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00:00:01
Our Big Return!
24 Plays10 months ago
Derek and Corinne return to discuss why the show went on hiatus and some of the stories that they were able to read while not recording.
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Transcript
Reunion and Recording Excitement
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. I'm Derek L. Chase, and joining me on this episode, as always, is the wonderful Corinne Levy. Oh my God, we're back. Isn't it crazy? We're not dead. It kind of felt like it for a bit. I very much felt dead inside and outside, but I was resuscitated, so it's fine.
00:00:39
Speaker
It's been a while since we've recorded. I mean, I do want to address some of that in a minute, but I mean, I guess before we start on that, I have to ask your bright spot so we can get that out of the way. Then we can focus on all the rest of this.
Corinne's Bright Spot: Cooking and Cats
00:00:56
Speaker
Um, my bright spot is, well, I'm very excited that we get to report again. Uh, I think we both very much missed doing this and this was like our main way of hanging out. So it's cool to hang out again. Um, it's cool that we have time to do that. Um, some other bright spots. Uh, I have a lot more time to cook right now, which is great. I really missed, um, cooking. Yeah. You posted.
00:01:26
Speaker
making some soup with a special guest.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yes, with my cat. My cat is always my bright spot. Everyone that I live with is my bright spot always. That's kind of a given. But I was really bored yesterday. And I wanted to make soup for a while. And that cookbook that I was using is my go-to for soups. They're just very nice.
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, you know what? Why not just film it? I haven't done that in a while. And I like stuff like that. So I mean, it's interesting. It was fun. I have no idea how to make videos. I've realized because I was like, I'll just like shove it all onto iMovie, which fucking sucks. It like turned everything into a square. But then I was like, I'll just post it. I have like a food Instagram. And I was like, I'll put it on there for shits and giggles because like
00:02:27
Speaker
I actively don't really care about my social media. I don't post frequently. I'm nowhere near an influencer. The food Instagram was just to be originally almost like a food portfolio in case jobs wanted to see what kind of food I was making or something.
00:02:50
Speaker
But then I was like, nobody's looking at this. I don't care. I'll just make food on it and it'll be very informal. So I just have this random reel that looks really janky of me making clam powder. Yeah, I think it looks good. I actually, the other day, I was baking, which took me way longer than it should have. It looks great though. Oh, thank you. It's like a cherry crumble, right?
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah. Like the cherry pie bars and, um, like the bottom kind of tastes like, uh, kind of like shortbread. Um, and it, they're actually really good. I'm not usually one for sweets. Um, but this is one where like I get up and like one of those is like my
00:03:39
Speaker
my breakfast in the morning. I have coffee. That's like a good breakfast pastry. I'm here for that. Yeah. Well, I was, I was trying to, uh, uh, record some of what I was doing and like make it kind of because, you know, I was like sending little videos off about what I was doing and all of it looked awful. Like every, I was like, Oh, I'm going to record this. I'm like, this just looks gross. It doesn't look interesting whatsoever.
00:04:05
Speaker
I like thankfully I had, I learned a lot from a, well, the woman who like co-wrote the cookbook, Julie, I interned for her. So I would help her with like virtual cooking classes and stuff. Um, and then her and I would also like, I would drive up to her and, um, cause at the time I lived in South Jersey and she lived in North Jersey.
00:04:29
Speaker
So I would drive up to her, cook a bunch of food with her and then we would take like photos of it and everything and she would edit them and they would go onto her Instagram. And that was like part of my internship was being like her dietetic assistant kind of thing.
00:04:45
Speaker
I thankfully I guess remembered some things and I was like okay well people need to see like the cutting board or something so I would like prop it on specific things or whatever it turned out in the end good soup this is such a long-winded way of saying I made soup it made me happy and I like soup soup is my bright spot
00:05:07
Speaker
But yeah, it was fun. I was kind of on a kick. I had also done like a little slideshow presentation thing recently with like a bunch of friends on Discord. And I was like, I like presenting things. It's fun. Maybe I'll keep doing it until I have something to do with my time. Something that takes up more of my time. But for now, maybe I'll keep making silly goofy videos of me cooking. Who knows? But yeah, I think those are my big bright spots is being able to do things that
00:05:37
Speaker
I haven't been able to do in a while, like properly. And now I get to. So I think, I think that's it. This is the year, hopefully knock on wood of like healing and enjoying life. Oh my God. And my new home here for that. Yeah. What was your bright spot?
Derek's Non-Traditional Wedding
00:05:58
Speaker
Well, I'm going to kind of say similar to you being able to sit down and actually like talk with you.
00:06:04
Speaker
I've talked to you more this week than I have in the last like three, four months, probably. I know, it's great. So, I mean, that's always good. It's hard to, so, cause like the last, when we were doing this more regularly, it was like, kind of what's your bright spot for the week?
00:06:24
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and I still went for very relevant information, but I think we all know what your biggest bright spot is. That's happened since we haven't recorded.
00:06:36
Speaker
Well, at this point it's six weeks out, I think. I got married. It was actually a really nice, very quick ceremony. It was a very lovely wedding. As somebody who's been to multiple weddings of very different varieties, this was a very fun wedding. I had a great time.
00:06:59
Speaker
I'm happy about that because I'm someone who generally doesn't really enjoy going to many weddings. They tend to be like kind of stuffy and long and I didn't want that. Now have you been to like a lot of like very religious weddings or like very like
00:07:22
Speaker
Cause I know a lot of times some, like when you do your ceremony, like in the church or whatever, depending like, you know, if you're Catholic or whatever, it might be like a very long ceremony. Cause there's a lot of like gyms or something. I've had always like everybody that I go to has a very short brief ceremony. Cause I think just everybody that I know that gets married is like really chill people that are just excited to like dance and have a good time or just like socialize and like get to the food. So.
00:07:53
Speaker
a lot of the weddings that I've been to have been maybe not like the most religious but they have been like religious affiliated so there's a little bit of the the church or the synagogue or whatever being part of it more than what I tend to really care about
00:08:16
Speaker
The best wedding that I went to was my friend Phil got married maybe two years ago, I don't know. And that was more fun, I think because I knew a lot of people and they had a very relaxed feel for directly after the ceremony. So it was like a lot more fun. Carly's his wife, right? Yes, Carly, yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
She's so fun. I love her. She's great. You sat with them at our wedding. Yeah, we sat with them at the table. They were super nice, super fun. They are a great couple. They are perfect for each other. I love it. I have told him many times that she is it.
00:09:08
Speaker
he's never going to find anything better than her. There's truly like, when people are like, Oh, there's like soul mates and stuff. They're soul mates. Like that's the perfect match ever. I love it. I'm like, so glad I got to witness them. I was like, Oh, y'all are great. Yeah. They're good people in a very fun table. Yeah. I'm glad you guys had a lot of fun. Uh, the wedding for, for me, um, was we, you know how like people have,
00:09:38
Speaker
Um, a lot of like anxiety about, or at least I guess in popular culture, people have a lot of anxiety, like moving into the wedding. Yes. People put a lot of weight on the wedding itself. Um, but I think.
00:09:53
Speaker
Well, I'll let you say your piece and then I have some fun vibes about this. I helped set up a lot of it, not like on the day, like I folded a lot of napkins on the day and I got to see like Austin behind the scenes and it was very special and very cool. I was very honored to have that privilege. But yeah. Well, for me, it was weird because, and I've talked to Austin about this a few times where
00:10:22
Speaker
I don't really care so much about the wedding itself because for me, everything is about what's after the wedding. We have made the vow. We are together. That's the important part. That's the interesting part. The actual ceremony itself, I wasn't nervous or anything about.
00:10:48
Speaker
The weirdness for me is, so she stayed, we got married at an end, she stayed at the end the night before and I stayed at home. And I got up, I cleaned, I baked, I did a bunch of stuff in the house for the next day because I couldn't be at the end.
00:11:15
Speaker
So I had nothing to do for the entire... And we got married at night. So it was exhausting for me to not have something to do. And that part, I was just like, I'm just ready to have this and be done so that I can go back to having, well, my wife at home. And
00:11:38
Speaker
like have like enjoying that piece instead of just like waiting in limbo to be like, when can I see Austin again? It was maddening and I don't understand. I hated it. I hated every second of that. It was weird. Yeah. So it's,
Career Change and Work-Life Balance
00:11:54
Speaker
it's pretty clear that you and I, we kind of, we disappeared for a while and I think it's worthwhile that we address that for our audience and give them some sort of explanation as to why that happened to begin with.
