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Superhero Cinephiles are Better in the Dark
158 Plays4 years ago
Superhero Cinephiles continues to celebrate the life of the better half of its host. In this special episode, Perry is joined by Thomas Deja, who hosted the Better in the Dark podcast with Derrick for seven years. They share their memories and stories of Derrick, what they loved about him, and how we can all honor his memory.
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Transcript
The Evolution of a Mythology
00:00:15
Speaker
in the five years, we've gained a mythology. What we have? You've gained a mythology? I'm a myth? We're both myths. Stuff like the fact that there are people who refer to the beautiful one now, who talk about how you can love your characters, but you can't love your characters.
Dynamic Introduction by Tommy D
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm gonna drop this one time for your mind right now Tommy D on the mic, best listen up now Better end the dark, it's taking place right now But this ain't a normal show, this is .5 now Yeah, I said it, show's a little shorter But they give you content and a timely order So take note to everything they mentioning Better end the dark, .5, get the listening Hyphen what it is right now, time is what it is right now
00:00:59
Speaker
We all feel better in the dark
00:01:13
Speaker
Derek what it is right now better end it up what it is right now and until we get back in touch with you
Meet the Hosts and Reflect on Derek Ferguson
00:01:30
Speaker
Welcome to a special episode of the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm half of your hosts, Perry Constantine and the other half. If you've listened to the last special episode is unfortunately no longer with us. Derek Ferguson passed away on April 4th, 2021.
00:01:48
Speaker
Like I mentioned, if you listen to the last special, I'm working on trying to get people together to come on the show and talk about Derek. And we were trying to see if we can schedule like a round table thing, but there's one person in particular that I think it's better if, and we both kind of thought it'd be better if we kind of sit down and just talk just the two of us, because like me, this is a guy who had hosted a podcast with Derek for very long,
00:02:19
Speaker
And that is a guy I've also known for many years and that's Thomas DJ who he and Derek hosted the better in the dark podcast.
Merging of Two Podcasts
00:02:28
Speaker
So this is the first time we're doing a podcast like our two podcasts are kind of merging together. So I guess we could call this superhero cinephiles are better in the dark. So Tom, how are you doing today? No, as I was saying, as well as can be expected. I think
Thomas and Derek: A Creative Partnership
00:02:51
Speaker
You know, I think I took a lot of people by surprise. And I've been kind of numb for a couple of days, because this man, this man stood by me at my worst. Yeah, yeah, I've definitely been in those situations as well. And that was one of the things that, you know, even though you had a different experience, because you and Derek actually, actually knew each other in person, you would you live. Yes, yes. Yeah.
00:03:20
Speaker
We lived only about two, three miles away from each other. OK, yeah. And. We found that out by accident, obvious, but but yeah, no, he was one of my closest friends. Well, that's a that's a good place to start is how did you and Derek first meet? How did you guys first? How did you discover by accident that you live so close together? Not surprisingly, we we.
00:03:48
Speaker
We met, quote unquote, due to due to the fact that I dropped a film reference in one of my fan fictions in Bill Katepe, our good mutual friend down in New Orleans, started a fanfic site called DC Year One. That was based on a role playing game that he had
00:04:19
Speaker
play-by-email role-playing game that he had devised. That led us to, well, why not we also do Marvel Year One? And I did, I won Daredevil because Daredevil has always been one of my favorite characters. And in one episode, I made one issue, I made a reference to Derek Flint.
00:04:44
Speaker
And Derek sends me an email saying, you know, I had to talk to I had to say, say, you know, anybody who knows who Derek Flint is these days. And we started corresponding and we learned we were in the same we're in the same city. And that led to us to our surprise, realizing how close together we were. So I was a member of the H that the Heart Writers Association of America.
00:05:13
Speaker
and we were doing a, they were doing a special screening for HWA members in New York for Hellboy. Oh, okay. And I, by this time we've been talking on the phone and these phone conversations were epic.
Inception of 'Better in the Dark'
00:05:33
Speaker
As I think that Patricia would basically tell Derek, get the hell off the phone and come to bed.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And so I said, do you want to come and see Hellboy? And he said, yeah, yeah, I do. So he came as my guest, met F. Paul Wilson, did not know F. Paul Wilson was a major influence on him. Oh, OK. So because he was talking about it, I'm like, I'm turning around and there's F. Paul. And I'm like, this is F. Paul Wilson. And he's like,
00:06:14
Speaker
That's that Paul Wilson. And it was one of the few times I saw him starstruck. But we saw the Hellboy film for the first time. It was the first film we ever saw together. Shortly after that, we went and did it again for a film called Identity. Yeah, I remember that.
00:06:41
Speaker
I think he has had a little bit more of a thing, better of a high opinion of than I did. Yeah, that was that was something that him and I, we made reference to it several times on the show as a movie. Yeah. I enjoyed. And. Around this time, a friend of mine had started an Internet radio station. You guys all remember Internet radio. Mm hmm.
00:07:06
Speaker
And it was very vaguely. Yeah, very vaguely. And it was supposed to be sci-fi based. And he came to me and said, could could you do some programming for it? And one of the ideas I had was an audio drama, which I was working on with with David Ellis. And I said, the other thing is I'd love to do like a movie, a show about movies.
Podcasting Style and Spontaneity
00:07:34
Speaker
And I'd like to bring my friend Derek in. And that was the start of Better in the Dark then. Started the better in the dark, exactly. And so on Super Bowl Sunday, 2007, we recorded before going up to watch the football, the first three episodes of what we call Better in the Dark, which is a reference
00:08:04
Speaker
that I took from Pet Shop Boys song, We All Feel Better in the Dark, which I thought was a good metaphor for what the movie-going experience is like. Because the thing about going to the movies is it's one of the few places where you can sit down with total strangers having the same experience. Right, right. Communally. And some of my best favorite experiences
00:08:35
Speaker
are when we, when I was in the movie, I like the sight usually saw the first time I saw a saw and the big reveal at the end and everybody in the theater together just went. And it's that communality where you don't know who you're with and who you're from. You're for that moment united. Right. Yeah.
00:09:03
Speaker
So, but anyway, so we did these first three episodes and we I edited them and I sent them to Michael Falloo and Michael that didn't put them out. So we figured what the hell we might as well put them out on this thing called the infrared, the infrared net on 2000 in 2007 and.
