremy, welcome to the show. What's up, strugglers? Struggling. Every day I'm struggling. You ain't kidding. It's it's ah more apt than ever.
Speaker: Absolutely. Of descriptor here in 2026. Last year, I started reading Berserk and stumbled on that, and I was like, ah, yes, this this is what I'm living right now. I had no idea what 2026 would look like.
Speaker: We're all in the interstice now. um that's That's where we're all living now. We all got ah the mark of sacrifice on us these days.
Speaker: Somehow our our god hand is even dumber and weirder looking. so Oh, man. Oh, boy. Well, Jeremy, that actually leads me into a question about one of your two first issues in this Zoop campaign.
Speaker: And that is slay
Speaker: A book that is very apt for an episode of War Rocket Ajax that Benito and I are co-hosting. um two Two hosts of a horror movie podcast.
Speaker: two Two guys who who enjoy ah some gory entertainment. ah Because Slay is a pretty blood-soaked book. From from the the very first image here on the on the cover. It's literally a shower of blood.
Speaker: And i have to ask, because you know you've recently read Berserk, did it have any influence over Slay?
Speaker: Because you know looking through the first issue, i kind of i kind of saw that a little bit, but were you thinking about it as you were writing it, or is it just a coincidence?
Speaker: It is a wild coincidence because ah this is a book I've been working on with, ah I believe, our mutual friend, Alex Smith. Oh, yeah yeah. You guys know Alex. And ah i adore Alex. ah As with a lot of things with Alex, we've been working on this for years. um So it's been ah ah a slow-developing thing of, like, I wrote this before I had ever read Berserk, although i assume if I...
Speaker: were writing it now, the swords would be much larger. ah Yeah. But, yeah, instead I have, you know, people taping guns to swords and and stuff like that. um But, yeah, it's it's got some of the...
Speaker: I don't know, a mixture of like post-apocalyptic feel and fantasy feel that ah I feel like Berserk has um that like i I did not know about and had not anticipated. And then like reading that book, was like, wow, this is like...
Speaker: This has the same like bloody, gory, monster-y feel, but I am happy to say that Slay has 100% less rape than and Berserk does. And and rightfully so. ah rightfully so i Like I've always said about Berserk –
Speaker: If you want to justify having rape in your story, you just have to be as good as Berserk. So good luck to you. um But the the whole opening sequence of like, I mean, it's it's definitely different from the kind of like bar encounter ah that happens early on in Berserk that I think opens the anime, but not the manga. Yeah.
Speaker: um But the the book opens with a bar encounter where, you know, people are kind of talking about, like, we're civilized, but we're being, you know, ah terrorized by this monster.
Speaker: And then, you know, a mysterious stranger walks in and is like, I got a solution to your problem. ah It's just, it's like... very Very much of those of that style of story. like ah A lot of those stories do have that kind of that that bar scene, but it's a different take on it that I think is really fun.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you. I wanted to have... I feel like we're probably influenced by some of the same things and that, like, in writing this, i I was very influenced by, you know, movies like Yojimbo and Sanjiro and ah sort of finding that place where, like, you can do something that feels like a Western without it feeling like ah weird American exceptionalism and expansion. Yeah.
Speaker: And like still has that like edge of being on the edge of the world and there being no telling what like kind of crazy beast you're going to run up against. um But still like feeling you know modern in a way. And and obviously there's there's elements of horror in here that are definitely prevalent in Berserk.
Speaker: So to step back just a second, ah this is two-in-one... two and one flip book of two first issues of two different series that you... You got too many ideas, Jeremy.
Speaker: yeah I have been told this before. ah yeah It was, this was an interesting thing for me because I'm always, I'm always working on projects. I've always got, you know stuff that's sort of on the back burner and that I'm, ah you know, I meet people at conventions and then we become fast friends and then we're like, let's work on a project together. And then it's like, oh, I already have a hundred of these going on. I need to find somewhere for this to go.
Speaker: um And for me, it's like i don't like, I don't feel mad about it, but I've sort of gotten pigeonholed into this all-ages, middle-grades and YA space. yeah um That's sort of what people are looking for from me when they're asking for stuff.
Speaker: um And so I have these... like much more mature titles that are, you know in some of the same genres in a way, um but I don't really have a place for.
Speaker: and I was talking to the guys at Zoop a little while back, and I was like, you know, i'd I'd love to bring Slay there. to be a lot of fun. alex and I have been working on this forever. and they were like, okay, great. You know, how long is it? All right.
Speaker: And the piece of advice that ah that Eric over there had given me is that, like, this size, like a, like what we would consider a double sized comic is like a much better value print wise than, than just, you know, printing it like 20 pages.
