[SPEAKER_01]: What is up, everybody?
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Comic Book Club, Bob Alex.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Justin.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are coming to you with a New York Comic Con, 20-25 wrap-up, you know it is a wrap-up because Justin's wearing the hat.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I gotta say it's pretty sweet, hot, Justin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't usually buy merch, but I got in the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a line for the con merch.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like 20 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I got this and I got a New York Comic Con.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were doing live screen printing there and that's a cool shirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I picked up some merch this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm a fanboy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you are a fanboy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're both fanboys.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to see each other quite a bit this weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We hung it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say before we even, I haven't even told you this, I ran into Pablo, I ran into a couple CBC fans and they were like, without, you know, they weren't coordinating, they were like, when's the next live show?
[SPEAKER_00]: When can we see you three in a room together?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to make it a priority.
[SPEAKER_01]: that is very nice and I will also to bounce off of that and by the way the whole idea here we're going to do the wrap up we're going to talk to you so the big news items of the show but I was thinking about this morning we're we're taping this on Sunday I was personally too wrecked to go back to the con today but the highest the best the
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely pleasure of the show was seeing people and this helped a lot actually were that I'd expect coming up to be it'd be like hey you're in comic book club right you're Alex I listen to the show I love the show I want you to show it was wonderful and delightful so if you did come up and say hi thank you if you did but you listen anyway thank you as well that's great we're super intimidating we also talk to Ron as well from the discord and a bunch of other people so very fun
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely great seeing people so before we get into it and talk through some of the news items and just to like, set this over the whole thing, we're going to talk about our winner and loser of the con.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was so skinny.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be mean-girling all over this con.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are going to be mean-girling.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your, let's talk about overall thoughts of the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like at this point,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to say that I bid to all 19 years of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say, but definitely like, most of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what you're feeling on this one as the con develops?
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, is it official that this is the biggest con in North America?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's been true for the past couple of years at this point because here's the thing that's tricky.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always like a little asterisk there because you got San Diego Comic Con, but the San Diego Comic Con convention center, if I recall the numbers correctly, is capped.
[SPEAKER_01]: at 160,000 people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no way of getting bigger official attendance numbers that 160.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, they transformed the entire town to say, Diego, it's the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are thousands of people that come there don't go to the convention itself, but just go outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just a little tricky to say that, but I know at least as of last year, we don't have attendance numbers for this year at this point as we're taping.
[SPEAKER_01]: But last year there were 200,000 people, which
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely like, however many people are showing up at San Diego, that seems comparable if not more for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean so it was the first day I was like wow the Thursday is usually never as busy as it was this year So that was packed on the other end Saturday yesterday felt a little lighter by the end It feels like them it was a very transactional day I got there a little around noon and people were leaving because they had got their thing that they came to the contato So like but in the in the hall it was actually not crazy cramped It wasn't as stressful to get around as it has been years past.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they've developed a good system of
[SPEAKER_00]: where art Sally is, where the autograph stuff is, where the main floor is.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's great separation, the press area was very cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's selfishly, I'll say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in general, like, well organized Con, it was great to be talking to people and the interviews we did, it was really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I'll shout out, and we're all in our own bubbles with these sort of cons, the things that we're concentrating on, and near a comic con, being so huge, there are so many different pockets of communities and different things going on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't think they have the anime cons as part of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eddie Warour, that was, was like a smooth, separate thing happening at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's video games, there's card games, there's just people going and getting their
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I just early declare that the loser of the con like what was that?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the weirdest thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time I passed by out of the con floor, there was a different person who I would over here being like, why is Walmart here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, legitimately, that is no lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: So... They were doing live content, toy, toy etiquette, or toy-based content in their little studio they had there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know who watches that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get it like I understand it in theory, but my most gatekeeping take is like Walmart is the level that should not be at a Comic-Con.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just shouldn't be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent the what do you talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent the whole day at the Cole's booth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was at the Gap Kids booth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say not at home depot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: They go nuts for the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I was going to say was, again, this is from my own bubble, but they really amped up the TV and movie content this year, like there was a good amount of high-profile TV shows and movies and other panels like that, like there's been a couple of years in there, particularly with the COVID pandemic where that went away, and it felt like
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they'd have three or four TV panels and it was like, oh, no, if anybody cares about this, but people actually cared about this stuff, but I don't think it overwhelm the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, yeah, there were huge comic announcements, and it really felt like there was a very even balance there between like, there's a big con for comic books, and this is a big con for entertainment, and nothing is necessarily dominating the conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which frankly, I like to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very different from what we think about when we think about San Diego, or it's like, yeah, there's Hall-H, then comics is in a basement somewhere on the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I think that's they do a good job laying up the floor where like there was definitely like the DC comics booth was around some of the other publishers over in one corner Marvel was sort of on the opposite side in the middle there was your like scholastic type publisher so like they spread it out so you had a couple places to go and feel like you were all all the comics people were pinned in a certain area artists alley had like
[SPEAKER_00]: the tiny onion booth and some other like press booths down there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was an imprint.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was, it's just nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone felt like they had space to breathe and all the creators that we talked to and saw were having fun as well as opposed to being stressful, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think more importantly for them selling stuff like we spent a lot of time at the IDW booth in particular and they were starting to sell out of things after Thursday, which is kind
[SPEAKER_01]: And I heard the same thing we were talking to.
[SPEAKER_01]: We did an interview with Chris Condon, and he was saying that news from the fallout, which is his fantastic image comics book with Jeffrey Allen Love, like he's writing Wolverine.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's writing Greed Arrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's writing all of these Marvel and DC titles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the thing that was like getting snapped up in droves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see the same thing happening everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even with everything else going on, and I think the same thing last year,
[SPEAKER_01]: the size of a smaller convention in and of itself, and people are doing business there, and that's just really great to see people really engaged with comics and enjoying comics.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So on that note, I will mention also just to give a little plug for our self, Justin, I did a ton of interviews at the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are actually all live now on patreon.com slash comic book club.
