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Episode 761 - Almost No Clothes f/ Dan Schkade
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Dan Schkade returns to the show this week to talk about the Flash Gordon newspaper strip, the new Lavender Jack collection, Berserk, the downsides of talkin' trash, and much more!
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Transcript
Introduction to War Rocket Ajax
00:00:00
Speaker
This show is recorded using Zencaster. If you are a podcaster or you want to be a podcaster and you want to be able to record remotely, you can do so using Zencaster. They also have hosting options and you can let them know that we sent you. Follow the link in our show notes or in the episode description and sign up for an account on Zencaster now to start recording your own podcast.
00:00:28
Speaker
Right as I'm bored, what plaything can you offer me today?
00:00:38
Speaker
got more rocket Ajax to bring back his body. Terminate! Exit! Yeah!
Meet the Hosts: Chris and Matt
00:00:53
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to War Rocket Ajax. This is the internet's most explosive comic book and pop culture podcast. And we are your hosts. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always is Matt Wilson.
00:01:05
Speaker
Matt, if I had heraldry, if would have knight and had a a heraldry upon my shield to represent who I am in battle against my foes,
00:01:22
Speaker
it would be It would be split down the middle, a black a background, a black field on one side, a white field on the other. Against me the black background would be biscuit rampant, and against the white background would be coffee cup rampant.
00:01:42
Speaker
Okay, I like it. I like it. I think that's a good i think that's ah that's a good and plausible coat of arms. It doesn't have Goku on it. Or anything.
00:01:53
Speaker
But if I was a knight in King Arthur times, like i think I think that is a plausible and fitting shield design. Matt, what would your heraldry be?
00:02:04
Speaker
This is a great question. Chris, I can tell that you've been watching Dunkin' Egg. I've been watching Dunkin' Egg. don't get Don't get ahead of yourself, bud. Okay, I won't, but ah there's there's a a memorable scene in Dunkin' Egg where Sir Duncan has to but think of what he wants on his shield and kind of kind of has a hard time ah coming up with it.
00:02:30
Speaker
Because i can't answer one of these questions without going like a little bit um meta with it, ah my heraldry would be a shield, like a round shield.
00:02:43
Speaker
Like, my shield would be round. And it would be um kind of like tan on one side and black on the other side. And then on either side of, like, you know, ah you know with a line down the middle, ah ah vertically.
00:03:02
Speaker
And um then on each side would be um different designs of shields.
00:03:11
Speaker
Because I'm going to be a very defensive knight.
00:03:16
Speaker
um i'm going to buy My offense is going to be my defense.
00:03:23
Speaker
So my shield is going to have multiple shields on it. Buddy.
00:03:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:32
Speaker
Like, you know, it's like one of the it'll be like one of those like kind of like, ah you know, the traditional shield shape. Uh-huh. Like the Hyrule shield. Yeah. I don't know what you call that shape.
00:03:44
Speaker
that's That's shield shaped. Yeah. And then, like, one will be like the big, like, phalanx shield. Like the kind of rectangular shield.
00:03:57
Speaker
And I guess that'll be the two shields on either side. And then my shield will be round. Yeah.
Guest Introduction: Dan Scotty
00:04:01
Speaker
We've got a great show for everybody this week. Dan Scotty is here. It's going a good time.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, to talk about... We're going to talk about ah Flash Gordon for a while. ah We're also going to talk about ah Dan's ah Lavender Jack collection, which is coming out soon from Dark Horse. But we're also going to talk a whole lot about Berserk.
00:04:24
Speaker
Which we always love to do I mean, we couldn't be happier to talk about that. ah So stick around for our conversation with Dan, which is going to be a very fun time. But Chris, before we talk to Dan, we do have business to take care of here at the top of the show.
Supporting the Show on Patreon
00:04:39
Speaker
Starting with thanking our supporters over on Patreon. That's right, Matt. Now, these are the people. who want to support the show, they want to help us out.
00:04:50
Speaker
They want to take a trip down to 761 Gimmick Street and see what's there. And how do you do that? Well, I'll tell you, Matt, because you don't need no kettlebells. Oh, good. All you need to do is go patreon.com slash warrocketajax and kick in as a little as a dollar a month to help us keep the show going, help us keep doing the things that we do here on the show, help me keep coming up with questions that ah Matt is going to acknowledge at the start of the show.
00:05:22
Speaker
i answered. yeah Sure. oh
00:05:28
Speaker
And most importantly for me right now as someone without a day job ah or really without a side job outside of this to help us pay those gimmicks they keep sending the mail call bills.
00:05:39
Speaker
Listen, if I'm asked a question that I have not had a chance to think about, obviously my answer is going to be a joke. Do I need to start? Because I almost messaged you earlier this week asking you that question or telling you what that question was going to be. Because I came up with a good one for Benito as well.
00:06:03
Speaker
ah which Benito usually messages us on Mondays after the show goes up, his answer to the question, which is always very fun. yeah ah he He would be a Psyduck, and ah his partner Pokemon would be Delibird. I think those are ah extremely good choices ah for both of those. um But i like undoubtedly, 100%, Benito's heraldry is a book,
00:06:30
Speaker
And on the left-hand page is a skull, and on the right-hand page it says Memento Mori. Very, very correct. Very correct. Yep, that's what it is. And I almost texted both of you, but i i I like you having to come off the dome with it a little bit. its Yes, it's... it's If you want it to be funny, I'm going to come off the dome with it. If if you want it to be well-considered, maybe give me the question in advance.
00:07:03
Speaker
Chris, we have a new member of the Gimmick Street Preservation Society this week. Oh, I love that. Because the Gimmick Street Preservation Society, that's the people at the $15 level. That's right.
00:07:14
Speaker
And they get to choose what goes at an address on Gimmick Street. And guess who is providing us the what is at 761 Gimmick Street?
00:07:28
Speaker
It's our longtime friend, letterer extraordinaire, Jody Troutman. Oh, what's Jody got for us? Jody is putting at 761 Gimmick Street something to support us in our long, dark winter.
00:07:46
Speaker
The Tom Orzekowski School for Gifted Letterers. In the main courtyard is a life-size bronze statue of Kitty Pryde telling everyone that Professor Xavier is a jerk.
00:07:59
Speaker
Word. Word. You know what? ah ah I hope that 761 Gimmick Street survives the experience.
00:08:11
Speaker
Tommy Orr's, man. Tommy Orr's so good. Tommy Orr's. Jody, clearly a graduate of such of such a school. Clearly. ah the The home of the fightin' fuck Todd Clines.
00:08:24
Speaker
ah um Thank you, Jody, ah for for that location on Gimmick Street and for providing us โ and for becoming ah a member of the Gimmick Street Preservation Society. More on that in just a second.
00:08:39
Speaker
ah Chris, I also have ah the name of a new backer to thank. Oh, okay. That is Scream Scene. Oh, thank you, Scream Scene.
00:08:51
Speaker
another podcast that is ah backing us on Patreon. So thank you. Yes. Thank you. Scream scene. If you would like to be like scream scene and help us out here on the show, you can kick in as little as $1 per month to make sure that we do ah this show every week.
00:09:08
Speaker
that we do Every Story Ever specials monthly, that we do Comics Catch-Up monthly, that we do Movie Fighters to Snack situation whenever that those return. We'll have to have a discussion about the return of those as our lives settle down, hopefully a little bit, here in 2026.
00:09:26
Speaker
ah But all of our shows are made possible by your support on Patreon. And as a patron, even just at the $1 level, you get ad-free episodes of all the shows that we do. You get your own special feed ad-free of all those shows.
00:09:41
Speaker
At the $5 level, you get bonus content. That's bonus audio that we record, special for Patreon. We just did some extra Gordy's awards as some bonus content a little while ago. It's also outtakes that I cut out of the show and put on Patreon. I definitely think there will be some from this episode.
00:10:04
Speaker
And ah writing that Chris and I have done, especially for Patreon. That's all at the $5 level. And if you join at the $5 level, you get the backlog of all the bonus content that we've done. The $10 level, you get line-stepping privileges for our segments, which currently include 1 to 10 of Swords and Every Story Ever.
00:10:22
Speaker
And at the $15 level, you join the gimmick street preservation society. You get to name a location on gimmick street. As we mentioned at the $20 level, you get a t-shirt. Uh, we have, and all the other stuff as well. Um, but, uh,
00:10:37
Speaker
We're going to really hunker down and and settle on the 2026 t-shirt and and have that probably in the summer. So that's at the $20 level.
00:10:50
Speaker
If you're unable to help us monetarily, we do understand that that is how it goes sometimes. It'd be like that sometimes. You can help us out in other ways. You can leave us a five-star review on the podcasting app that you use or...