00:09:26
Speaker
people liked it and we liked getting together and because that was the thing about
Mental Health and Support
00:09:32
Speaker
Better in the Dark. It was just the two of us hanging out for the whole day. Right. I would show up around 11 o'clock and we would record some episodes and then we'd have lunch and we'd just hang out for the whole day. And I think that's the strength of any great podcast is the sense that
00:09:56
Speaker
It's not just two people conducting business, it's two people having a conversation and you set up a chair for them.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's, Derek especially made that a much more personal experience just because he had that kind of personality where even if you didn't know him very well, you felt like you knew him very well. Like he just had that kind of personality where he made you feel like you'd known each other for years. I remember we did, we were guests on the pop DNA,
00:10:31
Speaker
pop culture DNA podcast um fairly recently this is just a few months ago and we were talking about and you know the the the two women who run that show they we didn't know them at all we had no prior connection to us they had just discovered our podcast and they just sent me an email and they said hey we're doing um uh a series on Black Panther we listened to your episode we really liked it we were wondering if you guys would like to come on
00:10:55
Speaker
And we came on and within like not even five minutes, Derek was talking to these women as if he had known them for years. Derek was a showman. Yeah. Derek would not admit to being a showman, but Derek was a showman. And that's part of the reason why I think he was successful in promoting his own work and in promoting the works of others.
00:11:28
Speaker
And as such, he has that kind of big personality that people gravitate towards. And I learned much, much later that he agreed to do better in the dark. He didn't have any interest in being on the
Technical Aspects of Podcasting
00:11:48
Speaker
radio at first, but he did it because he knew I needed something to focus on.
00:11:55
Speaker
During this time, because I was, you know, for those of you who don't know me, I have suffered all my life with severe bipolar disorder and something that they call explosive mood disorder, which means that anything that you would experience at 100%, I would experience at 200%. Right, right. And that made life difficult.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, understandably. So, but, but yeah, no, but so we would do it basically once. We used to be like once a month, once every two months, I would get on the train and later on to onto my bike, Emma. And we would record a couple of episodes and hang out for the, for the day. And then I would go home. Yeah.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, for us, we were just doing it week to week through originally through Skype and then after the pandemic hit and I really discovered Zoom for the first time and we found out that Zoom actually lets you record on two tracks at the same time, which saved me a lot of trouble. We started doing it through Zoom.
00:13:11
Speaker
But what were, so when you first met, cause I know you said you guys went to the Hellboy movie premiere and that was in 2004.
The Foundation of Friendship
00:13:19
Speaker
So how long had, when was the first time you'd actually met, when did you start corresponding about? Was I think about 2001, 2002, it was fairly early on. So we had corresponded and then we started with,
00:13:41
Speaker
Then started the phone calls, like I said, those epic phone calls that would that would start maybe at nine o'clock and maybe if we were lucky and around midnight, where it was just the two, just me and him talking about movies and the like, because that was something we did. We had a great bond on, obviously. And that it became that I think that was the first time I ever been invited over to his house.
00:14:09
Speaker
was that Superfall Sunday. And he sometimes, because we did want it to end, he would just drive me home because it wasn't that far away. So we continue talking. That was why I went back briefly to fan fiction in like 2000, it was a 2012, 2013, when I did those West Coast Avengers for
00:14:39
Speaker
altered views, because he was like, I'm doing the Avengers and the other guys, the guys doing the West Coast Avengers, and I think you would be kind of cool. And we started ripping. And the next thing you know, I'm right, I wrote, gosh, 15. And I wrote them in a rather quick succession to that was the crazy thing. But anyway, but yes, but the thing was, and Derek was kind of insisting
00:15:05
Speaker
Even though I would say, you know, we could do this remotely and like, no, no, I think this is part of our charm is doing it. It's us doing it together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let me ask you about that because you and Derek had worked on a few different things like fanfic wise and that kind of thing. What was what was your experience working with him? What was that like? I had no problems at all. We would because the thing was we're too creative minds.
00:15:35
Speaker
So we're constantly bouncing ideas off of each other. And there is, in fact, somewhere in this mess of an archive that I keep. There are plans that Derek and I made for a couple of crossover stories with our original characters. Particularly, there is one with Diamondback and Elsa Dawn from
00:16:03
Speaker
that long unfinished novel, Obsidian Revolver. Was it Onyx Revolver? Onyx Revolver. I remember making a logo for that way back in the day. Yeah. Onyx Revolver, yes. So we had hammered out an idea for a Diamondback Elsa Dawn story that was going to end with the two of them over a coffin.
00:16:33
Speaker
you know, guns drawn. That would have been nice to see. Yeah, and we also had plans on because before I went through the last of my really dark phases. We, Derek and I talked about
00:17:00
Speaker
a book, one of the, like, the fourth book in the Shadow Legion series was going to be a collection of novellas, and I'd have each of the characters team up with a different character from another writer. And so we've been talking about Dylan and the Nightbreaker as his contribution.
00:17:28
Speaker
So yeah, so we were always talking about different projects, different things we wanted to do. We wanted to do a live Better in the Dark. We wanted to find at one point, we were talking about finding a pub or some similar venue that we could rent out and just show a movie and sit and talk and just have
00:17:58
Speaker
you know, have a good time with the audience.
Unscripted Podcasting Challenges
00:18:01
Speaker
We were constantly talking about other things. He always, he always had ideas. I always had ideas. Um, I will say that it took us a while as any, I'm sure, any, I'm sure your show did the same thing. It took until, but I think the one that I like to think is the one that gelled what better in dark was going to be was when we did the Halloween retrospective, which I think was episode
00:18:28
Speaker
eight. And once we got that together, I think then we knew, okay, this is our rhythms, this is our habit. And, you know, we went through we went through many things over those seven years. And the one thing we knew is that any wild idea, heck, remember, we had musical segments. That's right. Yeah.
00:18:57
Speaker
When Kailin Connelly, who who did our theme song and I talked on Friday after this this with the news, started reaching everybody. I one of the first things I remembered was an episode where we talked about Dino De Laurentiis. And this conversation, he had this anecdote about how, yeah, I used to I was an extra in that movie.
00:19:25
Speaker
King Kong. And he was describing about how, you know, we were all at the World Trade Center and we brought out this, they brought this giant foam Kong. And I started laughing. I said, that sounds like a sex act. And the next thing you know, we're doing this rap song of giant foam Kong for you, baby. I got a giant foam.
00:19:53
Speaker
That's right. I do remember you guys doing those those little musical things on the air. Those were those were really those were really nice. And most of them were not planned. Right. Yeah. Most of them were not because the thing was we we would like another favorite episode. Episode that I remember is probably one of my favorite episodes was the last Christmas episode we did. Mm hmm.
00:20:16
Speaker
which was part and supposedly part of our long delayed summer of speed. And we were looking at existential car movies. We were looking at two lane blacktop, which is amazing. And Vanishing Point and other films around from that era. And for some reason, we got off on this debate about maybe it's cold outside. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
You know, and I started talking about my favorite Christmas song, which is the Pope's Christmas Fairy Tale of New York. And it was just once again doing this or like the time that he just out of nowhere asked me which companion would I want to travel with if I was the doctor. And I went on this like, reasoned, I'm like, well, I could do this.