00:12:06
Speaker
I don't know if you want to talk about like what happened on your end because I kind of have like a sort of like a prepared statement about what happened on my end. So the past year, well I think we were recording when I moved to Connecticut. We had like a little bit of a break.
00:12:25
Speaker
We had a bit of a break, yeah, because I had just started a job here and moving to Connecticut, we moved because my partner found his dream job. And it's like, well, you got to go for that. That's super important. But yeah, so we moved for my partner's work, which meant that I had to find a new job, which is totally fine.
00:12:47
Speaker
found a new job and it ended up being a lot. I know that I put a lot of effort in and I did a very good job, but in the end,
00:13:00
Speaker
It was not sustainable for me mentally, emotionally or physically. I was working a lot. I was working like, I want to say like 52 plus hours a week. I wouldn't get holidays or anything like that. So I lost a lot of opportunity to like.
00:13:20
Speaker
explore the home that we are now building for ourselves. We still don't really know a ton about Connecticut because a lot of the time I had to spend at work. I missed out on a lot of family opportunity because I was unable to travel because I'd only have one day off that week or something.
00:13:46
Speaker
And I just became so tired that I literally couldn't really do anything else.
00:13:54
Speaker
So I have now left that job. I do wish them the best. They're not going to fucking listen to this. But the people that I worked with, I have the most respect for them. They are the hardest working people that I know. But if I didn't leave, I would be stuck there forever and I would be very sad and not a happy person. So I am making a career change. It's in the works.
00:14:19
Speaker
Um, I'm fine. I don't think people are worried about me. Please don't be. Um, this was like a decision and I was worried about you before you left, uh, this job. I mean, I even said so. I wasn't doing my wedding. Literally everybody that I know in my life, um, when I would talk to them about this job, which I just for the sake of like,
00:14:47
Speaker
I'm not going to go into details. The only people that need to know the details are like when I'm talking to you in person or if you're my therapist. Like everybody wanted me to leave. My therapist really wanted me to leave. And when I told her that I left.
00:15:04
Speaker
Okay, and when I told everybody that I left like everybody was like happy for me and very supportive of me friends family my partner whoever Everybody was like that's you made the best choice that you could have made you're doing the right thing. You're good
00:15:20
Speaker
My therapist was the happiest person. Like she was smiling ear to ear for the entire session. She ended with like, Corinne, this is such a great session. I'm so happy. Uh, she's, uh, we've just to have your therapist in your corner. Oh my God. She, she's ecstatic.
00:15:43
Speaker
which is like very appreciative. Um, but yeah, so right now, uh, the plan is to, uh, we're, we're making a big career change. I think I'm going to be, um, I'm applying for a program that will like get me an alternative certificate into teaching. So hopefully I can teach like a family consumer sciences. I might tack on like a science certification. I got to like look more into it just for like the sake of job security, but like,
00:16:13
Speaker
We found a thing, guys, everything's fine. The last year was just pretty poopy, but we'll be okay. We're working on it. I'm already feeling a million times better. Good, good. For me, the last six months have represented a bit of a trial.
Retail Job Challenges and Podcast Hiatus
00:16:31
Speaker
I was actually doing really well around the time that we had put out our last major episode, and things were actually looking up for me.
00:16:40
Speaker
until they weren't. My day job is pretty demanding and I work in retail. So for anyone who has ever had the pleasure of working on a McDonald's or a Dunkin Donuts and seen what goes on behind the scenes, they understand what I mean.
00:16:54
Speaker
A little after we put out our last episode, I was asked to help run a secondary location because the manager that was there was going through some personal issues and they need to step away for a little while. And I'm going to spare everyone the twists and turns that all spring from that one decision. Uh, but it was enough that I essentially lost much of any personal life for a few months while I was attempting to fix all of the issues that landed in my lap.
00:17:21
Speaker
With my professional life overtaking my personal life, this meant that I had absolutely no time to devote to writing or editing, two things that I tend to enjoy and are crucial to keeping a podcast running. So as the weeks went by, it felt like I didn't have the ability to step in to put out a message addressing why the show would need to be on hiatus because that required acknowledging that I didn't have time or something that I actually love to do.
00:17:48
Speaker
So, and I didn't want to acknowledge that for myself because it feels bad to be like, Hey guys, I can't do this. It sucks admitting that you're having a terrible time. It absolutely sucks because nobody wants to admit that. Like we all want to be like, no, I'm fine. Everything's fine. But like, it's not. And it sucks. Like.
00:18:07
Speaker
I think there were multiple weeks where you and I would be like, I can't this week, but let's aim for next week. And that was two months of us being like, I can't. But let's try next week. We were so hopeful and we just were not admitting to ourselves. No. It also felt during that time like I couldn't record without you. Since you've become such an integral part to the show and putting out a quick message,
00:18:37
Speaker
Like we couldn't even get our lives to cross for that. So even just doing a quick message and be like, Hey guys, we're going to be on hiatus. It didn't feel right to do that without you. But then it also like we couldn't even get together to do that. No, we were incapable.
00:18:55
Speaker
Um, and that's not to say that the last, uh, few months have been entirely devoid of any personal pleasures. Uh, like I was able to visit my family for a very brief period. I found a local animal conservation and education center where I got to interact with a lot of animals that I never have before. Oh, wait, that was fucking cool. Wait, was that when you went to go visit your family or is that like where you are in, in, in New Jersey? Yeah. It's a really cool place. They have like hundreds of bats.
00:19:25
Speaker
So I got to feed some bats, which I've never done before. Okay. You need to, you need to text me that. And then, cause my one friend, the one I did the slideshows with, uh, their thesis statement for grad school was all about bats. Oh, you'll 100% love this place and it's super cheap. So I'll send it to you. Like literally the moment we're off here.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, send it to me and then I'll send it to them and then we'll all go together and feed that. Yeah, it's great. I also, you know, got married. That tends to be a pretty positive moment in most people's lives.
00:20:02
Speaker
But all of this got me thinking about the positives that I've had over the last few months. And we both have had some difficult times, but we've also had some great things come out of them. It's not like our lives completely stopped. I still found time to continue reading the book series that I'm working on, although extremely slowly. I still found time to pair with an artist in a comic book that I've written, which I will give more details on that in the future. And I still found time to read some good comics. So I thought,
00:20:31
Speaker
Why not do things a little differently this time? I still have a couple of episodes I need to edit for release. So it felt disingenuous to do that before we could even address our absence. So why not take this time to talk about the comics that we've read since we were last here? So one of the, I guess since we've been apart, I have been doing mostly like, um,
00:20:59
Speaker
kind of continuing series that I've previously read. So one of them that I continued was, I think I had mentioned it on here. I had read the first like collection. It's like, I guess it's considered book one of Hellblazer. I think we've talked about that.
00:21:21
Speaker
the first like trade paperback of the series. Yeah. Hellblazer original sins. I've, I have read that previously. That's what I'm considering. Like book one, I picked up a while ago, um, the second collection. Um, and so I read through that.
00:21:41
Speaker
It's a lot of fun. If you don't know what Hellblazer is, it's John Constantine, teen, whatever you want to call him. Depends on if you're from UK or the US, but he's very like anti-establishment, supernatural, wizardy man who smokes a lot and wears a trench coat and he's angsty.
00:22:05
Speaker
fights demons. It's like right up my alley. The first one, Original Sins is very much like all of the issues kind of add up to a cohesive story. Like, you know, he goes here and then does this and then does this and does this and it comes out to this. Like they're all generally pretty connected. The second collection is a little more disjointed.
00:22:31
Speaker
So it's kind of a different style of reading. There's very heavy metaphorical stories, which were very visually interesting to look at and like interesting to hear.
00:22:44
Speaker
There's one where I don't remember the entire story, but I know most of it takes place in like a beach. Yes. Okay. That's in this one. Um, so the second book starts with them, like, uh, kind of picking up where they left off in original sins, where there's like, uh, there's a plot with, uh, a very nasty demon that's got a hold on Constantine and.
00:23:07
Speaker
Swamp Thing is involved to give help but kind of begrudgingly. So they had kind of made a deal, Constantine and Swamp Thing. And it was fun. They kind of basically wrap that one up and also give you the insight as to what happened in Newcastle, which is kind of like Constantine's origin story, quote unquote. Yeah. Like how he really gets into what he's doing. You learn that he was in a band because of course he was in a band.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah, that checks out. Yeah, but then kind of from then on, the rest of the issues that are in that collection are very like one-shot-esque.