00:11:02
Speaker
You can just tell your friends and family about the show, spread the word, let them know to listen to this show, War Rocket Ajax, and then encourage them to back our Patreon, because we would really, really appreciate and enjoy them doing that.
00:11:20
Speaker
Chris, with that, now that we've thanked our Patreon supporters, it's time for some checks and recs. What do you say? Let's do it.
Gaming Experiences and Reviews
00:11:30
Speaker
Chris, what do you have to check in with this week? Matt, i got to the point of Pokemon Pocopia, where i was I was feeling pretty much done.
00:11:40
Speaker
I had accomplished all of my goals. So I ah retired my time in Pocopia, but I wasn't done with Pokemon, because I'll never be done with Pokemon.
00:11:56
Speaker
You could take that to the grave, buddy. ah So what I did is I finally went back to playing the DLC of Pokemon Legends ZA, which is, ah I don't know, Mega Dimension, I think it might be called. It's called it's the only DLC there is for the game.
00:12:15
Speaker
And what this does is it brings in a lot of new Pokemon. And by new Pokemon, I mean existing Pokemon ah that are new to this particular game, but they do include some of my favorites. So, ah buddy, I got Tinkaton now in this game.
00:12:31
Speaker
And I love Tinkaton. I got a whole section of dogs that's got that's got my Bostiff and Lucario and Fido, the dog made of bread.
00:12:43
Speaker
it's good. It's good stuff. So I've been going through that DLC, trying to get everybody, once again, complete my Pokedex. I do need to trade with someone to get Porygonzi.
00:12:55
Speaker
So if you if you want to trade with me, hit me up. they DM me on Discord. ah du Don't put it in the channel. I won't see it. Do DM me. I'm having some trouble finding SirFetched as well.
00:13:09
Speaker
I guess you could DM me in the Discord or or tag me in the Discord and then I'll relay it to Chris. You can also DM me in the Discord. Yes, yes. DM dm Chris in the Discord. DM me.
00:13:22
Speaker
trade Trade Pokemon with him. Trade me some Pokemon. I gotta i gotta i got alpha ah got an Alpha Machoke that I want to turn into a Machamp. So hit me up.
00:13:35
Speaker
Or maybe it's the other way around. I can never remember which one is the Machop Machoke Machamp. I'm pretty sure is how that goes, right? I have been back in that game. I love that game.
00:13:47
Speaker
I know that that is not what all Pokemon games can be from now on, but the more action-based Pokemon Legends games are, I think, my favorite Pokemon games.
00:14:01
Speaker
they're just They're very fun to play, and I enjoy them. And also, the writing in this one is incredibly wild. ah so someone just... I passed someone who had like a word balloon, and they were just saying, like, I've been inspired by my savior to take care of the poor. And I'm like, did I rescue this person from something?
00:14:27
Speaker
Or is is are they finally acknowledging the existence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the world of Pokemon? it's It is pretty nuts that it seems like the people who make Pokemon, like...
00:14:41
Speaker
Have reached the point where they feel so untouchable that they just can write whatever the fuck they want. I i love that for them. Because the dialogue in Pocopia is also wild.
00:14:55
Speaker
And also, so many legendary Pokemon have southern accents. It's great. That ah that is what I've heard. ah And also, Pokemon Go secretly was training AI the whole time.
00:15:07
Speaker
No! Doya. No! Oh, that hurts my heart.
00:15:17
Speaker
Oh, that's that hurt that hurts my heart. One of the pieces of dialogue in this game is you just pass someone on the street who says, whenever I'm lonely, I talk to my Pokemon and their Pokeballs. Same.
00:15:28
Speaker
Same, bud. Another guy says, this life is too much some days. I need my Pokemon to comfort me. Yeah, man. Me too. Me too. Matt, what have you been up to this week while I've been ah becoming the very best like no one ever was?
00:15:46
Speaker
Well, Chris, I've also been playing a video game, and people can watch my first play session of it, and hopefully by the time this episode goes up, one or two more. I started playing Resident Evil Requiem. and does itt go Does it go Evil on the title screen like like the first Resident Evil did?
00:16:07
Speaker
No, oh it doesn't. They haven't done that in a while. I mean, look, they're going to keep that absolute dog shit name. Yeah. it's i don't They should pull Like a Dragon and just change it to they're calling a Biohazard.
00:16:24
Speaker
yeah But, you know, it is what it is. But I will say, ah i do have to give props to the makers of Resident Evil Requiem for um right out of the gate.
00:16:39
Speaker
Being like, hey, um you know how they we made Resident Evil games like kind of more grounded and serious for a little while? No more of that. This one is going to be ridiculous from like minute one.
00:17:00
Speaker
There is a bad guy character, like a villain character, who is this kind of Frankenstein-looking scientist guy. Mm-hmm. Who immediately goes out onto the street of a major city and starts shooting people.
00:17:15
Speaker
Great. Fantastic. like It's a city that is clearly modeled after Chicago, and he's just standing on a sidewalk. and It's not like shooting people with regular bullets. it's shooting people with... like ah virus pellets or something. Of course. Matt, you didn't even have to say that. i Yeah, of course. um But like it's there's just a whole sequence where he just like, just everybody who's around him, he just like shoots at them.
00:17:46
Speaker
And then Leon S. Kennedy, of course, has to has to do all the cleanup. Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy. It is like the same kind of bonkers bad guy vibe as Resident Evil 4.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, I already really like this one. i I don't know how or if Ethan from the last two games is going to play into this one at all.
00:18:13
Speaker
Because um the two main characters in this are Leon, who you play... When you play as Leon, it's always in third-person perspective. And then there's ah another character named Grace, ah who is an FBI agent, who is always in first-person perspective.
00:18:32
Speaker
That's a pretty wild mechanic. Yeah. um like you know It switches back and forth between them in like different story chapters, so it's not like you're playing concurrently between the two of them.
00:18:44
Speaker
And it's not like you're switching from one character to another. It's just like, now you're playing as Leon. Then we're going to switch to whatever Grace is doing now. it's It's that kind of thing. But yeah, Leon's always in third person and Grace is always in first person, um which is which is interesting. um And obviously there's some kind of build to a reveal of some of Grace being somebody in Resident Evil, but I do not know who that is yet.
00:19:13
Speaker
um But anyway, I'm streaming it on my YouTube channel. If you want to watch ah what I've done so far in the game, you can go to my YouTube channel and and watch me play Resident Evil Requiem, um which I think they should make the nine more obvious in the title Requiem, but we can't but can't always get what we want.
00:19:35
Speaker
Like, the queue is supposed to be a nine. Oh, okay. But it just looks like a Q, and I want it to look more like a 9.
00:19:44
Speaker
Time for some recommendations. what do you have to recommend, Chris?
Book and Show Recommendations
00:19:47
Speaker
Matt, I know you're ah you're a booksman now. I am a booksman now, yeah. you You like books. And you know what? I also like books.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, books are great. And I've been getting through some some good ones lately. And one that I will recommend... to you and the listener, is ah Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik.
00:20:09
Speaker
I've talked about Naomi Novik before on the show as ah the author of the Scolamance books, Deadly Education being the first one of those, that I really like, ah which I believe was recommended to me by Kill MacDonald.
00:20:22
Speaker
This is part of It's...
00:20:26
Speaker
it's I guess it does count as a series. They're not, to my knowledge, connected. But she has done a couple of books that, um like three or four, that are inspired by folktales.
00:20:46
Speaker
ah And Spinning Silver is sort of the Rumpelstiltskin of the bunch, but has very little to do with the... you know When you picture Rumpelstiltskin in your head, it has very little to do ah with with with that story.
00:21:07
Speaker
Instead, it has a lot to do with just general like Russian folklore and the ideas of like what's going on in ah Eastern Europe at ah a particular point in history.
00:21:23
Speaker
And you get multiple viewpoint characters, some of whom actually come into the book kind quite late. But ah the main interconnection is between ah a ah a Jewish girl who is the daughter of a moneylender who takes over his business ah because he is letting everybody walk all over him and not pay him back.
00:21:52
Speaker
ah Then there is a girl in her town who she ends up ah like taking as like as an employee in order to bury in order to pay off ah that girl's father's ah debt.
00:22:06
Speaker
ah And then there is the daughter of a duke whose father is trying to marry her to the Tsar. And in input like within all that, there is also a story about how ah ah Miriam, the the moneylender girl, is doing so well at business that she brags about how she can turn silver to gold.
00:22:32
Speaker
Because she's like collecting money, going to another town, buying things, bringing them back, and selling them. And that gets the attention of ah a weird ice elf guy.
