[Intro Music]

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! …the show where screenwriters talk about the comic books that we love, mostly from the '80s. I'm one of your hosts; I'm Steven Bagatourian. And I'm your other host, Chris Derrick. ...And, Chris, this little episode we recorded today is maybe my favorite episode we've done. And, I dunno, honestly, man, this might be my favorite episode we ever do. Because talking about Trevor Von Eeden and THRILLER was one of the [primary] reasons I wanted to do this show, so I'm so excited we're doing this. And let me just emphasize here—
—Hold on, hold on! Hold on because those are some big words! Big words! Let's let the people know what we're gonna be talking about— Yeah yeah yeah, exactly, what are we talking about here, people? What are we talking about? We are talking about Frank Miller's first choice to draw BATMAN: YEAR ONE ...was this genius artist. Who exactly are we talking about here? Are we talking about David Mazzucchelli? Are we talking about Klaus Janson? Are we talking about some other [well-known] legend from the '80s? No. We are talking about a legend from the '80s who has been overlooked in an egregious way: we're talking about Trevor Von Eeden. And Trevor Von Eeden is somebody who (as you're gonna hear us talk about at length in this episode) we feel has been overlooked, in a way, in comics history that is just insane. Because the guy is one of the greatest artists ever to grace the pages of DC or Marvel comics. And, Chris, I'm ecstatic that we got to devote so much time to talking about Trevor and his work, and Robert Loren Fleming's work, on this insanely extraordinary book called THRILLER. ...I want to set the stage for everybody to let people know this book came out in 1983. Here's what was going on in comics and in pop culture: in comics, DC's top-selling book was THE NEW TEEN TITANS. And, this year (in '83), that's when they introduced the character named Terra. And that's when the storyline with her culminated in the famous storyline called, "The Judas Contract," where Deathstroke's son, Jericho, teams up with Dick Grayson when he first becomes Nightwing. Over at Marvel, THE [UNCANNY] X-MEN was the top-selling comic at Marvel but also probably of all comics. And this was the middle of the most influential run that was penciled by Paul Smith. You know, this is when we got comics like "Professor Xavier's A Jerk!" and [we meet] The Morlocks, and we find the introduction of Storm's mohawk and that punk biker look. And, also this year, the movies… Here are the five films that were like the biggest films of the year: we've got RETURN OF THE JEDI, we got TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, we got FLASHDANCE, we got TRADING PLACES, we got WAR GAMES. Top five songs on Billboard that year were: "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, "Billie Jean" By Michael Jackson, "Flashdance" by Irene Cara, "Down Under" by Men At Work, and "Beat It" by Michael Jackson. …And speaking of Michael Jackson, Chris; I'm so glad you said that, 'cause that kind of brings us to one of "the elephants in the room," here: Why the hell is this comic called THRILLER? It is so weird. Now, I guess the reason is because of Angie Thriller, sort of the omnipotent god-like, floating-head being we see floating on the cover of THRILLER No. 1. But beyond that, in a larger sense, this book came out exactly one year after Michael Jackson's landmark, epic album, also titled THRILLER. So, one year after THRILLER [the album] was released in November of '82, DC Comics decides to put out THRILLER, the comic, exactly one year later in November of '83. Which has absolutely nothing to do with Michael Jackson. On any level. On any level. It's just so weird. It's one of the weirdest things. Except for: There were two genius artists behind the music and the pencils. That's what we'll say. There you go. That's a parallel. Right, you know what: We got Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson over there making their THRILLER and Trevor Von Eeden and Robert Loren Fleming making this THRILLER for comics. So, you know, that's a parallel. And I gotta say just one last thing, and we're gonna get into this really more in depth in the episode, but I just have to drop in a final bit of trivia about what went wrong behind the scenes at THRILLER… This book was so ahead of its time. And here is the danger of being too ahead of your time: it's that you might be so genius, you might be so incredible, you might be so forward-thinking that you come out a little bit too early, you know? And you come out so early that people don't know what to do with you, including your own editors, and the publishers, and most of the fans, perhaps. … when you think about what was going on in culture at this time. This book was so ahead of its time... Steve, we are back this week with another episode of COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! And we're talking about a book that is going to blow everybody's mind... 'cause it blew my mind reading it. We're going to be talking about Robert Loren Fleming's and Trevor Von Eeden's THRILLER which is a book that I was not familiar with. Let me take that back; I knew of this book when it was out, but I didn't read this book you know it was always like well so what do you can spend your money on when you're a kid you don't know Yep but I'm super excited to we get to talk about this I think this book is one of the most unsung shock-your-brain books that came out at this time came out in late '83 and it's unbelievable it's truly unbelievable what you know like the fact the fact that these guys did this book and that it got published at a major company because it feels like it feels this feels like a Vertigo book and this is what seven eight years before Vertigo is even launched and that's crazy that's just absolutely crazy but this book is amazing this book is absolutely amazing I'm so I'm so excited so excited that we're talking about it this has been one of the episodes of our show COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! that I've been most looking forward to recording as you know Chris because THRILLER I could not agree with you more it is like a mind-meltingly bizarre and ahead-of-its-time book and it's also a book that I think I kind of missed at the time because it came out like about a year before I started reading comics I started in '84 and I think this book just kind of fell through the cracks for me for a while and when I finally discovered it I genuinely could not believe what I was reading and what I was seeing and at this point I think this book has attained the status of being something of a cult classic to people who are familiar with DC Comics of this era and you know it's worthy of that status and I think it's worthy of a ton of examination and primarily in my mind for the absolutely jaw-dropping [ __ ] staggering artwork of Trevor Von Eeden who in my mind is probably the single most unsung genius artist of '80s comics and I know we've talked about this before and we can get into it more now but Trevor Von Eeden was supposed to be the original artist on BATMAN: YEAR ONE as per Frank Miller's original idea and that didn't happen for various reasons but both Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli and so many artists at that time were huge fans of Trevor Von Eeden's work and looking at THRILLER and looking at the body of his work from that period you can see why I really feel like this book and Trevor's artwork and also Fleming's storytelling but I think more fully Trevor's artwork was just ahead-of-its-time and like it's really just a stunning book to find I can't wait to actually discuss it today yeah I mean I think what you're saying about being the unsung artist of the '80s I have to agree with you I don't think I'm not saying it like begrudgingly but I'm just like this is a very strong point I think people would argue with but there's nobody that I could think of who's as talented as this guy is who no one ever talks about yeah exactly I mean there's yeah there's people who are like really talented and people know and their names like get brought up stuff like that and you know or some you know certain people who become fan favorites and stuff like you know there's some little book that everyone talks about and they didn't do a lot of work I mean for instance like you can look at Matt Wagner Matt Wagner didn't do a lot of work you know I mean he did GRENDEL and he did MAGE and I mean so he does two series until maybe like in the mid '90s when he's asked to do some stuff so I'm not sure what else he's doing but people know his name this guy's work like Trevor's work is mindblowing it's truly mindblowing and I think it's crazy but as a Black artist at this time he's getting I mean it's insane the work he's done like you know like we were talking before and you've got like and you've got the main title page for issue one as a blow up in your house right like yeah I do yeah there's a a double page spread yeah because this book is insane and this guy's art I mean like we talked about I mean so you got you mentioned Mazzucchelli and BATMAN: YEAR ONE and like I can see so much of what this guy's work how it would have shaped what was happening in BATMAN: YEAR ONE it's kind of funny because I was was looking at Elsa, Elsa Charretier's little I can't remember I can't remember how to pronounce this woman's name but she but she does a podcast and she did an episode of BATMAN: YEAR ONE which she kind of broke down some of the panels and I look at it and I'm like it looks like Trevor's work yeah well it's funny you say that Chris because there was that amazing Heroes interview we talked about a while ago where David Mazzucchelli is being interviewed about BATMAN: YEAR ONE and Mazzucchelli is asked specifically in the interview who some of his influences who are peers of his and some of who his favorite artists at that time are and I believe he only mentions two artists by name and one of those artists is Trevor Von Eeden and if I recall Mazzucchelli says something like I'm paraphrasing here but he says that Trevor's work is almost dangerous it's so unpredictable and it's so wild you never know what he's going to do and it's just brilliant work and Mazzucchelli was clearly a huge fan as was Miller at that time and so when you realize that some of the cats who were like the premier auteur genius cartoonists of that time were singing the praises of Trevor Von Eeden and yet Trevor Von Eeden is someone you don't hear spoken about nearly as much as the rest of these cats like you have to look back at the work and examine it and take it seriously and ask yourself why were the greatest artists of that time name-checking Trevor Von Eeden when they were asked who their favorite artists were in comics at that time and I think it's apparent when you look at the work because it is just it's gorgeous and I've got to say for me as of the last couple years if you ask me point blank who's your favorite comic book artist right now for the last couple years I would say Trevor Von Eeden would be my answer and I'm on a quest right now digging up every single fill-in issue that he ever did and like I've mentioned to you even some of his fill-in work on books like WORLD'S FINEST with SUPERMAN and BATMAN or VIGILANTE the DC Book Trevor Von Eeden's work there was a BATMAN fill-in he did also the annual yeah yeah yeah there's there's the annual and then there's also like an issue of BATMAN or DETECTIVE he did as well that are just you know annuals or regular issues whatever just one-offs here and there they're all just [ __ ] gorgeous and they're all gorgeous in different ways and there's a level of invention and creation going on in Von Eeden's work that's really kind of unprecedented for mainstream comics at that time unless you're talking about the people who are literally the all-time greats like your Millers yeah the icons your Sienkiewicz's your Millers you know your Mazzucchellis or whoever and I think Von Eeden sadly did not maybe produce as large of a body of work and maybe he never created like as many signature books at that time where he was associated with a giant success like a BATMAN: YEAR ONE or something but just the work that he did do it's just jaw-dropping and the level of invention and originality in it is just off the scale man so so yeah well look there's a lot about that that I want to talk about but that's I mean that and we will talk about it today but I think we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves as we are wont to do on this podcast those who've been listening on for several episodes you know we get ahead [of ourselves] about [ __ ] that we want to talk about but anyway so well well I I think the craziest thing about THRILLER is you can't summarize this book and which is which is a double-edged sword to a degree but I mean so we were talking about there's like a meanwhile that you know that kind of summarizes like what this book is about and I think it'd be easier for everyone who hasn't read this to if we kind of went through that and kind of like talked about it because like the biggest thing I can say is this is like an adventure comic in the realm of like THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE in terms of it is a team of people who are out trying to do things who are not really superheroes they're operatives or agents of the main person and you know and that's I mean if you like those books like DOC SAVAGE or THE SHADOW or you know I mean those kind of things then you'll dig this book but you might dig it more because this book i it's kind of like that one was it was Sienkiewicz doing a SHADOW did he do some yeah yeah he did he for a while he did a run which I'm sure we'll be talking about at some point with Andrew Helfer writing it was right after Chen did the mini series yeah and and then Sienkiewicz relaunched THE SHADOW as a regular ongoing series with Andy Helper and I think Sienkiewicz stuck around for the first six issues and then passed the baton to Kyle Baker who did an incredible run also with Andrew Helfer writing for like another 10 or 12 issues including yeah including one fill in by Marshall Rogers which was also brilliant yeah there the shadow for sure Sienkiewicz did an incredible SHADOW but it's kind of like you know so I mean like those kind of books those kind of stories that kind of pulp kind of stuff that was not too I would say not too it wasn't too prevalent at this time you know I was there's a book I'm reading now it's called the DC in the '80s the experiments yep and Paul is like compile the he was talking about how you know because this book came out '83 right THE THRILLER came out in '83 he saying that like in the '70s a bunch of these comics that were around were starting to shut down you know he he's mentioning the gold key had shut down was were shutting down recently and like a lot of the Western Comics and the war comics and these kind of like pulp THRILLER fiction stuff was all was was all kind of disappearing by the late '70s early '80s and for DC to launch a book like this with this kind of like you know batshit crazy kind of storytelling is a true kind of like it's a major gamble for them but it's a awesome gamble so let's jump into it so we can tell the listeners like what this book is is about okay totally so yeah yeah if we can exactly you mentioned the Meanwhile... column which for those of you who are not reading DC Comics at the time Meanwhile... was a monthly column written by Dick Giordano who was one of the DC sort of top muckety-mucks he was one of the upper-executive echelon at DC Comics as well as being a legendary inker who was still inking the occasional comic at that time as we'll see here where he jumps in to ink two issues of this very book THRILLER in the middle of the run but so Dick Giordano would do this column that would be printed in all the DC books where it would just be you know ostensibly a promotional column talking about some new book that DC was doing but it was often pretty charming and kind of personal with anecdotes and whatnot this particular column this month the duties for writing the column were handed off to Robert Loren Fleming and so he took over for Giordano and basically was allowed to write a one-page promotional piece for THRILLER where essentially this is Robert Loren Fleming the writer pitching THRILLER in this column that he knows is going to be published in every other DC comic so here's how he pitches it "If you enjoy team books such as the new TEEN TITANS, BATMAN and THE OUTSIDERS, THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES and THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA prepare yourselves for THRILLER because it's not like any of them. THRILLER refers to the main character an omnipotent ethereal female who performs the godlike function of manipulating and coordinating earthly events sort of a cross between Jesus Christ and my mom THRILLER's team is called the Seven Seconds because they're her seconds in the fight against crime and evil actually they function more as operatives than as a team like THE SHADOW's crew or DOC SAVAGE's men but if you get right down to it they're not operatives either they're an Italian family Salvo allow me to introduce to you Daniel Grove is the only "normal Joe" in this outfit he's a cameraman for the Satellite News Network and all he wanted out of life was to end it THRILLER had other plans for this reluctant hero Data is a genius who lives in the backseat of his Rolls Royce he drives the car with his brain he's not interested in brushing his teeth or playing volleyball or seeing SUPERMAN the movie he just wants information big heaping gobs of it White Satin is beautiful but deadly one brush of her fingers and you may die laughing or vomiting you may fall asleep or stiffen like a board and that's only assuming you won't just plain drop dead she's the girl who everyone's in love with but is it really worth it Salvo is Tony Salvotini THRILLER's twin brother and a crackshot who can blow your eyelashes off at 30 paces or rip off a thug's windbreaker with live ammo he's too good a shot to ever have to kill his creed only flesh wounds only outpatients I won't kill a fly so don't ask me beaker parish is an enormous synthetic Roman Catholic priest created in an Erlenmeyer beaker by two renegade Harvard medical students adopted by a Roman Catholic parish including the Salvotini family the artificial baby grew into a 9-foot-tall seminary student amen wow nine foot tall Roman Catholic priest who was created in a laboratory named Beaker Parish that is one of our characters okay back to the column proxy used to be Robert Furillo actor before he almost burned himself to death freebasing cocaine there's a superhero origin for you no just I mean this is around the time that that Richard Pryor so I think that's where that's from wow that oh that's wild the synthetic skin that saved proxy's life proved unstable it tends to melt every 24 hours so now he can become anyone for a day depending on how he applies his artificial flesh it comes in plastic bags Crackerjack is an under-aged illegal immigrant from Honduras who is also a master escape artist pickpocket safe cracker and contortionist but his favorite occupation is watching television and eating Froot Loops that's my family hope you like them they go on exciting adventures fight horrible villains like Scabbard he's got a three-foot long scimitar sheathed in the skin of his back that's right and make new friends like Kane Creole rock 'n roll bank robber thinks he's you know who which is Elvis hey I know they're weird that's family for you and then he goes on to encourage everyone to subscribe to THRILLER and that's basically it so that pitch actually makes this sound kind of almost like it is a team of crime fighters or heroes of some sort but like you said Chris it's got its roots for sure in that pulp tradition and you know Fleming calls it out here to THE SHADOW DOC SAVAGE definitely that's where the roots for this book are more so than like a SUPERMAN or BATMAN or TEEN TITANS or anything like that but man that editorial that column there makes it sound a lot more apprehendable than it actually is because when you're when you're reading it like I don't know that t you really get half of that when you're actually reading the issues themselves well I mean you do it's OK this is one of these books that the knowledge you it's not a book where you can get everything in one issue it takes like a few issues it's like the cumulative effect of reading the issues and remembering what's happening and who these people are and what they're doing and they're up to that be that it begins to kind of like solidify what he's talking about so maybe by so that that was the letter column for issue four probably by the time time you read the issue 4 of the Meanwhile... column probably by the time that you read Issue 4 that'll all make sense to you it's not gonna make sense in the first one two issues and it's a crazy book that but it begs you to read it and to like understand it because you be like what is this about and it might be off-putting for a lot of people but it's not because the artwork is so [ __ ] good the artwork keeps you kind of like keyed-in in a way I mean there's a lot of books in the history of comics where the art is terrible you know or the story's terrible and the art maybe has you buying it you know some big guys like writing the story something like that whoever it is and this and you know the stories are bad but this is not that the story is bad but it takes a while for you to understand how he's cobbling it together and I think that Robert Loren Fleming he just had a he had a style of of of trying to like unspool the story in a very different way that that if you invest the time and to read these first eight issues or seven issues that that that Robert and Trevor did together it is it's so well worth it it's such an enjoyable experience because these guys are you know they mentioned a guy scabbard how he's like a he's an Arab killer and he has this and when you meet him in the beginning issue one the guy the cameraman like he kills that guy's brother like he beheads him the way ISIS was beheading people and like put it on camera and just kind of crazy because it's like in '83 I don't know if Muslim extremists were cutting people's heads off like that on camera [then] I don't think that that was really being done yet it's a fascinating thing for him to have kind of predicted that yeah because this is just a few years after the the the Iran Hostage Crisis so there's no way there so the the Islamic extremists hadn't really taken a hold yet on the whole Arab world they were still kind of like stuck in Iran yet but it's it's crazy that that's what happens in this book and that's how the guy Daniel Grove gets gets brought into to the world of THRILLER it's interesting when you had read this now and I didn't think about this when I was reading it but they say that that THRILLER is like this omnipotent kind of God who uses computer to manipulate what's happening yeah and it's like this Oracle before they did Oracle HH that's a really good point yeah it is that same kind of idea and yeah this there are a lot of things about the book that do feel weirdly prescient like that and the Islamic extremist thing with the beheading being televised on live TV and yeah there are a number of things in here and even the character of Data and the fact that Data is controlling his car with his mind and it's like he's almost like a human computer there's a lot of stuff in here that feels like Fleming was kind of looking forward into the next decade or two and correctly predicting some things and really reading the book now there are some really fascinating and creepy moments where you're like whoa this was really written in '83 you know well see that's the thing that makes the book fascinating is that you read it now this is 83 so this is almost what is 30 38 