Speaker: Um, but his suggestion was, you know, making it a little longer or putting in a lot of extra backup stuff, sketches and character profiles and things like that. And I was like, I love that stuff, but that would be basically as much backup material as the actual comic book.
Speaker: um And I was like, what if we, you know, took this other series I'm working on and like, make one of those cool flip books. Like I remember getting like the Spider-Man annuals back in the nineties and early two thousands where it's like, you'd have the web of Spider-Man annual on one side and you flip it over and it's amazing Spider-Man on the other side or whatever.
Speaker: And how cool that is to have like, you know, as, as an object, it's always felt cool to me, but also like, this is ah an opportunity to launch sort of two things at the same time and get,
Speaker: two different stories out there and then create sort of this cool object for people backing the, uh, the crowdfunding campaign that like they wouldn't necessarily get if they're getting a collected edition down the road somewhere. Uh, it'll be a very different sort of look and format. So this is something that's unique without having to, you know, put gold plating and foil all over the comic.
Speaker: Well, I, I, interesting, you know, like, uh, Bonito, I know, is ah is so a bit of a comics historian, and and I am too. and like It used to be perfectly normal to have multiple...
Speaker: not like full issue link stories, obviously, but like sizable stories featuring different characters in the same book. Like that was what comics were for decades. And like, now it's just like, that feels unusual, but it is so like what comics used to be. And it's it's totally normal.
Speaker: it Like if you were a reader in the, Silver Age, and especially the Golden Age. like There was an expectation that a book would have multiple stories featuring multiple characters. like Different stories, like you'd finish one, and then you'd turn the page, and another one would start. and like yeah it's It's so strange how like the format changes and people just get so used to that particular kind of format. but Yeah, for sure. I mean i feel like...
Speaker: These days, people talk about anthology as a risky format, right? Whereas it used to be the the standard, for sure. Yeah, and I mean, i think about like...
Speaker: I was having to explain that part of comics history to my oldest kid the other day just because they were talking about wanting to get into Superman and Batman. And they were like, how could I read all of this stuff? And I was like, first all, that's a lifelong project. Trying to read all the Superman books. But you don't...
Speaker: those, none of those guys, Superman, Spider-Man, Batman were the the three that they were talking about. Like none of those guys started in books called their name of their character. They were all, you know, detectives, comics and action comics. Right. It's all this, you know, journey into mystery.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, And that, i I don't know why we don't do that anymore. I think we're very obsessed with branding as part of it. But, like, obviously, like, Shonen Jump still exists. Like, 2000 AD does this all the time.
Speaker: It's just sort of America where we're, like, terrified of the idea. oh that's true. Like, manga still, like... ah You know, Berserk is still in ah what's the What is the name of the magazine that it's in?
Speaker: ah Now I gotta to look it up, but... Yeah, I... like Huge titles in Japan are still part of like big – like Shonen Jump and other big anthology books. and it's it's it's so so It's so odd how that stuff changes.
Speaker: um But Jeremy, ah what I was trying to get at earlier before I kind of got sidetracked was just for you to tell us kind of the basic ideas of these two books. Slay, which we've talked about a little bit, and The Girlfriend Survives.
Speaker: Yeah, so Slay is sort of a it's it's one of those title those things with a lot of like slashes and in what it is, right? Because it's ah it's sort of a horror.
Speaker: ah It has elements of fantasy, certainly, but it's you know post-apocalyptic and um Also, certainly a ah Western sort of in the way the story is told.
Speaker: um But it's about it's about this teenage girl who wants to become a monster hunter. her Her mother was a monster hunter as well, died when she was very young. So she's looking for somebody to train her.
Speaker: And in the process of doing this, ah has decided that like and she's got to make money somehow. So she's just decided she's going to ah basically fake it until she makes it. She's going to pretend to be...
Speaker: ah The person that she's looking for, the scarred rider, is this sort of legendary monster hunter. um And of course... immediately she's in over her head trying to hunt a ah monster that she, she doesn't understand and is, is a much bigger and scarier than she's ready for. ah But also if that doesn't get her the the legendary monster hunter she's pretending to be ah just might. So she's, you know, sort of coming at it from both sides already very much in the deep end by the, by or the end of our first issue.
Speaker: um the The other one, The Girlfriend Survives, is a book that I've been working on with my friend Luke Nagashouji. ah We've got Colors by Jamie Noguchi, who's a good friend of mine as well.
Speaker: um And it's sort of this play on the idea of – it's sort of a common superhero idea. We obviously, like, know all about the idea of fridging – the girlfriend. um And this is a story where it follows the ah the girlfriend of the secret identity of this superhero, who, as soon as they start dating without even her knowing who he is, um becomes you know the the target of his arch nemesis. However, she is
Speaker: Full of some surprises herself, and it is about her going through some some pretty big extremes to survive the story of of being the superhero's girlfriend. So it it protagonizes that character who is usually secondary.