00:22:43
Speaker
And also the Tsar is possessed. So... It's a real fun time. I listened to it as an audiobook, which is quite good because ah the narrator did some ah subtle ah differences in voice between all the viewpoint characters, so it was nice and easy to tell ah who was narrating what chapter if I were to, i don't know, space out for a second and try and catch Tink-a-Tink or evolve Tink-a-Tink into Tink-a-Tuff or whatever.
00:23:16
Speaker
you know like so Something anyone might be doing whilst listening to this. ah But highly recommended. ah i actually do have a a hard copy as well because I believe I bought it for ah AC oh previously.
00:23:31
Speaker
um Very enjoyable. And you know I love some do you know i love some Russian folktales. if anybody If anybody talks about the Baba Yaga in a book, i am there. Tell tell me more.
00:23:43
Speaker
Please. about this woman and her weird house. ah Matt, what would you like to recommend? Well, Chris, I'm going to recommend the thing that I've been getting into a lot ah recently, um because friends of ours over the years have talked about being fans or enjoying this. And I just kind of, it's one of those things where it's just like,
00:24:10
Speaker
from the name of it, I didn't quite get it. like I didn't quite understand what it was, and it's like it was hard to access because it's a Canadian show, and it was on a channel that I didn't get, and it wasn't streaming anywhere.
00:24:26
Speaker
seemed like much trouble to get into, like it seemed like too much trouble to get into but um I know Bethany Fong has been a fan of it for a while, and ah Kurt Franklin recently talked about like really getting into it. And so I was like, okay, let me see what this is about. Because there was also a movie that came out this year.
00:24:48
Speaker
ah It's um Nirvana, the Band, the Show. Okay. This is something that I have only even heard of recently and know nothing about. Yeah, okay, so...
00:25:02
Speaker
The joke is that these two guys, these two Canadian guys from Toronto, Matt and Jay. That's your name. One of them has my name, yeah. um And one of them is this has the same first name as Christian Cage, because they're kind of like the Edge and Christian. No, they're not. But but they are both from Toronto. um So, like, the joke of the show, which they never really fully acknowledge, is that um without seeming to know who Nirvana is, named their band Nirvana the Band.
00:25:37
Speaker
he But never just Nirvana. It's always Nirvana the Band. um And so when they mention their band name to people, people are like, what? Nirvana? And they're like, yeah, Nirvana the Band. That's us. And it's only two guys. And the show in its entirety is about them trying to get a show at a local club called The Rivoli.
00:26:02
Speaker
Every single episode is about them coming up with some new scheme to get a show at the Rivoli, even though they don't have any songs.
00:26:14
Speaker
okay Okay. Like, there's a couple times where they kind of like get very close to having a show at the Rivoli, and as soon as that happens, they panic about not having rehearsed anything and have and not knowing what to perform. But...
00:26:29
Speaker
but Okay, let me say a few things about it. There was a web series that ran like starting in 2007. And then there was a TV show that was on Viceland in 2017, 2018. And then there was a movie this year. I have not seen the movie.
00:26:48
Speaker
I can say this about the web series in particular. There is some stuff that does not hold up. And in fact, one of the very first things that happens in one of the very first episodes of the web series is like, oh boy, that's from 2007.
00:27:05
Speaker
um But also, it very much feels like, Chris, if you and i had had had made a web series in 2007, it's exactly the show we would have made. Oh no. Yeah.
00:27:22
Speaker
For all the good and bad of that, yes. there I would say there is a smattering of Jay Pinkerton humor. You know exactly what that means.
00:27:36
Speaker
I do know exactly what that means, in fact, yes. yes ah But it is aside from that, very funny. And like all their points of reference, and all of their like kind of the way they interact with each other, the way that they...
00:27:52
Speaker
relate to one another is so in line with kind of how we are. And it it is very noticeable that they're like our exact same age.
00:28:05
Speaker
And yeah, ah all of the Viceland episodes are on the Internet Archive. So you can go watch them on the Internet Archive. um I think they're ah they're labeled as like ah work copies on the Internet Archive, but you can go watch like the two seasons of the Viceland show there.
00:28:25
Speaker
And the Viceland show is definitely more polished um and and kind of more so kind of smarter ah than the web series. But the web series also had like the sort of cemented in amber Internet Hall of Fame video where they come up with lyrics to the Wii Shop music.
00:28:53
Speaker
don't know that I've ever seen this. It was a video that went quite viral at the time ah where it's just the two of them and then like... what what The J, who is the musician of the two of them, who he he's the one who plays the piano and stuff, um like sings like...
00:29:12
Speaker
really like note perfect lyrics to the the We Shop theme, I will send you the that video, which is quite good. And it's apparently in the movie.
00:29:23
Speaker
okay ah But that's that's what I've been getting into lately. So with caveats about certain jokes absolutely and definitely not holding up, I have been kind of obsessively watching and getting into Nirvana the Band the Show in the past week or so.
Comic Reviews and Discussions
00:29:46
Speaker
Chris, those are our checks and recs, which means it's time to talk about some comics. Let's do it.
00:29:53
Speaker
We don't have a texture choice winner for this week, because I don't think we texted about any comics at all. But the book that we both read, that we agreed that we needed to talk about, is the new Batwoman No. 1 by Greg Rucka, written by Greg Rucka, with art by Danny, or Donnie,
00:30:16
Speaker
I'm not really sure which one it is. It is like an uppercase N. Yeah, it's it's capital D, lowercase a, capital N, lowercase i. So it might be Dani.
00:30:30
Speaker
um I really like the art in this. The art, I feel like, in this issue is like completely gorgeous. I like it too. It's... it's I still kind of associate you know the the the Kate Kane Batwoman with J.H. Williams III for obvious reasons.
00:30:50
Speaker
ah But like this is ah very far from J.H. Williams III, but
00:31:00
Speaker
very ah similar in that it is distinct and stylized and very much fits the what is happening. well Yeah, it' in the best possible way, this looks to me like a a comic from 2014. Yeah.
00:31:20
Speaker
yeah i I really like, in particular, the way that Batwoman is drawn, ah in that her hair is, like there are very few actual lines delineating her hair. It is just like a solid mass of color against dark backgrounds.
00:31:36
Speaker
And yeah her costume also blends into ah dark backgrounds as well in a really ah cool and fun way. It's very ah visually distinct. And i mean you you get a pretty good sample of it on the cover.
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah. ah But the interiors look as good. I would call this ah art and all a mood. yeah Yeah, very moody. It's very moody and very, like, brackets positive Frank Miller.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah. um On top of that, I think for for us who have who are familiar with the Batwoman stories and have read most, if not all, of Greg Rucka's Batwoman work before this, all of the Kate Kane Batwoman stuff,
00:32:30
Speaker
like This kind of like dives right back into it, like to like this the the the stuff with with Kate and Beth, her sister, um which you know was a key point of the sort sort of the first big Batwoman solo arc.
00:32:50
Speaker
I cannot imagine what a person picking this up and reading a Batwoman comic comic for the first time would think was going on here. Yeah, man, I did also have that feeling. i was like, this book opens up, and I was like, oh, so we're doing like crime Bible stuff, and Batwoman's twin sister, and the twice-named daughter of Cain. Yeah, word, let's do it. Fucking let's party. Yeah.
00:33:15
Speaker
i is I think the feeling of being confused while reading a comic is a good thing. Sure, but like man, to be a number one issue, it it does it does no hand-holding.
00:33:27
Speaker
None at all. Hell yeah. yeah Look, that's that's all I want from ah from these comics. Let's get weird with it.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, man. Yeah, man. ah All right. You wanted to talk about Marian Heretic No. 5. Yes. um This is the final issue of ah what is hopefully the first ah volume of Marian Heretic. There is a an afterword from Teenie Howard that that does say that ah this is not the end for Marian Heretic, and โ And ah the team is planning other stories as we go.
00:34:11
Speaker
And that's good, because I really want to see more. Because again, this book is is is Teeny Howard doing Berserk, but it's about two Teeny Howards, as I said before. Mm-hmm.
00:34:25
Speaker
Written, of course, by Tini, illustrated by Joe Jaro, colors by Walter Bramonte and Eleria Biaghini, and letters by Taylor Esposito. Yeah, man, would it surprise you to learn that in this book, the title character does in fact embrace ah being a heretic and then ah also becomes a lesbian?
00:34:49
Speaker
or Or, I guess, is is revealed to be a lesbian? Right, it has been a lesbian the whole time. It engages in sapphic activities. It it it ah accepts herself as a lesbian. Yeah.
00:35:03
Speaker
ah Yes, i i I would call that unsurprising. Yeah, it's like... This issue is kind of what you know is building for the entire series, because we'd get a big fight scene.
00:35:15
Speaker
oh There's a really good bit. The intersection of Apocrypals and War Rocket Ajax is this comic. yeah it's like There is this bit where ah all of the other nuns that Marion has been protecting are ah like decide that they are going to join her in her rebellion against the Polar.