00:23:47
Speaker
heavy on the metaphor of something that the author feels and it's fun. It's a good read. I enjoyed it. Um, I probably took a lot more time to read it just because I knew nothing was connected. So I wasn't like, Oh, should I have to remember what happened? But yes, the, the beach issue is in that the beach is, um,
00:24:08
Speaker
Basically there's like a nuclear explosion across the way of this beach and all this crazy stuff happens. People are like falling apart and it's the end of the world and like fish are coming out of the ocean and they're all weird and ugly.
00:24:24
Speaker
And then it's like one of those, I can do, it was all a dream. I love the weird gross stuff like that though. I liked it. Cause again, I'm also a weird gross girl and I was like, all right, this is fun. I think if you go into it knowing that they're not connected, it's more of an anthology book. I think you'll enjoy it more.
00:24:45
Speaker
So I'm telling you now it's an anthology because I based on, cause I only knew what I had read previously. So I was kind of expecting a similar format and I wasn't given that format, which I'm not in the end mad about. I was just a little thrown off at the beginning. So I was trying to piece things together when I really didn't have to. Um, but I liked it. It was very fun. It's very like,
00:25:14
Speaker
visually intensive, which I like. It's very like, you can tell, it's that very punk-esque.
00:25:22
Speaker
really hyper-colorful, older style of drawing. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun with it. Max and I are looking for the third book because I've gotten Max now into reading Hellblazer again. The first book that we have is originally his and then I kind of was like, I'm going to read it. And then got the second one for myself. So now we're kind of riding along on the series together.
00:25:48
Speaker
I think it's fun that you're reading through Sandman at the moment and then you also have Constantine. So around the time that all of this was being published, you had three main sort of darker, more mature comic books being published. And I think they all got sort of folded into Vertigo.
00:26:11
Speaker
that was Sandman, Hellblazer, and Swamp Thing. So you just gotta pick up Swamp Thing now. That's gonna be your next pick. I was really tempted, and we'll talk about the stuff I picked up, but I found... I finally found a local comic shop that's literally five minutes from my apartment, and I'm super excited about it. But I just picked... I saw Swamp Thing there. I was so close to getting it. But I'm waiting until just a reasonable time for me to get it. Oh, yeah.
00:26:41
Speaker
But, um, I was like, I was this close. I was so, so close, but I went in there with a mission for something else. And I was like, I have to complete my original mission, which again, we'll talk about later, but I will complete the trifecta of like dark, goofy dudes. I will. I probably, I've read more of Swamp Thing than I have of Hellblazer and it's pretty solid. It's very good. Yeah. I'm really excited. I, I've been like, not secretly, but like,
00:27:11
Speaker
Vaguely interested in him before and now I'm like, I'm all in like I need I need some swamp man Well, and there's crossover between those three series So yeah, like pick it up and you'll start like reading and go Oh, I see where this connects later to this other thing. And I think that's a lot of fun. I miss
00:27:31
Speaker
I miss when it wasn't like so, it wasn't like, oh, Sandman shows up in Swamp Thing's book. These two books are connected. It's just like tiny details that go from series to series. I think that's cool. Yeah. And it's not that like it totally like makes you like, Oh crap. I like have to read this now. It's more just like if you've read it, it's like, Oh, that's cool. Like you don't feel this like pressure. Like they're not inserting like, you know, Oh.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, like you would know this context if you read blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, now I gotta go like find another thing. Like, but no, I liked, I liked the second collection book, whatever we want to call it. Um, I'm excited to read the third one. So that's the first thing that I read. So the first thing I was going to talk about actually isn't even a collection of, uh, of comics that I read. It was more so.
00:28:23
Speaker
We do a lot of our reading through Marvel Unlimited since it's the easiest way to access such a huge variety of older comics without spending an insane amount of money on trying to collect the trades. At the end of the year, Marvel likes to send out highlights of what they've noticed in our reading habits over the past year. It's like Spotify wrapped but not very flashy and has a lot of
00:28:46
Speaker
less actual information than you'd think, considering the amount of data that they're pulling from. My Marvel Unlimited Highlights shows that I started last year reading the very first issue of the Clone Saga, which isn't that surprising, considering that was supposed to be our year-long journey, which, I mean, it kind of got derailed with life. But it's still fun to see that. And you wrote a lot of the Clone Saga according to
00:29:11
Speaker
to Marvel Unlimited because I share your account. So then it's not even like showing you like the alternating of like stories. It basically thinks you've read like almost a huge percentage by yourself. And I just think that's really funny. That does skew some of the numbers here. Because according to this, over the course of the year, I read over 51 series and 192 comics using the Marvel app.
00:29:36
Speaker
I have definitely read more than just that, but it's fun to see how many I was able to dig into just on this glitchy and confusing app that seems hellbent on making the ability to follow multiple series a nightmare.
00:29:50
Speaker
It's a little interesting. I mean, you and I share it, but like, I mean, outside of the clone saga, I don't know if you use it. No, I don't outside of the, outside of the homework for this podcast. I don't, um, I will number one, I'm very much one of those people. Um, I was.
00:30:09
Speaker
I was taught very young, don't come over and invite yourself. You have to be invited. And you have invited me to use the account. And that's cool. But for some reason, I'm still just like, that's Derek's account. I will not skew it with mine.
00:30:29
Speaker
Aside from the few things that you've recommended to me, because you know I like Scarlet Witch and stuff like that, I have just noticed that I am just not interested in a lot of Marvel characters that are being highlighted at the moment. I don't know why. I don't know if it's like... Maybe I just haven't... I like an edgy comic book, something that's a little darker or a little...
00:30:57
Speaker
Whimsy dark kind of thing like something that gives me a bit of a thrill in a comic and I don't know if I found necessarily that like edgy Well, I don't know if I found my right Marvel vibe yet still yeah you have to kind of go hunting a bit because I
00:31:16
Speaker
It's so varied. It's actually kind of funny you mentioned, because I didn't even write the Scarlet Witch down, which is surprising because that particular comic book is, I'm loving it so far. The new Scarlet Witch book. Yeah, I would like to read it. I will at some point. It's a lot of fun. It's not dark at all, but it's just cute and fun. But that's just like a character I like. So I feel like I can forgive that because
00:31:44
Speaker
that she was one of the first characters that got me into reading comics. So I'm like, I gotta respect you. Her book is, I think, super interesting. There's gonna be a lot of weird X-Men lore as you go into it, but they do a good job of explaining the important parts, so I wouldn't be too caught up on what actually
00:32:09
Speaker
any of it really means. Um, because like they, I mean, they know, look, this character has been around since the sixties and she has weird family ties across decades. There was like the whole like magnetos, her dad, but also like maybe not. And then it's like, Oh, she's an inhuman, but she's a mutant, but she's also not. Yes. And her,
00:32:35
Speaker
So from where I am reading currently, I believe Magneto is not her biological father, but he still accepts her as his daughter. And that's pretty interesting. And then there's also, Magneto has a clone named Joseph.
00:32:59
Speaker
And Joseph is also in the book. So there's some like weirdness. Joseph is a weird character that I don't even know if I have the ability to really like explain because anytime you pick up, he's different every time you pick up a book. So I don't even know. He's very complicated. I also can't picture any Magneto looking character and not having them named Magneto.
00:33:24
Speaker
Like any name you put next to that just seems wrong. Like Joseph sounds goofy as hell. Like, even if it's like, oh, Dennis, that sounds worse. It's a little strange. And he's not my favorite character, but he is pretty interesting for what he's being used for, I think. And exploring more of like Scarlett, which is,
00:33:52
Speaker
emotions around like kind of what's going on in her life at the moment.
00:33:58
Speaker
Well, that actually brings, so the majority of the comics that I've read, according to Marvel Unlimited, featured Marvel's Merry Mutants, the X-Men, which is not very surprising to anyone that knows me. I mean, again, we just talked about Scarlet Witch and how much like I love her and the weirdness that follows with pretty much any character that comes from the X-Men.
00:34:23
Speaker
I literally have multiple Iceman action figures from the 90s in my living room at this very moment and I'm not a toy collector. I have like some Star Trek figures and X-Men and that's it. And before I deleted my Twitter account, I had been quoted in exactly one article ever and it was on the inherent queerness of the X-Men. So all of this really does kind of make sense.