Speaker: Yes, it it definitely protagonizes her and ah definitely gives like sort of a ah twist on what is clearly a trope that we've we've been trying to get away from, but still keeps popping up places for some reason.
Speaker: Yeah. ah By the way, I looked it up. Berserk is in Young Animal. That is the name of that um sort of like ah more more mature manga magazine. It's a seinen manga instead of a shonen manga.
Speaker: um So about both of these books, Jeremy, I like when I did my zoooppit campaign a while back, it was for the first two issues of a book that I am now turning into like a four issue mini series.
Speaker: And so, so I'm going to complete that story and then figure out where it goes after that. Do you have concrete plans for,
Speaker: for like how much story slay will end up being or how much story the girlfriend survives will end up being, or are you leaving it kind of open-ended?
Speaker: Cause I, I just certainly for me at one point I was like, I don't actually know how much imposter syndicate and like ah how long that story is going to go. yeah um and then I decided like for, for the first story is is enough.
Speaker: So like do you have like it all planned out, or or is this just kind of like a starting point that you'll figure out later? ah Well, Girlfriend Survives is is definitely a miniseries. um I've got sort of five issues. I've actually already scripted that, um and I know what that's going to be.
Speaker: um which was was good because I wanted to make it twisty. And I think people who who write things that are especially twisty without knowing where they're going, ah i guess get multi-million dollar TV shows, not comic books. That's true. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. ah But I don't have that. But for Slay, it's definitely ah a world that we're building there. So I have a first arc that that I've written and i know where it's going. The second issue is is mostly drawn already.
Speaker: um And I have plans to publish that one way or another. My ideal would be to sort of keep... if if this is very successful, I'd love to keep doing this sort of thing where we can, um you know, be publishing multiple books at the same time. And it gives us the opportunity to, for like, you know, like I said, second slate is, is pretty well done.
Speaker: ah Girlfriend survives is is the second issue is not close to done on that. um So I feel like if we were to do this, ah continue doing this, it would give us the cool opportunity to like,
Speaker: have folks sub in have other stories that are, uh, going on at the same time, have a second issue of one thing and a first issue of another, um and like get this chance to, to get some ideas out there.
Speaker: And, you know, if, ah if we keep going through this route, that'll be fun, but then we can also, you know, republish those as those whole stories once we get enough stuff going. So, you know, I, my ideal would be to just ah get as as much stuff out there and and in this format as possible. um And then, you know,
Speaker: worry about collecting it and then publishing it through a ah a real publisher later. Well, we, we get to have fun, like making comics and ah making cool stuff.
Speaker: I wonder, Jeremy, like, I, I, yeah I know it sounds like from what you said earlier, that it's kind of like, like these just happen to be like the two or two of the comics you were working on at the same time where you could say, okay, let's put these together.
Speaker: but But I wonder if there's like a particular theme or idea or a commonality between these two stories, these two books, that kind of make them work together like as a unit of – where somebody's going to read one story, flip it over and read the other one.
Speaker: like like what What makes these stories work together in a single volume to you? um Yeah, I think in a sense they're both very, I don't know, me kind of stories. um People who've who've read Princeless and and other stuff that I've done know that I have sort of this like affinity for obviously fantasy stuff and superhero stuff, but I always like to sort of...
Speaker: look at you know what would be the obvious version of this story I want to tell and then find a way to flip it and turn it on its head in some way. And I think both of these are versions of that where it's this kind of story that I wanted to tell and I was like, well, what's my version of that? And sort of spin it on its head and do something that I hadn't seen before.
Speaker: um That certainly is the case here. And in also both of these, I think, feature like ah younger to you know, twenty early 20-somethings protagonists, female protagonists, which is, I think, most of my stories do as well. These just happen to be ah two that actually, in both cases, get pretty bloody and ah would would maybe not be well-collected alongside some of those other things that people ah maybe know me better for and would...
Speaker: find you know on the bookshelf at the comic or at the bookstore um this sort of gave me a chance to take these two uh these two things that didn't have a home that uh i think have similar vibes in both the uh amount of tropes that they're tackling and the amount of blood and guts that get left on the page to talk about the girlfriend survives a little bit yeah the you Like the fridging part of it, or or sort of the like the the element of upending the fridging trope.