[SPEAKER_01]: I put them up as I was editing them as I was getting them ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're ad-free on there for anybody at the $10 an up-level on that ad-free tier, but if you want to check them out, they're going to be in the regular comic book club feed of rolling them out one a day, except for Wednesday where we have the stack.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a bunch of interviews Chris Conterna, as I mentioned, All-Yewing is up already.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked to Patrick Horvath, from beneath the trees.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got an exclusive interview with the artist of Return to Sleepy Hollow, and we're going to match it just now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was the attempt to see Lee we talked to about his transformer or his, uh, Godzilla Teenage Ring Ninja Turtles book, which is really cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of my favorite ones, I think this is not rolling out until like a week for doubt, but AJ Lococcio, who's the voice of the gambit, and Gizzo, he wrote this kids book, and doubt that interview was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was so much fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got into some wild stuff, and if you like gambit or Gizmo, you will hear the characters speaking, and saying some stuff you might not expect in the interview.
[SPEAKER_01]: yes so great stuff look forward to that uh let's talk through the news items because there were some huge things that come out uh i think we can keep it focused mostly on the comic book stuff though depending on time we'll get into some of the tv and movie stuff as well but big one came out right at the retailer day and then they expanded on it further
[SPEAKER_01]: yesterday I want to say Marvel's ultimate universe is ending according to Marvel in April at the end of Ultimate Endgame.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of the titles are wrapping up and I'm paraphrasing here but David Gabriel who is the publisher of Marvel Comics actually I think you got promoted to another level but whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was talking about like they want to make sure that they have a story that is a beginning, a middle, and an end that is going to live on in trade collections for years to come, which to start off of the positive, I will say like that's really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were talking about this yesterday, and this is nothing against anybody at Marvel, but like
[SPEAKER_01]: everybody knows their trade game their bookstore game is nowhere near as good as DCs and I think that comes down to not having these like you could read this and you were done with the story type thing please see like exact bite-sized stories that they can take.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but what's your takeaway from this announcement judge?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think it makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: In horse racing a lot of times, you'll take your prize-pony, your big money earner, and after they really rake in the cash, take them out behind the barn and shoot them dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's how Seabis get ended if I correct it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't seen the money, but I'm excited to check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, really fun movie, especially that ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is like, it just feels crazy to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ultimate line is like driving so much of Marvel sales, both from a money point of view, but just story wise, I think that's where we think the excitement is in a lot of the Marvel areas of their own universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like the idea that they're like, it's over for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: No way it's coming back, I'm like, I just don't know if that, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: We do the way well you go you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was going to say just like not to tip her head or call anybody out in a specific but based on conversations we have this weekend I think we have reason to think no they are not actually ending the ultimate universe and you are pointing out what we're trying to get about it yesterday that
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody had the same reaction, which was right when they announced this, and you were feeling like they're tipping their hand a little too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've gone back to this well too many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, as you think, there's a clear difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: DC used to do this with the DC universe's changing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got another crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then they do it again, and it's sort of you feel a little tricked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I think DC's transition and they're like, hey, we're doing this big thing, and then next we have another big thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels like it's building momentum and just
[SPEAKER_00]: Went to be like the ultimate universe is ending final not gonna see it again I'm like we know and and at the very least it's gonna come back at some point so like right this is Don't don't try to trip full us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not here for that anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they gone
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate them bringing the story that Jonathan Hickman and folks set up at the beginning to, hopefully, a satisfying close, rather than the final issue of ultimate headgate being like, and now a new universe, which honestly still could probably happen, because that is always very frustrating when you're reading an event in the last five to ten pages or like,
[SPEAKER_01]: set it up the next story, like, I don't know, it's like reading a novel and you get to the last chapter, it's like, you gotta read another novel to find out more, which happens with serious sometimes, but most of the time you want that beginning middle and end, that we're talking about, the thing, here's the thing that I worry about with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I worry about through with this is it came out so strong with Jonathan Hickman and Ultimate Spider-Man, and that's really been nothing against the other titles, but like really the spine of the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: Without that, what are they going to go to?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, are they going to have the same level of like intense quality of the line in ultimate universe 3.0 or whatever is going to happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have to wait until April or May or something to find out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's the worry there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, are they actually going to keep it going just to keep it going?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or do they have something lined up after the end of this ultimate universe that is going to be as big?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and what was so successful about this one is the the thrust of the story, the maker, this countdown, this toll like sort of in time on a month month basis for for these main books like is really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a compelling story to get drawn up and so hopefully
[SPEAKER_00]: if they end this story which I think they need to and whatever comes after it will have a compelling push and maybe they're just like the ultimate universe is ending but maybe the extreme universes come you're like if it's just a chain change of name but they still give it an interesting thrust then that's cool new universe baby bring back that earth the lightning strike it for the classic advertisement
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's cool, but here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also think, you know, we're heading toward the movies again with, uh, new unit dimensions, universes, cult colliding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's going to be a lot of pressure in the comics to do something similar, which we've just seen so many times, and I hope they don't just be like, well, we're having some people from the Altaby universe are crossing over to the main universe or vice versa, and that's going to be a problem for everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll have to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we talk about another one.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of the first big announcements of the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: We knew this was coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was not a surprise, but we did get the full lineup of DC's new Rejuvenated Vertigo imprint.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was the first big panel of the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: They did right off Thursday, which we were both hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we were both there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that was so smart to be like, hey, we're going to get this out right up front of absolutely everybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really do think it was part of the conversation over the course of the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll try to read through these very quickly for anybody who missed the announcement.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you got nice house on them by the sea by James South of the 4th and Alvaro Martinez point out beginning with issue seven bleeding hearts by Dennis Cap and stipend Morion end of life by Kyle Starks and Steve Pew.
[SPEAKER_01]: The peril of brutal dark by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips, 100 bullets the U.S.