00:21:11
Speaker
or it could do that, or it could do, and I knew with Orica just, I could just choose Karen Gillan and bang her all day. And he said, I'm, I'm proud of you. Cause I thought you were going to go right to that. But that's the thing is that we, even though we, we didn't have the script.
00:21:30
Speaker
I used to have like an info sheet I would print out the first like year, but those were useless. But we always had an idea of what we were going to talk about. But it always ended up the last 20 minutes or so we would go ripping on something else. You couldn't have a script with Derek and do a podcast. That was something I...
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead,
Honoring Derek Ferguson's Legacy
00:22:00
Speaker
go ahead. No, I was just gonna say that that was something I knew going into it because Derek and I had done a few shows in the past. He had been a guest on some other, when I did the Exploding Typewriter pulp podcast, he had come on a few episodes of that. And just knowing from our conversations and knowing from when he came on those shows, I knew that, and he'd also been on Japan on film at that point as well. And so I knew going in that,
00:22:29
Speaker
there's no script here. It's just, you're just going to, you know, you're just going to sit down with Derek and you're just going to let him go. Oh yeah, no. I mean, once again, I think that was one of the reasons why Better in the Dark was as successful as it was. Yeah. That it was, it was a spontaneous conversation.
00:22:52
Speaker
Now, granted, it was a conversation where usually we sat down and said, OK, we're going to talk about there is still one episode of Better in the Dark, and I've not been able to get it out of the the Dalmatian, which was which was the jump drive that we used towards at the end of the run. I've not been able to get it out of the Dalmatian, which is we did and it was a great episode. We did an episode covering all seven of the smoking in the band, it felt.
00:23:22
Speaker
But but yeah, no, it's like, OK, we're going to talk about smoking the man in films. But then next thing you know, we're you know, like we're going to talk about the non zombie George Romero film. And next thing you know, we're riffing on Jason Statham. Yeah. There was one episode we did. I can't remember. I'm trying to think of the exact one where we had I think I even put in the episode description, like in between all these other digressions, we find some time to talk about this movie. I think it might have been the theory episode.
00:23:53
Speaker
A film that I remember him really liking and defending. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. He was adamant that we were going to be doing about, well, one of the things we did, we had a nice arrangement. When we did the show is, we decided right from the start that, you know, we'd alternate movie picks. So like I pick something for the episode, then he picks something. So we had that back and forth going, which,
00:24:19
Speaker
which really worked well for us because he had a bunch of these you know really obscure superhero movies that he knew about obscure movies in general but he also knew about um but and so like he brought in like like one of his first picks was um after he got through Batman like his the pick after that was uh Swamp Thing and then he chose the original Doctor Strange movie and then Nick Fury
00:24:43
Speaker
And yeah, and the Nick Fury apps, I just looked up the description. Between digressions about politics and comics, the Watchmen TV series, Crisis, and a whole bunch of other tangents, we kind of talk about our main movie. Yeah, yeah. That was the thing, is usually it would take us about 15 minutes to actually get to the meat of the episode. Yeah. And we usually drift it off. Yeah.
00:25:10
Speaker
of it towards the end of it, which is why, like I said, in the last two years, we were producing two hour to two and a half hour episodes of what was supposed to be a 45 minute show in 2007. And usually it would come the conversation, the first 15 minutes or something that was spurred on by what was going on right that moment. Yes.
00:25:38
Speaker
I was talking to my therapist this morning about one episode where the day that I had come over to record, Stig Larson's estate had announced that his widow or his girlfriend or somebody had found an unfinished Elizabeth Salander novel, and they were going to have it completed and published, and that went on to a long,
00:26:06
Speaker
a discussion about what we would want done. Mm hmm. Which I'm almost afraid to listen to at this point. Yeah. But but, yeah, there's there's like the the. The time we started talking about the the Republicans, he says, have you seen this new comedy show? It's really crazy. They've got these guys they want. It's called the Republican Debates. Oh, I remember that thing.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah, we did a lot of that. I remember we had a bunch of tangents, especially during the past election. We had a bunch of tangents about the Democratic debates, about all sorts of different things. And we had a running joke that, because whenever we had taken a week or two off,
00:27:00
Speaker
some crazy crisis happened. And it's like, I come back and I told him the last time was the after the insurrection. And we had been off the air for like two weeks because
00:27:13
Speaker
scheduling issues, there was also confusion because of my daughter had been born during that time too.
Celebrating Positive Memories
00:27:19
Speaker
And so he just assumed that I wouldn't be available to record it. And so then I sent him an email, I'm like, hey, are we, where are you? And he's like, oh, I just thought, I just assumed, you know, your daughter was born, you wouldn't be recorded. I'm like, no, she's still at the hospital. I can't, I can't even go over there yet because of COVID. So, but in the, when we finally got together,
00:27:40
Speaker
And I opened the episode and I told him like you know I've got a theory that our podcast is the glue holding the universe in order because every time we take a week off, something insane happens. Oh Lord, I don't know what's going to happen now. I don't know, I don't know but I know.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's what that's I mean, I've been trying to keep it positive. That's the important thing I think is I'm one of these people that believes if you live a certain if you live a life that you wanted to live and he did. He lived the life he wanted to live. Yeah. We should focus on celebrating his life, not
00:28:29
Speaker
not obsessing over his the fact that he died. Yeah. And one of the things to do is I'm sorry, go ahead. OK, which is one of the reasons why I've been encouraging people to do positive things. It's like like I remember that. I don't know if I'm sure you saw that list. I think it was Saturday that I posted. I don't think I on Facebook. OK, well, I did. I did.
00:28:59
Speaker
Because that was a question that I got from a lot of people. And I was like, at the moment, I was still kind of numb going like, and I said, look, you're, you know, buy a copy of his book and give it to somebody you think will like it. And if you don't know anybody like that, donate it to your local library. You know, go on, go on Amazon and leave reviews for newer authors, because that was a thing that he was always big on was encouraging
00:29:29
Speaker
people to be creative. Yeah, definitely. And it was it was I mentioned this in the last episode, but it was because of him that I ended up writing my first novel because he was the first person who said to me, he's like, you should write a novel. And at first I'm like, no. And he's like, yeah. And then I had a few aborted attempts. Then finally I did. And now, you know, 30 books later, it's all due to that one conversation where he says, I'm waiting for you to write a novel.
00:29:57
Speaker
Oh, oh, yeah, it was because I had been writing original fiction in the 90s.
Creative Influence and Collaborations
00:30:06
Speaker
I was I was wrote about what about two dozen horror short stories. You also wrote something for those those old Marvel compilation books. Oh, God. Yes. Yes. I'm looking at them right now. Yes, I did. Stories for three for the three three of the Byron Price.
00:30:25
Speaker
Marvel anthologies. They were like they were ultimate before the actual ultimate comics. Yes. Yes. There was ultimate. Which ones did I do? I did Ultimate Hulk. I did X-Men Legends, which features one of the weirdest covers I've ever seen. It just I don't know what that painter was thinking of, but it wasn't the X-Men and five decades of the X-Men. So so I had some experience.