00:34:51
Speaker
And I intentionally didn't include any X-Men books on my list because there's good and bad. And I feel like none of the X-Men books that I've read feel too coherent on their own. They're all building off of something else. And it doesn't feel like a series that stands alone so much as it's between big events.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah, like it's an era. It's not like a... Right. Actually, an era is a great way of putting it. I'm reading an era of X-Men and it's fine. It's not... None of it feels like, oh, this one long story is really interesting, or this single issue stands out because they all feed into each other. And that's fine, but it's not really super interesting to talk about. Did you have a next one you want to start on before I get into anything more?
Exploring Sandman and Emotional Investment
00:35:49
Speaker
The second one that I like notably read this during this hiatus was Sandman 3. Oh no, Karim's a predictable reader. Yes, I am, and I'm okay with it. Sometimes when you're in a dark place, you got to go to your comfort reads. So I went to my comfort read and it's Sandman. God damn it. The third one's- I mean, when I get into more of mine, it's very similar. I think people will kind of laugh at how
00:36:19
Speaker
the ones that I picked tend to be more mainstream stuff than, you know, kind of what you would expect. So it's a little interesting. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I read the third collection of Sandman. It was fun. It was not my favorite of like, I'm going in order. I think there's like five like of the, the size books that I'm getting. I think there's five.
00:36:48
Speaker
That makes sense because I think there's like 10 of the ones that I have. Probably. So it would make sense that yours would be like half the amount. Yeah. And that's kind of the only size I'm finding in comics, like shops and like bookstores now is like those, like they're not really like an comedy bus, but like kind of, I guess are like, I don't know what to call them. It's the same size as like these hope laser ones that I have, but it's a solid amount of collections.
00:37:15
Speaker
of issues. And the main story was a storyline regarding
00:37:24
Speaker
Sandman and delirium his like youngest sister. They're trying to find their lost brother and Very well you are into this series. Yeah I liked it. I thought it was good and then the the rest of the book consists of a Couple one-offs and then another storyline where people are People are in this in at the end of worlds
00:37:55
Speaker
And there's like a reality storm. And so people are in this tavern and they're each sharing a story and each story that's shared is an issue of a comic. And that one was fun. That one was good. It was not my favorite just because I was like, where are we going? But then the end, I was like, shit, I gotta know what happened.
00:38:15
Speaker
That's the one I usually skip if I'm rereading. I find it a little boring. But fun fact, one of my instructors at the Kubrick School did one of those issues. Which one? It's the one about the city that is alive. That one was very cool because the art is so different in that one. It's very... That's very much his style. It's very like minimalist, blocky, like...
00:38:44
Speaker
not pop art, but like it was very, it was very interesting and it really fit the whole vibe of that story that was being told. Um, that one was very cool. It was a little crazy to read, but like it was very cool to look at. I was a little thrown reading through it, but I liked it.
00:39:04
Speaker
Like with the art that they did, it almost made some things look like almost like two things, which I think really helped the point of the story, which was really cool. Like you're in this perpetual state of being lost. And like, I think he did good. Cause I would, I feel like that would have been a hard one for all. Um, that's cool that, you know, someone that did that. I like that. Um,
00:39:31
Speaker
But yeah, that one, so it ends weird. That collection ends kind of funky for me because I didn't love it going through like that little section. But then in the end, I'm like, oh no, what happened? Cause like spoilers, there's like a funeral procession at the end and everybody's seeing it and you see all these characters from like, you know, the kind of like, you know, you got death and like all of them.
00:39:58
Speaker
are like walking around like all the brothers and sisters of the endless. And like, I don't know if you know, but like, do I, do we find out who died? Yeah. Okay. You, it, um, it might go for a little bit longer before you get like the definitive here's what happened, but
00:40:16
Speaker
Yes. Okay. In my brain, my theory right now is they found out that like destruction died, but no, you're not. No, I don't want to tell you what happens or not because I think it's far more interesting. Am I going to be emotionally damaged? Like, yes, I think you're going to, I think you're going to read through it and like, as it continues, I don't want to say, I don't want to say what I deep down think happened because based on the drawings, like,
00:40:47
Speaker
dream is not there. So then I'm like, I think you're going to be emotionally invested the more and more you get into it. It's very good. Sandman is my favorite comic book and it just keeps
00:41:04
Speaker
It's so well put together. Now I'm really anxious. I'm like, what if Dream died the name of the comic? And no, you're making that face like it happened and I don't like it. I didn't make a face. You made a face. I'm freaking out. He's my favorite character. I can't have him die. He's like the main, the only main character that I've ever liked. I'm like, he's so weird. I love him.
00:41:33
Speaker
He's very weird and very like, you kind of feel bad for him. And he's this infinite being that acts like a 24 year old and I think it's so funny. His petulant sort of like, you don't want to be with me, so I'm going to damn you to hell. Oh my God. And like the, okay. The whole beginning of this, I remember when I first started reading Sandman, where I was like, he's such a cool God. Like he's so mature. No, he's not.
00:42:01
Speaker
I'm just making excuses for myself. Because as you read more about him, he's so fickle. But like, in the beginning of the main storyline in this book, he's like, his entire realm is like in perpetual rain because he got broken up with by his girlfriend. And then he goes to like his brother at one point who's like, destiny.
00:42:30
Speaker
And Destiny just tears up a new one and is like, Oh, you want to know your future? Your girlfriend never loved you and she will never love you. And you're going to see her once again in your lifetime. And it's like, it's never going to happen again. Get fucking wrecked. And he's just so sad. It's one of the, whenever I breaks my heart, people ask me like what Sandman is about.
00:42:59
Speaker
Like most people would probably say, oh, it's about this like, this sort of God that can rule over dreams. I'm like, that's part of it. But I usually tell people it's about, it's about a God who is kind of a terrible person trying to learn how to be a better person. And he like, he gets there. Like you can tell that because he's, he's really just, hold on. Let me recollect my thoughts. You can tell that he's grown. Like,
00:43:29
Speaker
And you can tell that he has learned something from each and every journey he has. He's still a God and has a lot of learning to do about feelings and stuff and minding other people. But you can tell deep down that he does care about his family. And even though he doesn't know how to process it, he does care about
00:43:58
Speaker
the people that are affected by him, essentially. You can tell he progressively cares more and more about people. It's very cool to see someone actively grow. To me, it feels very much like someone who
00:44:16
Speaker
Like as the Lord of his realm, he cares very much about his role, but as he gets further into it, he cares more about the people that are in his realm. Like it's, cause I got the impression he cared more about maintaining order than he did care about the people who were being affected by the disorder. And then when it gets further, it's more like, oh no, this is bad for these people.
00:44:47
Speaker
And it's, it's cool to see that. Like there's a, so I was going to, I was going to get more into details, but like, I don't want to like spoil the whole book. You should read the book, even though it's not my favorite of the three that I've read so far. Oh God.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, I have to rank them. It's fine. But yeah, no, that that book at the end made me freak out, though, as we've seen. I got to know who died. I got to know. I got to know who I should be grieving for. I hope it's not the pumpkin guy. I fucking love the pumpkin guy. Yeah, he's great. He's so great. I like him.
00:45:31
Speaker
He shows up more and more in the books and I really appreciate that. Cause when you had made me a poster of Sandman characters and when I had started reading it, I hadn't really seen the pumpkin guy much. So I was like, I don't know who this pumpkin man is on my poster, but I like him and I hope that I continue to like him as I read about him. And it's true. I do like him very much. He's such like a, he's such like a labor guy.
00:45:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, and I love him. I'm like, why is this me? He's just like he's like the little guy and I love it. So, yeah, that was the other book that I read was the collection of Sandman. Nobody's surprised, but I had fun.
Ultimate Spider-Man and Character Dynamics
00:46:15
Speaker
Well, I have a a much more recent book to the point where there's only one issue out so far.
00:46:24
Speaker
And that is Jonathan Hickman's new ultimate Spider-Man. So Jonathan Hickman's recent Marvel tenure has been nothing but solid gold for me personally. We talked a little bit about reading eras of X-Men. The most recent era of X-Men that I have been super interested in
00:46:45
Speaker
has been Jonathan Hickman's era of X-Men. And it extends to beyond when he even was on the book. He starts the ideas that spread and become like a whole new story. It's very interesting. The way I kind of described it actually just the other night talking to a friend of mine was he has a very manga sort of structure to all of the books that he does. There is a beginning, middle and end and they're all weird and he explores those ideas.