[SPEAKER_01]: of anger by Brian Azarello and Eduardo Riso, decretatious by Tom Taylor, Derek Robertson, fanatic by Grace Ellison, how to templar the crying dolls by Berica Tabaki and Rosemary Valero O'Connell, black tower the raven conspiracy by Rom V and Mike Perkins, and a walking shadow
[SPEAKER_01]: these are going to start rolling out next year I think they're all ongoing series except some of them specifically black tower and where's the other one the one by Chris Condon and Jick again the parallel the black bootle dark yeah there go those are both going to be six issue arc sort of like their own
[SPEAKER_01]: novels, graphic novellas at the move on to a next six issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ark of that thing, the thing that I was really struck by by this announcement in Chris Conroy, who's the executive editor of the line, said it late in the panel, was they were aiming to get teams who had worked together before and they knew could reliably turn in books in a timely matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that's like the driest, the most businessy thing to think about with this,
[SPEAKER_01]: it's such a smart way of thinking about this line versus being like we're doing five flashy books and then they never come out or one of them hits a bunch of hiccups.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all people and we talked to Chris about this, not spoiling the interview, but like he said he's been working on this for two years at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so there we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: if like again spoiling the interview, but like he was approached by Vertigo, like over two years ago, and they were the first team that they went to, I believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, that's super exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like there's an enthusiasm to work with these particular teams.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just grabbing a, you know, marquee artist being like, who couldn't we put on this and get them to make a story?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like, what do you guys want to bring to us to launch Vertigo?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's just exciting, because these are complete ideas, complete stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're such a variety here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just in the panel, I was like, these are wild.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wildly different ideas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a title that or titles that jumped out to you in particular?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love the nice house by the sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Happy that that's sort of going to be the, like almost anchor book for this and bringing in all those readers from James Titans, book that's already been going.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the couple that jumped out to me as being super exciting are the Chris Khan and Jacob Phil was book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love those guys from that Texas blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something that feels, Jacob's art is very different here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, really interesting style change for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm definitely stoked about that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was cool hearing Brian as Arrelo talk about 100 bullets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's he's a maniac and in the best way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love
[SPEAKER_01]: I love seeing that guy on panels and we've talked about this before on the live show.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've interviewed him a couple of times and he doesn't care about any of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like his whole dad, if anybody has ever seen him, is he goes out and you ask him a question to use either like,
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless you engage him with something he actually wants to talk about, if that he becomes animated.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's such an old cuss in the best and that's a positive thing, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will say when we hung out with him on the Comic Con on a cruise ship, we like legit party with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Underneath all that like persona like he's just a regular dude who likes to hang out and laugh and joke around So like I mean, it's just a wild seeing up there just doing it so funny Yeah, I think it helps knowing him from that perspective because yeah First time I think I saw about a paddle that's like what is going on here, but you know in the back story of like how he engages
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing about that book on Hunter Bullets, the US of anger, is I think it's good to have a note of Vertigo property coming back.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's smart, but also Brad Ezreal talked about that it was him and Eduardo Riso both responding to the political situations of the respective countries, and being like, what can we say about it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where I saw some reactions on live, and I think this is complimentary to be like, oh,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because they could potentially go very hard with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's going to be at the art looks amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that it's going to have a hard edge to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That feels very old school vertigo to beat pushing boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's great that they're able to bring that flavor back.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other one I was excited about, perhaps no surprise is the Dennis Campbook, Bleeding Hearts, which is like a...
[SPEAKER_00]: sort of a zombie culture book like a post-apocalyptic zombie world where the zombies have developed culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got some really just smart like naming devices for these characters that art by a steppe on morion is awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's steep on morion.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it looks so cool and different and again very classic for it to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ones that I'll shout out end of life, I just really like Kyle Starks and Steve Pew, so I'm always excited to check out whatever they're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the truth that really surprised me were a walking shadow, which is the Simon Spurrier, Aaron Campbell book that Simon Spurrier, where they were like, hey, can you give a quick explanation of the book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, I'm going to do a monologue from Macbeth and that he explained it to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: very bad ass, beautiful to hear you as a great speaking voice, but he also followed up explaining the plot that it's basically a bunch of people wake up all tied to a boat in the middle of the woods and they realize very quickly there is a creature that's hunting them so they need to get out of the woods to avoid the creature and as they walk they tell each other their backstories and it's just him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like perfect vertigo fodder to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other one that I was really struck by was the crying dolls by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero Acunnel, which seems like maybe there's a supernatural element, but it's mostly set in the 1970s in New York at the beginning of the AIDS crisis.
[SPEAKER_01]: And looking at that and seeing the way they're driving the covers, it feels like something that just came right out of vertigo from the prime vertigo era.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that just that
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean that's the thing is like these all sound great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm going to definitely get into all these I will say on the walking shadow I walking shadow very cool and I feel like that's a great book and if a nice house on the link and a nice house by the sea are the sort of heavy hitter titles a walking shadow feels like the new version of that the new like nice house on the lake
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and we should mention that, I forgot to write this down here, but Swampthag 80 died was a crazy kicker announcement to the head there, Rick Vich back in the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Never, he finished his Swampthag run, but there was never published because the storyline was Swampthag beats.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Christ and it was too politically and religiously a hot button thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they ended up not publishing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they are going to publish it all four issues as a black label book since the separation year as Vertigo is creator owned, black label involves the DC characters in some way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even though swamp thing was a vertical book now, it's gonna be a black label book and the thing that I thought was very neat that they talked about is both the single issues add the trade collection.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to publish the trade dress from back the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you own the individual issues is swamp thing, it will fit right in with that collection.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you own the trades, I'd be at the numbers wrong, but if you own Rick Vich's volume one and volume two, they'll publish this as volume three, and it'll fit right out in the shelf.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, that's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a completeist vision for the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really good stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's another big thing to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is obviously a big part of the discussion of the con is the use of AI and Jim League, got things started.
[SPEAKER_01]: in a big way at the retailer day, doing the speech that basically everybody applauded every online, in particular, at least, again, in my bubble, doing a little bit of it here, you can go and check out, they got the whole speech over at Comic Speed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They published it there, it's a fantastic speech, you should read the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he said, that's the point, the smudge, the rough line, the hesitation, that's what makes my work come alive, AI doesn't dream, feel, or make art, and aggregates it,
[SPEAKER_01]: DC Comics will not support AI-generated storytelling or artwork, not now, not ever as long as and despise an IAR in charge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And really beautiful, like, honestly, just having an artist at the head of the company is really cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, the next day at the Spider-Man panel where C.B.