Speaker: um That's not subtle. That's on the cover. Yeah, There's a big mountain of refrigerators, yeah. Yeah, this... ah if it's not obvious that cover was my idea, luke really put it together beautifully, but, uh, he was like, you know what, what do you want to do with this? We don't want to, I don't want to give away, you know, everything that's happening in the issue, but like, well, how do we get the vibe of it? And I was like,
Speaker: You know that cover of, I mean, and they've used it a hundred different times now, but, you know, Punisher kills the Marvel universe where you just have the the superheroes all sort of stacked up and he's standing on a mountain of dead bodies. was like, what about that?
Speaker: But like with refrigerators, um, and she's sort of, you know, standing on top of this pile of, of destroyed and decimated refrigerators. Um, in a way that like if somebody knows nothing about comics and comic tropes, they're going to look at it and go, what the fuck?
Speaker: um But yeah immediately, it's going to self-select, I think. I do think that people who maybe even don't know or have never read like a whole bunch of comics i maybe have at least some familiarity with the fridging trope. because ah i There's a part of me that does think it is kind of like...
Speaker: gone beyond comics. It certainly has. well i mean certain the The trope in stories yeah certainly has. But I think kind of like the knowledge of it has too. Yeah, for sure. The like the term... ah Not quite to the extent... I don't know if you guys have seen that one post that was going around. It's like a screencap of a a Reddit thread where somebody says, what would Superman's kryptonite be? you know A lot of heroes have a weakness, like an Achilles heel.
Speaker: And we call that a kryptonite. What would Superman's kryptonite be? And so in that same way, right, the idea of fridging so divorced from its origins now that someone would almost be like, it's an actual woman in a refrigerator. but um But also the other thing I was going to say if you're going to tell your artists that they have to draw a big pile of technology on the cover, I guess there are worse things than essentially...
Speaker: large rectangles. as It's probably the nicest piece of tech that you can have someone draw 25 of on a cover. Yeah, I definitely, I know artists that if this was like 20 cars on the cover, they would have just quit before the cover was done. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker: It's like, and you could have, you know, could have easily been, I guess, some sort of, ah some sort of Kirby circuit-heavy technology. That would be... That would make for a heck of an interesting fridge, I think, but it's much easier to draw a bunch of a bunch of rectangles with handles, I think. When we started, Jeremy, you talked about like maybe being pigeonholed a little bit as a middle-grade, all-ages comic writer.
Speaker: and ah When we had you on for The Cold Ever After, we we sort of discussed that a little bit, too, of like... you got You got all these different stories of all these different ah maturity levels in you to tell.
Speaker: And i wonder, I'm curious about like what to you is sort of the perfect balance of that. Is it sort of like... one all ages one for an older more mature audience and then back to all ages is is it kind of like one for one or is it just kind of whatever comes to you that's the story you want to do i mean to be completely real it's that second one and like yeah yeah i i joke about writing fast but i i do write particularly fast and i i
Speaker: it works best when the idea that I have is one that I am obsessed with. So like, you know, if I stumble on a story and I'm like, I, I really like this idea.
Speaker: i have to sit down and work on it now. And like, that's, I think the quickest way to have something that was like coming out and, um,
Speaker: um I'm still excited about it by the time I finish it as compared to... I've definitely had like both graphic novel and novel projects that like I started writing it. and When I started writing it, I was really excited about it. and By the time i I got towards the end, I was like, i don't i don't know about this anymore.
Speaker: um and I never want to feel that way about stuff. Certainly by the time stuff comes out, like I don't think people realize... like readers or or or consumers of of media, i don't think they often think about like how long those projects have been gestating, how long they've been in the works. and so like It's new to them by the time it comes out, but so many times for the people behind it, by the time it comes out, they've been looking at this thing for years Yep.
Speaker: i yeah I used to wonder about actors who would say they would never watch any of their own movies, and I was like, why not? And now it's like, oh I get it. you yeah You're tired of that shit. yeah i like if If something comes out and you're not sick of it yet, that's special.
Speaker: Yeah, I think as we're as we're talking about this, like yesterday the fourth issue of the Strange Tales miniseries that I wrote for Marvel is it like just came out.
Speaker: and
Speaker: the day before it came out, people started like tagging me and in articles about it, and i was like, oh, yeah. I forgot. yeah i forgot that this was a thing, because this was a Halloween story that like I had pretty much finished in like August, so that like we had the whole thing you know figured out so that Bailey could draw it, and it's a lot of... like I know this fourth issue, my editor must've been sick of me because like, I would get a couple of notes from, from her that are like, what if we change to this line a little bit? And what if we change that line a little bit? And these are, you know, comics that I wrote like four months ago. And I get this, like this note and,
Speaker: early on those first couple issues you're like no no it really it really needs to be this way this is like the perfect way to phrase the thing i'm going to rewrite this whole thing so that it makes sense and by the time you get to that last issue and like it's been half a year since you wrote anything on it and they're like what about this thing you're like yeah sure fine um no it works you're the editor yeah like i just want to be done with it can it just be done yeah I'd really love for this book to be done. I loved this. I love this book and I will be excited to see it when it comes out, but I'm so sick of it.