00:30:55
Speaker
But then I had a traumatic experience around 2000 that made writing horror not fun. So I did nothing but write fan fiction for a while. And Derek was always big on trying to get me back into doing original stuff. And it was him who introduced me to Russ Anderson. In fact, that was another one of our earliest meetups. He said, my publisher is coming in to do a special show here in Brooklyn. You want to come?
00:31:24
Speaker
And I'm like, okay. And it was because of Russ's how the West was weird. And he said, you should write something for this. And I wrote the first Adan Quavo story. And he continued to try to encourage me and to the point where the Shadow Legion is partially his responsibility as well.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, that was original. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. You finished your thought. Because that was originally a fan fiction proposal, and I was looking at it, and I sent it to Derek, and I sent it to Geron 48, and I sent it to a couple of other people, and I said, am I crazy, or should this be? I should just make this original. And Derek, within 20 minutes said, hell, yeah.
00:32:23
Speaker
Get to work, dummy. Yeah, there was a side of situation like that as well. And this was actually, I believe if I'm not mistaken, this is a fan fiction series that you brought me in on. You asked me to do Wolverine for, I think it was Altered Visions or one of those other sites around there. And so I had written this series and
00:32:48
Speaker
that was like really brutal. And Eric was the one who was said to me, he's like, why did you do this as fan fiction? This should be something original. And then I did end up repackaging it as an original novel.
00:33:02
Speaker
And he was also instrumental in a lot of other stuff I did. When I created my Elisa Hill character, she was very different and just workshopping her with Derek. And he gave me an idea that has been so crucial to that character.
00:33:22
Speaker
I had originally envisioned her as using a samurai sword, a katana, and he's like, everybody uses a katana. He's like, why are you gonna do it? He's like, you know what you should do? Have her use ancient weaponry that nobody uses. I'm like, that's a good idea. And that became one of the character's trademarks. And that was because of, and another one is one of the characters in it, supernatural Japanese changeling.
00:33:52
Speaker
He had said, he's like, you know what? I picture this girl as just being too cool. And like, you know, she's like, she's like, she's dressed in like a pinstripe suit. She's always wearing off the door. That's how I, and that's become like the character's signature look was because Derek gave me that piece of advice. Right. Well, that's, I mean, like all creatives whose path I've crossed, he could not be creative. Right.
00:34:21
Speaker
When he saw, when he talked with me frequently, we would go off on these world building tangents. There are worlds that we have created that nobody's ever seen. Yeah. Cause we were just hanging out and going like, Oh, you know what was, you know, what would be cool if this happened? And then we would just start riffing. And, but, um, that that's, that's why, uh, I,
00:34:48
Speaker
I suggested what has become the Folded Earth project because. And I hope he does. He's probably going to roll roll his eyes when when I say this. But I think of him and I think I think of Derek, I think of Jack Kirby. Yeah, yes. In that Jack Kirby was all about go out and build your your own wonder.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah. And that's why a lot of these quote unquote tributes to Jack Kirby, where they revived the new gods for the 15th time or they were like, gosh, like, for goodness sakes, we've got the Eternals coming on the screens. But I'm sure that if we were able to channel Jack Kirby, I think this is something that Mark Evaner first said, and this is something I agree with. If you ask Jack Kirby, if you what you could do in tribute to him, he would say, make your own stuff.
00:35:50
Speaker
You know, I'm working on the side. I'm doing some work with
00:35:54
Speaker
this startup comic publisher. And that was how they started up was he said that we're in this artist group and they all wanted to do, they wanted to do some Jack Kirby tribute and they all were throwing around drawings of like his characters. And then he finally just said, he's like, he's like, hey, if we really want to honor Jack Kirby, we should just create our own characters. And that's how this thing started up that we're doing. And yeah, Derek was very much the same. I remember one time I, it was a few years ago, I asked him,
00:36:24
Speaker
you know, I'm like, I had started doing some research about the old West and the Chinese diaspora and all that kind of stuff. And I had asked him, because I knew he was a huge Western guy. Like he, you know, I mean, he loved Westerns, like baby loved his rattle, is something Derek would have said. And- Yes. And one of the things is that you don't have to have the West to be a Western. Right, yeah.
00:36:53
Speaker
And he had said to, and I had asked him, like, has, you know, I'm like, has there, you know, if there's ever been like, you know, a Chinese Old West gunslinger, and he's like, no, but that sounds like a really good idea, you should do it. And then that led to my, my story for Prose's Asian pulp, where I introduced the
00:37:13
Speaker
the hatchet man character Xun Hanh, which Derek and I had actually begun, we had signed a contract, we had begun working on it. We were going to do a series of novels based on that character.
Future of Collaborative Projects
00:37:26
Speaker
And he had actually, one of our last conversations was he asked me to resent him the information so he could get work on starting to plot out the first book.
00:37:38
Speaker
Right. So, yeah, we you had actually been hoping to get started on that, like around now. And so, yeah, that. Well, yeah.
00:37:50
Speaker
But I mean, that's something I don't know if I want to do just because one of the reasons I went to Derek was because he's so much more knowledgeable about the Western genre and stuff like that than I am. So I don't know if that project would ever see the light of day without him, just because of how how much I wanted his input on that. But we are. Yeah. We're not ready to announce anything yet, but we are working on some stuff that he would have liked. Yeah. Yeah. But it's that that's the thing, though.
00:38:20
Speaker
is if you want to honor them, create. Yes, yeah. You put something new in the world that somebody else can look at and we get that sense of wonder from. Yeah, I don't think there's one concept I've had that Derek didn't have eyes on in some form in the past. Any of my original stuff, I don't think there's anything that Derek didn't have eyes on at one point before it was published.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, there are lots of characters that he and I talked about that have never seen light of day. The infamous Tao Jones. But they still have half a book of. Which was which was going to be my because, of course, Derek and I had a great love of Peter O'Donnell's Monastie Blaise books.
00:39:13
Speaker
And Cow Jones was my way to pay tribute to O'Donnell. And she was supposed to be part of Sovereign City with Fortune McCall. Oh, OK. And in fact, I think that we actually wrote a scene, like a brief crossover scene for one of the books. But no, it was like it was always, we would just sit there and we'd come up with ideas
00:39:44
Speaker
which strikes me like thunder. Oh, that's what we should we should do. Um, I tried to get him when my life took this rather insane change last year. I did, I did try to, to bring him in on, on what is now ATW. Because one of the first things was we have
00:40:12
Speaker
got to do we got to do Dylan audio. Yeah, yeah. Which is something that something that he and I had talked about. And in fact, I recorded a couple of chapters of Dylan and the voice of Odin. It was the idea that he was going to release them every month on his on his audio. On his Patreon. And that because I had the attention span of a nap.