[SPEAKER_01]: Smolsky, the I.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: of Marvel, was
[SPEAKER_01]: the first fan question was hey jibbley said this yesterday is Marvel going to also make a statement against AI and see me just kibbleski And I'm Boyley at down here as well said yes, we've never used AI We never used it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will not be using and we don't could do it in the Marvel comics division and Generally the reaction where online was like, yeah, all right
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just hearing how you recap them, if Jim Lee feels like a statement, a stand on your soap box and be like, we don't do this, we never do this isn't right, it's important to make this stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And CB for what he's doing was more like, legally I should save this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I feel like they're both not going to use AI.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just as a rallying point, like, come on, CB, give us a little juice here.
[SPEAKER_00]: credibility or interest in being a leader here at feels like, well, Jim Lee very much does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, his background is he certainly he's written comics and we don't need to get it to the controversy around that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he is a talent manager.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is his made skill.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is his best skill that probably led him to be EIC.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he is definitely looking at, I'm sure, at things from a business forward perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: But still, it's good that they said something on the record.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will know we've been talking about this a little bit in our discord this week that there are questions about AI usage of the Wonderman trailer from Marvel, which is one of the announcements that we'll get to in a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's really stuck with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was at the room for Spider-Man, what I was transcribing as quote.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like we don't condoed into the Marvel Comics division.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's very specific, interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and similar, D.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: or Jim Lee said D.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: Comics will not support A.I.
[SPEAKER_00]: didn't say D.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: across the board.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just Jim Lee's sounded good and exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, C.B.
[SPEAKER_00]: said, like, just remembered the comics division we are not doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that just remembered I said, just like, just leaves it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: again, not like he needs a speechwriter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Regardless, good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad they both did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad that's out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back to the more fun announcements.
[SPEAKER_01]: This, I'm going to throw out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say without calling it a winner release you get, but this I think was the wildest announcement of the entire economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in the room for this for the Ghibli and Fred's Paddle, and they announced that DCKO is going to welcome Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Homemaster for the boys, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vampirella, Red Sonia, and so now the strong, the serial killer bear from IDW's beneath the trees for nobody sees.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I had some follow-up questions, right there in that last one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and let me just, I will tell you the feeling of the room here because it was crazy how they rolled this out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Ghibli at Fred's panel, the whole idea is, you know Ghibli is there, you don't know who else is going to show up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And first person he brought up was Troy Baker, who has done a ton of voices, they revealed that he's going to be doing the Joker in the killing, joke, DC, high volume thing, and it was cool, like here again, talking, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: talk about doing the voice that was pretty neat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the next person they brought up was I want to say Rob Boode, the co-creator of Bornl Combat who has been friends with Chip Lee for while and they showed off the trailer for Bornl Combat 2 and I was like I don't know why this is happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, but that the reason it was happening is at the end was Gibli revealed that, you know, they've done Mortal Kombat comic stuff and they did injustice, which is the DC fighting game.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, generally apparently, it's been asking Rob, oh, Ed Boons, excuse me, Ed, for years about getting Mortal Kombat characters in DC comics and Ed has always said, no, no, no, and finally
[SPEAKER_01]: And people are like, what, some zero, that's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a ridiculous thing to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like you said, make sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he's like, to talk more about this, here's Scott Snyder, the writer of DCKL.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they started just rolling out this graphic.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the concept here, for anybody doesn't know DCKL, without belaboring the point, is it's this tournament between 32 heroes and villains.
[SPEAKER_01]: they need to fight to give this Omega energy to be dark side.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the idea here is they realize they can open up portals to pocket dimensions that have other characters and other worlds to both train and gain even more Omega energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was promo out from Jeff Spokes, I don't know if you could be drawing this, but it sounds like it's like a bonus level in the video game thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they didn't say this, but it sounds like it's going to be a one shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not part of the main tournament itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I feel like it started to stop you there, but it feels like the conversation's like, wait, we can't have sub zero fighting green lantern in here and have messing up the tournament brackets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like that's I think this is a total side fun thing that is just exciting that they are doing weird things like this and very video game, which is what the core sort of
[SPEAKER_00]: the gameiness of this event is the fun part I think that's what's lighting up everyone's brains is the bracket of it that like choose your fighter of it and to bring in you know hidden characters of course that's what all these fighting gives it done for a year 100% agree with you I know it's been a big argument on the discord for the past couple of days but
[SPEAKER_01]: I would understand if it was in DCKO W2 all of these characters show up and I'd understand being like, ah, this event is so focused on Superman and these other characters, what are we doing here?
[SPEAKER_01]: But as like a one shot on the side, absolutely why not?
[SPEAKER_01]: And just to kind of like talk through it, the sub-zero of it all, like we explained, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mortal combat tournament, you'll bring you to mortal combat character.
[SPEAKER_01]: Homelander, Vampirella, and Red Sonia are all dynamite characters and dynamite has a odd-going cross-over relationship with DC, so again, makes 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: total sense to me, plus homeletters started as a DC Comics character before the boys moved over to dynamite.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last one, this is just a theory and I tried to get more information about it, but Scott Snyder, since the beginning of DC all in, has talked about the goal there and we talked about this on like that hotel roof last year at New York Comic Con with him, where he's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, we got a cell comics as DC, but the goal is to get people back in comic book shops and comic book get excited about comic books and every time he talks about this, he's like whether it's DC all in the absolute universe, the ultimate universe at Marvel, energon universe, he mentions teenage music and Ninja Turtles and I-DW a lot, he uses the phrase like
[SPEAKER_01]: rising tide lifts all ships a lot he talks about comics being a big tent a lot and if I was to into it but if the trees were to see his big hit for IDW big hit for the comic book industry but most people don't know it and taking some of the serial killer bearer beyond being just ridiculous
[SPEAKER_01]: juxtaposition with everything else going on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes a character that's on the cusp and gives it the biggest stage possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the goal there is that rising tides thing, just to be like, hey, we love this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's elevate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's put it in front of Ben as many people as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, this is just be intuitive.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if that's the goal behind it, I think that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and like it's just crazy to think that this book that we found when it first came out and it was we were so excited about a scared pee and now that made characters It's in its second super interesting arc getting very very popular and now the camera is appearing in a DC major crossover event is insane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and exciting
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to keep up with T.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: stuff because they had enormous announcements over the course of the weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things they'd asked at the T.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: K.A.