00:35:37
Speaker
the ah Catholic patriarchy, and they all go out the garden of there ah of their convent and draw swords from a statue of ah Mary and the Seven Sorrows.
00:35:54
Speaker
And that's just good! Pretty dope. pretty dope yeah there is There is a miracle in which everyone is given swords. It's great.
00:36:04
Speaker
ah Love it. No, highly enjoyable. ah Beautiful art. ah like i I would suspect that if anything is going to delay the production of Morbary and Heretic, it's probably that somebody saw Jojaro and was like...
00:36:22
Speaker
Oh, like this this guy's extremely good at drawing these ah big, gothy, moody action scenes and and character designs and all kinds of really good stuff. But yeah, very enjoyable. ah hell of end to that first series.
00:36:40
Speaker
So ah but if you have not read it, I know I recommended it a couple of weeks ago, but if you haven't read it, give it a read. It's good stuff.
00:36:50
Speaker
ah One last book that I wanted to talk about real quick is a book I wanted to tell you about, Chris, because I know you would hate it. Great. It is The Century No. 1. Uh-huh. Written by Paul Jenkins, ah cocre co-creator of The Century.
00:37:09
Speaker
All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With art by Christian Rosado. And... um
00:37:17
Speaker
I'm just going to tell you what happens in here, Chris, because I know you're probably not going to want to read it. I mean, not not after you say that it's literally a comic i would not like. um So, okay. um This is a book that reveals that, ah you know, like, the Sentry has the two sides of himself, um who who are like the the good guy Sentry and the the bad guy dark evil void.
00:37:43
Speaker
And we learned that the reason he became the Void the first time, like the the the thing that made Robert Reynolds ah kind of unleash the Void, was that he learned about Laika.
00:37:56
Speaker
Damn, I actually do identify with that strongly. Yeah. One time I came home from Target and I was putting groceries away. This is back when I shot Target. This was a ah while back. like AC was in the living room and I was putting groceries away in the kitchen and she heard me like kind of choked up, sniffling and sobbing a little bit. And she came in and she was like, oh my God, what's wrong? And I was like, I thought about Leica while I was in Target.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah. yeah for For listeners that don't know, Laika was the dog that ah the Russian space program sent into space. Laika was a very good girl. Yes. so so part of So the Sentry, Robert Reynolds wanted to fly into space and save her.
00:38:41
Speaker
Good call. like Yeah. ah But he he he failed in that. um but Okay, that's why. That sucks. Yeah. yeah And then ah in this issue, um he learns that his his own dog, who is essentially Crypto, because like you know he's essentially Superman, yeah ah is is is dying.
00:39:01
Speaker
Oh, fuck that. yeah Yeah. I hate that. Watchdog is his name. I hate that. Yeah. And because he's sad about it, he abandons all the Avengers.
00:39:14
Speaker
Damn, I get it, though. Yeah. um Also, um there are a couple scenes in this with the Void where they make the Void seem like the coolest, best guy.
00:39:29
Speaker
There's a there is a scene, I am not joking, there's a scene where the Void tries to destroy Epstein Island with a tidal wave. Ah! Okay. it's It's not stated that it's Epstein Island, but it's pretty definitely Epstein Island.
00:39:47
Speaker
And then the Avengers and the Sentry have to stop it. And I'm like, y'all fucked up. like Like, let it go. let Let that island go.
00:40:01
Speaker
yeah what i do at least like at least be a little conflicted about it. yeah Yeah, man. It's like like, there's also a scene between Sentry and the Kingpin where it's like, or a void in the Kingpin.
00:40:17
Speaker
Where Void is essentially like, you make people suffer, so I'm going to make you suffer. And it's like, damn, I'm on Void's side.
00:40:28
Speaker
Yeah, man I mean, like, Void wanted to go save Laika from space. and Well, the Sentry wanted to do that. but Yeah, but like but but the Void did it, right?
00:40:40
Speaker
No, it did neither of them did it. I thought that's why... The failure to to save Laika is what brought the Void out. Damn, I get it, though.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah. I get it, though. I don't know, man. think I might be on the Void side on on this one. like Dude was going to wipe out Epstein Island, and...
00:41:08
Speaker
Avengers was like, I guess we gotta save these people. i don't know. Buddy, I don't know. I mean, like it didn't really happen. So like you didn't have to make him do that.
00:41:21
Speaker
yeah You didn't have to make the Avengers do that, is the thing. ah and i'll I'll read to you the actual like news report, as as is in the the comic.
00:41:32
Speaker
ah With multiple powered individuals dispatched to the scene, witnesses describe the massive tsunami, literally... he Heated to it to a giant cloud of steam thanks to the timely arrival of the century.
00:41:43
Speaker
Despite this intervention, a nearby private island belonged to disgraced billionaire edward force Andrew Forster, a long time โ oh, okay. So that that okay that island did get submerged.
00:41:55
Speaker
Okay. So so the the what the island that was basically Epstein Island did get um submerged by ah by the tidal wave. um I guess they saved more innocent people. okay so So you know what?
00:42:10
Speaker
all is All is good. All is good. I mean, I'm still kind of like on the like on the void side on this one. Yeah. if like that's what ah if If that's all that happened, well, well. There's a lot of there's a lot of ah dog peril happening in the the new Sentry series. No, thank you.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. All right, Chris, that is going to do it for our comics reviews.
Dan Scotty on Comic Art and Storytelling
00:42:39
Speaker
Well, let's talk about some comics that ah that we really like.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yes, ah with Dan Schkotty.
00:42:51
Speaker
Joining us for the program this week, we are very excited to welcome back a friend of the show. ah You will know him from his work on the Flash Gordon newspaper strip, as well as the Lavender Jack collection that is coming out at the end of this month.
00:43:06
Speaker
Dan Schottie is back on the show. Dan, welcome back. Oh, I could not possibly be happier. That's a very nice thing to say. Yeah, and it's only the start of the show. It can only go up from here.
00:43:21
Speaker
You'd be surprised. yeah Dan, I want to start with ah the question that I think is on everybody's mind. And this is the question that I i see the most when I see reactions to the ah the Daily Flash Gordon ah newspaper strip. And this this might be something that we discussed last time, but I i can't quite recall. the The main reaction I see to the strip is, why is everyone hot?
00:43:53
Speaker
legitimately that's the reaction that I see well the answer is simple it's because when I went back through the original Alex Raymond years which are you know starting in 1934 I immediately was like oh boy there's almost no clothes in this comic This is a comic about like California tens having gladiatorial matches.
00:44:23
Speaker
and And I thought, well, you know, the times have changed somewhat. Everybody can't be in a bikini. But clearly being hot is an important part of this franchise because it's carried on.
00:44:35
Speaker
in the serial version. It's carried on, my goodness, in the 1980s movie. In fact, there was a thing going around Blue Sky this week. It was, where did the beginning of your like weakness for toxic women start? Yeah, I did... i did ah i didn't I didn't quote tweet. I just replied to one. I replied to Kieran Gillens with mine.
00:45:02
Speaker
What was your answer? Julianne and Mark Catwoman. Well, I mean, that's the correct answer. But I was stunned how many people said Princess Aura as as their answer there. Like, it's...
00:45:18
Speaker
Sexiness is essential to the Flash Gordon franchise, to the point that when I watched the the the Sam Jones, you know, Dino De Laurentiis movie with a friend of mine who completely uninitiated whatsoever in Flash Gordon...
00:45:37
Speaker
about Right as we got to the scene where Flash in his leather trunks is about to be gas chambered, they went, oh, I get it. Star Wars is virgin Flash Gordon.
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So that's why everybody's hot. I mean... Everybody's pretty hot in Star Wars, too, but not in the same not in the same way. You're right. I think that the difference is the the hotness in Flash Gordon.
00:46:08
Speaker
Flash Gordon is kind of an inherently kinky comic. Yeah. In in Flash Gordon, you know they were getting down. yeah i mean, yeah. it's In Star Wars, there's like the one scene where somebody's in a bikini, and we're still trying to like work out whether that's okay or Exactly. Whereas that's all of Flash Gordon. Yeah. There's one Flash Gordon like lady gets captured, put in a bikini scene, and then it's all people have been able to talk about since. That's how disruptive it was to the franchise. Yeah.
00:46:41
Speaker
Whereas people put themselves in bikinis in those first Flash Gordon years. Yeah, that's true. Well, that's a good answer. that is ah That is an excellent answer to why everyone in Flash Gordon is hot.
00:46:53
Speaker
It's an eternal struggle, too. like they Because it's a newspaper comic. It's right next to you know reprints of of Peanuts and you know Rosebud and whatnot. So you're always being like, where is this neckline? How do we feel about this?