years old mean it's it's more is it wait what '93 2003 2013 no you're right you're right it's like yeah like you're right 38 yeah yeah years old and this it and it feels modern I mean it feels like a modern book like in '83 is I don't know what what's going on in THE AVENGERS then or that's a four or X-MEN it's probably some overwritten stuff by like Chris Claremont yes you know whatever it is it's not I mean not saying those stories aren't good but they don't seem fresh now I think you go back and read now and this still feels fresh in a way because it's so bizarre with how things are happening and he's you know and it's and there there's a level of Science Fiction to it that is not too science fictioned out but it's science fiction enough that it feels very it feels very fascinating I think the way he discussed all the characters is pretty cool too because you try to figure out who these people are in reading it and you don't quite know but I feel like ever like I'm I'm looking at issue one I'm looking at page 13 of issue one and 13 and 14 he's got around like 17 panels on a page yep you know which seems like an obscene amount of panels and it is an obscene amount of panels but he tells the story very well visually I think my one big criticism in this book completely is it's nothing to do with Trevor nothing to do with with Robert it's whoever was doing the lettering of this book because sometimes they don't place the the thought balloons or the word balloons in places that are conducive to like make making your eye follow the panels as much as you want to but I think overall this is one of these books that this and it feels more like it feels more like a Prestige cable show like a crime show because there is you know crime stuff going on it's some superheroing going on but it's so much more about the family and the people and their relationships and how they're trying to figure out who they are because obviously you have like the with the the Salatini family but you have Crackerjack who is Honduran you have data who's Black and you have the Daniel Grove who's although he's white he's not part of the family but they but they operate as a family in a way that you know that all the work they're doing is about you know it like it binds them together as people and when they go on these missions to kind of like there's that big mission they have you know first St issues they're trying to like stop Scabbard that final kind of Showdown they have I guess an issue four when they you know find him on the train I mean they all like they've come together to work as a machine and it's a Well oiled Machine by that issue which is very much like what you would do in like a prestige show as opposed to like a like a network show where they're already a good team by the end of the first episode you know it takes them a while to gel I think that's kind of smart storytelling too because you because if you didn't spend so much time on the characters the book would just all be about plot you know yeah that's all that that it really could be about and there's so many characters I think later on in like issue seven and then eight which is eight is not written by Robert Loren Fleming it becomes a very much plot like driven story then it's it's easier to understand because you're not trying to deal with the emotions of the characters and what they're going through yeah but yeah that's I mean yeah I mean so like different than other episodes of this show it's kind of hard to go through every issue and talk about what was going on pot wise I think that would be a Fool's errand because it is so oblique in the storytelling and it is so difficult to follow there are missions quote unquote that the team is going on but really the stories themselves are almost like there's so much more about the storytelling itself and that sounds like a like just like a weird sort of conundrum but it's it's like just the way that Trevor is choosing to tell certain moments and just the kind of moments that Fleming is choosing to write there just there's there are so many unconventional bits here that it really is hard to describe it in a conventional way and have it make sense it's something that almost just has to be experienced and I know we're making this comic sound like it's a drug trip or something but it really does have kind of very psychedelic hallucinogenic properties to it in a sense because you're reading it and you're just there are moments where you're like wait what the [ __ ] did that did that just happen are are are they really doing this like it's really it's just it is captivating in how odd it is and Von Eeden storytelling too like you mentioned the paneling Chris 17 panels on one page I feel like that is one of the trademark things that Trevor Von Eeden did better than pretty much anybody I can think of in mainstream Comics is that he was able to jam such an insane amount of panels on a page and yet it never looks cluttered or rushed or hurried and he just has simply the most inventive panel layouts from page to page that you're going to see anywhere in mainstream Comics certainly at this time and he is the opposite of someone who uses a grid like a six panel Grid or a nine panel Grid or whatever on every page Trevor is Reinventing the comic page with every single page and that sounds kind of like grandiose or hyperbolic but genuinely reading Trevor Von Eeden's work in THRILLER and other [ __ ] that he did it it's so enthralling because it's like as a comic fan you're witnessing an act of Discovery on every single page and I feel like Trevor Von Eeden is literally inventing new storytelling mechanics with every page literally just conjuring up a new way to show a train speeding through space in a comic book conjuring up a new way to show someone shooting guns out of someone's hand someone jumping etc etc he invents a new way to show you something and then he immediately discards it by the next page he's on to some other invention some other new means of storytelling and it's got like just this incredible sense of discovery on every page like that and it's just kind of got to be seen to be believed and it's just it's crazy to [Music] me hey there beautiful people thank you so much for listening into COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! This is Steve checking in with Chris apologies for the interruption but we just had to let you all know about a little thing called our Patreon where for a measly $2 bucks a month y'all can get so much extra content that it's a little bit mind-blowing we're offering you at least two free episodes a month two free solo episodes one from Chris one from me it's going to be a beautiful thing and we're also offering a whole lot of other content Chris do you want to tell the folks what else they'll get for only $2 a month right so on top of the one shot episodes you will also get a there'll be a quarterly Q&A from the listeners you guys will be able to write into us and tell us you know questions about anything about comics with Comics we love like artists we love like like writers like you know what are our thoughts on Stan and Jack you know just just crazy stuff that you know that you might want to hear also as a subscriber supporter you'll be able to to write in and tell us what book you would like us to cover or a book a series a graphic novel could be a run it could be like a lot of things but just let us know what it is you know and we will cover it in season 2 or season 3 and so yeah so you can follow at Patreon.com Comics Rot Your Brain! and there will be a link in the Show Notes and Steve what might you be at for your one-shot in my one-shot episodes for this coming season one of the things I really am looking forward to covering is a Carl Bark's UNCLE SCROOGE story and I'm not sure which one it's going to be yet there's a lot of classic options to choose from I am a massive Carl Barks fan one of my top five cartoonists of all time had a huge influence on me as a Storyteller and you know I was shocked to discover recently Chris that Carl's Uncle Scrooge stories were actually part of the chief inspiration for Indiana Jones that George Lucas George Lucas is on the record talking about how the Uncle Scrooge stories were a huge part of the inspiration for Indiana Jones this shocked me I literally just found this out last year blew my mind right crazy I can understand it understand they're globe-trotting adventures where they'd be searching for treasure and you know there's kind of like imperialist kind of capitalist overtones these days that are a little dicey but you know as a kid you're reading these stories and like OK you're not necessarily thinking to much about oh they're stealing ancient artifacts from other cultures you're just thinking about like oh they're having cool adventures it's like how you watch Indiana Jones differently as an adult perhaps but but still the storytelling is just magnificent in terms of the sheer adventure and like magic of the Scrooge Tales he and Donald and the nephews Barks is just such a pure cartoonist and those stories had a massive impact on me wanting to be a writer and wanting to be a storyteller and I just read them over and over again as a kid so I would love to to dive into a Carl Bark's Uncle Scrooge story and just kind of riff on it for a while can't wait to do it that sounds awesome and you know I might dive into Stray Bullets I might do that that that first volume the the innocence of anism you know I think that's a nine issue so I'll read the floppies because I want to be able to read the letter columns and and just get like a sense of like who was reading at the time because it's always an interesting time capsule to read the other coms issue ISS number two issue number two of stray bullets has some amazing people writing in really like preent folks who had great taste way way ahead of their time time way time well we will see we will we will take a look yes so so everyone so please support the show once again it's at patreon.com Comics Rot Your Brain or you can find the link in the show notes and now we will get back to Comics Rot Your Brain! ...That's the thing that I think is it's impossible for us to convey verbally how inventive this guy is and how I mean when we talked about earlier how like Mazzucchelli and Miller and I'm sure probably [ __ ] every fun who was trying to be great from the early 80s to the end of the 'til the Image team the Image people came on they all know this guy I mean and he's and he's breaking everyone's like you know I'm just something now on in issue one page seven when when like when Daniel grows his he's his brother gets killed he's filming it top of page seven is these five panels all in a row yes of his of Daniel watching his brother die and I don't know if that kind of like slowing down the moment had been done before this that's a staggering moment I'm so glad you called that out Chris because you're right it's a really original way to show something in particularly in a mainstream comic it's this guy realizing and dealing with the fact that his brother has just been beheaded in front of him and there's dialogue and there is some a little bit of dialogue there but really you don't even need it honestly you could take the dialogue out no offense to Robert Loren Fleming but the storytelling is so strong visually in that moment that it's just stunning looking at that character's face over those five panels you called out crazy what's really cool that he does and now look you see this now and you've seen it like sort of seen this kind of work in like the mid '80s I mean the mid '90s see it in in like all of Vertigo books when they want to almost put like a slow motion like a like a slow motion shot in a movie but he's doing this in '83 but the coolest thing that he's doing is and if you look at this this page layout is what most people do when they do this it's like four or five panels in a row and it's just the same image just kind of repeated says you know and they and they might be photocopying and placing it down and placing it down and repeating repeating but if you look at this if you look at the first panel it's bigger than everything else it's over the shadow it's extending into the margin yep right and then as the moment gets more and more intense for the guy the panel sizes get smaller just subtly though just very subtly subtle and it was really cool and also the Shadow on his face in the in the penciling gets deep gets more so it's a little bit of shadow on the first panel but a panel five like he's like his whole half of his face like Shadow tot color and it's like that's [ __ ] cool I mean that's the kind it's like you got to see this we we got to put P yeah yeah we'll put this we'll put this page in the show notes we'll try to throw as many of these pages that we talk about talk about because you I mean and again you look at it now and you might be like yeah whatever I've seen this but you got to realize in '83 nobody was doing this and as a Black man creating this kind of stuff he's pissing people go off with his technique because that's just kind of the way stuff is if you're this good if you're this good and you're Black white people are gonna be mad at you particularly at this time because that's the way of the world well we can definitely get into that a little later you know if we want to touch on the reasons why Trevor sort of felt like his enthusiasm got dimmed or or you know extinguished on this project it had to do with a lot of behind the-scenes stuff at DC and the way that he was being treated really disrespectfully and the racism that he was encountering in the offices at DC which really just kind of hurt his spirit and killed his enthusiasm for the work and it's really just a a goddamn tragedy because you know in my mind Trevor Von Eeden was one of the greatest artists working at DC Comics in this era and the fact that he was not treasured and treated unbelievably well as this amazing artist at DC at that time is really a crime because this kind of Storytelling is very rare in comics this level of nuance Instinct subtlety and just artistic vision is so rare as a Storyteller just this page you called out Chris looking at this entire page it's like those five panels at the beginning you know which as you said by the last panel looking at that guy's face the shadow has increased to the point where it looks like a goddamn etching all of a sudden as he's really mourning his brother's loss then we pull back to a long shot to realize this guy is on the edge of a bridge about to jump and and you're on this long shot now seeing him on the bridge and then you zoom in slightly from above it's a long shot from above you zoom in now for the next panel and so this is now panel what is that panel six seven panel seven you move in slightly panel eight you zoom in just a bit more now you're like close in the guy's face with the scarf obscuring his mouth because of the wind and then suddenly you pull back to this crazy like almost like low angle a low angle right it's like a Dutch angle or like it's almost like a like a fish's point of view from the the river below this bridge that the guy's about to jump into who [ __ ] does that who gives you a [ __ ] Dutch angle fish's point of view at this moment in the storytelling it's a wild choice but it works so well and then you're back to like this close shot on him you've got the river in the background and then you got a profile on him and then you got another profile in him okay we're still on the same page like right now everybody same page and then you've got a final tiny panel at the end where this guy is now kind of he's bathed in light and he's looking up and he says oh my God and the colorist is kind of killing it on this page too and you got pinks and yellows and whites Tom Zuko shout out to Tom Zuko doing really some amazing coloring for this time and you turn the page and there is that stunning double page spread for my money one of the best double page spreads in comics history which is why I had it blown up as you mentioned Chris and I got it printed on a [ __ ] massive canvas and it's in my living room on my mantle right now because I love this image so much I got it [ __ ] hanging above my fireplace and it's just a gorgeous double page spread of the face of this omnipotent Godlike being Angie THRILLER who's like a woman/ good/ Oracle and it's her face as big as you can imagine just massive looming over the bridge where our guy's about to jump and then on the side of the bridge you have the credits for the comic and it says seven seconds and the coloring and the drawing are just Exquisite it's a stunner of a double page Splash well I mean the thing that's so cool and I just realized this now I didn't realize I was reading it but it's like like that segment when it's the five panels going across yeah it's transitioning us from the from the Middle East because he's watching his brother get killed yes to New York whever this is in the bridge and it's like he does all this in a sequence that is emotionally powerful yes and it's a transition yeah and it's like what the [ __ ] I mean [ __ ] crazy it's insane it's insane I mean like I I I wanted to read you a quote I can't find it I was looking for like why you're talking is I think I we got to talk about how he like what happened to him with that DC and being disrespected because the quote I want to find I can't [ __ ] find it are you looking in the the THE COMICS JOURNAL interview no no no no it's a interview it's a quote that I saw I saved it on my phone one time that Tony Morrison wrote and she said that the ultimate purpose of racism is to distract you from doing your best and which I when you think about it it makes a lot of [ __ ] sense it's like because you get so taken off your game when you're when some racist sentiment comes up you know whatever it is oh they call me the inw and then all of a sudden whatever that you're dealing with is all become microscopic because that has got so much like so much importance and it's like and we're and and we bring this up because you know in that COMICS JOURNAL interview that we're going to read from in a minute he's talking about he stopped caring about this booking issue too yeah and there's still and and he's still on for another six issues and some of the work is amazing like we're going to talk about something happened five that is some of the most chilling some of the most emotionally chilling like panel work I've ever seen somebody do we're gonna get that in a minute but I think this important I mean it's just I mean and everything you just mentioned on this SKU pan like the back and forth between the overhead shots the low shots and it's not cluttered about what the story telling is like you get it all and there what there's five six seven eight nine 10 10 11 12 133 panels in this one page which I think would break most people yes yes yeah and Von Eeden makes it look easy he makes it look easy it almost looks effortless and it's just that's this the thing you were telling me before because I because like part of his work too was really cool is his work it doesn't look like it's been inked in a traditional type of inking style and it I mean it almost look looks like he's just drawing you know like because it doesn't say in it just says the artist it's almost like he didn't do any inking like you know like like it's so it's not that it's rough but it's like there's this there's a power there's I think a lot of if you look at inking it like kind of like stabilizes the work you know the like traditional yeah comic book inking does that stabilizer work so you can kind of like grasp it but his work is in by himself like it's almost like he's he knows I'm not No One's Gonna ink this so I'm G I'm gonna have some fun with how I'm doing panel design how I'm drawing faces like the etching we were talking about on this guy's face the etching on his face right here an incor would take it all out you know just make it all oh yeah yeah yeah you're totally right and it's actually just shocking to me on one level that Von Eeden is able to get away with the finish that he puts on his art at DC at this time cuz no one was fin finishing their art with this level of roughness and sort of this gestural quality to the work I mean it really it does look so kind of like it's got this this quality like you say where it is actually ink but because of the way that he's leaving it so rough and with the energy and the life and the Vitality of the work fully intact it almost looks like as you say the way that people always see pencils and they're like oh there's this mag this vitality that just gets lost so often once it gets inked and and cleaned up Von Eeden doesn't allow that to happen and I think that you've mentioned something a few times Chris in talking about his work here today the emotionality of it and I think that's something that I want to emphasize and I think it plays into to the choices he's making with these marks that he's making on the page these ink marks it's Von Eeden I think is really concerned with preserving emotion and I think he is all about the emotion in this storytelling and I think he's very keyed into it in a way that very few comic book artists very few cartoonists ever are and I don't think Von Eeden cares about a polished finish I don't think he cares if his work looks like Romeo Tangal or you know someone who is doing like really tight finishes you know Von Eeden's not somebody who wants to have this super tight finish I I think he realizes that that's not what matters in comic book storytelling and he comes from the school of Alex Toth and to is one of his influences and prior to to I know Von Eeden has called out Neil Adams as an influence and I believe Von Eeden worked at continuity and Adams was something of a mentor to him but it's interesting because I feel like Von Eeden took that underlying sort of knowledge that incredible Foundation that you get from studying somebody like Neil Adams and kind of learning that school of drawing but then he took the Alex Toth and more of like a European influence and threw that into the mix and what he's left with is something that I think really does presage the style of people like David Mazzucchelli and other people who did work that is also genius and exquisite in its own right but Von Eeden was doing this first and he was doing it in a way that really I think had no peer at the time because it wasn't just the finishes it was the panel compositions also and it's just not the finishes and the panel compositions it's the underlying knowledge and then it's not just that it's the incredible deep emotion he's bringing to it so you combine all that work and that's why like you know it's going to sound [ __ ] hyperbolic to hear us sitting here gushing about Trevor Von Eeden and his work for two hours or whatever today it's gonna sound like we're exaggerating but I'm gonna Ur we're not yeah that's the thing is like this is all [ __ ] for real and I urge everyone to go you know not only look at our show notes and we'll throw as much of the dope [ __ ] as we can into the show notes but like you should go by THRILLER you should go by any Trevor Von Eeden comic that we're talking about from this era because that's the era of Von Eeden for me that I'm most knowledgeable about and most passionate about at this moment because that's what I'm devouring is Von Eeden's work in the 80s we should say by the way that Trevor Has continued to make work and has put out work since this time I'm just not as familiar with it and so I don't want to comment on it until I've had a chance to take it in but Von Eeden's work from the 80s is what I've been just swimming in for the last year or two and and I got to say man like I like it's without parallel and it's it's just it's been just I I don't know it's been shocking to me to to not hear more people talking about Von Eeden which is why I wanted us to really make sure we had this discussion today so everyone could hopefully here's the thing I'm just