[SPEAKER_01]: panel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, they announced a lot more stuff about T.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: K.A.L that I don't think we need to talk about here or have time to unless you want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, well, I just wouldn't talk about it because it literally spoils maybe the next couple issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, which was crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we were, this is we're talking about it in sort of,
[SPEAKER_01]: theory sort of like around it, but yeah, they laid out the next bunch of brackets, the fights, they spoiled some of the concepts, but I think from like watching the DCK panel and we know Joshua Williamson and Scott Snyder pretty well, they were, how's I describing them to you, like two giddy brothers talking about their comic book characters fighting up there on the
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're just winding each other up in a way that is such a, it's such an infectious energy and it matches this event so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just crazy to see some, that core relationship and the core excitement of why we started doing this show, why we like comics.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well actually, what if they fought and they are bringing that to the stage as this event has become real, is just super exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I don't want to spoil if anyone hasn't heard about these first fights.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the first sort of round reveals they did because the solicits I think are going to spoil some of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's still a fun to experience it in time, in the real world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's infectious and being in that room with DCKO, people were losing their minds as they revealed these batch-ups and it's just, there's a palpable difference between we are pitching you a product which, of course, that's essentially what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And particularly Scott and Josh were doing on that stage where it's basically the
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very nice, it's very sweet, but the thing that we can talk about is after it's crazy though they did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But after DCKO, they talked about what the next publishing initiative is, very similar to DC all in, where it's just sort of like an ethos for the publishing line versus an event, it's called DC next level, and the idea here is they reached out to a bunch of creators that they really like working with or haven't worked with or haven't worked with in a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: And said, what's your dream book?
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you be excited about like shooting your shot with?
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it works or not, we're gonna throw it out there and give you the chance to like make this title a huge success.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the creators they're working with, and I'll talk about some specific teams in a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the creators, they mentioned our Dennis Camp, Tony Fleece, Jamal Campbell, Danny Jeff LeBeer, Joshua Williams in James Heron, Jorge Corona, Greg Rucca,
[SPEAKER_01]: And the titles they announced, which are going to come out with new number ones alongside other things, starting, I think in a case of like one or sometimes two a month after DCKO, our desto of the Terminator, Batwoman Firestorm, the Nuclear Man, Lobo, Zetana, the Demon, Batman Shadow, the Bat, and Barbara Gordon Breakout, which sounds really interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only ones they revealed at this time were Greg Rock and Danny on Batwoman, which brings Greg Rock back to Batwoman after a pretty fraccious break with DC Comics about 15 years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: that he says this is him telling the story he wanted to tell back of the day, but couldn't because things got so bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other team that was mentioned was Scotty Young and Jorge Corona on the Lobo and then finally right at the end of the panel they revealed the Joshua Williamson will be writing Legion of Superheroes, which is his dream job and it sounds like they didn't specifically say this, but it sounds like he will be moving off Superman at that point to then moving on to Legion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean super exciting it's what I was saying earlier where DC feels like they are like just topping themselves and I like because this main event is going to be so like super man dark side the absolute characters big Trinity characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really cool that this event is going to be diving down like next level the next level is down I think into some characters that don't get as much play and telling super interesting stories about them So I think that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm super excited for Batman.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Raka I love him getting to come back and do something
[SPEAKER_00]: that he's wanted to do forever, controversial on our discord as well, firestorm, the nuclear man's very exciting to me, a character I like, that always feels like is on the outside and is weird, and if someone can make that, if a team can make that character, weird and interesting, that's really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other one, sort of strangely is Batman Shadow of the bat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, curious, we're adding another Batman title.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one's going to have to go into some different directions, and I think that's exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm really interested in all this as well and I've seen a little bit of like scoffing online for people and this always happens about the idea of like why are you putting these titles out there you're just setting them up to fail and I think there's a misunderstanding of nobody in the comic book industry is like put out that fire store book and watch it burn, no put attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: like that's not happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to put out a fire store book that surprises everybody and does well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they can't do that unless they try it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Scott Stater told this story on the panel, which I think he's told before about jibbly driving to Scott's house and Scott Bigg liked terrified he was going to get fired, but jimly instead of saying, we need to build up the comic book division and we're going to put the money in the resources behind it to make it work.
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely universe dc all end that was the shooting their shot and now they're continuing to take risks like some of the verb Batman titles which are less of a risk because Batman sells incredibly but you can't make a top to your desto the Terminator book unless you try to do it you know so we'll see maybe it'll work maybe it'll not but I appreciate them taking chances
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we a couple of other things came out?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one that was mentioned on the Boom Studios panel and then I got to see James Tine and talk about it at the tiny.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need Paddle.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be doing swamp thing is killing the children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, we know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not something.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's swamp thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swamp thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was very specific on the tiny.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't paddle to be like DC would like me to let you know that swamp thing doesn't actually kill children, which
[SPEAKER_01]: was like they're funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently some people were very worried and DC and not to swore of off of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was also very interesting to hear James tight and talk about at that panel where he was like
[SPEAKER_01]: I value my time at T.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love all the people at T.C., but he was talking about that coming to New York Comic-Con used to be his worst week of the year because he, I'm paraphrasing here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember exactly word for word what he said, but he was talking about like, just hyped up being working for T.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: and not being able to talk about things and
[SPEAKER_01]: and being able to talk about things and this being this political dance of like jocking for titles and everybody sort of like pushing against each other while they're doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also talked about he specifically said like
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, that he would have to have a meeting with an editor and have three years of plans shot down an instant and that have to go out and talk to fans in smile.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, that's a very specific example of something that definitely happened to you, which, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, but regardless swamp thing is killing the children is coming out.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to be a boom DC black label book and that sounds pretty cool That was a lot of DC stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we move on and talk about some other stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got Marvel TV and animation paddle and they should have a bunch of things
[SPEAKER_01]: But mainly, you know, a bunch of dates, uh, January 27th, the 2026 Wonder Man is coming out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was moved from December, March, Daredevil born again season two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Summer, X-Men 97 season two fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man season two and winter is vision quest, the vision series.