Speaker: One last question before we go to some listener questions, the monster in the first issue of sleigh is to me, seems to be reminiscent of some, some,
Speaker: monsters but I can't quite put my finger on what it reminds me of. um I know Benito is a huge cryptid fan and expert of sorts.
Speaker: um It's it's ah a demonic-looking bear, I think we can say. Yeah, i was going to say, Matt, it's a bear. Yeah. I'm bringing all my expertise in, n and I'm going to declare it ah it's a freaky bear.
Speaker: But Jeremy, I'm curious if you if it's based on anything or if you and Alex looked at anything in particular ah to to design that monster after, or is it just a big freaky bear?
Speaker: It's funny because I wanted... I wanted to have a bear in this thing that felt like, I feel like bears are sort of monsters when you experience them and like in real life. When you see ah yeah a real bear, you're like, holy shit, that's a monster.
Speaker: um oh yeah. i I mean, there are bears. I live in the mountains. was going to say Matt lives in bear country for sure. yeah And there are bears that appear in downtown Asheville sometimes.
Speaker: I am familiar. Yeah, I've run into them and and ah so on and so forth. And it is like,
Speaker: i remember one time a bear ran across my neighbor's yard. like I was just looking out my window and a bear just ran across my neighbor's front yard and I just watched it.
Speaker: And my first thought was just, that's a big dog. ah Until I realized it was a bear. I just, i really like, it started out as this idea of like, I want Alex to draw a bear that gets across the feeling of actually running into a bear in real life yeah when you're not expecting one.
Speaker: um And then from there I was like, what if like it has a sort of monstrous, you know magical element to it of like when it's in darkness, it just disappears. It can just, move in the shadows without you Yeah.
Speaker: this giant bear thing can just pop out of the shadows without you hearing or seeing it coming um and ah which is where the name This is, it ended up being so funny to me. ah It's where the name knock bar came from. Cause I was like, it's a nightmare.
Speaker: i like wrote that down and went on with my life. And then Alex was drawing this last year and I was in Germany for My Little Pony convention and like learning as much German as I could to get by there.
Speaker: And ah it's but the German word for neighbor is knock bar. um And I was like, oh, this is I basically just named this monster neighbor.
Speaker: But it it just sounds like the word for neighbor. Well, that that ah that kind of sounds like what you would call a cryptid, though, like a giant bear that's named neighbor. Like, that's scary.
Speaker: Like, wait, why is he my name? He's like always nearby. was I love that. That's that's fantastic. ah I am looking at this one splash page. I gotta say, it looks like there's some Sienkiewicz in the DNA of this demon bear, I would say.
Speaker: Yeah, i you know I don't think I had specifically thought about that, but I mean, it is a somewhat demonic bear, and if there is a if there is an ideal demon bear, then it's it's certainly Sienkiewicz's demon bear.
Speaker: That's a scary fucking thing. Now it's time for us to take some questions from our listeners. If listeners want to ah ask some questions of our guests here on the show, ah there are two ways they can do it. They can follow us on bluesky at warrocketajax.com. That's our bluesky account. Or they can head over to our Discord. um You have to have an invitation to join our Discord, but if you ask us nicely for an invitation, we will send you one, and you can head over to the listener questions channel over there on the Discord and ask questions just like these you're about to hear for Jeremy Whitley. Jeremy, our first question comes from Rattlesnake Kate, and this is actually for all three of us.
Speaker: Kate wants to know, who is your favorite final girl?
Speaker: ah Jeremy, I know you've been watching a lot of horror movies for Progressively Horrified. there i mean There's a lot of great choices for this. i i mean obviously most i guess a lot of the best horror movies have somebody that fits this mold somewhere.
Speaker: um but i think i hope i mean This might be a ah boring answer, but I think Nancy Thompson from Nightmare on Elm Street is my answer. Because ah she figures out the Freddy thing, like that Freddy is a ah nightmare entity and immediately is like, what if I could pull him out of my dream and fucking home alone him?
Speaker: Like, what if I just became a guerrilla terrorist overnight so that I could fight a demon? And then she goes to the library to learn how to do it. um i I love that shit.