thinking about this now I didn't think about this when I was reading it because we're so used to this type of stuff now again in Reading vertigo because because vertigo steps out of doing super hero stuff right so that's the real that's the real like that's the mainstream version of non superhero work but and the beauty of doing non superhero work if you're an artist and you got to be a good artist is how well do you make your characters act on the page because the thing is if I'm drawing Spider-Man I don't have like his face doesn't act because it's covered in a mask right you know if I'm in BATMAN there there's not a I mean like I mean yes still draw little like frowns and stuff in his in his mask where his eyes his face would be you know so there just cheating they do but if you're CAPTAIN AMERICA you really don't see his face that much IRON MAN you don't see his face when he's in the thing in a hero you're you're covered so there's a different type of Storytelling and they use a lot of like what they used to use stop balloons but now they'll use capses to explain what's going on stuff like this but this guy he's doing a book and again at this is such a weird thing like I just I think maybe why the racism was really high against him I have to believe this is it is that he got to create a book that wasn't a superhero book that but was in the superhero Canon and he's up here drawing faces and people and and drawing real situations that are not it's not true IP like you come in you work in a DC like you're expecting to work like BATMAN and SUPERMAN and THE FLASH stuff like that and all you know GREEN ARROW what have you and he's like I don't want to do that you know he obvious I mean this is lucky at the time that DC is ex that what name Jenette Kahn is allowing DC like creators to create stuff it's not superhero stuff because there's nothing nothing in Marvel at this time of their 80s that is nons superhero I mean yes they have their Epic line so that there is that but that's Epic that's not under like DC proper like this book has got the DC bullet on it and it's got the meanwhile column on it it's got It's got the house ads for like GREEN LANTERN and [ __ ] like that so it's thoroughly incons within the the DC Universe and yet he's not doing superhero work he's doing this kind of pulpy stuff that's kind of pushed to to the limit of what that is and it's sort of Genius that these two guys got to work like so curious to to get a sense of what Robert Loren Fleming in his mind he's saying at the time I'm gonna do this book who do I get I don't believe that that no one goes I'm that that oh he's Black and I'm colorblind he knows he's getting a Black artist you know he knows that and he knows that maybe he's like here's the only guy that I know who could like who could go on this crazy journey with me because he so you got to talk to a guy or two and say hey what kind of stuff you into what do you do blah and go I'm not gonna work with him or you know he's too caught up in this he wants to you know he want because Trevor probably hey I want to see some of your work outside of like your sketchbooks you know yeah I bet everyone wants to showing them sketchbooks of like Heroes they want to draw you know stuff they don't get to draw and he I he is not doing that I know he's not because look at his work like it doesn't show any sense of like he's like I'm not saying he's too good for superhero stuff because obviously he's done some good superhero stuff that GRE that green arrow thing that miniseries he did which which he didn't like because yes I that's say he didn't like it but I mean his work but it's like he's very clear in the interview you were saying that he was he felt he was given like the scrub team of work to do you know because he because he did the Green Arrow when Green Arrow was wasn't big and then he was thrown on doing Black Canary which is even a step down that was after that was after THRILLER yeah which is a step down from from even Green Arrow which is just a a high selling book and it's just like it's like you know this guy's work it's so like we it's hard to just keep not talk about how inventive it is yeah it's just hard not to because it's just jaw-dropping I mean because I mean I think it's a trick that you have to be able to do as anybody who is a interested in art forms as opposed to just a consumer of entertainment or stuff like that so you know like if you go and watch I remember when we were in our writers group one time and we were talking about the movie lrda The F film Lada and Cat saw it she was like I've seen this movie before seen all s this movie before like why why is this movie famous I was like because at the time in 54 no one had done that right yeah that's why it's a famous because the first person to do anything that is a new kind of Storytelling or a new form or or to explore some new sense of our Humanity you know in arts that person always gets it those things become iconic I mean when people think about I mean there's artists who can draw and paint at the level of the masters from the Renaissance today you know there's people who can do that you know because they've seen that work but at the time no but at the time when Michelangelo was doing the 16 Chapel there's no there's no one else who's doing that for him to like borrow from that's true yeah right he was the first so he's making it up whole cloth like how do I draw God you know is what he's saying like how do I draw God on the ceiling because God has been depicted that way so and I want to do that and it's like you know and plus he's got to get it past the church just like like the level of of true genius like no one's ever seen this before done this before how do I do it because there a just a weird jump in art where it's flat for a while like it's very two-dimensional and then all of a sudden it's not it's got the like the volume that we associate with doing the Renaissance art but even at the top of the Renaissance when guys like jot were doing their work they're still not quite at the level of Michelangelo when he's doing like the the last supper and [ __ ] like that the way he's got the expressions and and the way he's got just like you know like all those little cherubs and [ __ ] on the deis chapel and just everything he's doing and then you know deining this stuff and that's kind of where you got to put van Eeden's work is that it's like he's doing stuff that nobody is doing I mean I you know like like there's a hint of kind of like you know like some Magna like influence in this you know to it's funny it's funny you say manga because I also felt like reading this there were times where just some of the stuff he does where like you know very manga devices that you never saw in mainstream Comics at the time but I'm looking at like page 14 in issue one and there's some moments where the character is surprised toward the end of the page and his eyes just become little dots and they become little dots in a way that no one did in mainstream comics but it's a very common thing you see in manga and so yeah I think Von Eeden I get the sense was a voracious fan of art I think he was looking everywhere and we should also mention just talking about Von Eeden's early career that he was actually a very historic figure at the beginning of his career because I'm just looking at his Wikipedia here but just to make sure I get the dates right but Trevor was hired when he was 16 years old by DC Comics to illustrate prototype assignments with the Legion of Superheroes and weird war tales and soon after that he designed and co-created DC's first Black superhero to have his own title Black Lightning so Trevor Von Eeden is credited as the co-creator of Black Lightning along with Tony Isabella and so he did that when he was a freaking teenager a high school age and so then from there he continued working at DC in '77 he began drawing the Green Arrow backup feature in world's finest comics where he co-created the character of count vertigo which side note one of the coolest [ __ ] costumes ever in mainstream Comics history if you haven't seen Trevor Von Eeden's count vertigo go look it up looks dope as [ __ ] amazing design work Von yeah what's that I just say this is interesting because I knew about count vertigo and I knew about Black Lightning I just didn't know a Black guy was the co-creator of those I did I mean like I I mean that like like I understand it I mean you always hear about Tony Isabella Tony Isabella but I didn't know that the artist on that was Black and then I didn't know he probably still in his teens when he's doing this oh yeah which again goes back to my comment about he is suffering under the eye of jealousy that is mixed in with racism I think he had to be I think he had to be because he's a 16-year-old kid who is so good that he's like a prodigy he's good enough to be drawing mainstream comics and creating iconic legendary characters and so from there Von Eeden he says this is from an interview with him he says he worked for Neil Adams concurrently with the with his DC tenure starting in '78 starting in '78 until somewhere in the late-'90s so wow that's crazy so he's saying he worked with Neil Adams I guess on and off for 20 years he moved to Marvel Comics in '79 and '80 penciled Power Man and ironfist and a Spiderwoman his stint at Marvel was cut short because in his own words he was fired by Jim Shooter who told me specifically when i' first started there to try and draw like Jack Kirby and and apparently was not happy that I didn't Trevor Trevor then returned to DC and once again drew green arrow in world's finest and later in Detective Comics as well in collaboration with writer Mike W bar he crafted the BATMAN annual number eight which that's the one you referenced earlier Chris which is a stunner just an amazing masterpiece of an annual I think Cartoonist Kayfabe just did a great breakdown of that annual a couple months ago and so I'd highly recommend that anybody who's we're saying about Von Eeden check out the Cartoonist Kayfabe where they talk about BATMAN annual number which is I believe colored by none other than Lynn Varley who Trevor I believe was dating at the time as well so there was all kinds of all kinds of stuff going on well that's the thing that we you mentioned to me before in one of these interviews it's like part of why look we we talked about how he's influencing Miller and Mazzucchelli and I know that if he was dating Lynn Varley and I think you had mentioned that she was kind of dating him and also kind of like dating Frank Miller at the same time or well there was some kind of weird like triangle going on there but you can see the artwork jump from Miller's work on Daredevil to when he went to DC to do Ronin it's like if you look at Von Eeden's work then you look at and you look at those last uses at jevil and look at in and you go how does he make that jump where's the like what's the the atmology of that jump and it's like oh it's Trevor yeah I think you know Miller was probably looking at a lot of stuff but I think you're right Chris if I look at Ronin and I think about Von Eeden's work and I know Miller has said obviously he was influenced by Samurai movies and manga himself and he's looking at Lone Wolf and Cub and whatever but I also feel like Miller himself wanted Trevor Von Eeden to draw BATMAN: YEAR ONE and so he's clearly looking at Trevor's work as well and I'm not saying this and think you're not saying it either as a shot at Miller but it's like he was influenced by Von Eeden he himself I would imagine would probably say this if he hasn't already no well I mean he probably won't because maybe not no because guys at his level in a field like comics and where he's reached where he is they don't talk about who influenced them in their early years like most artists when they get to a certain point they don't do that I think the only guy I know who does that is like Stephen Spielberg like Spielberg I know he talks a lot about how he moves the camera how he does a lot of he like Spielberg has always said he that he's a very conservative filmmaker in terms of like he goes back and watches these older films all the time to find inspiration for what he's doing now now granted he's going to do it through his lens but I remember he was talking one time when he did about this movie called the best years of our lives and he was like I watch this movie every year I try to get my kids to watch it they don't I try to get it gives me something every all the time and he and I was like I was like and he mentioned and I seen the movie two or three times at this point I was watching this interview with him and it's a dope movie but he mentioned something that like I had never noticed before he was like oh it's not till like in the third Act that there's even a piece of music in the movie you know like is a is a piece is a music there's no score until this one heavy dramatic moment in the third act and I was like see that's [ __ ] smart to be able to like you know and you gotta watch the movie bunch of times to even pick up on that because right you don't even notice it you notice it you know but see but he's but he is so comfortable with what he's doing that he you know can make those kind of like like admissions like that whereas I don't think someone who in like I think comic art is way more of a do it's like a dog-eat-dog kind of business yeah people don't want to give it up like that give too I mean when they do to talk about I mean look who was talking about Jack Kirby when he was alive you know they talk about him now but you know but when he was alive I don't know if they were you know it's I think I take your point it's a different sort of tenor that people talk about their peers with and I think the egos that a lot of artists have make it hard for them to say like oh yeah I'm really influenced by this peer over here of mine which undoubtedly is true but you're right that's why it actually was interesting to me and noteworthy to hear Mazzucchelli in that amazing Heroes interview calling out Trevor Von Eeden as someone he was such a big fan of and being so effusive about him and I think that probably speaks to just Mazzucchelli being a very secure artist in his own abilities you know what I mean and he's willing to say like I [ __ ] love Trevor Von Eeden that's one of my one of my influences well yeah and he's also can say I got the job that he didn't get I got BATMAN: YEAR ONE which made my career and I and don't matter what else doesn't matter what else he does and he doesn't have he actually doesn't do a lot he never done a lot very small body of work I think Mazzucchelli's body of work might be the smallest yet most impactful body of work maybe in mainstream comics yeah I mean because it's like BORN AGAIN and it's BATMAN: YEAR ONE and then it's just a few one-off issues like that issue of Marvel Fanfare with angel that and centi wrote such a great issue and then he's got rubber blanket which he self-published three issues of that are all just stunning oversized raw magazine format like giant magazines that are just beautifully printed and expensive as [ __ ] these days I think there's like a book he did call called like the pet man or something like that a aerious pop yeah yeah aerious pop yeah yeah that's like that's his kind of magnum opus that he did a little later and I think the only other real significant Mazzucchelli work I can think of off the top of my head is the Paul Auster CITY OF GLASS adaptation he did that I think Paul Carasic wrote or adapted from the Paul Auster book but that's a really obscure thing that Mazzucchelli did for like a book publisher but that's also beautiful and really that's I think that's mostly in terms of Mazzucchelli's major work in comics you know and you know that's a very small body of work but goddamn he casts a huge shadow and he's obviously a brilliant shadow and I think the thing about Mazzucchelli's work that the difference is it's you know what he got to do BATMAN: YEAR ONE and I think that there's nothing that Trevor did that had that impact and it's apparent he says because of the racism I mean he's telling you you know I look if he's working at Marvel and Jim Shooter was telling him to draw like [ __ ] Jack Kirby I think that but see you always got to wonder about this stuff going on both Jim Shooter and Trevor von Eeden were these phenoms who got to work professionally in their teens you know and I wonder Shooter does he feel threatened by this guy you know who's a little more of a like exciting artist he got because who did Jim Shooter ever create did he create any characters I think he might have created some characters maybe for the Legion of Superheroes I don't know I don't know that he's created any significant characters that are that meor he might have car I think he might have created a couple characters in THE AVENGERS maybe but I don't know that there's anyone like massive that he certainly not a character I don't think think as big as Black Lightning as Black lightning or count vertigo yeah or count vertigo even probably so it's so I mean it's I mean it's it's something about this guy's work and it's just I'm so curious because he's the Contemporary of of Denys Cowan right yes I think they're cont yeah I think they are contemporaries because Denys started also like what in the late 70s early 80s yeah yeah I think Von Eeden Von be four or five years older than him that's what I was going to say I think Von Eeden preceded Denys just by a few years yeah yeah but it's inter you brought up that he worked for Neil Adams at continuity for 20 years because I because I know that continuity because I don't know the last book that Neil Adams like pencil monthly right so that's an art studio that's doing gra that's doing graphic art that's doing commercial art and I feel like the reason why Trevor's work I I bet he was like you know what [ __ ] comics I'm going just do this work because it's more money for me to do work at for Jim Shooter you know and not deal with the [ __ ] kind of egos and stuff like that because it's something we had said who was saying this Ta-nahisi Coates was saying in the interview recently about why he he that he needs to write SUPERMAN and needs to write CAPTAIN AMERICA is that he was saying that that there the people believe in those myths those myths have a lot of power to them the SUPERMAN and with the NY [ __ ] and everything like that and he was like he's like you can't let white people only tell those stories because it it it denies the rest of the population which is is greater population Planet wide yep and he's like he was like it's important for me to get in there and be part of the one help tell stories with these iconic characters from a different point of view that you know and that's more inclusive in terms of a lot of things I mean I don't know I'm assuming that his SUPERMAN movie is with the Black SUPERMAN you know I'm assuming it is I think yeah I believe I believe so yeah I think that's true yeah because he's doing that because he's like we can't keep telling the myth that the only heroes available or right men we just we can't have that and that's important and I feel like this you know it's I mean look there's outside of data there's nobody Black in THRILLER you know I mean and Crackerjack is Latinx but it's still a majority white kind of like team and stuff like that but he's able to make the most out of it it's interesting because I I think I mentioned this on the question the episode in the question how Denys was very particular how he draws Black people yeah you did and I actually thought that was one of the coolest observations that was made in that episode because I thought like looking back at those question issues you were so correct because it was not just at all the same cookie cutter face like as you pointed out so many artists in comics were doing for the quote unquote Black character it would be the same template but Denys did not do that at all no neither does Trevor because he's got Black people in here every once in a while like I think in like episode issue one there's like a a thug who like gets touched by white by White Satin right yeah on like page 13 and 14 you know this guy looks so different he looks so different than data oh yeah oh totally different yes yeah no and that's great and that really is what a great comic artist should do and that's what you feel like Trevor is doing in every case he's actually drawing he's not just kind of repeating a formula for any of these characters or for any of the page layouts Trevor feels like he's in there just drawing every single page figuring out the best way to you know compose something or to illustrate a person or a sequence there's no cookie cutter templates with Von Eeden and it's really just so impressive and here just on the note of what we were talking about a couple things I I found a cool little blog post that talks in a little bit more detail about Trevor passing on BATMAN: YEAR ONE and so this is from a Blog called OhDannyBoy. blogspot.com and so he's got an article here that says BATMAN: YEAR ONE Frank Miller and Trevor Von Eeden okay and this is a blog post from 2009 and so just to read the first part of this here it says says everyone who has a passing interest in comic books knows the name Frank Miller and if they don't know the name David Mazzucchelli then they should together Miller and Michelli created two of the finest story arcs of the mid 80s first with their run on Daredevil and the BORN AGAIN story line and with the classic BATMAN: YEAR ONE a story that redefined the Mythos of the character and is still referenced and held as a benchmark today much like alen Moore and Dave gibbons's WATCHMEN BATMAN: YEAR ONE will more than likely never be out of print for DC it sells in numbers still today what isn't widely known is that Mazzucchelli was not the first choice of artist on the series despite working with Mazzucchelli at Marvel and creating one of the best series within a series seen there for decades talking about BORN AGAIN Miller Miller approached a different artist to work on BATMAN: YEAR ONE Trevor Von Eeden at the time Von Eeden was working of and on DC and producing some of the most expressionistic BATMAN stories ever seen this was a time where Jim aaro's style was being adopted almost as a house style yet Von Eeden frustrated by the constraints of working within both his own limitations and what DC expected of him began to break loose resulting in the now famous BATMAN annual number eight published in 82 says Trevor about three years into my career at about the age of 20 I started to feel that I'd only gotten the job I think he means in comics because of my skin color a notion which displeased me greatly so I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to to developing my art to a point where it would be so good that it wouldn't matter what color I was I think he's talking specifically about getting the job to co-create Black Lightning I think that's what he's talking about yeah for he's saying he thought it was because of his skin color and so so I dedicated myself to developing my art to a point where I would be so good that it wouldn't matter what color I was I sat down and wrote a five-page mission state statement now lost writing out for myself in detail exactly what I wanted to create the kind of style I thought would express myself most effectively while also telling a story in the most dramatic way possible I wrote everything down that I could think of the details form and purpose of style of art that I'd wanted to create out of these two long years of serious effort I created the art style scene in the BATMAN annual which is an absolute stunner of a book and by the way I think I've read elsewhere that Von Eeden calls that still the single piece of comic art that he was most satisfied with at least in the realm of mainstream comics in his entire career and he felt like that was like the Apex of work for him colored by Lyn Varley he was just thrilled with it and