[SPEAKER_01]: Founded a bit more about all of those.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is already announced, but Jessica Jones is going to be in Barrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Daredevil born again season two X Ben 97 is going to be a lot of apocalyptic stuff as we knew Your friendly neighborhood spider band is going to have venom and Gwen Stacey Which is going to make at least one of our commenters very excited Vision Quest this is weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: They talked about the concept the concept of the show is white vision is basically having a mental break
[SPEAKER_01]: And imagine all of the robot at Android characters in the MCU as real people in his head and somehow at the same time they're introducing speed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tommy, who is Wicked's brother, is going to be in the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think also, what's his name?
[SPEAKER_01]: Dominic Fortune.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that it?
[SPEAKER_01]: The bounty hunter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you know, I'd be the guy with the Yeah, the costume.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and this feels like it's there's this isn't even more connected to the Tom King Vision series potentially like it feels like it's taking those ideas and pushing them in a different direction What do you think about this slate overall?
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you feeling about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's just looking at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, wow, what a different slate this is than the last five years, seven years of marble slate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Daredevil, success, talked about, and we're getting that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That feels like the most exciting one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe X-Men 97, season two, is even more exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was such a great win.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there's a lot of behind the scenes drama happening, but they also announced season three is coming for this, as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad you're friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is out like all these are sort of exciting wonderman's the biggest question mark and you mentioned the teaser like there's it looks a little like strange maybe there's a Yeah, there was somebody I don't know how to feel about this, but there was somebody who said they went on the con floor and asked somebody at the barvel booth about
[SPEAKER_01]: The posters they use for like the movie and the movie the older Wonderbound movie and the person the barvel booth said that it was Done by an artist artist in Photoshop and then AI Assisted to smooth it over a little bit which Sox and the footage this was pointed out by one of our folks at Discord.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will call out his day, but he's case.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want us to but
[SPEAKER_01]: The footage of the old Wonderman movie really does look like AI stuff like there's a shot Where is arm weirdly gets longer and stuff for a second and I don't know It's a little licky
[SPEAKER_00]: And like in general, isn't one demand sort of the last vest to Jove, like when Marvel just made a bunch of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So who knows?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been a bad year for Marvel TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like from getting people's attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think we've enjoyed the show as the eyes of a combat that was cool and the Marvel zombies had its moments.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just been a tough tough time right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shine is off a little bit, but I will say in the dry as possible way, I'm glad they are getting a consistent cadence for these shows, like it seems like they're coming out every two or three months, and that seems good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if they could have that going for 2027 and beyond as well, like not to over-stuff it, but rather than, yeah, we have four episodes of Isle Wakanda coming out, and two weeks later, four episodes of Marvel's hobbies, and that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is weird instead being like, okay, we finished that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the next show?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's coming up in a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a better place to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Over to the invisible panel.
[SPEAKER_01]: The big things there is season four premieres in March and the lead pace is going to be the voice of Emperor Thrag, who is basically the big bad of the invincible universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have much more to say about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're definitely a really nice hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The quick hit portion of our announcements, but that's cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like Lippe, Lippe, I'm glad season 4 is coming out of March.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moving back to comic book announcement, Joshua Williams and his writing Iron Man with Carmen Carrero.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mostly, I will say at first my big takeaway here is like, it's crazy that Joshua Williams and his writing
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now super band for DC now iron band for Marvel and also GI Joe for Etter John so like what a busy guy But the take of it once I looked at the preview pages they put out is actually kind of interesting his take is like that
[SPEAKER_01]: Ironman in the cave, Tony Stark in the cave did invent Ironman, he invented Tony Stark.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what AIM is trying to do, they show a scene of it looks like Ironman's origin all over again, but it's actually another guy who created an armor, and that a mask comes out of the guy is like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I can do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can still create it to Sarmor, and she's like, we don't care about the armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't care about creating the armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to create another toti stark and then kills him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, okay, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good strong take for a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and what I like about that is like it's sort of using this evil science of aim, something aim is usually just like cannon fodder lately, and like to have them be like, no, we're actually trying to use science and experimentation in the most maniacal possible way to create an anti iron man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Antitone stark like that's that's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's an exciting idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm into that for sure The thing about Joshua Williamson is like not only is he working on all these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like a major creative like notch in in the all these areas like in Energon.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like there making big decisions in the Superman and DC world He's making these big decisions for not just you know turning out scripts like where the future of all these these characters are going So the fact that he's jumping up to Iron Man is wild.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: Another Marvel announcement, this is at the Spider-Man panel, they announced it, and we kind of do this coming anyway, but there's going to be a Spider-Man Venom Carnage crossover, though Carter Chaspin-Cadzel, they're still going to be part of it called Death Spiral, that's going to be a nine part thing starting in February, and then also in the summer there's going to be a big event called Queen in Black, which is Hella as the Queen in Black.
[SPEAKER_01]: we kind of got some information about this from Alguig though he couldn't really tease anything so if you want to find out more about that but cool yeah I like interviews well without so yeah let's just not much more about that another neat thing that they mentioned at the
[SPEAKER_01]: Gotham City panel was Sirens Love Herts, which is a four-part black label series from TD Howard and Babs Tar.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had called it long Halloween for the girlliest, which I thought was pretty funny because each issue takes place in a different season.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts with Oliver Queen and Dynah getting engaged and ends with their wedding.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it follows her, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley, but it also sits black label, and then a continuity shows, Harley has just gotten out of breakup, presumably with the Joker, and it doesn't realize that maybe the person she's been looking for all-log is right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's romance, there's action, Babstar apparently is drying ridiculous costumes for everybody in every issue, because they love cosplayers, and they want to give cosplayers a lot to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: That seems fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: very fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another more good stuff from DC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and another thing that got mentioned that I thought was pretty cool on the same panel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolute Catwoman.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a six issue series coming in 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chey Grayson and Scott Snyder are writing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The artist is Bengal and this is, it sounds like it's going to be a current continuity adventure for Catwoman but also flashback backstory.