00:40:41
Speaker
kind of didn't go anywhere, but I remember reaching out to him and saying, I don't believe I'm doing this, but I've got an audio radio drama troupe now. And I'd love, I wanted, I want to bring Dylan to other people. And he goes, Tom, I think you've got enough on your plate right now. You know, you've got enough on your plate with strangers in paradise with the other stuff. Let's not, let's not start that. I'm like, okay, sure enough.
00:41:09
Speaker
But I said, I said, I'm going to keep trying. Well, that was we had been talking about because I had in the past two, two or three years or so, I've started to take our classes and starting to work on my own art skills. And one of my one of my goals, one of the things I really wanted to do, one of the things that I had envisioned doing is and I told him this and, you know, and that I would I wanted to do a Dylan comic book with him and
00:41:40
Speaker
because we had worked...
00:41:42
Speaker
Long time ago, I had adapted one of his Dylan stories into comic script, because Derek hated writing comic scripts. He hated, he just did not understand how to put them together.
Derek's Storytelling Legacy
00:41:56
Speaker
And so like, whenever he had had a Dylan comic story, what he would do is he would write out it as a short story, and then he'd send it to someone else to write the script. Like, rust in a few scripts, I believe, for a lot of the, I think all the ones that,
00:42:11
Speaker
Airship 27 has published. All the Dylan comic stories were scripted by Russ, I believe. And at one point I was trying to get a comp anthology together that unfortunately never really saw the light of day. The only three stories got completed from that. Airship 27 published, I think only two of them. One of them was a story I did with Domino Lady. Another one was one Hunter Lambrite did with the purple scar. But none of these other stories had ever really gotten completed.
00:42:41
Speaker
but one of the ones that came in was Derek had sent me, I believe it was a chapter from Pirates of Zaneira or Legend of the Golden Bell or one of those. And he had sent me the story and I had worked and I had translated it into script form. And I had just had such a ball doing that. And it was always something I had wanted to do more of.
00:43:08
Speaker
That was the great thing about Derek's writing is you got the sense, like with the Dylan novels, you got the sense that you were hearing about three things in a Dylan novel. But for every everything that you heard about, there were five or six things that happened that just didn't come up. Yes. Yeah.
00:43:31
Speaker
Well, he had so many, I mean, the whole thing about Derek, and I think this is one of the reasons why whenever we did podcasts with him, he'd always go on tangent is his mind never stopped, right? He was just always, his mind was, he could stay focused on something, but he was always had something else going on in the side. And so in the Dylan stories, you see that where he brings in all these little references to stuff that, like other stories, other adventures, stuff that he had not even written yet, but it's just the references are there.
00:44:01
Speaker
I think that one of the one of the projects that he talked about with me during during the Better in the Dark phases was what would happen is he would mention he had these little side characters and other writers would come up to him and said, I really like that character. And he came up with he was he wanted to do an anthology of just those characters written by other people. Yes, I remember that. Yeah.
00:44:29
Speaker
But that's the thing, is that the world, even though he spent a lot of time in Dylan's world, I've barely been touched. Yeah, yeah. And you always got, because that's part of the problem I find with a lot of movies these days, actually, is that you don't get the sense of a world that's lived in.
00:44:57
Speaker
You get a sense of a world that is being manipulated to get you to watch future movies. You know, it's you can see the marionette strings like, OK, yes, here's here's lobster Johnson and he's only in one scene, but he'll be in next the next one. But you got the impression that there was this very vibrant world going on constantly. Yes.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah. And it wasn't it wasn't that it was that he had to pick and choose which story to tell. It wasn't that that he had no other stories. Yeah. And that was something that Derek really valued, too, was having because I remember when we were talking about Black Panther, one of the one of the big things for for both of us in that movie was just how much the world of Wakanda had felt lived in in that movie. And
00:45:54
Speaker
And you can tell from from reading the Dylan stuff or pretty much anything that was written is that he really valued that feel that there's a world going on out around the camera, around what you're seeing. And I think that's kind of the difference, the general difference between Marvel movies and DC movies. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Is that I again and I will defend Zack Snyder.
00:46:25
Speaker
But there was always the sense of the DC movies being done by committee. Yes, absolutely. Whereas Marvel films were done by committee, but there was always an individual stamp on them. And they felt different, and they felt varying. So the Marvel universe felt more varied and different, and there was all this stuff to explore. Yeah.
00:46:55
Speaker
Of course, if you ask me, Zack Snyder should go into television, believe it or not. I think he should do 10 part series. Well, I mean, clearly he likes doing the long stuff. So, yeah, he could do all he wants then. Yeah, no, but that's the thing. OK, like, like Watchman. Watchman, when I started the theater, I'm like, OK, that's probably the best we could ever do.
00:47:22
Speaker
And
Debating Comic Adaptations
00:47:23
Speaker
I even like thought the ending was better because I was never comfortable with the, with the, the giant space squid. Then I got the director's cut, the three hour director's cut. And what I found was not only did it flow better, but it flowed better. If I watched it an hour each night over three nights, like a mini series, I think that's his sensibility. His sensibility is more expansive. And I think that.
00:47:53
Speaker
in trying to force it into a two-hour bottle, he is doing himself a disservice.
00:48:00
Speaker
Well, if you want to know my thoughts about, because we talked about the Watchmen movie way back in one of the early episodes. I think it was like episode probably five or six or something along the line. So yeah, if you want to know my thoughts about that, I definitely have thoughts about Jack Snyder and Watchmen. You can just, episode seven, that was it. I know that I am in the small minority amongst my peer group.
00:48:24
Speaker
Well, one of the interesting things about me with that movie is I had come around on it. I had come around from liking it to not liking it. So at first I had a lot of this, because when you guys did that episode of Better in the Dark when you were talking about Watchmen, and I had re-listened to that episode before we did our own episode on it. So I had gone back and
00:48:47
Speaker
The first time I had listened to that episode and I had seen the movie, I was nodding right along with an agreement with you guys. And then since then after, because I hadn't read Watchmen in years, and then I had read it shortly before we did that episode when the CV show came out and it was like everybody. I went back and I reread the
00:49:10
Speaker
graphic novel paying a lot more attention to a lot of things in it and actually reading the appendices which I had not done in the in the yeah and after diving into all that and then rewatching the movie like I
00:49:26
Speaker
And when I came to that frame of mind, I'm like, you know what? He's really not getting it. Like it's all the visuals are there, but just like what was being said, he's just really missing the part. Well, I think that trying to adapt a project like Watchmen is kind of silly to begin with. I'm kind of with Alan Moore on this in that because Watchmen is a comic about comics,
00:49:57
Speaker
that addresses things, you know, tropes and conventions that the comic industry had pretty much codified. It's trying to translate it into another medium. It's bound to lose stuff.