00:47:15
Speaker
It's not just like taking on a superhero book and going, well, now there's another new supervillain. It is, here is a fundamental change to the world and how these people interact with it. Oh, that's cool. I may not love every aspect of what he's written, but it is impossible to not recognize just the level of intrigue he's able to build into those simple concepts. And that's true of his new ultimate books as well, which actually convinced me to subscribe to a print comic book for the first time in years.
00:47:45
Speaker
Ultimate Spider-Man is the story of Peter Parker in a world that's completely different from our own. This isn't the same Ultimate Spider-Man from the early 2000s, which just goes further to proving mainstream publishers are allergic to making concise and easy to follow books to attract readers. If you talk about Ultimate Spider-Man, you now have to say
00:48:05
Speaker
either. I think this might be volume four at this point, and it's entirely unrelated to every other Ultimate Spider-Man. Cause we were reading in the Clone Saga, Ultimate Spider-Man. No, that's unlimited. Ah, shit. So Ultimate Spider-Man originally
00:48:23
Speaker
was a reboot of the Spider-Man series set in sort of modern day and following teenage Peter Parker. And then it eventually spread to Peter dying and Miles taking over as the new ultimate Spider-Man. And that was Miles' debut. Eventually Marvel ended that ultimate line and just folded Miles into the regular universe.
00:48:51
Speaker
But now they're rebooting the ultimate line and it's confusing because you have to be very specific about which one you're reading. So for this one, are they back to Peter Parker?
00:49:05
Speaker
It is Peter Parker, but it's a little different. So rather than having the makeup of our own world, this world has seven major territories. There's the North American Union, the Society of South America, the European Coalition, the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, the Eurasian Republic, and the Children of the Eternal Light. And this one, I don't know how to pronounce properly, I think it's
00:49:28
Speaker
Hainokuni, maybe? I don't know. But each territory is run in secret by a set of leaders that report to the Maker. The Maker is the supervillain that came from the previous Ultimate Universe. You don't really need to know all of that. Gotcha. All you need to know is that he's in charge of everything. All wars are negotiated beforehand and all outcomes are predetermined.
00:49:51
Speaker
They all meet in secret and say, okay, for right now, the North American union, you're going to be the bad guys. And so we're all going to be pissed off at you. And then in like a decade, it's going to be someone else. This seems very 1984. It's yes. It's yeah. The maker has utilized time travel to systematically wipe out or neuter nearly every superhuman before they could be created.
00:50:18
Speaker
That includes capturing the spider that would eventually bite Peter and make him Spider-Man. Now, all of this is just the background to the first issue of the Spider-Man series. We learn early on that Aunt May died in a terrorist attack 20 years before the start of the series and that Peter is married to Mary Jane and has two kids.
00:50:39
Speaker
So the central premise is how does this version of Peter adjust to life as a superhero when things are already so different? So he's like in his thirties married and has kids before he ever gets spider powers. Oh, well, that's kind of cool. I mean, because it's taken just your classic Spider-Man and like somebody actually found a way to like revitalize it in a way. That's cool.
00:51:06
Speaker
I love this. And without ruining the first issue, I can tell you that I was intrigued by the cast of characters that were involved because I finally felt like the side characters made a difference to the story. Like they were going to be something that you actually cared about. Yeah. Instead of being just a cameo like, Oh yeah, this guy's here in this issue. That's fun. Okay. Bye-bye.
00:51:31
Speaker
how they interacted with Peter and the way that that sort of led into some of Peter's decisions in the book and the way that the ending of the book recontextualized every conversation Peter had since the beginning of the issue. Again, I don't want to ruin it, but when you get to the very ending, you're like,
00:51:56
Speaker
Okay, so I did not understand what all Peter was thinking throughout this book. Yeah, and the things that were being said mattered, like... Right.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, because I have found in, when we were reading Clone Saga, and like, you know, again, that was like a different time of writing, I understand. But like, sometimes it felt like when you're reading it, it's like, I don't have to read anything on this page. I could just like skim through the pictures and be like, okay, I got it. I know what happened. Cool. Which I did not do.
00:52:38
Speaker
This is very context heavy and the moments that happen within the book all feel like it's leading to something different. And then when you get to the ending, having to go back and see where some of those
00:52:54
Speaker
The thought process that Peter had was slightly different than what you originally thought at that time. And I think that's just so interesting. It immediately makes you think, I should reread this. It makes you want to actively read a comic book.
00:53:12
Speaker
Right. This is one of the first times that I've been so excited to read the second issue of a comic book. And it's one of the first times in a very long time where I was driving to work and was daydreaming about like the different possibilities, like where the story could go, because I genuinely have no idea what they're going to do.
00:53:36
Speaker
That's good. It's kind of like when you, like, you know, when you get stuck in a rut of like, well, I guess it's stuck in a rut of anything. It's like, it sounds like you're out of like a reading rut almost. Like, this happens a lot for me with like, um, like TV, I would say, especially I'm terrible at watching TV shows.
00:53:55
Speaker
And for me to find a show that I'm like, oh, I can't wait to watch the next episode. That's hard for me to find. But when I find it, I'm like, I need to hold on to this. So it's good that you found a comic that actually makes you want to keep reading it instead of feeling obligated. Because I know sometimes with some books, I'm like, I feel obligated to finish this because I've made it this far. But that's good that you don't have that.
00:54:26
Speaker
No, I genuinely was very excited about getting to the next issue, which hasn't come out yet. So again, all of this is based off of one issue. I'm very ready for this. Great first impression. Yeah. So again, because my life has been crazy for, I mean, realistically the past year, my life has been super crazy. But going into this year, my goal, my overall
00:54:56
Speaker
I don't usually do New Year's resolutions, but this one I think is realistic and good and I'll actually do it. My goal is to read at least one book from, quote unquote, every genre. So I've come up with a list of various genres.
00:55:12
Speaker
that I have to read a book from. So I have a historical fiction book, I got a sci-fi book, I got a comedy, a romance, a more dramatic kind of thing, a non-fiction, and I included comic and manga into it. And obviously I can read more than just one from a genre, but the goal is to broaden the horizons is the general goal.
00:55:42
Speaker
And I had kind of figured like, oh, well, like, you know, there's so many different kinds of comics. Like maybe I could also, if I want to go back to reading a comic in between this giant goal, I can pick a comic that's like, you know, not something I typically go for. So I have some kind of things here that I'm like, I have, and I'm like, this will be like a good branch off for me.
00:56:05
Speaker
Because I think based on what we've talked about in the past, I mean, obviously I read a lot of Sandman. I read a lot of like kind of spooky, like you're edgy kind of stuff. I like Batman. I like Hellblazer. We're trying to like expand. So the first thing that I will bring up is I found this book.
00:56:30
Speaker
It's an image comic. Um, it's called shirtless bear fighter. And I, I was like, this is definitely a good, a good branch off for me. I love bears. Um, and I like, I just thought this was super goofy and super silly. The bears look super evil on this cover and I love it, but it is essentially, um, I won't really like read the whole back for you, but it's basically this,
00:56:57
Speaker
This man has been raised by bears and he is betrayed by the bears. The bears have betrayed this man that has been raised by them and he's just a shirtless bear fighter now and he wanders the forest that he is sworn to protect from these treacherous bears and he eventually makes it like into like
00:57:22
Speaker
more of the cities and stuff like that. And he just wants to punch some bears in the face. And I'm like, you know what? Let's see where this goes, baby.
00:57:34
Speaker
You know that kind of like, not in terms of the actual story, but sort of the feel of the story kind of reminds me of the other day I was, I was sitting and I was thinking about like, you know, I get bored reading some of the same books and every so often I'm kind of like, this is dumb. This is silly. I don't know if I want to read it. And I remembered
00:57:59
Speaker
One of my other favorite comic books, Hack Slash, there is a storyline very early on about a lesbian vampire sorority. And I just couldn't help but laugh about the concept of a lesbian vampire sorority that is
00:58:20
Speaker
infiltrated by a woman with a baseball bat and her like monster best friend. Oh my God. I love the best friend. He is like my favorite. I can't remember. It's like his name's like Victor or something. It's Vlad. Vlad. Yeah. I love Vlad.