it is an exquisite exquisite piece of work so from there Trevor worked sporadically on the character of BATMAN both in the BATMAN title proper and in other DC Comics personal circumstances personal circumstances saw his life intertwine with Frank Millers and though it was after Von Eeden turned in yet another Sterling job on BATMAN this time in issue 401 Miller approached him with the offer to pencil year one which would begin in BATMAN 404 so this is interesting so Von Eeden did a fill-in job on BATMAN in issue 401 okay so BATMAN: YEAR ONE was published in the regular BATMAN title starting in issue 404 so that is really interesting right like Trevor was right there and so here's a quote from Trevor Frank had called me in person to offer me the BATMAN: YEAR ONE job before giving it to Mazzucchelli I said no says Trevor and I have no regrets Dave did a beautiful job his wife richm Richmond Lewis colored it too and it's true Mazzucchelli and Richmond Lewis obviously did just a stunning job I'm BATMAN: YEAR ONE everyone agrees Masterpiece all that sadly we may never know what would have been if Von Eeden had accepted the BATMAN: YEAR ONE job certainly his art at the time was Head and Shoulders above other artists and he has been cited as an influence on artists that have come since even Mazzucchelli has sung his praises recently Mazzucchelli had this to say about Von Eeden's 80s work quote I'd like to think that something of what excited me on those pages found its way into BATMAN: YEAR ONE but my own work from back then seems Mighty tame next to Mr Von Eeden's so that's a quote from Mazzucchelli again very humble of Mazzucchelli to really give it up to Von Eeden and to speak like that publicly and like we said that's not something you hear great artists doing that often comparing their own work unfavorably to their peers Norm bra Norm brogle who is another classic BATMAN artist rest in peace another amazing artist Norm bra Fogle who would soon be drawing his own unique vision of BATMAN had this to say recently quote I've been a fan of Trevor's work since his first BATMAN annual job so much so that I would say he's one of my influences so there you go again Norm giving it up to Trevor so Von Eeden has returned to BATMAN more than once since the mid 80s each time his art has taken on a new dimension and he's shown that he's not stuck in any one style alas we'll never know what BATMAN: YEAR ONE might have looked like if penciled by Trevor Von Eeden but you know we can we can imagine so so there's a little little background and you know Trevor doesn't get into the details there of why he passed on the gig I don't know if it necessarily had to do I don't recall if he's said in interviews before if it had to do with any of the the personal drama going on with the fact that he was dating Lyn Varley first and then after that Frank and Lynn started dating and I don't know if that played a role in in why Trevor chose to pass on BATMAN: YEAR ONE that's certainly possible but regardless that it is I would say that it is because by the time they're doing BATMAN: YEAR ONE which I which which everyone forgets was not a standalone book it was within the the the the the regular counting of that the regular issues I would hazard to guess that Trevor and Lynn are dating when Trevor is in his early 20s yeah a few years later a few years later when she's with Miller because they go on to do like that ELECTRA Saga or whatever is the ELECTRA you know like I mean she does look she does well she does DARK KNIGHT I she does DARK KNIGHT she does his ELECTRA book I think she does Ronin yeah I think so if I feel like they probably broke up right and then it's probably because he does BATMAN: YEAR ONE after he does DARK KNIGHT right I believe that I believe that is true after so it's probably like four or five years later after the breakup and Miller's probably saying well you know it's been enough time for that kind of like that wound of the heart to heal so I'm gonna ask you to do this not because I mean I bet I mean I wonder if if there's some sort of weird jealousy is it look like oh you're throwing me a bone to work you like under you but you took my girl like there's all this kind of weird stuff that you know is beyond just because if he if he because if he did the pencils you know what I probably have I probably have the BATMAN what 401 you said it was that he did yeah that's right probably have that because I remember I remember that's when I was reading BATMAN and I and you know at the time I just picked up BATMAN you're one because it was the next issue in the thing you know right oh you picked just like that yeah yeah because it was like at the time like nobody knew where that was going to be you know it was there was no internet for them people to be like advanced pubbing like oh there's this new Frank Miller BATMAN thing he's doing with the guy with with the guy that fing did BORN AGAIN because it had been at least four or five years since BORN AGAIN you know because BORN AGAIN I guess he'd come back to do BORN AGAIN after RONIN maybe I don't remember what the dates are but it had been a while since he had done BORN AGAIN before he did BATMAN: YEAR ONE and it's like bring that team back together you know is is interesting it's you also said that he said that he didn't like the thing about being the skin color I think it's very I'll speak for myself it's hard to be an artist when you're working in a medium like comics you know if he was like a a painter or something like that he wouldn't have that statement about he might depending on what type of art that he's doing but when you work in comics or you work in Hollywood and you're Black what you really want to do is you is that you w to be seen not as the Black artist you want to be seen as the artist who's Black right you know it's a very nuanced thing but it's like the difference is is that it feels like to other people that it's like I don't get to do is that like I don't get to be seen to do anything else except for the Black work I think that's what he's saying is like if they hired me at a kid to do these like they said prototype work and they finally got me on to do Black Lightning I bet there was like he feels now he's in a ghetto and he feels like I don't get to do flash I don't get to do SUPERMAN I don't get to do AQUAMAN I don't get to do you know like the big stuff except for fill in stuff yeah you know and I in his head I mean this discussion that so many Black like screenwriters I know have and some directors that's like you know I mean there's some who are cool to be like hey I want to stay in that Black space and tell our stories and all all kind of stuff like that but particularly people who do like genre and stuff like that or just anything you say to yourself you know I want to do something else you know it's like I I mean I some somebody had asked me one time why did I write that Orson Welles movie that I wrote you right because like why would you write a st Orson Welles when there are other when as someone said as opposed to Oscar Michel and I was like well I know osar Mich Show's work it's important but it wasn't inspiration it wasn't inspirational to me well and like implicit in that question to you I imagine is sort of the judgment or like sort of the idea of like well you should have written about this other person you know like you got a responsibility in with the opportunities you have in Hollywood to you know only write stories about you know these this group of people it's like and I think some people think of it that way and I've gotten similar feedback at times where people are like you're Armenian American why haven't you written about the Armenian Genocide why haven't you written a story about The Genocide why haven't why are you writing stories about other things blah blah blah you should only be focused on getting that done and people don't realize there's a complex sort of tapestry of things going on when you're trying to build a career in the creative arts and a lot of times you're trying to get a whole lot of projects going at once and just because like you know you get a foothold on one or one comes out first doesn't mean you're not trying to do other things and just because you decide to tell a story about one person doesn't mean you're not also going to tell a story about another five or ten people it's like it's not either-or but I think sometimes from the outside looking in people just want to pass judgment on one piece of work that they happen to see you did but you know Chris that same person who asks you that question they probably didn't know what the other you know ten or fifteen scripts you'd written you know in that 5-year period were about like they don't know everything you're doing you might also be writing all these other stories and you know it's like it's just one of those things it's like a personal choice for an artist we all we all come from different ethnic groups races and we all feel like whatever responsibility or desire we do to tell stories featuring you know that group but I think as an artist like I don't know for me to speak personally I didn't get into being writer because I wanted to tell stories about Armenian-Americans-who-were-born-in-New-York-but-then-raised-mostly-in-Southern-California cuz like that's my experience and I want to speak directly to that like I wanted to tell stories about everybody and everybody that like that I find inspiring or interesting well there is that there's that for sure but it's also the thing it's like you probably saw some movies that were like [ __ ] that's a cool movie I want to do movies yeah right totally you know that didn't have an Armenian in it or for me didn't have a Black person in it or for Trevor he's looking at comics and he might have seen BATMAN when he was a kid and was like I want to do comics you know there I mean when he was a kid there's no Black there's no Black superheroes maybe maybe Black Panther is I don't yeah Black Panther not be around because Trevor if he was 16 yeah Black Panther was definitely around yeah must been ten he must have been around nine or ten when Black Panther came around maybe a little eight eight nine or ten so he's got one Black character to look at you know and but what's interesting that you say that he says you know the '70s is a weird time obviously in comics in media in general because it's Civil Rights Movement is over and there are white people who are in these positions of to you know to to change your life and give you an opportunity to work in a field you want to work in who aren't evil you know obvious obviously Neil Adams is not an evil white person no because we because we know he's working with Denys Cowan we know he's working with Trevor Von Eeden and we know he's working with like Larry Hama yeah so so those are three people of color who became like you know some luminaries in the comic industry and I mean I'm curious if asked Neil Adams did you take any [ __ ] oh yeah other people that's that's a great question yeah because you work with Black people because I know that's a conversation that other white people have with other white people is that you hide a Black dude why yeah you know and Neil was such a badass artist and such just you know like a top of the [ __ ] Heap artist like he was he was the man in terms of mainstream Comics art and just radically changing the game he was so confident in his own skill and what he did I imagine Neil Adams was is the kind of person who never really gave a [ __ ] what anyone was saying about him or thought about him like Neil seems like he's always had a very secure sense of his own skill set in his abilities and here in this interview with the COMICS JOURNAL Trevor talks about Neil specifically and Trevor speaks to this same idea where Michel Fiffe in THE JOURNAL interview asks Trevor and a question about Neil Adams kind of or that leads into this and we should give a shout out to Michel Fiffe who did this JOURNAL interview and is a brilliant cartoonist in his own right because it's Michel Fiffe's work celebrating Trevor Von Eeden which makes up a good amount of the interviews and articles online that you can find about Trevor right now that are the most really thorough breakdowns interviews analyses of his work so I'd encourage everyone to go search Trevor Von Eeden Michel Fiffe and Fiffe has done an incredible job of celebrating Von Eeden's work because he also is a massive fan and just loves the work so yeah it's hard not to be a fan is yeah thank God Fiffe's put all this stuff out there because I think I stumbled across one of these Fiffe interviews with Trevor some years ago and I was like what the [ __ ] this work is amazing how did I do how did I not notice how brilliant Von Eeden was at the time I mean I remember Von Eeden doing a fill in on an issue of BATMAN and The Outsiders and that issue in itself is another just absolute [ __ ] just masterpiece of a filling issue and it looks like nothing else DC was publishing at the time and he did a bunch of backups on BATMAN and The Outsiders like maybe a handful and all of those are just incredible work just really really incredible anyways he's keep going but keep going so the Fiffe thing here though Fiffe says to Trevor did you have studio mates or any peers who influenced your work ethic or your work rather and your work ethic how strong was the sense of camaraderie for you back in those days and Trevor responds sense of camaraderie you mean every man for himself that's about it as far as I could tell back then didn't bother me you don't need a sense of camaraderie to become an artist but a codependent you need a sense of self to be an artist meeting Neil meeting Neil Adams in '78 and working for him doing advertising work while drawing BLACK LIGHTNING was the strongest and most important influence on my work and my work ethic as an artist and professional Neil is impeccable I learned just by being around him it was all very Zen he didn't teach I learned Neil's become somewhat Infamous for his brutal honesty in some circles those are the people I like to call jealous [ __ ] because of jealous [ __ ] in every facet of your life and career they exist simply to destroy what they cannot create they lurk sometimes even in the hearts of those closest to you they fade in the light of Independence my life is simple I yearn to find the truth in any and every case those who consider brutal honesty to be a bad thing are people with whom I never choose to waste my time I'm too damn busy finding out something important that's what life is for so Trevor Trevor's a really fascinating fellow and he clearly is someone who was thinking very deeply about his work and he saw the work he was doing as a mission and a calling just as much as any kind of a job and I think you can feel how much spirituality and just how much of his soul is in this work and I thought it was really interesting the thing earlier that Trevor said about how he wrote a mission statement a five-page mission statement for himself about how far he wanted to push his art and the form of comics and the kind of things he wanted to explore like to hear about that kind of conscious and really profound intentionality from a young artist who is literally putting down a five-page like you know JERRY MAGUIRE-style mission statement like this is the [ __ ] that I want to do with my work and putting it down on paper to really think about it deeply that's not something a lot of young artists do and so it really points to like the level of intentionality that Trevor was bringing to his work so when we can sit here gushing about THRILLER and it sounds like you know what we're saying can't possibly be true the work can't be this good like it really is that good and the reason it's good is because these are all intentional choices being made by a young genius artist who is taking these incredibly ambitious swings and trying to create something new and it's just so rare that an artist with that much talent is in a position to push themselves and really throw work out there at this level to a mainstream audience and and sadly it's not something that is sustainable quite often but you know like these days I just appreciate when any work of that level gets out there at all and and I think it really when you read the interviews with Trevor it really becomes clear why he was able to produce work of this level yeah I mean look there's there's there's an interesting there's a sense of bitterness in his interviews but I feel like he's made a point where it's like it's doggy dog and it's like you got to have a sense of self and this goes back to I was saying earlier about you can't admit where people they've drawn they've drawn influence from because that means that you don't have a grasp on on what you're trying to do the mission statement is fascinating because yeah I i' I'd very much want to see some of this work he did this this the world's finest like stuff he did with with green arrow before THRILLER because THRILLER again like I said like he's not this is new like there's no like I'm not doing GREEN ARROW I'm not doing BLACK LIGHTNING I'm not doing BATMAN I'm doing my I'm doing my [ __ ] Y and when you get to do your [ __ ] you kind of like like you said it's like it's Soulful like he's bleed like he's pouring his soul into every [ __ ] page in a way that is I mean I think I was going to tell you is like so in issue two no issue three which has one of the dopest covers of all the things all these [ __ ] amazing cover but on issue page eight right it's just some subtle [ __ ] that he does so we're talking about how he does like the shadows and stuff like that the page eight on this guy's face he's using that zip tone stuff to do the Shadows right but but but it's only in these two panels the rest of the book does not have the zip tone and it's just like I just want to do that real real quick you said earlier how he just thr oh you're right yes bam I'm not going to do that the next page because I don't want to do that yes you're totally right there's no more Zipp tone on the next yeah but on the next page here's what's cool about the next page right see now on the like like those bottom four panels uhhuh look at the geographic shape what the [ __ ] is going on wild yeah I mean it's I mean I'm the cartoonist K faab guys would do this and and and they had to do a three-part episode they would be going crazy it would I mean I think we you you mentioned before how like dict Jano like did some of the inking on this and I think this is part of like he'd been losing faith in the book and all this kind of stuff and but like by the time that but you mentioned to me offline that that he didn't draw these pages at the normal at at the comic yes the comic artist Pages he drew them at the the size are going to be printed at right that's true [ __ ] bizarre and crazy ass [ __ ] but I think there's those EP is is it six or seven or something like that six or seven where it's Inked by dick gono that's right he does two you think he does two issues he comes on board and I feel like it's too much for J Jano to do as the incor he's like I can't I he's like I I can't do this work yeah I don't like I don't like the Giordano issues as much as the Trevor issues they're not bad they still look really dope overall but Giordano adds a little bit of that polish that Trevor doesn't do on his work and I mean he still is I'm sure he's being somewhat fidelitous it still looks like Trevor but I do wonder like I wonder if Giordano came on because Trevor was feeling like his enthusiasm had been killed and so he was like suddenly behind schedule on the book because he was just kind of bummed about the way things were going on behind the scenes and all the disrespect and the racism and all that he was dealing with I wonder if he was behind schedule and Giordano came on because of that or I wonder if Giordano just felt like Trevor's finishes were too rough and not polished enough or something for DC at the time if they were if they were getting complaints by the upper management or the people who were more square and conventional and traditional and they thought this book doesn't look finished it looks too rough Giordano you got to go clean it up I have no idea but I'd be really curious to find out because because Dick's inking to me does feel respectful of Trevor it doesn't feel like he's trying to R draw the book but it also doesn't have quite the same energy and life as Trevor inking himself yeah I mean like there's like the way he'll do hair and the kinetics in some of the panels you see that it's like it just simple stuff is not it's it's issue six and seven are the ones that the Giordano inks but I also feel that it might be that he's I mean it's an interesting question to ask him what's going on because was it it because issue five is the one that has some of the that has like one of the most brilliant two panel spreads in this entire book in these entire eight issues it's the one where the the guy Edward who was like the husband of THRILLER writes her that letter and it's like all quiet like there's no and that one page is like you know like he writes it to her and you know he goes to sleep and then it comes back to life with the black panel background and it kind of it's just like like there's a level like you mentioned expressionistic or there's a level that this like we always talk about how the the epitome I mean the Apex of doing great comic art is I don't need any thought balloons I don't need any dialogue I don't need any caption to tell the story yeah like those silent issues of like GI JOE or that EAST OF WEST stuff like that yep these two pages 19 and 20 in issue five where this it's like talk obvious about the emotionality of this guy's work yeah this is like where he's putting it on full display yeah it's 19 and 20 and also 21 yeah 21 yeah he's putting it on full display in a way that is see and this looks a lot like Mage like like these faces and these head shapes is what is what Matt Wagner was studying this predates GRINDEL and MAGE and this is what he's looked at this he's going I know how to do the work that I want to do now but Trevor does it in a way because this like look like this three page spread like if you look at page 19 right background is all white right and that's that's the dude Edward he's writing it and that's when it's gred in reality page 20 is when the is this when THRILLER Angie she like she crosses over with the this is where because magical realism she's she's writing on the letter back to him background is all black yes and then when you know just dope and and then is black again on page 21 when he's awake but he's reading it for her and he feels that double heartbeat it's like what this guy's doing storytelling wise what he's doing with the page we with the panel how he's using the black how he's using the white is it's on another level and it's just I mean we said he's unsung and he's he's he like unsung is actually the is is is too tame of a word I don't even know what the word is to say about this guy like why he's not why he's not just he's not just he's not like he's not property lauded yes the icon that he he should have been and I mean look like we said like M Char didn't do a lot of work this guy didn't need to he didn't need to be a dollar work he didn't need to have done a lot of work for people to love this guy and be inspired by him because I look at these pages and I'm like I've seen this work in other people this type of stuff later five 10 years later and I know that comic artists just like me and you they trade comics and go oh have you seen this book that no one's talking about yeah yeah yeah and we can see from the talking about and it's just I mean this is such a beautiful like what he's doing emotionally for this part of the story again this is something that wouldn't go into most comics because it's got no superhero like like plotting it's solely about a pretty much like a like a second tier character in the story he's getting three pages