00:47:10
Speaker
Do you have a and another newspaper strip? I won't say a competing newspaper strip, because a rising tide lifts all boats.
00:47:21
Speaker
But do you have a strip that you consider your enemy? ah I do not, and I'll tell you why. I'm sure there is a strip that's my enemy, but I am just focused on that brass ring.
00:47:35
Speaker
I am looking only ahead. i but know truly... Aside from Rosebud's, which is written and drawn by my my friend and and and city neighbor, Dion Parson, aside from Rosebud's, i I read almost no other comics.
00:47:57
Speaker
Okay. Dan, i'm gonna it's Prince Valiant. i mean It's got to be Prince Valiant. Maybe Prince Valiant thinks that they're in competition with our strip. I couldn't say. yeah i don't i don't think about Prince Valiant at all.
00:48:14
Speaker
Brutal. Is Prince Valiant still going, Matt? It is. It's still going. It's still going. That's the thing. Every time I do dip in... like I just, I'll see Prince Valiant or like very rarely I see a physical ah comic strip page.
00:48:31
Speaker
um And when I do, and I see what they're doing in Prince Valiant right now, I do think that it's a very well-drawn strip. I feel like they're capturing the heart of the original really well. To be honest, in terms of how I approach the Flash Gordon strip, the narrative approach of those original Prince Valiant comics is way more influential on me.
00:48:53
Speaker
Like they, they paint such a, um, such a lush, uh, companion to the artwork. The, the, the captions do they, the, the word choice is so specific and sensitive. Like you really feel, you know, like, like a, a, a depth, you feel the sea breeze from the words they use.
00:49:17
Speaker
So I, I got a lot of respect for those original Prince Valiant strips and, uh, it's It's also like a Prince Valiant, I will say, like of all the kind of more serious comic strips, it's the one that like, I think because at least I think now it's all Sunday strips.
00:49:36
Speaker
So they're all in color and and bigger. um But they like, they'll really zoom out and like show like a big landscape or like a, you know, detailed castle or something like that. Whereas like, I feel like, especially at a daily strip, that's really hard to do. Right. Like, cause you gotta, you gotta to tell a piece of a story in three panels like a lot of that gets like really zoomed in, right? Like we're like right on characters faces.
00:50:05
Speaker
We're getting the dialogue. We're, we're like knocking out the beat and there's not a lot of time to see like an establishing shot, you know? It's true. i think it'd be interesting to see a daily version of Prince Valiant.
00:50:18
Speaker
yeah I think it'd be interesting to get a little more granular with the Arthurian details. Um, I, I love, um, I've gotten a lot more into medieval history lately.
00:50:33
Speaker
And I mean, one of the things about doing Flash Gordon is ah when you're doing Flash Gordon, you are able to incorporate any historical thing you like and you are held to no standard as to whether or not that scabbard is correct.
00:50:49
Speaker
I know that if I was doing Prince Valiant, I would be held to a higher standard and that does not appeal to me. But I do think that somebody ah with a take on Val, with a take on that world, maybe somebody coming at it from more of a manga angle, probably just because I'm reading Berserk right now. so Oh, hell yeah.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know what we're going to about for the next 20 minutes. um But i I would love to see someone do a Daily Prince Valiant. I think there's a lot of meat on those bones. I like that you turned this into something that was like very positive about Prince Valiant. What I was after was you being like, hi and Lois, wash out.
00:51:33
Speaker
Well, you know, I was just talking to somebody about this. This was it was St. Patrick's Day a couple days ago. And I was ah hanging out at the bar I hang out at. And ah ah the movie Leap Year came on. It's a Matthew Goode, Amy Adams rom-com set in Ireland.
00:51:51
Speaker
and ah And it reminded me of something that has become so much a part of my my like credo for talking in public that I forgot this is even where it came from.
00:52:03
Speaker
But Matthew Good was being interviewed in one of those like variety. Here's all the hot guys in tuxedos at once spreads. And, you know, they were going behind the scenes of the photo shoot for extra content. And they were asking all these male actors, who's an actor, like a classic actor that you think is overrated.
00:52:22
Speaker
And everybody's like, you know, Brando, Newman, Bogart. And they get to Matthew Goode. And he says, oh, you're crazy. if I think I'm going to slag off another actor. Thank you very much.
00:52:34
Speaker
And I saw that and I'm like, oh, that's so mean to the person asking you to contribute to this, but it's so cool. It's so cool to say like, yeah, no, thank you. i'm um I'm not going to say anything bad about one of my collaborators.
00:52:47
Speaker
And since I adopted that, since I stopped saying ah bad stuff about people publicly, I have been a lot happier. And I feel like a little a little more adult, I guess I would say.
00:53:02
Speaker
Let's talk about Berserk a little bit. Hell yeah. Oh my God. Okay. Where are you in Berserk? So here's the thing. I, ah I got into Berserk late last year.
00:53:14
Speaker
i was watching the, the golden age, uh, uh, the movies, movies. Thank you. Yeah. Um, I watched it chopped up. I think it's called the millennium edition. I watched it. Yeah. That's 13 episodes. Yeah.
00:53:27
Speaker
yeah And i was I was really taken by it. So I immediately went and watched the 90s anime. um Which is so... It's so interesting to see the same story interpreted in a way that's so much more, guess, sensitive. I've been learning about this, the Japanese concept of ma, of of of emptiness and the meaning of of emptiness. And I feel like...
00:53:54
Speaker
The 90s Berserk anime has such a great amount of that, such a great ah breathing space and and ah sinking into the environment, Guts practicing with his sword, that makes the action just like unimaginably juicy.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah, that that ninety s anime... It takes more time, naturally, to tell the story than the the movies do. The movies have to cut out a a lot of the like introspection and contemplation that I feel like are very, very key to that story. Well, it's kind of like the Game of Thrones HBO adaptation.
00:54:36
Speaker
um because I've also gotten big into George R.R. Martin and in recent years. And I realized how much weirdness in the novels and short stories is not carried into the TV show.
00:54:48
Speaker
How like Bruce Bolton, who's just an angry dad in the show is like a vampire in the books. And I feel like from the berserk anime to the berserk, the golden age millennium edition, you see that you see a lot of the weirdness leached away And then after finishing that, I started reading. I don't want to derail talking about the show, but just so you know where I'm at right now.
00:55:14
Speaker
yeah then started reading the manga. I'm buying them one volume at a time from my local comic shop, Hero House Comics. i am I just got to the eclipse, and I'm realizing as great as the 90s anime was, there's so much weirdness that they left out of that.
00:55:32
Speaker
Well, yes. I mean, Puck's not in it, for one. Oh, God, I love Puck. Yeah, they they totally took out Puck. and That's wild. That's a wild choice. that's like I mean, that's like making 11 Batman movies and only two of them have Robin.
00:55:48
Speaker
Can you make a picture? The thing is like that that 90s anime only adapts through... The end of the Golden Age, and there's only one episode of ah the Black Swordsman arc.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah. And so, like, Puck โ there's no opportunity for Puck to then come back after. Right. um it so But anyway, at the the point I was going to make about the 90s anime before we get off of thatโฆ is like For me, the best evidence of that, of the kind of like sensitivity of it, and like watching it, I'm like, oh, this gets the story of Berserk, is the music, but specifically the theme song, like the character theme for Guts.
00:56:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which is like this like sensitive piano music that has this like very kind of... like It's sung by a man, but it's it's this feminine-sounding vocal to it. Yeah. That that sounds like almost painful.
00:56:55
Speaker
It's like so perfectly the internality of Guts, who is outwardly this like you know big, burly, tough guy. Yeah. oh Yeah.
00:57:06
Speaker
That's, man, that's to me what Berserk is all about. Yeah, that's so true. That's so true about Berserk. I mean, when i i started reading the manga, the first three volumes basically are Black Swordsman.
00:57:22
Speaker
and And then we jump right into, you know, guts with his umbilical still on under his mother hanging from a tree. Yep. And I was, I was startled by that. I was like, Oh wow. I assumed there was more black swordsman like pretty early on. We, we start getting into the, what is sort of collected as the golden age arc.
00:57:45
Speaker
Um, what, what we refer to like his, his, his life up to the eclipse basically. And, and like, The fact that we see his life chronologically, that the ah the abuse that sort of defines his relationship to other people for a huge amount of his life, that we see that happen chronologically.
00:58:09
Speaker
I was so surprised at the kind of the bravery and the honesty of that. And so for the whole time that you follow guts from childhood to being a teenager, to being, you know, ah a lone mercenary to meeting up with the band of the Hawk, you understand how his relationship to his own, like bodily ah autonomy and trust of other people. Like you, you see how that develops along with his swordsmanship.
00:58:40
Speaker
Like I, uh, I showed, ah Jackie, my girlfriend, I showed her like guts training with the adult sword as a kid.