00:50:20
Speaker
Right, which is why I think Lindelof made the decision to do the TV show the way he did. Did you tell a story with the same tools as opposed to... Exactly, yeah. And plus, the politics of Watchmen and all that, it was so rooted in not only comic book tropes and all that, but just so much into more politics. And
00:50:43
Speaker
Right. That stuff kind of gets lost in the movie. But, and Lindelof wisely says, like, well, we're not going to do Cold War politics, because that doesn't make sense. More commenting on what was happening in the world at the time, we're going to do the same
Navigating Technical Difficulties
00:50:56
Speaker
thing. We're going to comment on the world at the time. Right, right. But, yeah. But anyway, that's, that's, I want to go, I want to get back to, well, introduce your attention. Yes, yeah. I'm sure
00:51:12
Speaker
Well, it looks like we just lost Tom there for a minute. Up now. Okay. So little technical difficulties. This is the first time we're using Zoom with a dial in. So some unexpected things are going to happen. Anyway, as we were saying, in true Derek fashion, we were getting off on a tangent and then. Yes. And in true podcast fashion, we had some unexpected technical difficulties. Yes.
00:51:43
Speaker
Oh, go ahead, go ahead. I was gonna say we had that happen a few times too when we were trying to do a recording or something. And then I remember one time it was just, we had just kept losing the connection or something was just, and it was just this, this unbelievable comedy of errors. And eventually we're just like, all right, you know, we're gonna have to stop the episode right here. Cause the internet's just not playing with a plain knife or something. Yeah. But anyway, one of the things I wanted to say and
00:52:13
Speaker
Maybe we'll probably have to close out on this because we're already at an hour and change and whatnot. But I wanted to, because one of the things that I really liked about, that I really enjoyed about doing the show with Derek was he always had these, what I call them, Derekisms, right? These little like sayings he'd say that just like would come out of nowhere and they'd just be hysterical. And then you just look at him, you're like, how did you even think of that?
00:52:39
Speaker
My granddaddy used to say, there were three sides to every argument, your side, my side, and what really happened. Yeah. One of my favorite one of his was, and this, when talking about Watchmen, because when we did our episode about Watchmen, we had talked about, you know, as usual, we'd gotten a tangent. And we had so many tangents about Zack Snyder in the piece.
Humor and Anecdotes
00:53:03
Speaker
And one of the things that he had said at that time was we were talking about
00:53:07
Speaker
you know, Zack Snyder would be great if you gave him characters that he was actually suited for. And I'd mentioned the question and Derek said the question, I would push an old lady down in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs in a Zack Snyder question movie. Yes. Yes. Like I remember, I remember who's saying similar thing. That's why I'm the better in the dark side. We had a glossary. We had a glossary.
00:53:33
Speaker
to explain what some of these things meant. Are there any that that jump out to you, jump out in your memory? Well, like I said, I've already said the three sides to every argument. And of course, the way he would go, I say that to Shadesh. Oh, yeah. But once again, that's the thing. The immediacy, the spontaneity.
00:54:03
Speaker
That is, I think, what made him such a compelling friend and a compelling co-worker. Yeah, yeah.
00:54:13
Speaker
I'm actually going through and I'm listening to all the episodes of Superhero Cinephiles and making notes of like points where he had said something that was just either really interesting, really profound, just really funny and just making notes of that. And I just, I've only gotten one episode in so far, but I listened to the Superman episode and he gave this,
00:54:36
Speaker
He gave this really good, and it had perfect examples of both those. Like he gave this really good description of what it means to be a hero. And why superheroes were so important to him and
Dynamic Host Interactions
00:54:49
Speaker
all that. But then he had also said that the first time he had shown his wife Patricia Superman, the movie. And when Lex Luthor came on the screen, she said, she's like, oh, I get why you like this movie now. And he's like, why is that? He says, well, because Gene Hackman is Lex Luthor, that's you.
00:55:08
Speaker
Oh, Patricia, Patricia kept comparing Derek and me to a Denny Crane. Forget what the name of the James Fader character was on The Practice. She kept saying that it's like, I know why you like that show, Derek, because that's you and that's Tom.
00:55:37
Speaker
You know, so she used to do that. We used to. Oh, what was the. Once again, this is another episode of Better in the Dark, I remember when. For some reason, we got into a conversation about who would play us. And. OK, yeah, it's all I remember is all these these great the time we got hijacked.
00:56:08
Speaker
by Ken McIntyre, where we were starting the episode and he just took it over. Oh. And of course, and I think I would not be the medicated person who has done all this, had made all this progress I have made, if not for that episode.
Unique Perspectives on Movies
00:56:34
Speaker
I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about.
00:56:38
Speaker
The one we would never refer to by name because I had such a breakdown on it. I'm like, and I was listening to him like, oh, no, no, this this is not what I want people to see me as. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that now. Yeah. You remember that that episode. I remember him doing telling his theory about Spider-Man in the third episode where he talked about the great thing about Spider-Man. Spider-Man wears a mask so he can literally be anybody.
00:57:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so no matter who you are you can project yourself into spider-man and identify with spider-man. Mm-hmm So, um the the stuff that we did with des retic Mm-hmm, you know, cuz yeah, we did every Halloween deaths and we would get together and just once again Try to talk about six horror movies and usually fail
00:57:35
Speaker
I discovered a lot of obscure horror movies because of those episodes you did. Those episodes, they taught me a lot about different movies that I probably would have, and that was another thing that Derek really liked to do, was he liked to let people know about other movies. And that was one thing that he was adamant about when we did this show, and I was too, is that we didn't wanna waste time
00:58:03
Speaker
you know, tearing apart things we didn't like. Instead, we wanted to spend our time talking about things we liked. And we even found, and in our, in the whole run of episodes we did, we did, we, so we covered 60 movies. We'd done 60 episodes of the show together. Zack Sanders just like was supposed to be 61. But in that time, and I had mentioned this on the show, I think there were only
00:58:29
Speaker
There were only a few movies that I could say I actively did not like. And then I couldn't find really anything good. One was Batman v Superman, another one was Steel. And if you want to hear, because he had been threatening that he would choose Steel. He had been threatening. And because we had done a poll, because when we were leading up to our 50th episode, we decided, let's do, we'll let the listeners pick a movie.
00:58:57
Speaker
we'll do a poll and then we'll watch it live and we'll record our commentary for it. And we were trying to get votes out and Derek said, now look, if you motherfuckers don't vote, then I'm gonna pick steel. And sure enough, you had some wise asses in the comments being like, you know what, I kind of want to see you guys do steel now. And then we had done,
00:59:23
Speaker
We had done it last year and then we had done it this year as he wanted to do, in February he wanted us to spotlight a black superhero movie. So the first year we did it, right? We did like Black Panther, we did Meteor Man, we did A-BAR. And then this year we had done- Oh my God, A-BAR. Yeah, we did A-BAR. Oh my God. And this year we had done, we did Blade II, we did,
00:59:53
Speaker
Project Power, the Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie. And we'd done another one I'm linking on right now. But then we had also done, and then he said, he's like, all right, you know what? We're gonna do steel. And I'm like, oh. And I remember when we opened that episode, I had said to him, like, you know, like, I opened the episode and I just shook my head and I said, I'm like, I fucking hate you for making me watch this movie.