00:58:38
Speaker
And I was just thinking about that. I was like, damn, there is a point where you're just kind of, you just look at it and you're like, this is so silly on its face that it's perfect. Yeah. And like hard slash is fun because if you liked like slasher films from like 2007, like this is the, that's the comic for you. And that's what I even did a crossover with the hatchet series. So, I mean,
00:59:02
Speaker
And they crossed over with... They crossed over with Chucky. Yeah. So there's like a lot of overlap.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah. Um, which I had a great time reading it. I thought it was fun. I definitely have to be like in the 2000 slasher, like mood to watch it or to, to read it, but like I had it. That is a fun one. I'm a big fan. Um, but yeah, that's one of shirtless bear fighter is going to be like my, my branch out for comics.
00:59:34
Speaker
I love that. Yeah, I did also just because this will go super quick. I also got the another thing of saga because since they're back from hiatus, I have like I haven't read anything since the hiatus was over. So I'm I'm excited. I have read some I have read a couple issues.
00:59:56
Speaker
from the end of the hiatus. I still, I'm, I guess I'm like technically behind. So like, and I don't really remember what I read because I was like, I had gotten them as individual issues. And then I got like book 10 or like the collection or whatever. So I was like, I should, I'll take a break from it. And then I'll read it when like I can actively like pay attention to it. Cause that's just like a,
01:00:25
Speaker
Like I need to, I need to focus on saga because I know that I'm going to like deep dive and like be emotionally invested. So I need that. That's I guess kind of my sci-fi, um, kind of space opera esque thing for comics. Sometimes I find cheap.
01:00:45
Speaker
or free ways to read a book just to test out if I'm actually interested in getting the full series. I did this recently and stopped a few issues into reading because I felt it was worth going out and purchasing the full series.
01:01:01
Speaker
I'm very behind on reading some of the more well-regarded manga that's out there. It's just not something that has like super been at the forefront of my mind. I know a lot of people are far more into manga than I am. But I definitely like the ones that I've read. And this is one that I'm sure people are going to be shocked to learn that I have not read before now.
Uzumaki's Horror Appeal
01:01:26
Speaker
But I started reading Uzumaki by Junji Ito.
01:01:30
Speaker
I've been told many times that I would love this series as it plays to the exact type of dread in a horror book that I tend to really enjoy. I was going to say, is that the super horror, spirally one? Yes. So Uzumaki is the story of a small Japanese town that is infected with spirals. It sounds silly, but every chapter is done so effectively that the simple spiral symbol becomes terrifying.
01:01:59
Speaker
It's gross, it's sad, and it's beautifully drawn. I got maybe four or five chapters into the book, and I was like, I am hunting down the full collection and buying it right away. Right. How long is it? It is... So...
01:02:18
Speaker
I don't really know. The collection that I bought is a three in one, because I guess it's three big volumes that does the entire series. So I don't think it's very, very long, but what I've read of it was great. I mean, some of the dialogue is a little weird and it might be just the translation. It might just be like the type of story. Yeah, that makes sense.
01:02:47
Speaker
But for at least at the beginning of the series, each chapter is kind of a standalone horror story involving spirals and how they can kind of fuck with you.
01:02:57
Speaker
That's cool. It is dark and weird and depressing. Oddly, it's one of those things where sometimes when you're in a bad emotional spot, you want to kind of read or watch something that is very... Yeah, when you're sad and it's raining out, you put on your sad Spotify playlist. I started reading this during a time where I was feeling particularly very down.
01:03:26
Speaker
And I actually stopped, not just because I was enjoying it, but because it was like, this might be too much for me right now. But it's really good. And so I'm very excited to finish the series. Cool. When you're done with that, I might borrow it from you, because that is something that I would probably read. And I've heard about that one before. I've seen some just random images from it. And I'm like, I want to know what this is about.
01:03:56
Speaker
It's messed up. Just from the little I've read, I already highly recommend it. Yeah. I am definitely one of the people that when people ask for book recommendations, I had some people over during New Year's and one of my friends, they want to get more into reading and just get into the habit of it. I sent them home with some books.
01:04:22
Speaker
I would kind of pick each one out and be like, here's a little bit of what it's about. It's really dark, but it's good. 90% of the things that I'm like, it's dark, but it's good. I always have to practice. I'm like, it's a little fuck, but I like it. Mine go in one of two directions. It's either it's dark, but it's good, or it's a little childish or silly, but that's what makes it so much fun. Yeah.
01:04:53
Speaker
And I think, I think you need that balance. And I think I get the silly goofy balance in other ways of my life, but oftentimes when I'm reading, I'm like, it's just dark all the time. But this year I'm trying to branch out. We're like actively trying. I saw, was that a Sonic shirt? It's a Sonic hoodie. It's really, I found it actually like
01:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, like the day after I got married, I found this and I bought it. So the front says, stop and smell the chili dogs. And there's like a tiny picture of Sonic at the bottom eating a chili dog. But then on the back, there's a picture of Sonic and he's like daydreaming about chili dogs. I love that. It's really good. Cause I think like about 30 minutes ago, I was like, I think that's a Sonic reference.
01:05:45
Speaker
But I just like, I was like, I'll bank that and I'll ask about it later. So you get the two, I'm a huge fan of Uzumaki so far and Sonic the fucking Hedgehog. Oh, well, speaking of manga, one of my branch outs is to try and read more manga and figure out what I like.
01:06:03
Speaker
Uh, because I think when I started reading comics and stuff like that, I won't lie. I think I was a bit prejudice when it came to manga. I'm sorry, manga people. I was a little intimidated. Um, just sometimes I, I think I would, you know, when people would talk about it and honestly, they probably didn't know enough about it. A lot of people would jump to the conclusion of like, it's kind of weird and like,
01:06:30
Speaker
a lot. And I was like, I don't know if I want that in my life. So I was a bit hesitant. But manga has many genres just like every other type of comic or book and everything. And I have accepted that and I have learned. Last year, I want to say, I did start reading Chainsaw Man, which I actually liked a lot more than I thought.
01:07:00
Speaker
I really dived in starting with a very interesting series, but it was recommended to me by a friend and I was like, I'm going to honor this friend's recommendation and I will read it. Because I gave them Saga, so they gave me Chainsaw Man. And I was like, I got to do this. They really liked Saga, I'm going to trust their opinion and I'm going to go with it. And I do like it. It's very interesting. I'm very invested in the characters, so I will continue reading that.
01:07:28
Speaker
But I asked for this book for Christmas. This will help me branch out for sure. But it's called A Story of Seven Lives. I don't know if you can see. It's cats. Oh, it's cats. It's a manga about cats. And it's like there was a house cat. His name is, I think,
01:07:52
Speaker
I don't know. I haven't read it yet, but I'm excited to. And he was a house cat, but then tragedy struck and he was abandoned on the rough streets of Tokyo. But it looks like he meets some new cat friends and they go on adventures. And I think I'm going to like it. I'm excited. It seems like it's going to be like
01:08:14
Speaker
you know, just a wholesome read about cats and maybe some like, some sad stuff will happen. Cause maybe we learned some tragic cats backstories and I'm going to want to adopt all these fictional cats, but like, I don't know. I thought that was maybe like a good way to see, like, see, manga has many varieties and I will find something that I like. So, um,
01:08:40
Speaker
I got it for Christmas. It was wrapped and labeled from Oliver, which is my cat.
01:08:48
Speaker
So I hope it's good. Um, I'm excited to read it. I had seen like, I totally judged the book by the cover. I just think the cover is super cute. And it's just these happy cats and like, like an alley. I'm like, wow, I can't wait to read it. Um, but the last thing that I plan on reading is, uh, it's called bloodstain teeth. Now we're kind of going back into my comfort zone a little more again with like,
01:09:15
Speaker
gritty, edgy, spooky kind of stuff. It is about vampires, if you couldn't tell, because it's called bloodstained teeth. But yeah. You sent me a picture of the books that you picked up the other day, and that was the one that stood out the most to me. And I was immediately like, what is that? They're very cool. They're very eye-catching, for sure. It's very pop art.
01:09:45
Speaker
paper colors.
01:09:47
Speaker
very cool stuff like that. I'm a big fan. I started reading it a couple years ago. I read the first four issues. So I have to reread them to jog my memory of what happens. But if I remember right, you have vampires that were always vampires. They just were like,
01:10:15
Speaker
They were born this way. Like your Dracula and stuff like that, like original vampires. And then you have vampires that were turned into vampires.