00:58:54
Speaker
And then I said, and this is why he has the big sword as an adult. And she like she did two things. One was she started crying a little bit. And the second was, every time you show me a page from Berserk, I understand what this comic is about less. Wow.
00:59:12
Speaker
But yeah no, the sensitivity, I think, is really core to Berserk. And with every subsequent version of it I experience, now finally reading the manga, more and more it's clear that's the heart of this whole thing.
00:59:28
Speaker
it's It's wild because Berserk is a kind of profoundly introspective book about... trauma and the way that it impacts our lives. And also sometimes a dude named Nosferatu Zod will show up.
00:59:46
Speaker
Yeah. And like ah a guy you think is going to be just a monster of the week at first. Turns out he's hugely, hugely important. And even that, like the fact that Guts' defeat at his at his hands in the manga like not just haunts him, but motivates him to take that year off to train in the mountains. Because he's like, if I face this guy again, I don't want to feel powerless again.
01:00:12
Speaker
um Like a big guy that turns into a minotaur vampire and it's treated like in the, in the comic, like, like it's a hab in the whale is, is so it's, it's so funny.
01:00:33
Speaker
I think that's that's that's Berserk right there to take a big mythological creature and have it be an evolution of a person's understanding with his own trauma. And then like the next page will be a goofy comic about how somebody's pants don't fit.
01:00:49
Speaker
like yeah if There's such silliness to Berserk that... Well, it makes me think of... but some i I saw somebody say this about the Yakuza games, or Like a Dragon, as they're known in other ah regionalities.
01:01:05
Speaker
is They're full of mini-games where you like sing karaoke, or you have to dress up as a clown, or like a spin-off game where you're a pirate. Real goofy stuff.
01:01:16
Speaker
But the goofy stuff makes you view the characters in the game as people. So when something really gnarly does happen to them, you've dimensionalized them as a whole person, goofy shit and all.
01:01:29
Speaker
I think my favorite my favorite explanation of that, and this is actually what got me to play Yakuza for the first time, was the the Super Eyepatch Wolf video where he talks about how unlike Grand Theft Auto, like you can't just like run up to somebody and punch them.
01:01:46
Speaker
yeah like And the reason, narratively, that you can't do that is because Kiryu wouldn't do that, which means that everything else in the game is something he would do.
01:01:57
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting. That's a really good point. Like slot car racing, or... uh... Chatting with cam girls. That's genius. Very poorly. Yeah. Love Kiryu.
01:02:12
Speaker
That's my boy right there. When you read Berserk, and then you sit down to do some Flash Gordon, do do you feel like energized? What is the feeling that you take from those into your own work? i love love what I'm reading. i ah Really quickly, Kentaro Miura has become...
01:02:36
Speaker
like You know how you go from zero to understanding the hype is real? Oh, yeah. that was That was me at the end of Volume 1 of Berserk, like the the the most primitive, basically, like before he had really zeroed in on what Guts' face looked like and obviously improved on his anatomy like you do when you draw 87 pages a week like they do over there.
01:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's... and And the storytelling is, you know... he i it's not quite what it was in that like first draft that he did ah that's in yeah one of the later volumes. but like it's The the sort of sophistication of the storytelling isn't quite there yet either.
01:03:22
Speaker
um but you can really like You can tell that this is going to be special for sure. Absolutely. It's like reading those early like pre-war Will Eisner spirit strips.
01:03:35
Speaker
like the stuff that we think of when we think of the spirit doesn't come until later, but like San Seraph and, and the, uh, you know, the the, the visitor and like ah other classic spirit stuff, but you see the beginnings of it in that like quality comics era.
01:03:54
Speaker
Um, so when I look at berserk, especially as I get further into it, it's, um, what it's really showing me is the value of spectacle on on of it human one-to-one level. Because when you think a spectacle in comics, I think of like big explosions and like ah jet races.
01:04:19
Speaker
I think of like a person transforming into a big monster, which is something that happens in Berserk. But sometimes the spectacle in Berserk is just guts swinging the big sword you Or like a character, like when when Guts bites Griffith's sword during their duel, it's it feels like a huge moment, but it's just two guys having a sword fight.
01:04:43
Speaker
And when you're doing a newspaper strip comic, you are trying to create spectacle moments with very little space. And that's something that Miura is amazing at. I'm learning from that.
01:04:55
Speaker
but I'm also comparing stuff that happens in berserk to my own characters. Like the big new character that my run on flash has added is the dragon man. Bach.
01:05:07
Speaker
Bach is a new character for this run. He is, uh, he's a dragon man, which is a race that exists in flash Gordon, but they're kind of just goons. They're, they're like the the, the pig guys that guard Java's palace.
01:05:23
Speaker
And, uh, And Bak is a guy who who not only used to serve Ming, used to be one of Ming's soldiers, but he was part of a rebellion against Ming that got quashed.
01:05:39
Speaker
Like, everybody's dead, smashed flat. He's the only survivor and gets cast down into this cave prison where Flash meets him six years later. And when I'm reading about Guts, I'm seeing a lot of similar attributes that Bach has.
01:05:58
Speaker
A guy who's dealing with ah very wounded a very wounded masculinity, a very wounded sense of of self-worth, and how you know Guts believing in Griffith,
01:06:12
Speaker
you know, that kind of mirrors Bach believing in flash. Like you, you see how an incredibly skilled cartoonist is doing the same themes that you're playing with and either being happy to see some things replicated. Like, Oh, I made that choice too, before I read this, like we're clearly mining the same real life experiences here.
01:06:34
Speaker
And then also things like, Oh, I hadn't thought to do that. That makes so much sense. They're, they're always communicating with each other. And, and, and, really getting to a different part of their relationship when they're both injured. How interesting.
01:06:47
Speaker
Oh my God. Now Griffith has been in prison for a year and he's so injured. He can't communicate any anymore. And now guts hammer on different pages. What a great use of a motif. So that's, that's really my reaction when I'm thinking yeah about my own stuff and not just being transported to Midland by the latest. Well, don't worry. Yeah.
01:07:06
Speaker
As soon as they rescue Griffith, it's all going to be fine. Good. Yeah, i was I wasn't worried at all that there were 20 more volumes. Yeah, I would say maybe. Like, you said you're right at the start of the eclipse. You can stop there.
01:07:23
Speaker
ah i Dan, I want to tie this into Lavender Jack a little bit. Okay. Because like it's it's not like you have have not done any ah comic set in the modern day. that There was St. John, ah which you know was very kind of contemporary, but it does seem like you have a an affinity for...
01:07:50
Speaker
but period pieces or or things that harken back to kind of like a pulp era. like um Obviously, Flash Gordon is that, but like Lavender Jack is is a turn-of-the-century kind of story.
01:08:03
Speaker
um But that deals with very kind of like contemporary modern themes in much the same way as Berserk does, in its kind of nebulously Middle Ages in the past setting.
01:08:16
Speaker
um So I just wonder like what draws you to that. What draws you to um these these stories that kind of feel retro? It's interesting. I mean, when Game of Thrones came out, Sean Bean was being interviewed.
01:08:33
Speaker
and ah And in it, he says, i don't seek it out, but fate keeps putting a sword in my hand. Yeah. And i I thought of that recently because...
01:08:46
Speaker
i'm ah I'm starting a ah ah different thing um hopefully like early next year, just a graphic novel I'm working on. And it's a Western.
01:08:57
Speaker
And so I thought, man, I i pitch stuff that that takes place in the modern day. i I have modern day ideas, but there is something about mapping the modern day onto the past or onto a past coded world that's that I find, I find it creatively stimulating. i like the wiggle room it gives us. It's kind of like, in a way it's like I was saying, you can be wrong about a scabbard in Prince Valiant, but not in Flash Gordon.
01:09:29
Speaker
I feel like it's like, you can be, can be not totally accurate about a contemporary political story. You can weirdly be more accurate if you're talking about like the McKinley assassination or something.
01:09:44
Speaker
um In fact, I just finished formatting the pages for Lavender Jack Volume 2. Lavender Jack Volume 2 is all set around a mayoral election that's very 2020 presidential election coded. and okay Because i I wrote it in 2020, the Lavender Jack Volume 2.
01:10:08
Speaker
I finished it before ah Biden got elected. So I was doing it during COVID, which ah reading it back put a really interesting spin on it.
01:10:20
Speaker
But what was really compelling to me when I reread it was how it seemed to speak about the Trump II era more than the Biden era.
01:10:32
Speaker
like It seemed like my fears about a second Trump turn that I had in 2020 led to me writing a story that felt very prescient of what we actually got with Trump too.