Speaker: there's There's a surprising number of Wes Craven movies that turn into Home Alone in the third act. like yeah quite a few Quite a few of them. But yeah, Nightmare on Elm Street is probably the most notable.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, People Under the Stairs obviously is is a backwards Home Alone, I guess. It's their house. Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, Bedito, who's your favorite final girl? Oh man, it's tough, dude. Uh... i think I think the best like image on film of the final girl surviving is Sally Hardesty at the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Speaker: yeah um That that like last two minutes of that movie is so iconic. like i mean She's arguably the first final girl, would say. Yeah, that's true ah true. Depends on how strictly you define a slasher movie.
Speaker: but Because technically Olivia Hussey does not survive the end of Black Christmas. Right. yeah yeah And also, do you accept Black Christmas as a slasher film? That's ah a question.
Speaker: It's a question. now But I think I got to go boring and say Laurie Strode just because fucking love Halloween, dude. And Jamie Curtis is so good. My answer is also ah obvious if you consider this character a final girl, which I do. It's Ellen Ripley.
Speaker: Yeah, sure like sure. She is the final girl of Alien, and and and she's the best one.
Speaker: And also I think Ellen Ripley is notable for being the person that ah if people had listened to her, none of that shit would have fucking happened. That's true. That's true. She's like, no, you've got contaminants. You're not bringing them in here because this is a spaceship. to like leave that Yeah, outside I watched Alien in 2020.
Speaker: And I had just never even thought about the parts where she's like, We have to quarantine. And then in 2020, I watched it. I go, this is so meaningful to me now. Absolutely. yeah Yeah. If I'm going to pitch in one that's a less like immediate thought, let's say ah Jenny from Friday the 13th part two.
Speaker: that Yeah. I think she's widely considered the best Friday the 13th final girl. Unless you consider Tommy a final girl. That's true. to Tommy's the only one who like really comes back, right? yeah like three Yeah, he's in like three of them.
Speaker: Yeah. ah All right. Our next question comes from Blue Sky from Dan Casino. Dr. Dan Casino. ah Dan wants to know, now that you're writing a Western genre mashup in Slay, Jeremy, what property that's not a Western would work as well or better if it were translated to the Old West, a la The Magnificent Seven?
Speaker: That's a great question. I'm going to have to think about that one for a second. Do you do you guys have ideas on this? Like a thing that's not set in the Old West that would be great as a Western.
Speaker: Hmm. Well, like, The Magnificent Seven it is an interesting one because it was Seven Samurai doing that thing where samurai movies and Westerns just, like, can become each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if any two other genres are that copacetic or or work work that well together. um But I guess, okay, I guess if you're going to try it, like what if we tried to turn wuxia movies into westerns and we made Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon into a western?
Speaker: House of Flying Daggers? Yeah. Yeah. House of Flying Bullets. no but I fixed it already. I did it. House of Flying Bullets works.
Speaker: what The concept, I think, would work really well is It Follows. o o Throw It Follows out into like the far desert and get that that like being pursued out there on you know the plains in the dark in the night. It'd be a lot of fun.
Speaker: Yeah. it's What would be this? Would it still be sexually transmitted or would there be some different like a Western version of that? I think they have the same sex there. That's true. That's true. i mean, there's a ton of STDs in the old West. I'm sure. Yeah. It's just, they're picked up at the saloon, I suppose. Yeah. ah Our next question is from Riley on our discord. Riley asks, what color should I dye my hair next?
Speaker: The only answer that I feel like I can give is, gotta have the blue hair. Gotta have the blue hair. Gotta have the blue hair. that's what If you want to be an anime, you gotta have blue hair.
Speaker: ah Hot Spring Summer on our Discord says, which generation was your favorite era of horror films? I kind of like the generation we're in now.
Speaker: Yeah, me too. I like sinners is one of the best frigging movies, not to mention horror movies that I've, I've ever seen. um and like between that and like the stuff that Jordan Peele is putting out and, and the just sheer number of like, I mean, there's plenty of misses that a 24 has put out, but there's also so many movies that like you hear the concept and you're like, yeah, I'll watch like five of those.
Speaker: Um, Yeah, it's it's I feel like people are getting a little sick of the the that the elevated horror sub-genre or the sort of the tropes that that is creating, where it's like every every part of the movie has to be meaningful or everything has to be about grief or whatever. But so many of those movies are really good. like Maybe if you put them all together, they can be kind of samey, but...
Speaker: taken individually, a lot of those movies are good. I'd say the last 10, 12 years have been an incredible run for horror as a genre.
Speaker: Um, and not just, you know, not just strictly the, the so-called elevated horror, um, which obviously I can see that we're getting some, there's some backlash on that. Uh, I, the one I always think of is the, the one that's, um,
Speaker: Christopher from the Sopranos going, it's called elevated horror tea. It's a, it's like a horror movie, but the Dracula is that your mother died. um Which is not wrong. It's not wrong. And, and I think about it ah constantly.