about his lost love who is the title character but it's still from his point of view so it's kind of like a it's a weird place to go with the with the writing of the story but he kind of just elevates it to this piece of like poetry that is a little unheard of for comics even now yeah you know like comics aren't this poetic yeah yeah this guy's amazing absolutely poetry is a great word Chris to describe what Trevor and Robert Loren Fleming are doing here and I feel like not mentioning Robert Loren Fleming that much although I do want to say that I feel like Robert Loren Fleming was doing very progressive ahead of his time work absolutely with some Amazing Ideas here in THRILLER and it is highly creative original work that I think does give Trevor a terrific canvas to work with and to play with and the only thing I would say about Fleming's work is I feel like it's just it's not quite as fully formed in the writing as Trevor's work is in the art and so if we're not talking about Fleming as much it's just that I don't know how to even characterize or talk about the storytelling other than to say I do think it's also ahead of its time and and like you said earlier like what Robert Loren Fleming is doing here is so the opposite of what Chris Claremont and so many mainstream Comics writers were doing at this time which is overwriting and having the writing be overly didactic on the nose and just like expository like repeating itself and just having tons and tons of words Fleming is more of a minimalist almost to a fault where he's using so few words for these crazy concepts and stories and character dynamics that it does make the work it makes the work I don't want to say impenetrable but I can imagine why to the average comic fan weaned on the comics of the day this was an absolute sort of like a a neutron bomb of originality and speaking to that let I just want to read a couple lines from from an issue of THE COMICS JOURNAL it's THE COMICS JOURNAL number 93 which has SWAMP THING on the cover and it's from yeah I think it's come out this issue came out in 83 or 84 and it's a review of THRILLER from that exact time when it was published and the review is written by Heidi MacDonald Heidi MacDonald legendary comics journalist who now runs THE BEAT and she's been around comics for a very long time she must have been very young THE BEAT what's the Beat Why know that the comics website just the comics yeah and so Heidi's been around comics forever though she wrote for amazing Heroes THE COMICS JOURNAL and so I think this was very early in her comics journalism career and she wrote a really fascinating review of THRILLER here so just want to read a few lines from this Heidi says THRILLER is the love it or loath or loath it book of the year it's been called dumb pretentious indecipherable and ugly unfortunately those who like it have not Advanced very detailed reasons for their support I think this is partly because of THRILLER very nature it is a comic book that has to be felt and the feelings it engenders are not very easy to describe so this is fascinating Chris because you and I are talking about this you know and like like I was saying earlier it sounds like we're talking around this thing we're making it sound like it's a psychedelic drug trip but it's crazy to read this Heidi MacDonald interview from back then and she's kind of arriving at a similar place with how difficult it is to talk about this book so she go on to say few if any mainstream comics have ever been as deliberately baffling in their form is there substance behind THRILLER style is experimentation for its own sake worth it I think the answer to both questions is yes THRILLER is hallucinatory a completely subjective experience creating a unique worldview it has no structure in the usual sense and little plot powerful concepts abound in Robert Loren Fleming's minimalist Stories the relations of God and man of home memory and family and mostly the nature of love but in the end these concepts simply aren't harnessed to a story or theme that transcends the deliberate obscurity I like THRILLER very much but it never crosses the final barrier of its self-consciousness to expression which cuts it never crosses the final barrier of its self-consciousness to expression which cuts clear to the heart although many times it comes breathtakingly close it is very novelistic and like a novel it is hard to Define what THRILLER is and what it is about most of the credit and blame for THRILLER excesses belong to Trevor Von Eeden the robin Y of comics and Robin Y what is that a reference to do you get that reference I don't know but I'm gonna look that up as you keep reading because he sounds like an artist Robin Y feel like maybe a musician I don't know who's Robin Y Trevor has undertaken one of the most fascinating experiments in comics history by attempting to totally subjectify every episode of the book so that the reader feels it exactly as the characters do it's pure expressionism even the simplest conversation takes on the aspect of a bizarre life-threatening situation panels take the place of the subconscious so this is amazing because Heidi's talking about so much stuff here and actually this is beautifully written what she's saying I love that Heidi is giving this the full kind of serious Reckoning that the work deserves and that she's saying that what Trevor's undertaken is one of the most fascinating experiments in comic's history attempting to totally subjectify every episode of the book so the reader feels it exactly as the characters do that's a pretty amazing description of what's going on here did you find out did you find out who Robin Y was if it's Robin Y he's a baseball player oh [ __ ] is that a baseball reference Heidi MacDonald yeah yeah okay that's wild short stop a center fielder for the for the Milwaukee Brewers Robin comics okay well we don't get that reference maybe someone can explain that to us I don't really get that yeah I I I mean I'm just looking at this thing but it's here's the thing about what she's saying and we and and we ke in on this earlier it's the book is so emotional and it's it's kind of weird that there is no story there's a story but it but it's so it's like this this the a plot is really like the C- spot in this so you get so so so you got to follow it and you can read it and understand it but it's like it's it's weird to do storytelling where you do things like that you move what is traditional like the a plot and move it somebody else in the pecking order because it then it makes the story have to do something different and but it still has the but the aot is still pulling the story because that's what's like driving everybody's action per se you know remember I wrote this pilot and I did that the TV pilot and some people loved it because it was like oh this really cool really smart but they were like but no's going to air this because it's really just a procedural but it was kind of like it was an anti-procedural wait which pilot was this that you wrote it's called trouble with girls I think it's part of it you the whole thing when I finished it and I had like my I had some people look at and they were like this is [ __ ] cool because you did something where you took the aod and pushed it to the sea story you know ter it's there and and everyone comes together and you gotta solve this you know it's the procedural element doesn't drive it drives a story but it's like in first gear and what the meat of the story is like what you would do in like a you know like in a more like premium cable thing where it's like what do these people doing and what's their relationships and how much they're struggling with each other and what's going on St like that because that to me I thought would be cool and I was like well but it's like but you do stuff like that and you're you're bucking convention in a way that is difficult for you have to really take gamble on it obviously the people behind us are like yeah they're taking a gamble because they're like you know and they're and and we Steve and I that is are asking you the listeners to take a gamble on This Book Like You Gotta Buy it oh cheap it's it's quarter books probably you know if not it's a dollar and you just get eight issues and it were like really fascinates you I don't know if when she if I agree with Heidi McDonald's reference that the excesses are all Trevor Von Eeden's because yeah you're right he's writing from a script like yeah he's drawing from a script yeah drawing from a script like it's not it's not like this is a book that's like you know the the old it's not like this is like like a like a Jack Kirby Stan Lee special yeah where they go Hey you know what's gonna happen like Stan says that and then Jack does everything and then Jack goes and does all the work yeah and then Stan comes in just R dialogue like there's no way a book like this could work like that yeah you know or punches up dialogue yeah it's just like you know like like what is I mean she makes an interesting comment about it doesn't quite and you're right look I'm not gonna disagree with you or her or the readers I'm not gonna say that this is the book that you're gonna read and be like this is the new Comics Bible for me right you know like this is storytelling at the highest level it's not that but by far means not that like in terms of Robert Loren Fleming you know he took a a serious gamble that didn't quite pay off because obviously he gets fired from the book or quits the book at issue seven and it's indicative by all the the stuff in the letter columns where Alan gold is just like apologizing and so much and people craziest [ __ ] craziest letter column the letter column is the [ __ ] most insane letter column I've ever seen in comics like you say Alan Gold Alan Gold just [ __ ] throws the creative team under the bus more and more every issue it's the most insulting offensive performance by an editor in a letters column I've ever seen where from early on he's apologizing for the book and like urging people to criticize it more and more in the letter column it's insane it really kind of points to all the turmoil that was going on behind the scenes and you know why Fleming and Von Eeden just could not keep doing this book well this is something that this is what Alan Gold says in issue three this top of the letter column it takes no great powers of observation to detect The Singularity not to say the weirdness of the world of THRILLER now he goes into parenthesis many a dedicated reader has by now countered that it does take careful and enthusiastic observation to get the most out of this comic and that's the fun of it so be it it's like he can't believe that people are enjoying his book yes and he gets more and more hostile with every passing issue toward his own creative team yeah he's really tripping he's really tripping he says like he says I'm giving the soap box over to Bob so that he can say a few words about the world he ever dreamed up never the shy one he's come up with with plenty of straightforward Pros let us serve as a map if you will for this rugged surprising ter Rin Allan it's like he can't it's I mean I have to say though it is defense yeah if I was the editor of this book i' like what the [ __ ] did yall give me what's going on here what the [ __ ] did yall give me I understand that but you can't I mean that was one of the more pleasant letter columns but you can't you can't get out there publicly and rip your team I I agree with you privately I understand as an editor he would be having these concerns of course but you can't get out there in the letter column and like some of these later columns it's it's just nutty it's nutty what he actually says about the book and I'll see if we can find some of them to to share later but oh yeah he like he goes off on it he's a little out of control he really is he really is let me let me read just a couple more bits from this Heidi MacDonald interview and I want to make sure we we touch on the letter column stuff and then we should also decide if we want to talk about the Trevor Von Eeden chair incident at DC which was the infamous kind of thing okay yeah because that was the thing that Trevor said really just sort of was the final straw for him at DC Comics but we'll get into that okay so the Heidi MacDonald THE COMICS JOURNAL thing so obviously Heidi's considering this book very deeply and carefully and and I appreciate that and so she says next getting into her discussion of Von Eeden's work Heidi says Von Eeden tries to do away with some of the basic linear progressions that we have come to associate with the comics medium one of the paradoxical convention of comics is that although panels occur in sequence we have to read them like print left to right and jumping to the left again this is of course one of the most powerful subliminal tools that Comics have to work with on several Pages page 10 of number one or the double page spread 13 and 14 in number two veden actually lays it out so that the panels snake across in an unbroken line the double page spread in particular is an extremely difficult page and is a summation of the problems and triumphs of the book what is happening is that Dan Grove argues with Crackerjack over breakfast is introduced to Baby Scotty and meets the Sinister babysitter malokia whom he seems to remember the bizarre layout forces us to experience this sequence just as Dan does with the attendant disorientation but the burden of enigmatic storytelling on an already enigmatic plot plot thread may be too much to take a catalog of Eeden's experiments would be huge and I won't try on several Pages which is which is great though because I think that's referencing the thing that that I said earlier about like how Trevor seems to invent a new storytelling mechanic or modality with every page and then immediately discard it which is yeah obviously a risky thing to do but holy [ __ ] is it inventive and breathtaking to witness so she says a catalog of an Eeden's experiments would be huge and I won't try several Pages storytelling is Warped so that every panel follows every other follows as in quotes subjective is taken to such extremes as the already notorious helicopter page in THRILLER number one on which Dan falls off a building only to be rescued by Beaker Parish in his Chopper a series of narrow diagonal panels show the page being sliced to Ribbons by the helicopter blades Von Eeden said he was trying but failed to recreate a dream of falling he once had but it comes close enough it's a scene of frightening intensity one of the very finest in the series just to prove that in THRILLER No One shies away from wrapping an enigma in a secret and shrouding it with mystery Von Eeden also uses a very difficult style of art not at all pretty in the Neil Adams Barry Windsor Smith sense but I nonetheless find it very moving the much vaunted expressionism of Miller and Jansen is to Von Eeden as Richard Strauss is to Anton Weber I'm guessing these are some like Fine Art references which I totally don't get oh they're composers are they composers oh [ __ ] okay oh Strauss oh thank you Chris this is why I'm glad you're on the podcast you're here for the high art references exactly I'm here I'll fill in some of the low art you referenced something earlier where was like you were talking about some example of something of like original storytelling I forget you referenced something really incredible and in my mind my example was gonna be I Love Lucy like it was gonna be like it was like when you were talking about how [ __ ] when no one's done it before like you look at it now and you think oh what's so special but it's like you look back at certain things oh yeah lrr right right I was like I was gonna say I Love Lucy I'm was going to shut up because Chris just said La Strada so I'm gonna let him I'm gonna let him go with that it's better but anyways so so then so she says Von Eeden's obvious Comics model is Alex Toth but beyond this THRILLER is about as close as will ever come to what if Edvard Munch Drew comic books so I get that that's I get that reference that's the dude the scream okay right so now THRILLER is expressionism in the highest sense of the word depicting what one historian termed a what depicting depicting what one historian termed a spectrally heightened and distorted actuality the appearance is the object maloi has spikes of hair and huge eyed bird face are mochia I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right throughout the first six issues Von Eeden displays a very high standard of drawing there are hardly any weaknesses in the underlying structures this is not the Slick emotionless art to which Comics fans are accustomed let me say that again this is not the Slick emotionless art to which Comics fans are accustomed I got to really give it up to Heidi MacDonald because I feel like she is nailing it in so much of this review and kind of it's interesting circling around a lot of the stuff that you and I talked about and we had not read this review I yeah you've never I glanced at it but I never read the whole thing and I haven't looked at it for a while and so here she goes on to say one can feel Von Eeden struggling to make even the tiniest line count toward the emotional resonance and much of the time it works never have cheekbones and chins jutted so intensely never have fingers sped so expressively and so then I'm not going to read any more of this because it goes on for another two pages but it's I think an incredible review from Heidi MacDonald where it's really difficult I have to say to properly be able to analyze an incredibly Progressive work of art in its own time you know because you don't have the benefit of History you don't have sort of the hindsight is 2020 of it all you're not able to sort of look from a distance and have this sort of you know this view that gives you a greater sort of expanse of of time and and history to consider you're there in the moment writing a review of a new comic that came out that is like nothing else that has been released by these companies and I got to say Heidi MacDonald to me really nails it with her incredible analysis of the book in the moment it's dropped she's able to immediately take in the originality of what they are doing to appreciate the emotion and the underlying solidity of everything Trevor is doing just like we were talking about and but yet she's also talking about yes it's not entirely successful in terms of pure storytelling because maybe the story from Robert Loren Fleming is just too oblique but I think she's celebrating the work for how incredibly well it succeeds on so many levels and and I thought that was super dope so I just wanted to share a little bit of that as part of our content today no it's dope because the thing is is like you're right it's like we're not saying this book is without its flaws it certainly is and and she has she's highlighted a a bunch of them what I appreciate oh I want to go back something you said about she's she's reviewing this at the time what's Difficult about work like this is is that five years after this comes out and it's been around for a while people have talked about it and blah blah blah it's influence other people you know like this book this book comes out and the first year that it's out first when it's being published no one is able to like apprehend it you know and go how do I that dig Justice is there anything for me to digest and and put into my style that's why I say when you look at this work and you go oh three or four years later you see this kind of stuff in Matt Wagner's work five or six years later you see it in michelli's work like you see it in the other people's work later yes it's like that it's like that with with any with anybody who does art that kind of like that kind of shifts the boundary and like you said earlier there's like this atomic bomb drop and it's like the radiation it takes a while for it to filter out it's like that in a lot of people's work you know it's just so much it's it's it's a it's just you it takes a it's interesting that she's able to like point that out and think about how I just again the stuff he does that just makes you just it just yeah he's trying stuff all the time her point about how art comic art is very is very emotionless I think that really has to go back to what I was saying before about how he's drawing stuff without people with masks because you don't have to draw anyone's face to a believable degree if you have a mask on it yeah and and the and and and then you're not drawing anybody's eyes like you're like SUPERMAN and not SUPERMAN but like Spider-Man and BATMAN like their their eye sockets in their costumes do kind of like you know approximate what your eyes like if he's surprised then the eye things are a little bigger you know whatever but but without having to draw the full face of people particular Your Heroes where they're in the the heart of battle you know it's like the Kirby style is like is like what their be what their physical behavior is doing is telling me the story and this guy's work is like I'm physical behaving you but I'm but I'm not doing as much as I'm going to use a lot of panels to help like sell you on the emotion I'm going to use facial expressions I mean look she referenced that thing in what was this issue two when the snaking thing this Crackerjack thing and stuff like that yeah like okay so that's crazy in 83 right 84 but but but when like JH Williams does this and like the Sam man thing he did last last thing he did it's like it's old hat yeah you know it's true it's old hat for him you know but that's 20 that's 30 years later yes totally and it's like Trevor's work has been fully digested into comics and it's been fully injected into the bloodstream of comics now or like you said the radiation from the bomb that he dropped with his incredible explosion of work has now radiated out to where people who are influenced by Trevor Von Eeden don't even realize that they're influenced by Trevor Von Eeden because they think they're influenced by Dave Michelli or they think they're influenced by Matt Wagner who were all no doubt studying Trevor's work and Trevor was the one by Mazzucchelli's own admission Trevor was the one pushing the boundaries farther than any of these cats and Mazzucchelli felt his work looked quote tame compared to Trevor so if Mazzucchelli is telling you Trevor's pushing his work farther than anyone and was really out there on the bleeding edge then who do you think is really influencing people in future generations the people who are actually taking those risks and it's sad you know in art sometimes those people who take the risks they get sometimes burned up and they don't get you never known about they don't get the credit that they deserve from except from other artists and so like that's why so important to talk about him yeah because again it's like I was seeing you earlier it's like like there's times that we hang out and we'll talk about hey do you see this movie do you see this movie do you see this movie you know these guys are saying hey did you read this comic you read this comic you see this you see this guys doing because that's what's going on here's something I just I just I just noticed when you were because I was trying to find a page that she was referencing I picked up the wrong issue but it's issue four the final page of Issue four right okay so it's page 23 of Issue four so he does something in the the first panel this three rows first panel wait what what I'm sorry what page again I'm trying to find it just 23 24 okay this the first panel in the bottom row Mhm silhouettes with the zipatone I've never seen anybody do that yeah oh yeah you're right that is I've actually never seen anybody that that is beautiful I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do that either in comics if so it's certainly not a common effect and if I what are you talking because the panel is panel it's a white page it's a panel that's a white panel with