[SPEAKER_01]: How she got from the point where we saw her as a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: It
[SPEAKER_01]: to now where she's wearing weird mask and to the thief.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said the kind of the take on her is rather than just stealing stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's trying to figure out how to stay alive by getting ahead, by being part of that elite upper class of the absolute universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: So rather than stealing shiny stuff, she is stealing information and trading it information.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she uses, they described her as the Batman of the absolute universe that she has all the gadgets,
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when Nitra Goda has designed a fairly a lot of stuff for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they just keep finding new ways to, uh, in absolutely universe specifically sort of get a little weirder.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's another thing we talk to all of you and about, um, just the idea behind, uh, the ways that the absolute universe is affecting the heroes and the characters in there and new and interesting ways and why, why Green Lantern gets to be so weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why this, this book
[SPEAKER_00]: her taking out qualities of Batman from the regular universe in like pushing into a new area.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I do want to mention something that I always hesitate to even kind of point out, but I did think it was interesting because this is always part of the conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the Gotham City panel, there were more women on the panel than men, which I was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't point out.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't be pointing it out or necessarily talking about it, just let it be.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, I think it's like it's a lot of old, because that's always been part of the conversation, particularly for the bat line, like female reciprocitation and comics.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was happy to see that a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's another big thing the cod mentioned announced is Marvel revealed shadows of tomorrow, which is there not again not a vet but sort of like line-wide capsule for the X-Men books after the age of Revelation event.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're coming out next year, tons of titles that they announced.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get a read through that was quickly as possible, but we got X-Men from Jedbike and Tony Daniel is the new artist on that uncanny X-Men from Gal Simone and David Marquez, that's the same team is now Wolverine from Solid in a Mad and Martin Kokolo, which the same team is now, then the new ones are Cyclops.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is a five-ish series from Alex Pactadol and Rosha Antonio.
[SPEAKER_01]: Generation X-23 from Jodi Houser at Jakobokamond News.
[SPEAKER_01]: In glorious X-Forers from our boy, Tim Sealy at Michael Staborea, Magic and Colossus, a five-ish series from Ashley Allen and Germaine Pralta, rogue a five-ish series from Erica Schultz and Luigi Zagaria.
[SPEAKER_01]: Storm, Earth's mightiest mutant from Merway, Eudolay, and Frederica Manson.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is, I believe, the same team but going forward into new number one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Wade Wilson, Deadpool, are from Benjamin Percy and Jeff Shaw, dog loves that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is, I mean, I could talk through any of the takes here, but that one was interesting because I think we had speculated based on a little bit, but found out based on this panel, this is a more serious dead pull.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which, yeah, I got to say, good, like, I think it's good too.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've gone too far with Deadpool being such a goof or the movie, I think it was the most intense thing where he's just indestructible and it's just about how many times you can jab a sword into him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, let's go, let's we need to find some new air here for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about this in a hole?
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything jumping out at you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Any overall takes?
[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of excitement here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love the storm book is continuing to the same team.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's our, I guess, favorite book of this line right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe on Kenny Xman continuing the same team is also great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like changing up the artist for the, for Jed McCase book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's been a weaker point in the current run.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Tim Seely, in Gloria Sexforce, feels like a good adjective for what he's going to do here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ones that I'll shout out, Magic and Colossus, I think that's cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they've together at Ashley Allen has been really good on the Magic series so far.
[SPEAKER_01]: So excited to see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Cyclops from Alex packed it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about this a little bit on Blue Sky, but a parrot or I think actually somebody else talked for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, this has been his dreambook for years and he has various specific plans and ideas for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What a craters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly what we were talking about with the DC books, like it sounds like he is shooting a shot with a cyclops book, so that should be cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... we got a couple more things just to run through real quick here IDW dark right at the top announced uh... their smile book this is going to be set during the eighties uh... during fashion week a quiet place this is going to be set on a little island uh... there's a book called iron coffin which is Dracula versus Hitler but the one that was the coolest to be really like the exorcism at sixteen hundred pen that was great
[SPEAKER_01]: demonic possession and exercises story, but set it at the White House, they're going to do a sequel, The Exorcism at Buckingham Palace, which I think is cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another announcement, O'Neigh Press got Flux House, which is Matt Kinsenpress.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can listen to a nice long interview a little later this week that we did with Matt Kend and Hunter Gorenson, the head of O'Neigh Press, but that's a good get for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think O'Neigh Press is doing making some smart moves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and the fact that Matt King gets to run wild like he's one of the creators out there that just likes to be creating constantly and you'll hear in the interview but like love's comics most of all and it's going to always be innovating in the comic book space so that's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I like the IDW dark stuff like a quiet place, that's a fun area to play in, like there's such a big world they can do there, and anytime we can see just more chalkboards it's a sound question mark, as the vulnerability, I think is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a couple of other panels to talk about just because I attended them and I'll throw them out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to the alien earth panel.
[SPEAKER_01]: That one was crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, at the reason this crazy was an hour half log panel.
[SPEAKER_01]: They showed off the pilot despite the fact that the entire season has aired and the pilot was well over at hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that left like 20 minutes for the actual panel itself, which was good, mind you, like Alan Seproval, who's a commensurate professional, was hosting it, kept it on point.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had most of the stars in the cast there, as well as one of the producers.
[SPEAKER_01]: They read a note from Ridley Scott.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's that was very cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just like we've already seen the entire season and probably everybody else has so like Just select seeds or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't anything the fan if there's anything the fans have seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the first episode Three times at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I'm gonna do work while this is going
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they ended.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the last things was the guy who plays Joe on the show was talking about his character.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, that's something I'd really like to follow in season two and Alan Church is like, who would like to see a season two and everybody's like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk to FX.