Speaker: um But yeah, I, I mean, the to me, the, like the real like milestone, turning point was the Babadook in 2014.
Speaker: And I remember coming out of that movie going, Oh my God, that movie was like about something. And, uh, and it started a whole new trend, but even outside of that, I think, you know, I, I think other genres, I think there've been great, um, action horrors, horror comedy, um, all sorts of stuff outside of, uh, just this, the so-called elevated horror.
Speaker: yeah It's been a good decade. i we We had like at the un progressively horrified at the end of each year. like we We do this gimmick nobody's ever done where we rank the things that we've watched. I've never heard of any such thing. yeah it's it's i mean It's pretty avant-garde. but um We ran into the like problem this year of of trying to like figure out in what order at the top of the list we wanted to put Babadook sinners, the thing and get out.
Speaker: Jesus. And I was like, and that's a, as far as I'm considered, that's like, that's like a four way tie. Babadook has a special place in my heart because like I watched that movie, like while I had a small child who was keeping me up late. Like I literally just watched it in the middle of the night while like,
Speaker: you know, while I was a little loopy from not sleeping enough and just had this moment watching it where i was like, Oh no, I'm the Babadook. And like ever since then, that's a movie that I'm like, I can't, I can't not feel a strong connection with this movie.
Speaker: ah So like trying to rate that next to sinners, which like I watched last year where I was, I remember crying in the theater being like, The art is what saves him.
Speaker: the The religion doesn't do anything. The art is what saves you. It's wild that that movie got nominated for so many Oscars. I will be shocked if it wins a one, but happily so.
Speaker: Very happily so. this was a good year This was a good year for horror at the Oscars in terms of nominations. Definitely more... uh, I don't want to call it legitimizing, but you know what I mean? Like, ah the recognition of the horror genre is the amount that they got this year is, is pretty unprecedented with Frankenstein and Amy Madigan for weapons and that kind of stuff.
Speaker: yeah Um, but to, to answer the question, in addition to right now, horror, which is also probably, if I'm honest about it, my favorite, um, I'm a big, big fan of the, like, gothic revival of the late 50s through the early 70s with Hammer and Roger Corman and and those kind of movies.
Speaker: Yeah, and the sort of, like, Jolloboom. Yeah. That's good stuff. it's not too It's not too late to turn Francilian into a Jollop podcast, a thing I've been pitching since the beginning. I mean, it's going to be a Saw podcast for a year, and then we'll see what happens. Yeah, saw the Saw movies, a.k.a. Bad Jollop.
Speaker: um ah Stone Cold HCC, an account that exists only to ask questions on Warlock and Ajax, asks, Who comes up with what the new styles are? I've got an idea for wearing t-shirts by just putting your head through them but leaving your arms dangling out.
Speaker: Ha ha ha ha!
Speaker: someone Someone forward that on to the president of fashion. I feel like having having watched a fair amount of AEW recently, like Ricochet is already there.
Speaker: He's just his jacket. He is kind of doing that with the jacket. Yeah. yeah I will say this, Stone Cold. like Be the change you want to see. Just start doing it.
Speaker: And see if people follow. that's I think that's how style gets made. Has Stone Cold ever worn sleeves?
Speaker: Would this be the most covered his arms have ever been? i think I think I have at least seen Stone Cold in short sleeves. Well, Stone Cold Steve Austin, not Stone Cold HCC.
Speaker: um Anyway, here's our last question ah for Jeremy. It's from Ironman2026.com. who wants to know what makes comics a conducive medium for horror?
Speaker: That's a great question. um i think some of it is ah
Speaker: one thing that's really really good in comics is that you can, i think, control a lot of pace at which somebody is reading. You can hide things like behind the page turn. Um, which I think is, is probably like the, the coolest thing about comics is like, um, when it, when it comes to horror stuff is that you can hide something behind the page, right? Like you don't have to, you don't have to pan. you don't have to do a slow reveal.
Speaker: It's like you flip the page and suddenly it's like, Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah, i I feel like Chris and I have kind of talked about this before, where it's like, there's upsides and downsides. like Because horror and comedy, it's – comics are great for both horror and comedy, and kind of hard. Because both of those genres are about timing.
Speaker: And you don't get to control the timing in comics. e if In a movie or a TV show or something, you get to do that. But like in comics, it's up to the reader how much they time how how much time they take or don't take to get through something.
Speaker: ah But yeah, i do I do think that that element of like hitting them with something on the page turn is is really like the best tool in your toolbox. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. In comics, you can do literally anything with practical effects. True. I was going to say, the the thing about comics is just put a cool fucking monster in there. And you're and you're you're good.