01:00:23
Speaker
God damn, if it wasn't one of the funniest episodes we have ever done. But that's the thing. People enjoy hearing others. It sounds horrible, me saying it, but people wouldn't. That's why one of the things that we used to say, I'm better in the dark, is we watch this shit so you don't have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's something I try to keep in my partnership with this nowadays. Yeah. You know, that yes, even
01:00:53
Speaker
what I, Derek has just said to me, I said to me more than one occasion, you know, you can be a good movie, you can be a bad movie, just don't be a boring movie. Yeah, yeah. And there, I'm one of these people that believes, and I'm sure Derek might have agreed with me, that there should be no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Yes, I think so too. I definitely agree. I think I think
01:01:18
Speaker
If you will, for example, I love The Return of Captain Invincible. So this is a podcast about superhero movies. The Return of Captain Invincible, which is directed by the French-born, Australian-raised Felipe Mora. And it is Bug fucking Ting. It is Alan Arkin.
01:01:44
Speaker
plays a Superman stand. It was basically a parody of the Superman in the movie with Alan Arkin as Superman and Christopher Lee as Lex Luthor. Oh, wow. It's a musical. Oh, my God. It is a musical with music by Richard O'Brien. I know Derek would have. I'm surprised. I'm actually surprised that Derek had not picked that movie. I think it's very difficult.
01:02:14
Speaker
It's very difficult to find. But the thing is, when I introduced him to it, it was it was a joy because it's because, yes, it is not a good movie. Yeah, yeah. Though the work of Philip through the very more is not good as a whole. But it has such this, this energy. It's like listening to a kid recount a story like a like a five year old kid recount a story in one breath.
01:02:45
Speaker
You know, and then this happens, and then this happens, and then Christopher Lee sings a song about alcoholism, and then this happens. Oh wow. I'm confident that if Ed had, if he were still around, he would have definitely gotten around to picking that at
Cinematic Creativity and Storytelling
01:03:01
Speaker
some point. Oh, for some reason, the film I've been thinking about a lot is The Beast Must Die. Oh no, it's like a little movie.
01:03:11
Speaker
Oh, go ahead. I was thinking about something else because he had written, he had written a book that was that was an adapted screenplay from like some really from like a B movie or something. Right. And like, had a similar title. So I just flash back to that real briefly. I'm like, no, it's like one of the one of the obscure because I used to joke that, um,
01:03:32
Speaker
there were like three different shows that we did every year that were like our WrestleMania, our SummerSlam, and our Royal Rumble. And one of them was the obscure horror movies episode. And one year he talked about The Beast Must Die, which is a werewolf movie in a sort of mystery framework where Calvin Lockhart
01:04:02
Speaker
A bunch of people he suspects are werewolves to his home and tries to determine which one is a werewolf so he can kill it. And towards the end of the film, the film takes what they call, it's called a werewolf break. Where you're supposed to figure out who the real werewolf is.
01:04:27
Speaker
And he had such clear describing this to me. And I had this image of, you know, the old Felix, the cat clocks, you know, those few cat clocks where the eyes would go back and forth in time with the. Yeah, yeah. So I had this image of this werewolf, this werewolf head with the eyes going back and forth. But yeah, I mean, stuff like when we came up with Little Blade. Oh, I remember that. Yeah.
01:04:58
Speaker
A little blade and a little, you know, all that stuff. That was the joy. He didn't know what was going to happen. And I think that that's what he would want us, those of us who had the privilege of knowing him to continue doing, is trying to create that sort of sense of wonder for other people. Yeah, yeah.
01:05:26
Speaker
And I think that's a good note to end on as any, is just that idea. Also stay safe everybody, wear your masks. Well, yeah, that was something else he had started signing off on was he would say test negative, stay positive. Yeah. I may use that because over in the Honeywell experiment, you know, the Honeywell experiment is a podcast I do with Chris Honeywell.
01:05:51
Speaker
where we talk about greenhouse movies and there's this whole stupid backstory where I'm supposed to be this mad scientist. And I started saying, guys, wear your mask. It's it's nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and Chris says, that's not a very that's not a very super villainy thing to say. Well, if I take over the world, there's nobody to to boss around. Where is the fun?
01:06:19
Speaker
So yeah, people, please stay safe. We're not asking you to do it for our benefit, but for your benefit. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Go ahead. So I just wanted to ask you, where can people find you online? These days, due to a bizarre set of circumstances, I have found myself
01:06:48
Speaker
has creative director of the Akadek Akonagan Theater Works, a online audio drama troupe that has been doing weekly productions since about November. And you can find the ATW at their newly minted website, atw.ninja. OK.
Accessing Derek's Work
01:07:15
Speaker
That's probably the best place to find it. And there are other, I'm in other places too. I'm one of the rotating co-hosts with Des Redick on Dred Media. And I do this Honeywell experiment once a month. So I just, you can find me, don't worry. Don't worry guys. And if you can't find me, I'll find you. And I believe Better in the Dark is still on the internet as well.
01:07:45
Speaker
Kailin and Kelly Loge. Kelly Loge, who probably has done so much for so many podcasters and doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves, has maintained the Better in the Dark site. You can still access the episodes. And I think Kailin and I are talking about devoting a month to re-releasing the best episodes. OK.
01:08:13
Speaker
So yes, you can find better in the dark, including the hottie hole, the fame, including the glossary, all the weird shit we put on that site. I don't see the website. Oh, I know here is bitdsite.wordpress.com. And it is still on Apple Podcasts.
Podcasting Milestones
01:08:37
Speaker
Play around them. It's on Audible even.
01:08:42
Speaker
Pod Bay, yeah. So anywhere, if you have not listened to those episodes, you know, go back and re-listen to Better in the Dark. There's a ton of content on there. I mean, you guys did that. Sorry, you said for like seven years you did it? Seven years, most of it almost without fail on a biweekly schedule. Right, yeah. And the thing is, of course,
01:09:06
Speaker
It's weird being referred to by other podcasts as a first generation podcaster. But there are other podcasts that said, yeah, you know, we've listened to Better in the Dark. We said we could do this better than those guys. But but, yeah, no, and they're interesting. The thing about the Internet now is that. Your your moments in time are frozen, right?