01:10:29
Speaker
You know, they found a victim, they claimed the victim, the victim's now a vampire kind of situation. So there's kind of like a almost like a hierarchy of like social socialness. I don't know what I forgot words while trying to explain this.
01:10:49
Speaker
But there's clearly like a hierarchy of respect as to like what kind of vampire you are. And then from what I remember, there are some murders that happen in the city that the group they're highlighting lives in. There's been some mysterious murders and people think it's like the non-original vampires. And so basically it's very kind of almost like an organized crime genre like vibe.
01:11:19
Speaker
but with vampires and like murder in an arbitrary city. It's kind of cool. It's interesting. I'm probably butchering what this is about, but I don't care because I like it. And when I read more about it, I will give you a better explanation. But again, I haven't read it in like a couple of years, but it's one of those things that it's like I found once
01:11:46
Speaker
And I know that I really liked it and I wanted to see where it was going because you don't know who committed these crimes. You're trying to figure out who it is and what group they were a part of. And the main character is just like kind of like he's high up in society, but he's also just like an unhappy person. And it's like, why is he unhappy? Let's figure it out. So there is a lot of mystery involved and I want to solve the mystery.
01:12:16
Speaker
But then I could never get a hold of any issues. I just could never find any. I would go to the comic shop that I originally founded in, and then I would never find it in the release this week or anything like that. Because when I started reading it, it was a numerous thing. But then finally, the comic shop that I just found had
01:12:41
Speaker
a bunch of random issues that happened to be in the order that I needed them in and I was like, cool, I'll snag those. And we'll just hope that they continue to make more. So that's where we're at with that one. Shout out to my local comic shop. Well, I got sick last year. And when I was sick last year, I just couldn't sleep at all.
01:13:07
Speaker
And I tend to get bored of reading the same style of book over and over. So I really wasn't wanting to read a regular superhero book at the time. I didn't also want to read like a horror book for the similar reasons. Like I was just hopping back and forth between superhero and horror. And while I was sitting in bed during that time, completely unable to sleep.
TMNT Comics and Storytelling
01:13:28
Speaker
Um, I remembered that I had been for a while following the IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics for the first like 50 or so issues. And I fell out because, you know, I get bored reading the same style of book over and over. And even though like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is like, I would consider it a superhero book, it's
01:13:53
Speaker
They're all very different from Spider-Man or Superman. Those are guys that can't take masks off.
01:14:05
Speaker
They're just funky little dudes all the time. And I feel like that plays a huge part. With Spider-Man or Superman, they all have secret identities. So there's a double life situation. But if you're just stuck being a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle all the time, that's gonna make your life different. At least a little bit. Yeah. And the TMNT series, depending on when you pick it up, because there's so many different versions of it,
01:14:34
Speaker
They all tend to be their own weird style that doesn't really kind of fit with other things. Again, I still consider it a superhero book, but it's just so wildly different from the other kinds. So rather than pick up the series right where I had left off, I felt that I should probably start from the beginning and read all of the side stories up to the big conclusion
01:15:04
Speaker
that I knew happened in the 100th issue. So when I was sick, I had COVID. During that time, I started reading this and it took me a while, because I mean, it was not only 100 issues, but all of the side stories too. I love this.
01:15:24
Speaker
It is a master class and long form serialized storytelling. So every issue builds off of the character or the plot elements that were dripped into previous issues. The turtles are believable. They all have strong motivations. They have to deal with uneasy alliances across multiple factions.
01:15:44
Speaker
And the finale to that 100 issues, it not only provides a strong conclusion to the turtle's arc, but it also sets up an entirely new status quo with more interpersonal drama.
01:15:59
Speaker
I genuinely love that book and what Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz were able to plot. I think that's a feat that should be studied. It's one of those things where you have a story that you can tease out over a hundred issues. And because they have such a complex world built around it,
01:16:20
Speaker
they can take little detours that end up feeling way more important because you'll learn something about a character that feeds into the next like plot driven point. Right. And like their decisions will make more sense because you know this thing about them. Like, yeah, I love the first time. I haven't read anything past the first hundred issues and I know there's some like,
01:16:45
Speaker
A lot of people have said that it dips in quality after that, because they hand off the writing to another person. I haven't read it, so I can't judge it. But the first 100 issues, just solid. So good. I think the changes to the original lore all make sense and give a more emotional reason for some of the drama that happens in the book.
01:17:17
Speaker
So highly recommend IDW's TMNT. And similarly to how I refound my love for the TMNT books by IDW, I decided to spend my time reading the Power Rangers comics released by Boom Studios up to its hundredth issue. Simply because- You're picking very round numbers. Well, and it turned, because both of these have a sort of stopping point
01:17:45
Speaker
built into the 100th issue. Oh, that's good. So it's not like I'm stopping, like, oh, the story's over, or I'm just picking this, well, I'm done here. There is a conclusion that then sets up a new arc, but it's a conclusion done well enough that you can kind of be safe in saying, I'm done here for a while.
01:18:08
Speaker
So when I started to read through the Power Rangers again this time, I didn't go back to the first issue like I did with TMNT because I'd already read a great deal of it. And I remembered a lot more of the interpersonal dynamics because I was reading it again, like while we were recording even beforehand. Plus where I had left off was right where the series had a little time jump.
01:18:31
Speaker
And it splits into two different books. So the things that... It felt a lot more like a different iteration of the same series. It didn't feel like, oh, I have to start from the beginning. It kind of just feels like we're in a new era, you can start this new era. Oh, okay. And if the TMNT books were a masterclass in long-form serialized storytelling, then the Power Rangers books are the masterclass in long-form serialized adaptations.
01:18:57
Speaker
Small details are pulled from old episodes to fill in backstories for characters. Long-standing mysteries in the TV show are answered in the comics. And it's done in a mostly believable fashion. And all of this is tied together by the building of stakes over several issues until there's a massive crossover that ties in the finale to all of the stories that have been told. So that kind of happened where I left off in my previous reading.
01:19:24
Speaker
and then it ramps back up for the 100th issue. I think it's hard to revisit some of the things that you loved as a kid, but this is definitely a situation where I think we get the best possible outcome for adapting a 30-year-old property originally made for kids and repackaging it for adults. Yeah. I haven't loved every single issue. I particularly haven't liked some of the miniseries spin-offs.
01:19:54
Speaker
like my excitement for Ranger Academy quickly dropped once I actually bought the book. But there is a connected universe here with solid storytelling at the forefront. And like some of those mini series that are like, some of those are made to answer some of those mysteries in the show. And while I think that the answer is interesting,
01:20:20
Speaker
I think the story they told isn't. Right. It felt like, hey, we have the idea to answer this mystery that has been left for at this point 20 years. And we're probably never going to get a resolution in the TV show. What if we answer it in the comic book and then they tried to write us like a story around that answer versus just
01:20:50
Speaker
having a story that led to that conclusion. So like that's not fun. But the comic books themselves are really well done. They put a lot of that like human emotion into
01:21:06
Speaker
a silly concept from 30 years ago that was made for kids. Yeah. And the fact that it sounds like they have such an expansive amount of reading material and they have like expanded on this whole universe from the TV show and that most of it's good. Like that's pretty impressive.
01:21:23
Speaker
Like, of course, like, you know, I mean, I've only read three books of Sam and I don't love every story, but like overall, like that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of it. And when you have that much content for yourself, where it's like, I still love so much of it. There's just a couple.
01:21:41
Speaker
that I don't love. That's impressive that this team was able to just be like, here's a shit ton of stuff and 85% of it is good and 85% is a large amount of content. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I only wish that they would branch out because they're stuck in this
01:22:06
Speaker
following the Mighty Morphin era of the Power Rangers, and you get cameos of the later eras of Power Rangers. And as much as I love the characters that we've built up from the Mighty Morphin era, and that was what I was watching when I was a kid, I think it would be more interesting if we had
01:22:26
Speaker
Like instead of doing a spinoff about these kids going to an academy to learn how to be power, just do a different era of the TV show. Yeah. Cause I mean, if you're getting stuck that much, like it probably is a sign to move on, which would be cool.
01:22:48
Speaker
I think that would be more fun, but I do love that we've stuck with these characters long enough to really care about them. The problem is, if you move forward with this, the first six or seven years of the TV show, you kind of follow the same characters and some come and go, but you can keep going with it and keep those characters in it.