[SPEAKER_01]: like, come on then, what, nothing, nothing against him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a great kind, but like, why are you doing this battle?
[SPEAKER_01]: Adounce the season too.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we doing already?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the other one, not to keep Lepic on FX, but I went to the beauty panel last night, which is based on, I don't want to speak for you, but one of my favorite comics of love that coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: You love that comic so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Jeremy Han and, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, I'm blanking on the name of the other guy who wrote it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry to other guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've had them on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've talked to the plenty of times.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for anybody who's known the concept of beauty is it takes place at a room where there's an STD where if you get it, you become more beautiful like looking like you're best self.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if the middle of that, some people start seemingly spontaneously combusting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So two cops, one with the beauty, one without.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: start looking into it and try to figure out whether people are somebody saying fire to people with the beauty if this is a medical emergency what's going on it spirals out in plenty of weird ways well just like such a clear simple concept right from the chart with start with really well drawn characters
[SPEAKER_01]: The beauty of the show is a riot Murphy show, and just based on the footage of the way they were talking about it, it is now about Ashtig Kutcher plays a flamboyant tech billion air, who is basically like the Joker, and he creates a formula called the beauty that he wants to sell to rich people at the highest bidder, and they discover because he's rushed to market after 880 days you blow up into bloody chunks, so you have to keep
[SPEAKER_01]: boosters of the beauty, otherwise that will potentially happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the middle, Anthony Raymos is this assassin with like a silver eye patch and a stakes kid coat that's killing people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Evan Peters and I think Rebecca Hall are like international detectives on the case going to vettis and all over the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he kept talking about like all of these mythology things that
[SPEAKER_01]: Ride Murphy was adding there and everybody was on on the paddle like they're all big stars And ride Murphy is very dry and Woody and Fuddy, but this was one of the most fad reaction things like Calico Fatter like that's not the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do it?
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other writer on the beauty is Jason Hurley.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jason.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like changing stuff for changing stuff's fake.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very annoying.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned the tiny on the panel.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was lovely to hear them talk about their company.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're positively giving you about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're doing with what thing that I mentioned.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like.
[SPEAKER_01]: They said, James Times said they've sold 400,000 copies of explicit corpses so far, which is crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he also mentioned it is the lowest attrition of any comic book he's ever written.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they are losing no readers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It actually grew in readers from issue three to issue four.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's pretty crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last thing, two things I mentioned, I sat at this pedal for Bala, which is the first idiot movie that's ever shown up at New York Comic-Con, they seem very excited about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the nice thing I'll say about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last thing I was not there for this, but they dropped the trailer for the Vampire List.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the Immortal Universe panel, and not only have you watched the interview with the Vampire,
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, not the movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the teachers here.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, yes, I watched that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I only watched the first season.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is legitimately like one of the best series at least of the past few years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe ever the second season is phenomenal.
[SPEAKER_01]: The vampire, the stat trailer is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just the main thing it may be thick is like this is diametrically opposite quality wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do everything else they are put aside from this immortal universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was very exciting for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a lot of stuff that we put out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were plenty of announcements.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't miss.
[SPEAKER_01]: We did miss plenty of announcements.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't talk about here, but based on all of this, let's break it down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's your winner?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's your loser?
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to be a specific announcement.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be a capsule thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think of Justin?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, tough to choose one winner and one loser here, but I think you could read it in my voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think DC Comics is just winning here.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've been winning a lot of things lately, I think this con just feels like there's so much enthusiasm and excitement there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the place to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm excited to be reading in the next couple of years feels like there's a lot going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: From what we've just talked about here, the first thing that comes to mind is C.B.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sipolsky's announcement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, about AI, because it just felt like a second place finished where you actually sounded worse than possibly could have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'd be not to keep lumping on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally agree with you about DC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, their booth was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were giving it a little daily plated newspaper every day and free prizes to fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was pretty delightful.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, there's just a real palpable excitement around everything they're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: grapes you might have about some of the specifics.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they are going hard in the direction, they are going and they're really pushing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Conversely, now to keep loving unmarvaled, but I got to say like shadows of tomorrow, I think that it's been fell a little flat, even though personally there's some titles that I'm certainly looking forward to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other one that I wanted to
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, just the ultimate universe ending, just because like that feels like a big announcement but that I did not see a single person who was either not annoyed because they believed it was ending.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, why you end it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is annoying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or straight up didn't believe them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it just feels like they're just a step behind right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're, it feels, they're the little brother in the room, which seems crazy given the last like 15, 20 years of comics and entertainment.
[SPEAKER_01]: well and also because sales wise we don't really know specific sales figures but like they are still dominating like i think a lot of that is flooding the zone frankly but when you look at at least iCV2's monthly charts which are based on like actual sales from comic book shops not two comic book shops
[SPEAKER_01]: DC will usually have like 10 to sub 20 titles in there in the top 50, but Marvel regularly has like 30 titles in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're doing well financially, but I think a lot of it, we were talking about this, it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's putting out content instead of thinking about the content that you're actually putting out there and being intentional about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a reader, as a fan, I want to read stuff where I'm like, oh, I'm excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would rather read one title I'm excited about, than 10 titles I feel okay with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like I don't want to just read comics to be like, aha, that's the news.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the way the players are moved down the field.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that, that, that, and D.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: feels like there's just juice there, not to overuse a term that I'm using a lot lately, but it just feels they got the juice.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's at Omega Energy, fueling everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would love to hear from you what your winners and losers of New York Comic-Con are let us know in the comments wherever you're watching or listening to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: As usual, we'll be able to show every Tuesday at 7pm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure we'll be talking more about New York Comic-Con there as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Comic book club live.com for this podcast many more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, we'll see you at Baltimore Comic-Con, actually, because we'll be there now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, wait, it's neat that in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just turn back to number one There is you and I get it I want to be Don't know the mind With their promises And it's okay now It's because I don't deserve It's okay but I don't deserve
[SPEAKER_02]: They sit on crappy couches, and they let the secret link And he's showing up, they feel like a special destiny To grab your ring, hammer, don't relay, or it'll fail, fail, fail