Speaker: And you don't have to worry about, like, how are we going to afford the CGI or the costume or whatever. it's You just do it. You don't have to wait until Doug Jones is available. And he's busy.
Speaker: Our guest has been Jeremy Whitley. Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Please let our listeners know where they can find you and how they can back the campaign, ah the the Zoop campaign ah for both Slay and The Girlfriend Survives.
Speaker: ah So you can find me generally on blue sky at Jeremy Whitley. My website is Jeremy Whitley.com. And you can find me every week on the progressively horrified podcast where we talk about horror movies and progressive politics.
Speaker: That is also on blue sky at Prague horror pod. Um, both, of both of these fine gentlemen have been on there as have a number of, uh, y'all's former guests. Um, so come check that out. The books, the sleigh and the girlfriend survives are on Zoop right now. The campaign, uh, is set to launch on the third. So I guess right after this will have come out, uh, And even right as you're listening, if and if it's not launched yet, you can go to the website.
Speaker: ah That is zoop.gg slash letter C slash slay. And you can sign up to be notified when it does go live. Or if you if it is live now, you can go ah give us money to to buy comics and then support cool independent comics.
Speaker: And you should. Please go back that on Zoop. Yes. Jeremy, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's always always a great time to have you here.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me. Thanks once again to Jeremy Whitley for joining us joining us on the show. Please go ah back, both Slay and The Girlfriend Survives on Zoop. It's all one campaign, and you get both first issues in one book.
Speaker: That is pretty sweet. Go check that out. But, you know, that brings us to the end of our show. Oh, that's a shame. i've I've been having such a grand time with you, Matt.
Speaker: Is there anything you would like to say about swords before we wrap up um
Speaker: up? It's the strongest blade ever known in the northern lands. Ten out of ten. There you go. It's not going on the the sword sheet, but you'll know it in your heart that it's a 10 out of 10.
Speaker: All right. Thanks. We'll be back next week. i don't I legitimately don't know if Chris is going to be here, but um we will have a show, even if I have to do it by myself. ah So come back for that. ah Whatever it is, it'll be a fun time.
Speaker: But, you know, thanks for coming on and helping me out on the show this week. thanks Thanks for having me. It's always fun to talk to you. Yeah, it's always fun to talk to you outside of the ah standard friends till the end structure. Matt, we talk to each other every day.
Speaker: In some form or another. We're friends. we're we're friends io When I'm doing podcasts, it's I only know podcasts. Yeah. But that's true. we we We are texting all the time every day. Yeah.
Speaker: ah If you would like to email us, you can do it at our email address, which is warrocketpodcast at gmail.com. That is where you can send every story ever lists and ah one to ten of swords entries where you can let us know if you want to sponsor the show, send us listener questions, or get in touch about anything else. You can also get in touch with us on Tumblr, warrocketpodcast.tumblr.com. We're on bluesky, warrocketajax.com there.
Speaker: ah I mentioned that one earlier. We had some listener questions from there. You can also join our Discord. Like I said before, you have to be invited to be a member of that. But if you ask us nicely for an invitation, we will give you one and you can join over there.
Speaker: You can also contact us on Patreon, which would be sweet if you join the paton Patreon as well. WarRocketAjax.com is our website. it has every episode of the show that we've ever done.
Speaker: WarRocketWiki.com is the fan-run repository of all the information you can want or need about this show, WarRocket Ajax. If you want to find me and my stuff, go to mattdwilson.net to find links to my comics, my books, my other podcasts, and my social medias.
Speaker: Benito, where can everybody find you and your stuff? Yeah, ah you can find me on Blue Sky as well, benitoserino.esky.social. And from there, if you go to my profile, you can find my link tree with links to everything else. um I'm also on Patreon. and my Unlike this show, my Patreon does have a free tier.
Speaker: So what's stopping you from actually getting content and being a joiner and making yourself my friend? Patreon.com slash Benito Serena. There's also money ones, though. So I do encourage you to sign up for the the money ones and not just the free one. But there is a free one.
Speaker: if you want it. And, ah find me in comic shops, blood and thunder monthly from sky bound and image starting in may. I'm taking over capes also from sky bound and image. So if you want to see me do a fun superhero, workplace comedy that also includes violence capes starting in May, the Bonito era of comics dominance continues.
Speaker: That's, That's right. Two books, baby. What a mogul. um All right, Matt, what do you got? Well, what I have is what we always tell people when we wrap up the show here, and that is to always remember that Black Lives Matter.
Speaker: Trans rights are human rights, as are abortion rights. Strag is not a crime. Cops are not your friends. And abolition isn't enough. Cast ice into the outer darkness where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Speaker: Free Palestine. We love you. We love you. We love you. From this
Speaker: day on.