01:23:14
Speaker
and just keep building over time, but it feels like they're afraid to move past the thing that was super famous in the 90s. Right, because that's what's making them the money right now. Right, but I don't know. I hope that they continue and move on and do other great things, but I get you.
01:23:36
Speaker
It would be fun. Again, I love it, but I have my reservations for where they're going with it. Right now, they've done a really good adaptation. There's at least 100 really good issues. Yeah, it's just after 100, let's do the next thing. Let's not stick where we are. Yeah, give another good 100 issues to another era. Why not? Yeah.
01:24:08
Speaker
Unfortunately, that's kind of like all I have to go over. I stuck very much to like comfort things in the last six months. So it's not like I didn't branch out into anything like a lot of fun. Uzumaki was like the first one where I was like,
01:24:28
Speaker
Okay, I'll try something different, but it's also in that same wheelhouse of things that I know I like. Well, so then we'll end with this, since at the time of recording, it's January, it's the beginning of the new year. I know I talked about my goal for reading this year is to branch out more, whether it's branching out in comics individually or just overall in different genre of novels. Do you have a goal for yourself, whether it's to
01:24:58
Speaker
if it's as broad as branching out or I want to try and find something I like from this particular thing, do you have, or I want to finish reading this series or something, do you have a goal for yourself for this year? So, kind of. I recently started, I'm reading two different eras of The X-Men at kind of the same time.
01:25:29
Speaker
Part of my... I want to keep going with that because I want to see more of where this intersects. But really, I want to get more into some indie books or something that's just outside of the norm.
Exploring Comics Beyond the Mainstream
01:25:46
Speaker
Because there was a while where I was able to go to the comic book store and just pick up random shit and I loved it.
01:25:54
Speaker
I don't know if she even still does, but at one point Karen Berger had her own line at Dark Horse. And I was picking up just whatever issues, because I love her. And I don't really, I don't have the option of getting to the comic book store as much as I used to. So a lot of what I pick is just things that like I already know. Or like you sent me a picture of that. It's kind of the gamble's a little riskier.
01:26:23
Speaker
Yeah, and so I do wanna get into something that's a little bit, maybe not from, definitely not from the main two. Something from Image or Dark Horse would be fun. You know, like, cause even if I were to, like I, on here I have something from IDW and I have something from Boom, but those are also both pre-established like franchises that I'm getting into.
01:26:52
Speaker
I want something weird and new and fun that I actually give a shit about. Yeah. You need a shirtless bear fighter. Yeah. Something like that. I would like, I, I just need it to be something that I, I.
01:27:06
Speaker
I think is fun and interesting. I'm just going to have to keep my eyes open on what new books are coming out. Probably image is going to be the easiest one to find something fun because I mean, it's image. Yeah. Blood, teeth is from image. I don't know if I said that before, but like.
01:27:23
Speaker
I feel like oftentimes the indie things that I pick up are from image. Like Max really likes Invincible, which is another thing that I want to read, but that's image. We have some copies of Chew that I haven't read, but I do want to and that's image.
01:27:44
Speaker
Chu was one that was on my list as well. The only thing I know about it is there's a, there's a chicken at some point that's like really became like a big thing in the fandom. But I see that those are the kinds of books that I tend to really
01:28:00
Speaker
go towards quirky and gross, I think. Yeah, I want to find some more like quirky stuff.
Marvel's Overwhelm and Enjoyable Finds?
01:28:09
Speaker
And then I guess another goal for me is to find an actual Marvel thing that I like. I don't want to be like an anti-Marvel person. It's just the past couple of years, I think we all know, have been very inflated, at least in the movie theaters, which make me not want to read the stuff because it's like this is... Yeah, no, I get that.
01:28:29
Speaker
Um, even I, I hit that and I love Marvel and there's a point where it's just like, I don't even want to read this because it's just, it's everywhere. Yeah. And it's like, Hey, if you still like it, that's great for you. I'm super happy that you have a thing that you like. Um, I'm super about that for you. I just, and I would like to like something from it. I don't want to be this person. That's just like, I'm not like other people. I don't read Marvel. I don't want to be that person. Like I just, unfortunately I haven't found something that I'm like.
01:28:58
Speaker
in love with for there. So maybe that's one of the things I got to branch out into is try and find the Marvel books that I like.
Recommended Marvel Reads
01:29:07
Speaker
I think you should read Vision. I think you'll like that. Okay. And then.
01:29:19
Speaker
Honestly, this is, I don't know if you would like it or not, but I'm going to recommend the House of X and Powers of X, which are Jonathan Hickman's start for the X-Men. It is now from there, where you go with it, I would have to try to think about it because I feel like House of X and Powers of X are a great start. And then it just kind of goes into branching stories. But you do House of X first.
01:29:45
Speaker
So you read House of X and Powers of X together. Oh, okay. It's two series. And when you get to the end of an issue of House of X, it starts with House of X. When you get to the end of an issue of House of X, they have a list and it'll show you the published date and what you should be reading next.
01:30:09
Speaker
And I think they just released a chronological house of X powers of 10 reading thing. So you can just pick up one book. It's weird, but it's weird in a way that is super interesting. And I feel like it's fun. It's a great new status quo for the X-Men. I just think that some of the stories weren't done as well as like the start of it was.
01:30:38
Speaker
And it's not Jonathan Hickman's fault. Like he kind of like overran everything and they were going in different directions. But then he had an ending in mind and it was so successful that Marvel was like, well, we don't want to end it. Oh, they're so bad at that. This is just the clone saga.
01:30:58
Speaker
So they instead, Jonathan Hickman just left and they kind of rewrote what the ending was going to be. And they went in a different direction and I'm enjoying it still, but it is a, uh, it is a little, like I kind of would be okay with the status quo sticking around for longer.
01:31:18
Speaker
But I do think that there was a conclusion that made more sense when Jonathan Hickman was going to end it. Right. Oh boy. They really haven't learned. No, not at all. Silly Marvel. But I'll try. I will try. I'll try everybody, I promise. I mean, even if you just read one issue and then I can try to think of something that might work. Yeah. Because Marvel is all over the place. You just have to find the right stuff.
01:31:47
Speaker
Yeah, they are. They're a little, I mean, same with DC. Oh yeah. Absolutely. I just, I've gotten lucky with my DC picks for sure. Yeah. Well, I feel, I feel like DC has a lot more standout stories. Marvel has a lot more standout series.
01:32:04
Speaker
I think that's safe to say because like, I mean, there are like multiple, at least with like Batman and then Max has read some like, uh, some Superman things. Um, but it's like, I know the titles of those like storylines when it comes to like anything Marvel, it's like crap. I don't know.
01:32:27
Speaker
I don't know. I know who the guys are, but like, I don't know what. Right. You don't know where to start. I feel like that's a pretty good distinction. Yeah. And this is from someone I didn't read a lot of DC growing up. I read mostly Marvel and I can say that pretty confidently.
Marvel vs DC: Standout Stories
01:32:42
Speaker
Yeah. Like if I think of just Batman, it's like, okay, the killing joke or like a death in the family or like the white knight, like, you know, the long Halloween, like, you know, Court of Owls. Court of Owls. Yeah.
01:32:56
Speaker
That was it. I didn't count but that was at least five like that are just distinct stories that you can start and end and like be content and That's what I need. I like sometimes I can't again with TV shows even like that it's hard for me to find something that I need to like that I can commit to for that long and be willing to like and I feel like that's kind of why I I
01:33:22
Speaker
I gravitate towards Jonathan Hickman's runs on things at Marvel, because he usually has an ending in mind. And you've found a needle in a haystack where you found an author that you like and you trust. And sometimes that's hard to find, especially with Marvel, I would find, because again, you're going through errors. So then you have to find an author
01:33:47
Speaker
from it. Like if you pick the right era and you find the right author, like you got cling to them and it's hard. Yeah. Oh, definitely.
Podcast Info and Contact Details
01:33:59
Speaker
Um, so you can find more information at comically pedantic.com. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedantic cast. Uh, new episodes come out probably on Sundays. Uh, that's usually when we put them out. If we're putting out episodes,
01:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, you can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and at comicallypedantic.com. If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comicallypedantic.gmail.com. Please indicate if you'd like your name or question right on the air. And we will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics. But until then, you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.
01:34:54
Speaker
How often do the cat is pushing my computer? He's just nudging it. He's a good boy.