01:10:46
Speaker
And i feel like that's something that period pieces and fantasy stories can do. You can explore ideas in a way that doesn't have to be connected to falsifiable nouns in a way that frees it up to actually be prescient.
01:11:03
Speaker
And um so I, I i think i don't know if that's an answer to the question of why I think I keep being drawn to these stories, but it's certainly a side effect of doing these stories.
01:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i I think sometimes you can say more with an allegory or with ah something that just resembles something that's happening in the modern day than trying to like represent it in a modern story, which I think is what you're saying. Um, yeah, it's, it's Arthur Miller talking about McCarthyism through a, a, a witch trial in the crucible or an accusation of witchcraft in the crucible.
01:11:50
Speaker
Um, and you can get too cute with it. Sometimes I see people and I'm like, I get it. Um, this is ah a side effect of elevated horror. You see this a lot.
01:12:03
Speaker
Um, But in general, I think that part of what draws me to old stuff is I love mapping the modern day onto old things, not in a macro sense, but a micro sense. Like, what is the 1800s equivalent of being a Twitter influencer? Yeah, yeah.
01:12:27
Speaker
it's It's really hard to to be a parent today. i mentioned how much harder it would be if you were drinking lead for 30 years. but um And and whatever whatever circumstance in the past someone's living in, they're they're they're living in a cave, they're they're living, you know, they're a serf in a medieval castle, you know, they're living in the Old West.
01:12:51
Speaker
There is somebody in the world right now that is living like that. Like there's no, you can't go far enough back in history that there isn't some experience that's being replicated by a real person today.
01:13:06
Speaker
And I think that doing period pieces, doing historical media, i don't know, there's something innately humanist about it that speaks to that. Before we move on to listener questions, Dan, I do have one more question for you. that um You mentioned that you were had had been formatting Volume 2 of Lavender Jack.
01:13:28
Speaker
And Lavender Jack, as a webtoon, has a very specific... like online web page kind of reading format with that sort of infinite scroll ah going on. So i'm I'm very curious just about anything you have to say about the process of taking that, ah you know, something that is ah originally made for that format and and making it effective in print.
01:14:00
Speaker
Well, it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I'll tell you that. Yeah. i ah So Lavender Jack was a webtoon. As you say, it's it's one long vertical scroll, which is a genius format.
01:14:13
Speaker
When I started working on Lavender Jack back in 2016, I had the choice of, like do you want to do every panel is the same size, and then you can collate it into a book at the end, as some successful webtoons have done?
01:14:27
Speaker
And I thought... No, let's let's do a webtoon. Let's go whole hog on it. Let's do establishing shots that are several like scrolls long. like Let's do panning. let's Let's really embrace this format and try to do... like If Will Eisner was doing The Spirit as a webtoon instead of as a newspaper instrument, what might that look like?
01:14:50
Speaker
um So I really embraced that. And when it was time you know last year to start formatting it for a conventional graphic novel... I was like, boy, I sure did draw this to be a webtoon, didn't I?
01:15:05
Speaker
Yeah. Because it's it's not just it's not just you know chopping it up into comic book-sized panels. It's a reading flow that was designed to be scrolled. um we're like Yeah, you've got to find those page turns. Yeah.
01:15:24
Speaker
you You have to...
01:15:28
Speaker
Surprisingly, a lot of dialogue had to be cut because the the real estate was different. um You couldn't have a dialogue exchange that kind of trails up and down a little bit. You got to fit that thing in an actual proper panel.
01:15:43
Speaker
um And I hope I never again, after I do this third and final volume, I hope I never again have to look at my own work this close up five years later again.
01:15:57
Speaker
Because while I'm very proud of what I've done with Lavender Jack, it's it's torture to look at work you did in the past and have to restrain yourself from changing it too much. Because the last thing you want to do is put out a version of something you made that embarrasses the prior version, um where where you're you're you're constantly and know trying to outsmart your previous self and But it's hard when your previous self is dumb sometimes. When your previous self doesn't know that they're using the wrong spelling of hanger.
01:16:34
Speaker
um But also, there have been times going back through it that I've been kind of struck by some things that I did that I kind of forgot how to do.
01:16:46
Speaker
you know I've been studying Alex Raymond so intensely for the last couple of years. I forgot some Eisner and Kurtzman tricks I was using. Ways to let one panel flow into another one to create these... like um super fluid um like ah poses where basically a different moment of the story is happening depending on what part of the character's body you're looking at which is something Eisner was great at. He was great at guy turns the corner and then opens a door and starts going up the stairs and somehow having that all be one pose.
01:17:28
Speaker
um so So embarrassment and lowercase a awe in, in equal measure. Um, and it's also made me, uh, really miss doing traditional formatted comics. Like it's been probably, i mean, it's since St. John, I haven't done a you 22, 24 page monthly comic,
01:17:56
Speaker
It has different narrative strengths and weaknesses. It made me really want to do another traditionally formatted comic. Well, Dan, we're going to take some questions from our listeners now.
Listener Questions and Future Projects
01:18:07
Speaker
If our listeners want to get in on these interviews and ask questions of our guests, like the ones Dan is about to hear, you can do them in two places. Do that in two places. You can go to Blue Sky and follow us at warrocketajax.com on Blue Sky.
01:18:26
Speaker
Or you can join our Discord, which you have to be invited to be a member of. But if you nicely ask us nicely for an invitation, we will get you one. And you can go to the listener questions channel there to ask questions just like these ah you're about to hear ah for Dan.
01:18:42
Speaker
ah Our first question comes from G.I. Jolene on our Discord, who wants to know, do you have a favorite homage to Flash Gordon not called Flash Gordon?
01:18:54
Speaker
Oh, that's a really good question. um because there's such a ah wealth of things to pull from there. So many different things are Flash Gordon homages um to varying degrees.
01:19:07
Speaker
This is one... don't know if you could even properly call it a Flash Gordon homage. I think it's more that it just pulls from the same like well of influences. But something I've always thought was a real... like really was... had the same DNA as Flash Gordon is Stargate.
01:19:28
Speaker
Oh, okay. i I love Stargate. I like the movie. The Roland Emmerich movie ah is is very, very good. But Stargate SG-1, the TV show...
01:19:39
Speaker
is it's so good. It's so fun. It's so great at taking humans with different skill sets and dropping them in alien situations, usually forests in Canada, where they have to use those skills and form ally ships with local people with different sciences who are backwards in some ways, advanced in other ways.
01:20:02
Speaker
um Everyone's always getting knocked out and captured. It's very Flash Gordon and literal ah Flash Gordon, Sam Jones, is a character in SG-1. He plays an alien bounty hunter who's a super a superf fun character.
01:20:19
Speaker
So even if it's not intentionally a Flash Gordon homage, Stargate is a is my choice. Another Flash Gordon question is from WC Witt, who wants to know, what band would you have do the soundtrack of a modern Flash Gordon movie?
01:20:36
Speaker
who Who could live up to Queen? There's so many good answers to that question. Like part of me would love if it was just a gonzo choice, like 100 Gex doing the Flash Gordon soundtrack, just like assonant, like synth rock ah with, with weird, like ah California dirtbag lyrics. um But if I'm being serious, I'm really thinking about who would do a great soundtrack for the new Flash Gordon movie.
01:21:07
Speaker
ah allowing for the fact that you would have to do the flash theme in it at least once. Um, I, would love, I would love to see, ah what Charlie XCX could do for, for the flash corn soundtrack, do an album, bring some different people into it,
01:21:32
Speaker
bring you know, do something more orchestral with some guests, do something that's really like down to earth and poppy with some guests. I would love to see and like, like to have Chapel Rhone on a song.
01:21:47
Speaker
I would love to have, uh, like, uh, junkie XL come on to do a beat for one song, but like have one vocalist be woven into all of it.
01:22:00
Speaker
ah because I think that's, The beauty of Flash Gordon is it's sort of one voice, but playing a bunch of different notes. And also, I think that if you wanted to stunt cast Charlie as Princess Aura, that would be good, too.
01:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, really get get the synergy in there. FranzFerdinand2.bsky.social, our buddy Ben, wants to know, ah for everyone, if you were going to have a dinosaur to ride around on, what dinosaur would it be?
01:22:33
Speaker
what dinosaur would you have everybody ride around on? so it's an interesting question because scale is a big issue in comics. No pun intended. you You have to keep in mind how you can see the characters and also see the Mount at the same time.
01:22:48
Speaker
And then also you have to keep in mind that you have to redraw it all the time. So the ideal would be a dinosaur with an interestingly shaped head. You can kind of hint at in some panels without having to draw the whole dinosaur.
01:23:02
Speaker
So my choice there is pterodactyls. Those are technically, like, those are still dinosaurs, right? I think in ah in a purely technical sense, no, but we're going to count it anyway. Because if we can't have pterodactyls, because then you can fly and that's fun, I think it would be some something in the triceratops family.