no background and it's just a silhouette yeah of people and he's done it in a way with zipatone and it's like it's crazy and there's no more zipatone on the rest of this page no not at all I think I don't think it's in this whole book no he just was like how do I do this part yeah yeah and let's let's just look at the emotion on this page Chris because Trevor does so many things so well this page is a nice little microcosm the other thing I want be sure to mention I forget if we touched on it before but Trevor's use of negative space you can see it a little bit on this page and just the way the panels in Trevor Von Eeden's work are very rarely if ever just budded up against each other or having just traditional panel gutters Trevor likes his panels kind of floating in space and rearranged with lots of negative space around them in a way that feels really jarring jarringly original because so few artists particularly at this time were doing this but Trevor's not concerned about wasting space on the page he's using the negative space to make a point and to emphasize the emotion he wants to emphasize it all feels very intentional but you've got this page itself Chris just there's so many emotional moments it's like the look on what is that Salvo at the top there and then his mother and her face and then when he says no ma and like it looks like he's not quite crying but almost and then he grabs his mother in a hug and then his mom cries then you got that beautiful silhouette panel you called out and then just look at the there's Beaker Parish the 9ft tall priest but then look at the shading on Salvo in that second to last panel it looks like Trevor just grabbed like a a [ __ ] black pen and just scrawled out some incredibly fast like it's not cross-hatching it's just a bunch of vertical lines to invoke some shade on Salvo's face and he does kind of a similar thing on mom's face actually if you look at mom's face in panel four it's got that same B scratchiness mixed with just a tiny tiny dash of zipatone and yeah but the emotion really faint really faint and so subtle and the emotion on this page though like you're saying without masks here like as you said Trevor drawing people's faces is just stunning because the acting on all these faces is so subtle so so Exquisite and then also if this is Tom Zuko whoever col coloring it the colorist really kills it in that last panel too it's just a beautiful sunset and just deeply emot work like Heidi like Heidi mcdonaldo you don't see this kind of emotion on a Comics page ever especially not [ __ ] MRE Comics No what because they because people don't tell stories like this like even in Vertigo books there's a like vertigo books are more Fantastical than superhero books but they still kind of lean toward the weird twist the genre aspect of any story while not taking anything away from it at all but it's like you know the book that everyone would love and say I love this book it's so inventive is SANDMAN SANDMAN is not this emotional you know or it might be it might be like in the final issue of a story arc you know like the final issue of like a doll's house or something like that you but the rest of it is I mean or except maybe those ones that there that Charles Vess one he did Charles Vess did two issues that were like A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and stuff like that like see like Charles Vess's work kind of feels like this like these like Charles Vess yeah I could see that that's actually a good reference Chris I hadn't thought about that Vess's work has a delicacy to it like a really feline illustrative delicacy that Von Eeden also kind of conjures at moments here that's a great that's a great pull that's a really cool reference I never thought about that but I think you're right you know what's interesting about Charles Vess I always forget this because I always remember doing that SANDMAN book right because that's because when everyone asked me to read about well like why do you like comics do you like comic super comics superheroes blah blah blah I go no no no comics are way more than that I always give them that A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM issue of because it's such an inventive piece of work and Vess makes that sing in a way that as cool as Gaiman's pencils I mean story is other artists on that SANDMAN series wouldn't have done that as you said as delicately and it's just like the power of that but the cool but I you was funny is that I always forget this but there's a cover for web of Spider-Man number one oh yeah that that Charles Vess did I can picture that yeah it's Spidey in the black costume the black costume and it's like all kind of like smoked out and stuff like that I'm just like yeah this guy could do it all too it's like I mean that's why I'm that's why I want to go back I mean while we were talking I put in a bid for I put in a bid on eBay for what for the BATMAN animal oh beautiful dope because I want to see my theory about not drawing faces has I mean like what that does to his work I don't think it probably does that much but I do believe it would do something to the work yeah and I feel like I think that issue I think the Green Arrow miniseries he did is like I think Green Arrow was wearing that costume with the hood you know that I I think that's I think he wasn't just wearing the mask you know the hat like the the the the the Robin Hood hat I think he's wearing that hood the long I'm not sure I'm not sure if he is wearing the hood he might be I haven't looked at the miniseries for a minute but it's it's a beautifully drawn miniseries and if I'm not mistaken I think Giordano inks Trevor on Green Arrow so I think Giordano must have been I would think a fan of Trevor's or appreciated Trevor's work because I don't see Giordano wanting to ink multiple stories by this young artist unless he was a fan of his like Giordano had to see something in the work that he found exciting that he that he kept wanting to Ink Trevor's work because at that point he was one of the top execs at DC I don't think he had to ink anybody he didn't want to Ink yeah that's all like a hey I want to do something cool like this month you know think I would think so and I mean but you looking at it again it's not it's he's he's not wearing the hood yet but I feel like I look if you were at DC at the time I bet you nobody but Dick Giordano could say I want to Ink your book yeah and get opportunity to do it yep because he's he's he's a high high level executive and he's a well respected artist I bet all the other [ __ ] like inkers at the time with those kind of journeyman guys I bet Trevor be like [ __ ] that [ __ ] that he's [ __ ] up my work yeah he's not gonna [ __ ] up my work because I because I know that I'm sure that his work had been damaged in his mind [ __ ] up when he was doing for sure I'm sure it must have been yeah and like I don't know if Trevor had the you know the ability to pick and choose inkers and Trevor needed somebody who could really ink you know original work and frankly Giordano probably did about as good a job as you could hope for on some level and I think Giordano's inking of Trevor was trying to capture what Trevor was doing but with a slightly more of like a probably conventional traditional polish and and I think that that polish along with your mask theory about superheroes which I think is correct I think the masks issue has a lot to do with the lack of emotionality in superhero comics and I think the other big element though kind of to what Heidi was saying and what we talked about earlier is the finish and like the polished finish of mainstream comics and that like quote unquote professional inking finish that you get from like these serious kind of house-style inkers I think it it kind of has a an effect of blunting the emotion or the vitality of the work often and and I think that's why you hear people lamenting so much about oh there was so much magic in the pencils but it's not quite there and I really feel like that was part of Trevor's project is how can you capture that magic that energy that sort of joy of creation and the emotion that's imbued in what you're doing how can you allow that to survive in the inks and I think Trevor was pulling out all the stops in order to like make it survive in in a way that like you know really separates his work well okay I think those are all fantastic points I think the one thing that we're not we're kind of looking over I mean you mentioned it slightly before but is the colorist yeah because if you look at some of these pages and you look at how like I'm curious I'd be so curious to know how Trevor is working with the colorist yes because me too because like on that page you mentioned what was that page we just talked about where the mom was that on four the end of four I think it was the end of four yeah the one like the last page of Issue four I think yeah yeah yeah so I mean well that's not a good example but it's like there's certain pages oh no I'll tell you what it is we'll go back to that one in in page what seven or eight in issue one right sure so the thing with the with the five panels going across if you look at that it's like the way it's colored right so the guy's face is like fine right but the blue that is doing the shadow like he's like like all that hatching work you know with a regular ink or that's all blacked out like we said so it's like a k skew thing but he has to have talked with like if you look at that last panel five on the top where it says you can't be gone okay like there's like three different shades of blue that's telling me the shadow right there's like the shadow on his nose is a deeper blue than what's on his forehead and that's deeper and it's and the one on his cheek is in between the forehead and the nose you're right yes so it's like so I'm I'm curious if and or even one at the bottom of the page in the bottom bottom left when he's crying I would have seen with the crying and it's like purple blue purple then another mauve yeah it's like like like how's he talking this is why I I he he's like hey I'm not inking this book so you the colorist are are helping me like convey or I am I am inking it but I'm inking it in these scratchy delicate expressionistic lines so it's not going to be like traditional comic book inking so so so we got to collaborate here on the emotion because clearly I think you're right Chris Zuko the colorist seems like they are all in because this is some really inventive and you know intentional and beautiful coloring too and the thing is again you look at this today and you go oh well yeah with [ __ ] digital yeah yeah that's what that's what you do yeah right but back but back then this is wild no one is doing it it's I mean like I mean to be able to do that kind of colors do that kind of like like like like look at the part when you guy's crying right in a little corner right if you look at his nose there's that thin strip of blue before it's purple yes you know and it's like dude to be able to like get that in there with with the with the way they had to color pap back oh God no and look at that whole face Chris it's like you got the yellow edging the yellow rim white photographer then it's like when he drops down into the shadow he's got two different colors of the blue and the magenta it's just like it's just it's a it's I mean I you know there was that one Lynn Varley issue of DAREDEVIL when Daredevil goes to visit bull bull he's in in the hospital that has got this type of coloring in it this level of like really high and advanced work that I feel if you were a comic artist you were a pencil and someone was was coloring your work like this yeah you'd be in love with things oh yeah exactly right yeah [ __ ] that's so funny you say that yeah cuz Miller literally did fall in love with Lynn Varley and then David Mazzucchelli literally did fall in love with Richmond Lewis who also I don't know if they were together before after she colored his work but she did also color his work and that's yeah it's actually amazing because there were just a handful of colorists like you say at that time that were doing work on this level and you know Ziuko doesn't get talked about as much as your Lynn Varleys or even your Richmond Lewises because he didn't color BATMAN: YEAR ONE or DARK KNIGHT but I think right you're right on though Chris like this coloring if you keep turning the pages in issue one you've got that crazy double page spread that we talked about before the one that's on my mantle the coloring on Angie's hair is just unbelievable just talk about all the different mix of colors and how much time that must have taken the colorist you know just really clearly putting his heart and soul into this too and then that next page after the double page spread is also one of my favorite pages in the whole series where it's just the first time that that guy I guess Daniel Grove is talking to Angie Thriller as this disembodied godhead in the sky when he's on the bridge about to jump and then look at paneling just look at just that is just such a stunning page of comic art like I would kill to have the original art for this page here like it is just an incredible page I can't even describe the paneling looks almost like a a stained glass window that's been fractured into shards but it's actually the sides of the bridge and if you look at it Chris I'm actually just noticing this maybe for the first time like if you look at it from a distance the panel borders and the black gutters if you hold the page at a distance it looks like it entire page is like one macro mega-panel of him standing on the bridge with the middle panel Yeahbeing like standing on the you see what I'm saying Yeah yeah yeah I do 
I didn't [ __ ] see that 'til just now I feel like this is [ __ ] wild that is the most clever [ __ ] panel design and page design I've ever seen it's you literally I've looked at this page hundreds of times this is the first time I ever noticed what I think he's actually doing he actually trying to do with the page layout it's like the page layout that looks like fractured kind of stained glass or something I think it's these geometric panels that are actually approximating the like the arc and the bridge and like the [ __ ] metal lines of the bridge from a distance and yet they're also serving as panels like it is exquisite it's [ __ ] insane we'll definitely put this page in our show notes yeah because this but I again but the top of the the top sets of panels page where it's like it's kind of zooming in on on Daniel Grove from afar yes like that's so dope because he's got no panel boards it's just like image image image image just  You're right like but it's this ma it's like Yes like a zoom shot in a movie you're right but it's just like dude is I mean this is just on another level man he's just on another level see it's stuff like this I see I could understand why Jim Shooter be like hey man you're [ __ ] up because you're not sh simple [ __ ] yeah but at the same time I know why all these artists are like my God this [ __ ] got away with this got away with all this he got away with this [ __ ] no exactly now but see here's the thing about this this is what I think is a good segue into the chair incident because he's doing stuff he's quote unquote getting away with stuff that no one else probably could get away with yeah and the thing and now this is a double-edged sword that also has to do probably him being Black and I'll say this right I bet you everyone's on their I bet you they this is where the racism is shall be really Insidious for him this is post civil rights movement no one wants to upset the Black people no one wants to really seem like they're racist still so they're not gonna they're not gonna like overtly make comments they're gonna find these subversion ways these micro-aggressions to [ __ ] with him which leads to this chair incident which we should talk about because it yeah which is a bummer and it's like I mean it's a shitty sad incident because it really points to what we're discussing why Trevor ultimately lost the enthusiasm for working in mainstream comics and specifically at DC at this time and you know and the THRILLER series was not able to be completed the way that it could have been here in THE COMICS JOURNAL interview that we referenced earlier with Michel Fiffe Trevor says in response to Fiffe asking Fiffe says to this day THRILLER stands as an underrated watermark in comics held in high regard by pros and fans alike it's safe to say the THRILLER would not have been the same without your artistic input having said that how do you feel about the notion that as THRILLER editor Alan Gold felt there here's a quote from Alan Gold which is [ __ ] unreal Alan Gold said quote fans believed they were in the presence of profundity because they didn't know how to appreciate its its elliptical narrative so Fiffe is mentioning this highly offensive quote from their own editor about their series like this is just mind-blowing what was the overall reactions this is Fiffe asking what was the overall reaction to such a project and here's Trevor's answer and this gets into the chair incident Trevor says he corrects Alan Gold's quote first off Trevor says fans were in the presence of profundity unequivocally he says that and then he goes on to say with the first few issues of THRILLER especially the first two it was the direct abuse and neglect of its editorial staff that murdered that book very slowly profundity is not something Black men were supposed to be associated with in American comics at the time okay and this is is obviously speaking Chris to exactly what you've been talking about he goes on to say by this I mean me not fictional characters like Black Lightning Luke Cage or even the great African King T'Chala actually when Jack Kirby created the BLACK PANTHER fans were then in the presence of great profundity a Black man as King gasp but Kirby's entire output was so profound in and of itself that the Blackness of the character was never a factor Kirby's Panther was a king period but then again so were all of Kirby's Heroes just like the man okay just as a side note here Trevor just gave an incredible celebration you know and appreciation of Jack Kirby there in the midst of answering a question where someone was asking Trevor about his work about THRILLER and Trevor goes off for a paragraph about the profundity and Brilliance of Jack Kirby again I just want to point out the generosity of spirit in Von Eeden where he's not just all about himself he's talking about these other great artists who influenced him and you know like Mazzucchelli Von Eeden's also secure enough to talk about his influences and celebrate them you know in a big-hearted unequivocal way which I think points to like a strength of character and a confidence that you know is worth noting so so then Von Eeden goes on he goes on to say though he says what Alan gold meant was that the editorial staff didn't know that the he meant he what he meant was the editorial staff didn't know how to appreciate or understand the book's concept much less it's quote elliptical narrative whatever the hell that means the book was straightforward storytelling of an original concept they just didn't get it others did the overall reaction from fans I don't know the overall reaction from editors well they called me into the offices with newbie Alan Gold and tried to pull the collapsing chair stunt on me if I'd not refused to sit in the only chair made available while my editor stood my ass would have hit the ground instead of Alan's after my third refusal to sit he took the chair to avoid a confrontation he ended up with a pain in his ass I ended up with a useful bit of information about the people I worked for and so then Fiffe drills down and Fiffe says let me get this right a prank That was supposed to be at your expense was intercepted by rookie editor Alan Gold why would this be done to you or anyone was it personal animosity direct racism commonplace in the office or just some sort of initiation I've heard industry horror stories before but I'm having trouble placing the motivation behind the quote pranksters and why such action was tolerated by anyone and Trevor replies no the chair incident was no prank it was a corporate effort to embarrass me and quote bring me down to earth so to speak partly because I was an artist employee on the rise mostly because I was a Black artist slman on the rise no prank but a power play designed to humiliate I wasn't humiliated I was infuriated and that was my mistake because in the end it was my career that suffered not DC Comics okay and that's really heartbreak and tragic Chris and it actually points back to what you said earlier about the Toni Morrison quote about the point of racism on some level is to distract people from what was it to distract people from being great or from focusing on accomplishing things yeah right and that's exactly what Trevor speaking to there is like he became so understandably so infuriated that his colleagues his co-workers his editors are trying to pull [ __ ] shitty humiliating [ __ ] frat boy stunts on him in some way to humiliate him in the office that obviously that infuriated him but it caused him to not be able to do the brilliant work in the way that he'd been doing and his career suffered and it's just such a shitty [ __ ] tragic thing about comics to treat somebody like Trevor Von Eeden like that it's just it's disgusting and it's and it's heartbreaking because you think about all the work you could have had for Trevor Von Eeden and DC Comics obviously every comics company has made this mistake for time immemorial whether it's Alan Moore or Trevor Von Eeden the geniuses in comics do not get treated the way that they deserve to be treated and comics is far poorer for it well two things a couple things in that one you said Alan Moore things like that these geniuses the thing of is it's just like Hollywood it's like people who push the envelope with their narratives with their arts with their visuals whatever it is the ranking like the people like editors and stuff like that or producers or development execs those people aren't hired if they have oddball tastes you know because then you become a liability because then you start putting out because then you start okaying projects that have that the commercial gamble is too hot now if you get so if you're being a good steward of your corporation you hire people who are what's that phrase you know like the nail that sticks out gets hammered down you know it's like you you hire people to be the hammer because you can't let those people thrive those people like everybody who's thrived on that level they be they do it outside of Hollywood right they do it outside of the thing you know like a Hollywood like you look at someone like a Barry Jenkins right like Barry Jenkins he's so icons in the Hollywood thing now he's doing THE LION KING sequel stuff like that but to do MOONLIGHT this tryptic story so there's no real big like each act is a different you know story you know this guy's life but is you know 10 years whatever transpire between each act it's a story about a Black man coming to terms with being homosexual and it's got some stylistic flourishes to it that are pretty that are pretty pronounced and borrowed from his love for Wan Kar Wai and that is nothing that people who are gonna say I'm want to hey I want to put the reputation of my film company on the line and spend some money and that's really my reputation on the line by saying hey go ahead and do this so he got to go out and get the money on himself and find people do that and that's and then he's pro and then it wins the Academy Award because he's taken such a big swing and everyone and he and he knocked it out the park and then it's like wow let's give him another shot let's keep giving him shots and not saying he's not deserving of them but you know he's only able to do that because he makes it succeed yep and if you're Black that