01:09:37
Speaker
your good moments and your bad moments. That's why you got to be careful out here. Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah, no, this is a moment in time, a seven years of a friendship of two people who were like brothers to each other. God, I sound so pretentious. And keep in mind, though, that I'm sure our opinions on some of these movies changed. Yeah.
01:10:06
Speaker
but there you go. It's an interesting time capsule and you get to hear the episode where I fell asleep. There's a lot of stuff on there, like just looking at it on Audible. Audible has a total count of 172 episodes. So that's like... Yes, including, I think we had 160 official episodes. Right, then you had like a bunch...
01:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, you had like point five episodes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which were which were little stock gaps when we were having problems with our schedule that were supposed to be a half an hour each. And we did we did one about the the Colorado shooting back when these kinds of tribes, these were less ubiquitous.
01:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, but we, you know, we would just anything like, I think one of the frankest conversations we ever had is on one of those point five episodes, which is the one we talked about racism.
Encouraging Lifelong Learning
01:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, we had, I remember when we did, we did the what we covered the Watchmen TV show, we did a three parts episode on that three part series on that. And
01:11:26
Speaker
And we had a lot of really good conversations about that same topic and about American history and all that kind of stuff. Not only was Derek just a fun guy to be around, someone who knew a lot about movies, but he knew a lot, period. He was one of the most
01:11:46
Speaker
well-educated man I've ever known like he knew so much about like anytime you want to ask Derek about something like I remember there's almost I could never stump him with a movie like I'd bring up some movies like oh yeah I've seen that and but even like historical knowledge to use the same way like there are so many things like
01:12:07
Speaker
I mean, cause he was one of those types of people who just love to keep learning. Cause I remember we did, he came on Japan on film to cover the Japanese remake of Unforgiven.
01:12:18
Speaker
And one of the things, and when we were talking that episode, one of the things he mentioned on there was that, because there was this whole subplot involving the Ainu, the indigenous people in Japan, in Northern Japan. And there was one character, there was a whole Ainu subplot. And he said, he's like, I was so interested in this that as soon as the movie was over, I went and I looked up stuff about the Ainu. Well, he was a firm believer of something that I like to
01:12:45
Speaker
distill into the saying the man who claims to know everything is only admitting he knows nothing. Yeah, yeah. So he was new ideas fascinated him. Oh, Mike, when I brought him a in like 65, I think somebody put together a paperback call for bond lovers only.
01:13:12
Speaker
And in that paperback was an article by John Dulles about Soviet science cities. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he got fascinated with this.
01:13:30
Speaker
When he read that, he was just totally fascinated by the idea that there were these little American cities throughout the USSR where spies were trained to learn how to be American. Yeah. I think he may have been the one I learned that from, because I think he was the one who told me about that. Yeah.
01:13:56
Speaker
It's just, I mean, we would find these things and we would share them and we would talk about just people. I think people think that they stop learning once they get out of school. No, guys. No, you should always be learning. Yeah.
01:14:17
Speaker
So that's another thing we can do. Yeah, try to and try to learn as much as you can, you know, keep educating yourself. Keep creating, keep finding, keep, you know, watching new movies, watching obscure movies, because those are the ways. Yeah. Why older movies? Yeah. I'm talking to you, you younger whippersnappers, because I know that there's a whole generation of you that don't want to watch anything before 1977.
01:14:47
Speaker
but there's a whole, yeah, a whole full of films that, yes, they're slower than you want, they have a different cadence, but they're amazing. And the reason some of these, the reason all you
Continuing the Podcast Legacy
01:15:02
Speaker
chuckleheads who talk about what a great film Joker was, obviously having Joker, although I was known as my Martin Scorsese fan fiction, let me tell you something.
01:15:15
Speaker
Go back and watch Taxi Driver. That'll learn you some. I'm sorry. That movie pissed me off. We actually covered that movie. Derek had, that was one of Derek's picks. We did that, I think last year, I want to say. But yeah, so we did Joker. We did a whole bunch of stuff spanning
01:15:39
Speaker
you know, all the way back from like Batman 66, A-bar, and like, you know, to even, you know, Avengers and Age of Ultron. I think the three of us have said more about A-bar.
01:15:52
Speaker
than anybody else has. Probably, yeah. Probably right there, yeah. All right, Tom, it's been a pleasure. It's been great talking to you again. Thank you for having me. And guys, stay safe and learn things. Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for having me.
01:16:12
Speaker
As we have been saying, you can go over to SuperheroCinephiles.com. We do have links to Derek's website. There is a link for his fiction website, Fergusoninc.com, as well as a link to his... The Ferguson Theater. Ferguson Theater, yeah, DerekLFerguson.com.
01:16:34
Speaker
You know, go through and read some of those reviews because he wrote so many reviews and he covered not only big movies, but you know, but really, but old movies, obscure movies. He was not discriminating in what kind of movies he would watch. That's another thing you guys can do. That's another thing you guys can do if you want to honor his memory. Go on to the Ferguson Theater.
01:16:57
Speaker
Find a movie that he reviewed that you never saw before and I'm not talking about one of these films that you were going to get to anyway. Preferably a film made before you were born. Yeah. Yeah. And watch it. Yeah.
01:17:12
Speaker
He's got a ton of movie reviews on there. Also, you know, buy his books if you haven't yet. I'm pretty sure there are links to all of them on Ferguson Inc. If not, just type his name into Amazon. Like you'll find his Amazon page. Tons of stuff he wrote. He published through Hope Work Press, through Prose, through Airship 27.
01:17:32
Speaker
you know, lots of content on there if you have not sampled his work. So please make sure to do that. But that does it for this special episode where Superhero Cinephiles crosses over with Better in the Dark for a revival. Goes back in time. Goes back in time, yeah.
01:17:53
Speaker
I still haven't decided what's going to happen with the show going forward. A lot of people have said that they want to hear it continuing, so if you're one of those people who wants to see the superhero cinephiles go on, please let me know, drop me an email. Also, I did say that I want to put together a memorial episode with people contributing their thoughts, their
01:18:17
Speaker
their memories or or whatnot about about Derek about his life about his work, so if you have not i've gotten a few responses already, but if you have not done that if you could just record. A little bit of audio or a little bit of video just yourself one to two minutes or so and just send it over to superhero cinephiles at gmail.com thanks so much for listening. it's going to be a unusual time at the podcast here for a little while we try to figure things out and try to.
01:18:47
Speaker
give Derek the kind of send off that he deserves and he would appreciate. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next time. You have been listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast.
Closing Reflections
01:18:59
Speaker
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SuperCinemapod. Join our Facebook group by searching for Superhero Cinephiles where you can interact with us and other superhero fans. If you'd like to support the show, you can become a regular supporter at Patreon,
01:19:12
Speaker
or make a one-time donation through PayPal, both of which can be found at our website, SuperheroCinephiles.com. If you buy or rent any movies through the Amazon links at our site, it helps support the show. Please be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:19:45
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.