01:23:23
Speaker
okay Actually, the triceratops would be better because if you draw them from the front, you don't have to draw their legs. The big, like, legs. If the triceratops kind of hides them, yeah, triceratops.
01:23:35
Speaker
Great. Chris, what dinosaur would you ride around on? would be a T-Rex, obviously. Okay. It would be a double dinosaur. When you're right, you're right. ah I'm going to say... It's not going to be silly. Oh, sorry. but please Please give your answer, and then I'll okay explain my mistake.
01:23:51
Speaker
Ankylosaurus is mine. that would That's actually my second ah my second place pick, is Ankylosaurus. ah Dan? Ankylosaurus. it's It's got that like big like ah like hammer-shaped tail.
01:24:06
Speaker
It's got the armored back. oh I know one. bush Definitely a saddle on that thing. Oh, you would, yeah. du You're going to hurt your little butt on the on the back of an ankylosaurus, for sure. Got a cool head.
01:24:18
Speaker
so i I misunderstood. I thought the question was, what dinosaur would the characters in the comic ride around in? So that's why I was thinking, like well, there's technical concerns here. If it's just me ah yeah Fuck it. Triceratops.
01:24:33
Speaker
Yeah. hell yeah sticking to my followup Follow your dream. Follow your heart. From Trivialad, who has the coolest ray gun in comics?
01:24:44
Speaker
The coolest ray gun in comics? I've been thinking about ray guns a lot lately because we're finally going to start introducing them in Flash. I've been thinking a lot about how to roll that out, how to keep my desire to not have like a gunfight comic.
01:25:01
Speaker
you know, be, be protracted, protected rather while still introducing the iconic ray guns. I think the best Reagan in comics is star Lord. i I love the element gun. It's such a cool idea. And um Al Ewing did that great issue of Guardians of the Galaxy, where Star-Lord is trapped in this other like pocket universe or something for a number of years, and you see oh yeah the the the element gun, it keeps it keeps replacing parts of it. It's like a ship of Theseus situation.
01:25:37
Speaker
And by the end, it's turned into this whole other strange-looking weapon, but it's still the element gun. it just It's a very cool... It's a cool narrative idea, and also, it's from a ah i don't know a gameplay standpoint, it does fire and wind and ice. and it's ah it's it's ah It's such a cool comic book-y weapon.
01:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, that that issue of Guardians where he like evolves in that pocket universe over that number of years is ah pretty great. The Chris of Monkey Island wants to know, um do you ever get hate mail from Buck Rogers stans?
01:26:18
Speaker
Buck Rogers stans wish they had the cojones to send me hate mail. Like Aleister Crowley said, the 80s are abased and cower before me.
01:26:34
Speaker
they Buck Rogers fans need to wait for another one of me to come around to reinvent that carcassus property for them to even have the the the pride to come at me.
01:26:49
Speaker
ah I love it. You cut a promo on Buck Rogers fans. I love it. And then ah finally, um from Blue Sky, this is from Boozen Comics on Blue Sky.
01:27:00
Speaker
If Bach the dragon Dragon Man could be a supporting character in any prestige TV drama, what where would he shine the brightest and get the Emmy he so richly deserves? and That's a great question.
01:27:11
Speaker
Because you need a story where a a very physical character with sort of, it was like struggling to express his real self, but afraid to show his real self to people.
01:27:28
Speaker
And he's also a blue guy with a tail. um Like the easy thing would be to say like nine of the seven kingdoms or something. But I actually think that Bach could be a great character to show up in industry.
01:27:45
Speaker
And you you just have him be in industry. He's another stockbroker. And you just don't acknowledge it. You don't acknowledge the the tail and the blue skin and and the the never wearing a shirt. He's just in there.
01:27:58
Speaker
He doesn't really fully understand what the economy is, but he's just trying to make his way. And then he like ends up reinforcing other characters like faith in their own ability through his design like i feel like that cast of like of just drug drug addict disaster grind set people i feel like he would be a very interesting drop of color in that awful morass i love it
01:28:32
Speaker
Our guest has been Schottie. Dan, before we let you go, please let all our listeners know ah where they can find your work, how they can support you, where they can follow you, and anything else you want them to know.
01:28:47
Speaker
Well, I know I just talked about Berserk for the whole episode, but... ah And we love it. we love We love it. I really like talking about that with you guys, but I was actually here to promote Lavender Jack, surprisingly enough. The first volume of Lavender Jack comes out March 31st, wherever fine comics are sold.
01:29:04
Speaker
Comic shops, Barnes & Noble's online. ah It's $30 for 330 pages. It's the first of three volumes. ah The second one is stated to come out in late September.
01:29:18
Speaker
So if you like it, there's going to be another one coming down the pipe. I would love... yeah As many people have pre-ordered it, I would love if people... I emptied the shelves of it at the end of this month.
01:29:30
Speaker
um Aside from Lavender Jack, ah Flash Gordon comes out every single day of the week in certain newspapers and on ComicsKingdom.com.
01:29:42
Speaker
We do six daily strips and a Sunday that summarizes the whole week. um Normally, it's all written and drawn by me, but starting ah in a couple weeks, we're doing a guest arc with the fantastic Sandy Jarrell, who's going to be doing an arc on the art side. I'm still writing and and coloring.
01:30:03
Speaker
um But it's such a fun arc. We delve into the history of Mongo and actually look a little bit at the rise of Ming and Sandy is doing fantastic work on it. So the Flash
Social Media and Listener Engagement
01:30:14
Speaker
Gordon Daily Strip, check it out, read it. and And if you want to know other things I'm doing, I post on Blue Sky. I post links to the Flash Gordon comics every day. And you can also follow me on Instagram.
01:30:24
Speaker
where I recently found out I've got more followers than somebody that was trying to talk bold to me about having a bunch of followers, which was very satisfying. So thank you if you're one of my followers on Instagram.
01:30:37
Speaker
And his name was BuckRogerStan99. Man, i don't even remember his name. I'm glad we finally got that trash dog out of you.
01:30:47
Speaker
It's almost right under the surface. Stan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun.
01:30:56
Speaker
Thanks once again to Dan Chikotti for joining us on the show. It is always a pleasure to have a a talented creator like that stop by to talk to us about the good stuff.
01:31:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's ah it's always nice to talk with a knowledgeable person about good comics, theirs and other people's. Yeah, yeah. that's I mean, we do that every week with each other. That's right.
01:31:24
Speaker
That's right.
01:31:27
Speaker
But yeah, that is ah that is going to be it, I believe, for this week's show. Matt, we had a good one. And we're to back with ah with a good one next week as well. Yeah, i I don't think we've quite determined what it's going to be. Maybe it'll be some Hickmania.
01:31:41
Speaker
ah Maybe it'll be some Sword Raiding. Time will tell. In the meantime, you can get in touch with us by emailing us at our email address, which is warrocketpodcast at gmail.com. That's where you can send every story of our lists.
01:31:55
Speaker
or 1-10 of Swords submissions, or any other correspondence, including letting us know if you want to sponsor the show. You can also get in touch with us on Blue Sky.
01:32:08
Speaker
Warrocketajax.com is where we are on Blue Sky. On Tumblr, warrocketpodcast.tumblr.com is where we are there. Or you can join our Discord and become a member there. As I said earlier, you have to be invited to be a member of the Discord, but just ask us for an invitation and we will get you one of those.
01:32:27
Speaker
You can also message us on our Patreon. Patreon.com slash WarRocketAjax. WarRocketAjax.com is the website for this podcast. It has every episode of the show that we've ever done.
01:32:40
Speaker
WarRocketWiki.com has all the information you could ever want to know or need to know about this show. WarRocket Ajax, lots
Conclusion and Social Justice Messages
01:32:48
Speaker
of good info over there on the WarRocket Ajax wiki at WarRocketWiki.com.
01:32:58
Speaker
If you want to find me and my stuff, go to mattdwilson.net to find links to my comics, my books, my other podcasts, and my social medias. Chris, where can people find you? Everybody can find all of my stuff by going to the-isb.com. That is my website, and it's got links and stuff you can read right there on that website. Remember websites? but Websites are back, baby, because everything else on the internet is bad.
01:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, you go to that that URL bar and type in a ah URL and go straight to a website. It's such a good feeling. Yeah, man.
01:33:34
Speaker
Websites. I got one.
01:33:38
Speaker
Catch them. Catch them.
01:33:42
Speaker
Websites, they're back. And we'll be back next week. But until then, folks, please do not forget that Black Lives Matter. Trans rights are human rights.
01:33:53
Speaker
As are abortion rights. Drag is not a crime. Cops aren't your friends. Fuck ICE. Free Palestine. We love you. We love you. Yeah!