becomes a harder thing because there's expectations about what you should be doing as your art and it's not just Black people saying to you do Black work it's white people are saying I don't think you can do do anything but Black work you know right so so he's so so he's in so he so Trevor's balancing this thing I think also because he's young it at this time he engenders a lot of [ __ ] hate I mean you know I think about this a lot it's like you know there's you know there's such a thing in Hollywood where the young white male can succeed and he's ba and Hilliard says this a lot on the other podcast he's like you get a shot based on your potential you know and if you're not a white male you get your shot based upon your resume and how do you build a resume if you don't get opportunities you know so it's very so then what happens is that Black people in this in this industry they get the success they have in their 40s you know 50s you know and it's like they've kind of like missed that young opportunity I mean the chance to be like the burning sensation in their 20s you know like [ __ ] Ley and Barry Jenkins and guy who do recently did Boyz in the Hood John Singleton John Singleton are like the only I mean I mean those are guys who come to mind like oh yeah yeah yeah obviously like d Reed I think D re is a little older though I don't think she was that young when yeah she wasn't I don't think she was in her 20s when she did Pariah you know so it's like it's I mean and obviously BR was in his 30s when he's doing MOONLIGHT how old was how old was Spike when he made SHE'S GOT TO HAVE IT like late 20s I think I think he was like 29 28 29 yeah but to your point he had to go outside the system and finance it himself obviously just like with MOONLIGHT you know exactly like you're saying Spike gets hailed as a genius deservedly so because he goes out and he finances these early films himself and he just makes these incredibly original extraordinary works but it's not like anybody would have financed those movies in the studio system no I mean and to you're also hailed as a genius to a degree because it's like you were able to thread the needle of I got a cool piece of art that is transgressive and I got money to do it I got I convinced someone to put money up to do it because a lot of people have got these pieces of work that would be cool cool scripts or cool short films whatever it is that it's like wow man like if I'm trying to raise money to do this movie I want to do this movie I want to do this movie blah and they never get it done because they don't know how to balance the two like necessary traits that's interesting that's like a different type of genius in a way right it's like how do you thread that needle because I've heard people say something exactly like what you're saying just about Orson Welles that so much of the genius of Orson Welles wasn't just the aesthetic artistic genius it was the fact that he put himself in a position to have the level of control that he had at the age of 25 over a film that he was starring in and directing that was his first film ever producing and co ting producing co-writing and the fact that he was 25 and he got to do all that that is the exact same thing like you're talking about right it's like threading that needle as a human being how do you even put yourself in a position to be entrusted with the keys to the castle at that young of an age yeah I mean and obviously Orson Welles you know he [ __ ] he [ __ ] self self-imitation self-emulated yep yes humiliated with that with that project but that but I but I think that movie is hailed because he did it at such a young age and I think a lot of people are like well like how do I become Welles and I can be BL blah but it's like yeah but he was a big radio star huge radio star and a huge Broadway star which is still I think it's even more mind-blowing because you're like how do you become like a huge radio and Broadway star at 22 at 23 you know yeah you know because he you I know about this because I read this but it's like but he turned Hollywood down you know three times what heed hey can you come and act you come act he's like I don't want to act for y'all he's like okay can you come and write and act I don't want to come and write act for you I want to direct because I direct on Broadway he was like hey all right so can you come and write and direct and act he's like no no no no no I'll come write direct act if I can produce as well because that's where the power is and that's so that's what he got you know because he turned the most people would say the first time that Hollywood comes knocking they're saying yes right you know absolutely yep you know because most times you don't have a career you're trying to get one but he had a big career in the arts and he didn't need that you know and that's what that's what gave him the position but you say to yourself how did he become a like [ __ ] big on Broadway at 20 22 because he wasn't able to do Voodoo Macbeth and the fascist Caesar that he did and the war of the look WAR OF THE WORLDS was about 39 I mean that alone if that was the only thing he ever did he'd be a legend right but so that so so so that's two years before CITIZEN KANE is WAR OF THE WORLDS so that puts him at 23 right yeah but to be able at 23 to be able to have the trust of the sponsors and the radio station to let you pull that kind of gamble yeah means that he had to have like a year or two of convincing them I can make you money and that's really where the real level of like of and Trevor like Denys Cowan you're getting to work as a professional comic artist in your teens yeah that's when most people are like still doing those shitty sketchbooks in the back of class yep and you know when they're 145 and but he's actually not a professional artist you know which is crazy I think Rob became a professional artist around is what 19 or 20 something like that to yeah yeah I think that's true and and for the record I have an appreciation of the the early Rob Liefeld work I'm a big fan of some of the early Liefeld but yeah but I I take your point that like Trevor and you know Denys like they were doing work at a very sophisticated level in their in their [ __ ] teens which is mind-blowing well see but see look that's another example of what's going on with was the inherent racism right and the inherent thing of like the promise of the young kid who can deliver is that if Rob is 18 19 that's when he's doing that work at Marvel and creating like shatter star and DEADPOOL and everything like that that's the same age that Trevor Von Eeden's talking about where he's coming to you know around this time period like he's already done this is time he's doing the BATMAN animal right he's telling me I gotta do my manifesto and blah blah blah is that he's not getting the same love from anybody because there's an there's an interesting story that Rob Liefeld tells on his podcast Robations where he was like I went to that golden apples thing the golden apple Comic Con to sell some comic what a first issue of export or something like that he went with he went with Jeph Loeb you know and Jeph Loeb was like I've been to S never been this big this like the lines around the block and it's like where's the Jeph Loeb who's hanging out with Trevor Von Eeden yeah you know the elder statesmen I think I mean he had Neil Adams he had Neil Adams you know early on and but and he worked with him you know for quite a while but it's hard to know how much of a hands-on mentor Neil was because like Trevor said Trevor was learning being around Neil but that Neil wasn't necessarily teaching so but he also said that he learn he was doing commercial art for Neil yeah yeah that's right and by this time like Neil wasn't doing commercial art and but the difference between Jeph Loeb and Neil Adams is like Jeph Loeb Rob Liefeld is that's an artist and a writer who are hanging out yeah that's true and the and the writer who's older and can like kind of help you with your storytelling and this is what you got to do this is how how I'm going to help you tell it and blah blah blah that is like a different relationship so you can thrive as a writer and help you work because Rob quickly begins writing and and drawing stuff you know because he's hanging out with [ __ ] Jeph Loeb yeah and it's like that is what like obviously Trevor doesn't have that that's the crime of him being like a phenom Black artist yeah at a time when it's not really loved so I really now I can't think of too many Black artists who work in the main work at Marvel in DC I mean I'm sure there are obviously like what's his name like Jeff Thorne writes for DC yeah your your buddy Jeff Thorne yeah yeah he's writing that the Green Arrow I mean the Green Lantern stuff but what it's 2021 yeah I mean we're talking we're talking about 1980 yeah I don't know honestly because I'm not familiar enough with the current roster at DC or Marvel just because you know I'm not I'm not following that many of the modern books I can't really say I don't know the the ethnic sort of makeup of the artist today but but yeah it's obviously been a huge you know tragedy in comics history period that and it's apparent the comics have been created and drawn mainstream comics have been drawn for so long by you know by generally speaking white dudes and that was you know and although comics were you know a medium invented you know by by Jewish people and by Jewish teenagers and like you know in the early days at a time where you know Jewish people were facing terrible persecution and discrimination in this country and so you know they are the originators of comics as a medium in America but you know mainstream comics as we know it but you know moving forward like comics has certainly not had a a good record in any way for inclusion until very recently obviously yeah I mean to me you know I don't want listeners to think that this book is where this issue sorry this episode is like a condemnation of you know like the white creators and stuff like that who've done comics because obviously you know I love those guys like all those guys SP and Neil Adams and Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin and I mean just just all the people who are the luminaries that we all think about when we think about comics from '70s and '80s and '90s I love all those guys doesn't matter if they're Black white Hispanic or your East Asian or whatever hell it is I just feel that it's acutely a crime that this guy whose work is so stellar I mean it's so stellar and he's so like untalked about is and you can just sense in his in his own interviews that it's the racism you know like the like the chair incident like the chair incident if that happens to a white guy it doesn't mean anything you know because white guys play pranks like that but when you play a prank on for the lack of a better term the token Black guy at your company and those kind of like humiliation pranks which are you know like these frat boy things those things kind of I don't know if they build bonds but they kind of like make a sense of camaraderie but also you always kind of carry that nickname you know like something dumb happens to you with your frat you know you know in college they're always going to know you buy the nickname that you know that comes out of there from you and that's and that might be okay for when you're in college but say five years later and you run into them and they still call you by that stupid nickname you've kind of outgrown it and if you haven't outgrown it then I mean I mean you've outgrown it and if they don't if they don't respect that you've outgrown it those people are people that you don't want in your life you know because they haven't recognized that you've grown as a human being the thing is for a prank like this to happen at like in your career he would never be able to out to out to outgrow that at DC you know and at Marvel because it was such it's it's such a small community and such a small community particularly even then just among like all comic part because it was it wasn't like there was just those two Comics like we said earlier in the beginning this podcast like gold key had shut down there was no more Charlton you know there was some ARCHIE stuff but they were just doing digest [ __ ] so was the industry had contracted so much and which means that there becomes this more and more of of like this old boys' club kind of thing yeah and totally I mean yeah so so there's no way he can escape that kind of public shaming that is unwarranted and therefore he doesn't do any work you know which is truly sad I mean it it'd be kind of like if you know who would it be like someone who didn't do any work like you know who took a l i mean it'd be kind of like I mean you know what if John burn quit the industry after he did X-MEN yeah you know right he'd be like what like what happened to this guy yeah exactly's that he's that good and he doesn't do any more work yeah doesn't make any sense or Frank Miller quit after he did DAREDEVIL I mean yes he did a great run on DAREDEVIL fantastic run but if he quits after DAREDEVIL there's no RONIN there's no DARK KNIGHT Returns there's no BATMAN: YEAR ONE there's no SIN CITY you know there's no 300 there's no like a lot of [ __ ] that like he's really truly famous for and I think that's what happened with Trevor so and it's it's so true everything you're saying and it's it's a a very depressing theme that I think we're unfortunately going to be revisiting quite a bit on this podcast of brilliant comic artists who were who were Black artists in the '80s who either dropped out of comics or just didn't get the love that they deserved considering the caliber of their work and like you know when we talk about alien Legion it'll be a similar discussion in some sense about Larry Strohman Larry Strohman who I think was a shining light artistically and kind of in the mold of like a Walter Simonsson meets I don't know who in terms of stylistic influences but Strohman's work with so bold and original and singular and just really incredibly sophisticated just gorgeous work on alien Legion and then later X Factor and then of course his own tribe but Larry Strohman ended up quitting comics and becoming a security guard for like over a decade I think maybe even like 15 years or something and that is such a just horrific tragedy for comics that someone as great as Larry Strohman you know decides to leave the business and go do some work like that where it's like goddamn this guy's a [ __ ] incredible artist what's going on with this industry Jesus you say he's like I almost feel like he's a blend of like Walter Simonsson and like a tad of the explosiveness of Bill Sienkiewicz same kind of line work yeah I see that kind of like jumps off the page but I mean it's you know we we'll get to that when we do when we do an allegiance but yeah I mean it's like I mean the thing is that these guys don't suffer from like a drug problem you know because there's always this thing like you know like Sam Jackson maybe it's not Samson but either Sam Jackson or Morgan Freeman like I think yeah like Morgan Freeman was on Sam Sam had problem in the '70s okay oh I was gonna say Sam Sam definitely he had problem too yeah and and Morgan Freeman he got I want to say he got caught up in the heroin thing and he basically missed like 10 years of his career it wasn't until he did a movie with he played this character named Fast Black in this movie with Christopher Reeve like one of Christopher Reeve's last movie and like and he I mean he basically missed 10 15 years of his career because of a drug problem and it's like that's tragic but not nearly as tragic as I'm quitting like Larry Strohman you know I didn't realize that I didn't I didn't know that about Morgan Freeman that's crazy yeah there's yeah because you know because think about it right he doesn't he plays that role of that pimp in that movie and oh was called STREET SMART and everybody go see it if they haven't seen it it's a great Christopher Reeve it's one of those movies that Christopher Reeve did that you realize that if he hadn't done SUPERMAN he would have I mean he was a really talented actor who got so typecast that that he didn't have a lot of a chance to do things but yeah but speaking of like drug dealers and being Black and this pressures of being artist do you hear about Michael K Williams that's how he died yeah it's really sad you know like apparently he had he had cocaine that was laced with fentanyl and I was like at 50 some years old you're doing cocaine because the pressures the I mean you had a lot of success too the rigors of being an artist is not is crazy yeah yeah it's really sad wow yeah goodness yeah there's so much to say about this is there are there any other things that you wanted to make sure we touched on today because our connection seems like a little bit want to make sure we wrap up and get this get the recording wrapped before we lose it just for the sheer delight about what you can do because like like nowadays there's more freedom with the type of stuff you can do as as an artist as a writer how you're telling stories in comics and primarily because Vertigo opened up those doors but this is a guy's work that you could look at it if you're a writer or an artist and see like some new ways to to help you tell story and to do different stories and to and and to push the envelope you you'll you'll find a you'll be inspired to do your own work to push it by looking at this guy's work and I think that's like the ultimate compliment that can play that that we can pay Trevor is that it's 30 years later 40 years later almost and it's it's still is inspiring it's still all inspiring yeah you know because it's like [ __ ] man like how'd you come up with this [ __ ] yeah man how'd you come up with yeah that's so well put Chris that's exactly what I'm finding in Trevor's work and I told you before like I'm on like a an eBay Quest right now to get every single comic that Trevor Von Eeden has ever done and I'm starting with all the stuff in the '80s that I'm so in love with right now and just every piece of Trevor's work that I find is like each one is like this magical artifact where he's trying out new methods new tools new ways ofsStorytelling and arranging panels and drawing on a page like they're all so invigorating to look to look at just you know and it's so rare to find an artist where you can just pick up a piece of their work and be instantly inspired right because it's that good and that's what Von Eeden's work is like and it's it's just such a high bar for art it's so rare to find an artist where any piece of their work that you can find is so inspiring because it's just hit me as I've been saying this whole episode with a ton of bricks lately that Trevor Eeden is a goddamn genius and every piece of work he did specifically in the 80s because I've been going chronologically through his work and that's where I'm at right now all the work I've seen from him in the 80s is breathtaking so I've been tracking down all these little individual issues he did fill in issues on DC Comics books like vigilante BATMAN and The Outsider the regular BATMAN book BATMAN annual all that stuff world's finest and every single thing that that I find that I'm just buying off eBay that Trevor did every [ __ ] book Chris is like a revelation every book is so exciting to look at it's just like this jolt of adrenaline that inspires you to go to want to make cool [ __ ] because you're like look at this guy look at the [ __ ] stuff he's doing that no one's ever done before just on this like [ __ ] filling issue on BATMAN and The Outsiders and he's just killing it just just murder in it just so amazing with the work that it's just truly inspiring for any kind of creative person where it's like it doesn't matter what the gig is doesn't matter what the opportunity is you got a chance to [ __ ] strut your stuff and like do something that no one's ever done before and in that respect Trevor Von Eeden is a rare inspiration so yes so honestly it's been my biggest joy in comics recently is just discovering that I can use eBay on my phone to [ __ ] give myself a a little treat of a new Von Eeden comic every few days and yeah man it puts a puts a battery in your back keeps you going well I was telling you as we recording this I was getting I was putting in my bed for some stuff I mean I mean I me like while we were down with the check I was I was getting that GREEN ARROW series you got dope yeah because it's like it's hard I mean we've been seeing it for the last three hours how dope this guy's art is how revolutionary and experimental it is I I think all ultimately that might be what I find so fascinating is that is experimental and I think that when you get to experiment the way this guy's doing in a medium that is very specific about what works what doesn't work for the you know for the audience to digest and even like that's what Heidi MacDonald was saying like that one page that was like that weird s kind of thing like it looks kind of like a board game like like that game life or something like that where you're trying to follow on some weird s which is not the way you would want to think about doing no comic panels but he made it work but that's where the guy's a genius and that is why if you've gotten through this thing please go and get on eBay get his stuff read his stuff Champion his stuff yes absolutely 100% I don't know if Trevor is selling his own work through his own website or anything like that at this point but obviously we would encourage everyone to go to Trevor's website as well if he's got one out there I haven't even looked right now but you know Trevor Von Eeden any way that people want to support him and check out his work please do so because guy has a rare gift and he's a once in a-lifetime talent in the world of comic books so that is our episode on THRILLER Trevor Von Eeden and Robert Loren fing we will be back next week with a new series to talk about what that is you'll have to tune in and see we'll keep it a surprise until you see it yeah all right Steve that's this week we will pick it up as soon as we can with the next stuff and there it is thank you thanks everybody so the the episode is actually not over we actually have something else that we want to get back to you guys with we recorded the episode and then we came across an article in THE COMICS JOURNAL I think it's issue 100 I'm not sure if that's right Steve 100 where there was an interview by an interview conducted by Heiden McDonald of Dick Giordano who was you know he was he was a inker and he and he Inked some of these issues a THRILLER but he was like a bigwig kind of like what is he like he's not the editor-in chief but he's he was the vice president and executive editor at DC Comics right at yeah and he was he was responsible as it says here at the top of the interview for instituting changes that have slowly changed DC's formerly stodgy Public Image into a more vital one and as Giadorno mentions in this interview it's his willingness to take chances like dropping the Comics code seal of approval on SWAMP THING For example that are helping to shake DC up these days and in this interview he speaks candidly about his successes as well as his failures during his tenure at the company yeah so and we and we want to talk about this because he did talk about THRILLER in this is in this interview mainly because what we think is because Heidi MacDonald she gave a such a glowing review of THRILLER and now she gets to talk to the guy who was behind it at you know or he was he was one of the chief people behind it from the from the editorial Department and and these are his candid thoughts the main thing he says is he wishes that he could take this back he wishes that never never came out yeah this ising out this is really truly shocking considering the episode that we've already recorded where we just [ __ ] fall all over ourselves rightly praising this book to the High Heavens it's kind of insane to actually realize the perception that existed Chris for THRILLER behind the scenes amongst the the higher-ups at DC so okay I guess before we comment on it let me just read the exchange that Heidi has with Dick about the book because it's short but I think it is very revealing so so she says it seems like DC's backer books which as you know Chris but for the listeners the the backer format was a new fancy kind of paper that DC had introduced it seems that DC's Baxter books as well as the hard cover soft cover plan whatever that was have been successful and and there was THRILLER which was a strange wonderful experiment all right so that's what Heidi says and here's what Dick says in response I characterize it as a noble experiment I see it in the same way you do I really do wish I had that one back to be honest with you because the concept was wonderful I have to accept the blame for what went wrong with THRILLER because I allowed two people to work together who probably shouldn't have they were young and inexperienced and I had problems with the two of them Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor Von Eeden I had problems with the two of them from the beginning I don't mean that that in a way to diminish either of them as talents but as a team it didn't work individually both Trevor and Bob are very talented people and they both had a vision of what THRILLER should be but unfortunately it wasn't the same vision and at a time when I was in a position to do something I was too busy with something else and I didn't and at another time when I could have done something I handed it handed it over to another editor Alan gold and stuck him with a problem that was really impossible for an edit with his background to be able to solve he'd been a Comics fan for years but his background was in book publishing I guess I did everything wrong that I could have done wrong we even positioned it wrong naturally if you read the early issues you could see that it was a superhero Team without costumes but it was never positioned as a superhero team and perhaps it should have been from a sales standpoint it might have made a difference however creatively it didn't attain the goal I had set for it I wish I had it back Heidi MacDonald responds and says simply I enjoyed it there were parts of it I enjoyed very much Giadorno responds there were little bits of brilliance throughout with the proper guidance it could have been a brilliant series I'm really sorry it went down the tubes crazy because okay insane that's totally insane let me tell you he is right there is genius in that book I'm not saying the book the book is trouble that's for sure but there's there's more than like there's more than flashes of Genius I mean like dude's art Trevor Von Eeden's art is insane it is so ahead of his time it's so wild the concept is a little strange I think that's all that it is it that's a book that would be strange for today but we but but but we talked about it like like like like like we talked about it earlier in this episode of how crazy how insane how impressive the book was how emotional the book was and I feel like it's interesting he says that Alan Gold he was a book publisher so he had so he had no experience really working with trying to meld an artist and a writer and then that to me is what it sounds like was that was was the problem but it's interesting because he talks about throughout the book throughout the interview that there's never enough there was never he said they were spread thin so much and I feel like it's interesting as like a reader to think about what was the size of like the the editorial staff at Marvel in the eight early 80s and DC the early 80s where just and then you think about how many how many books they're putting out but then maybe there's only like you know five or six editors and they're like overworked to no to no end and then you have and then obviously books like BATMAN and Spider-Man and you know Iron Man like the like the Main Stays those are probably pretty easy to edit but you get something like but that but you realized that he's saying that they were like trying to experiment like Dick and Jenette Kahn were like really trying to he made some comment where where that he was trying to erase the stigma that that they were considered like the Wall Street Journal yes yeah that was fascinating of the of the the the whatever the Wall Street Journal of the comics thing and I was like oh so you're like some sty it's all by the book we don't do anything cool and honestly if you think about DC in the late 70s through this early 80 period 823 something like that it's not that exciting compared to what Marvel's doing at the same time cuz that same time that like that's the launch of the that's the launch of the Wolverine X-Men the Kon X-Men that's when burn is like is going to speed that's when like Frank Miller is growing up that's when like what that's when George Perez is still at Marvel there's all this cool stuff going on in Marvel and there's nobody going on cool at DC like he said the only thing that was cool with DC that'd be cool but he was like there was like a somebody was doing something with BATMAN with like somebody and like Jim Apparo and and he was saying oh it was it was BATMAN and The Outsiders because I remember that in the interview he said Jim yeah Jim Aaro and Mike W bar were doing back The Outsiders yeah and he was saying that like oh well you know it's funny because like because Jim because Jim Aaro he's a great artist he's an amazing artist I love Jim Aaro but he was saying that he he had no fan base the fans didn't really like him and I was like that's interesting to even consider that but then I thing about his art is his art is very it's not flashy it's not flashy at all it's great work great storytelling great like everything panel layouts like just like yeah everything you want from an artist he's doing but he's just not flashy the way Exquisite you're right craftsmanship it's like total craftsmanship masterful comic booking but absolutely not flashy yeah I mean I and and and I mean to a degree it's kind of like he's not like an artist artist he's like a he's a he's a craftsman artist you know like you know what I'm saying like in terms of like he knows how to do everything well but it's but he doesn't imbue the work with the level of like whoa and if because if you think he's it's like he's he's blown up at the same time that Miller and burn and Perez are killing it and I mean and he's their contemporary and he's never mentioned you know APO yeah I think Aparo technically was a bit older than those guys but you're right he was still doing major books at the same time during their period I think technically he was a generation older but it's just he had been in that same position in the business though I think throughout his whole career where he was always always the craftsman and always like the solid workhorse artist who never was heralded as like a superstar I happen to love Jim Aaro because BATMAN and The Outsiders was one of the first comic books I ever bought and so his work to me is like absolute classic like the peak of what BATMAN's supposed to look like in my mind so I I adore I adore his work but you know I think it's true you know what you're saying is like he never popped as like a superstar he was just a really humble guy and I think I even read like an editorial that Danny O'Neal wrote once about Jim Aaro that sticks in my head and he talked about how Aparo was just the most humble modest dude and he did not want publicity he didn't want to be praised he just did his work on time came in dropped it off and was not a guy who needed to be famous in any kind of way and you know that's commendable and he had you know many many decades of solid work but I think he probably exemplified the kind of work that DC was known for like you're saying here the image they were trying to shake as like the St Comics company that was like your dad's Comics company and in a way it's like if you look at the '60s that's the birth the Marvel Comics we know you could say Marvel won the '60s between Marvel and DC and I think you're probably right too Chris like Marvel won the '70s because Marvel had a lot of exciting [ __ ] happening in the '70s too but I think for me for my money if you want to stick it into like a binary you know I I'd say DC won the 80s because DC for me just really did explode as we've been talking about with just an unbelievable amount of experimentation and risk in the 80s but you absolutely right and I feel that part of it has to do with what dicton was saying in this article and what about Jenette Kahn because he's talking about how part of his bonus is tied to you know that they gave him all this extra money because he was taking risk being creative that to me is interesting about you know I think I think that might be why the THRILLER thing like he's got such a bad taste in his mouth because he was like this could have been more money for me not just for the company but for me be and and it didn't work out right it's interesting that he doesn't like it and and it also explains why he came in to Ink it because it's like oh you know what I gotta try to write this ship somehow I gotta save this I gotta save this C because you know what it's my money now you messing with my money I don't know it's a very interesting article I think everyone should kind of because he talks about how he you know he put in the stuff about the contract and the DC contract about the royalties about getting your art back and there was all this kind of stuff that you go oh this is what the like like Marvel was doing in a handshake and that's why later on you have those like the like those people are suing Marvel you know all that the Cartoonist Kayfabe stuff where they're getting like these court transcripts because Marvel was cheating everyone not cheating everyone but they weren't they were doing everybody dirty in a way because they were doing these handshake deals and and and Dick was like we're gonna do it put our own writing so there's no like there's no so everyone knows what they're doing I mean he said in the book he said that they had contracted Frank Miller to do three BATMAN graphic novels and I'm like he only did the one he only did THE DARK KNIGHT so that's fascinating well he did I wonder if BATMAN: YEAR ONE was considered one of those That's true but also does it mean that like you know that contract like how long does that last like he was saying that he was saying again that the Marvel contracts were these things for life and he's like the the DC stuff was was going to be like for the work you were going to do so I'm I'm wondering if those other two you know there's those sequels to DARK KNIGHT right like if those are if those are actually him like fulfilling that contract like would 40 years later decades later that would be insane I it's possible that that's what that is so I don't know but I feel like Dick has his assessment of THRILLER is maybe more like you know it's kind of like he knew it could have been cool and because he took his eye off of it I think it hurts him more it just feels like it hurts him more because he was but he was saying in the article too about how like the OMEGA MAN was too violent in the beginning that book and he just has some he interesting kind of comments he was like oh even viante was too violent at first and then it calmed down and I was like oh you guys have be told them to calm that [ __ ] down you know not like they just decided to I love it I it's a very honest interview you know like you don't hear editors who are active editors at any company talking with this degree of candidness and frankness about stuff like you know these days like this is a very honest interview and there's one other point in it where THRILLER is brought up a few questions later they Veer off into some other topics and then Heidi comes back and says DC says or I'm sorry Dick says some of the more radical things that DC has planned will be happening toward the end of this year the beginning of next year and then Heidi MacDonald says so we will be seeing more experimental things Giordano oh yeah most of the people here felt that THRILLER was a worthwhile experiment although it didn't sell but it did show our willingness to take some chances as a matter of fact and this is the part you referenced Chris when I received my bonus one of the things that was said to me was that the reason for the size of the bonus was that I was willing to take chances that says the company's willing to reward me when DC takes chances which is very important it's a very important thing to say and then he goes into the whole Wall Street Journal blah blah blah but he goes on to say I feel comfortable with Jenette Kahn with Paul Levitz and with Joe Orlando the people that I work with most we all seem to be of a like mind Paul doesn't want to spend all the money I spend but when push comes to shove he wants to try something to help break down our image so again back to the image like I think this really must have been just a huge thing on the mind of all the higher-ups at DC we've got to stop being perceived as this dodgy boring comics company that's like your dad's company you know Marvel's been hip and edgy and we want to be something that can compete with Marvel and I mean props to Jenette Kahn like I always say constantly for being the one running the show here and willing to take so many chances during her tenure because obviously it paid off with THRILLER and with so many books in this era well there's the thing well he says in the book too in the interview he says that you know that Jenette Kahn she came from a place in publishing where they really took care of the creative people and and she was like because without that you don't have the books and I feel like I feel like they because Jenette Kahn well she started in like the late '70s like '78 or '79 or something like that this is like maybe like five six years into her run this is probably after her first her first contract's over this is this is after her contract renewal I'm just speculating I don't know but I'm assuming this is now she's on her second contract if not third and it's like she's like what can we because the thing is like we were saying earlier you know that Mar there like Marvel and DC like Marvel was the [ __ ] there's a really great Business Wars podcast which I'll put we we'll put a link to in the show notes where it's called Marvel versus DC and it just kind of like shows the history of their of their rivalry and how it started and what it was like and for years over a decade the people like all through the 60s the people at DC the higher-ups were just kind of like that Marvel [ __ ] is [ __ ] like they just were like not liking it at all and and it just and you could and you saw what happened with the rise of the like there's some article I read somewhere else too that like part of the reason why it's really hard to find a lot of like early Marvel Comics like the back issues of like the that that original stuff in the '60s is that DC was in control of the distribution of Marvel Comics and they kind of shorted them to like new stands and stuff like this just kind of [ __ ] their sales because they were trying like not let them really compete but so they knew they were getting their asses kicked but they couldn't figure out why and it was just like you know people in charge and then eventually that all went away and obviously like you said the '80s and the '80s changed DC and you all see people talk about like you know 'Are you a Marvel head or are you a DC head?' and why when they think about DC they think about the DC from the '70s and the '60s when it's like you know Jimmy Olson SUPERMAN's best friend and [ __ ] like that you know and like the super super now look I love that series THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES but when it's called SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES it was kind of like it was kind of I it was kind of cheesy it wasn't until like Paul Levitz got in and Keith gfin started those guys started doing it in the '80s differently they got rid of the super boy thing and they said we're just going to do it like this and it was became much better like you saw you think about if you go back and look at some of those books those longer running books like that like LEGION was a book that people loved it and that's that one episode of of of Rob suras where he said that they [ __ ] themselves with that five year later thing because it was such a really really well-written crafted it was what probably the best team book like the number of the number of players to be able to juggle all that [ __ ] the mythology like it's way it's way more comp than than X-MEN and stuff like that and apparently it was selling in the same the same like volume as it was arrival of X-MEN yeah until they kind of [ __ ] it well first they made it a backer book in like the mid-'80s which means now they cut the sales on it to a degree because it was like 125 on other books for like 75 or 60 cents and then they did that one experiment thing with the five years later which I personally think is genius storytelling absolute genius story but it's so counter to what you would do I mean it's I mean like Marvel did it a little bit with like that series called like Old Man Logan and it's essentially like if you took Days of Future Past and just said here's where we are now and it's like I mean it's it's such a radical jump of what everyone was used to that it just they just people never got back on board with it and I think that was but again that's DC willing to experiment it's willing to like shake things up and do things differently you know I mean we talked about this before books like Atari force and he even mentions that there was like that Lee they made his licensing money there and it was like an Atari Force had to be like a license deal it's just interesting to see where they were at this point because in '85 like he's talking like CRISIS is just coming out this is this is pre DARK KNIGHT he's talking about they just hired Alan Moore so pre this is pre- WATCHMEN too interesting moment where he's like saying we got some cool [ __ ] getting ready to happen we just can't tell you what it is yet you know yeah that's what's so fascinating about reading Giordano's interviews and public statements during this period because he was right there at the the center of all this and even some of those like meanwhile columns that we've read a few of Chris in discussing other books on the show I remember there was a Meanwhile… column that Giordano wrote which was of course the monthly column he wrote in all the DC books and in one of them he was talking about like yeah we got this new BATMAN book by Frank Miller it's got an old BATMAN in it it's going to be really interesting I think it's going to be something really special and you hear him just talking about his first impressions of DARK KNIGHT his first impressions of WATCHMEN as the pages are coming in and it's such a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at this incredibly historic moment and so so speaking of that let me just briefly read the passage here in the interview where Giordano talks about Alan Moore and yeah this is really good and more broadly just all the British talent and that this kind of gives a little insight into how the British Invasion happened at DC Comics so Heidi is talking here and she says so sales on SWAMP THING are picking up right Giordano oh definitely sales in the direct sales shops alone have increased by 50% we're not sure about new stands yet it takes a little bit more time to find out about them but since the activity on the news stands often mirrors that in the direct sales shops I suspect sales have gone up there too I'm kind of playing cards I say okay we have we have to make this book sell better let's take a chance let's not let's not go for the obvious in an upcoming meanwhile column I mentioned that we read 200 ad here which is the British comic book and I've always liked Alan Moore's work in there maybe it was Paul Levitz's idea I forget who it was but Paul said look we've run out of possibilities here let's start looking elsewhere so we took a chance we called Alan Moore and he was interested he wrote a 16-page letter single spaced I really wish everybody in this country could read something that he writes not only the comic books but the letters that come with them because they're works of art in themselves in this 16-page letter he outlined who the SWAMP THING was and what kind of stories he would write and I've never seen anything more accurate in my life we passed it around the office it's encouraged us with the rest of the English artists and writers and you're going to see a lot more of them in the next few months we need people who can do work now and the British seem to be be ready to do work now the rate of exchange has been a great asset to us incidentally they usually make more money working there than they do here but with the rate of exchange being what it is and with the way we've increased our rates we've increased our rates something like 40% or 50% in the last four years it's made a big difference in being able to attract the top talent from overseas and then Heidi MacDonald responds you enjoy taking chances and Giordano says I'm willing to do it any old time I've taken chances on people maybe I shouldn't have taken them on like young people who walk through the door if I feel there's some possibility of a win I'll take a shot at it the advantages outweigh the risks in most cases I don't want to aim for the status quo and I'm willing to strike out once in a while as long as there's that chance of striking pay dirt once in a while too I think you'll agree that one Alan Moore is worth three writers who went down the tubes because they took chances see that's fascinating because I can't I mean like I don't understand the thing about the exchange rate because at that time like the British pound has always been so much stronger than the US dollar but maybe he's talking about like but he said that page I mean look I that has to be the reason why like burn left to do you know Bernie and Miller left Marvel to do this work at DC because if they're if they raised their rat 50% I mean that's like huge money and that's it's interesting how Paul Levitz is like oh there's nobody here who who's good he's just to say nobody here good so let's go find someone elsewhere I was like God damn but nobody in America yeah but but maybe it sheds light as to why like all those British guys all worked at DC you know like gaming and you know I mean like those guys don't really have like much of a Marvel presence you know again it could be grant grant Morrison you know like Peter Milligan G Enis I mean for a long time very few of them worked at Marvel they were all at DC Forever yeah I mean and I think it has to do with the fact that a he like like like Dick was saying that the deal the contracts were for the for whatever series you were working on what book not like we just have you and I feel those guys like you're not just gonna have us like that because we're not live here but at the same I don't know it's interesting to I be to ask guys what was it like this is '85 right so it's like in four years is when you launched the Vertigo line and it's like in it's what it's in two years from now in time frame is when like SKREEMER comes out and you know which is which is a book we talk about later on and you just kind of think about oh these guys are like they're laying the groundwork now to like and it all kind of STS with Alan Moore and and and what we know obviously is is that the the creative community in England is much smaller and they probably they know each other in a way that they they might not hear because just is the size of the industry and the size of the country and the size of like who's doing creative work it's just so much smaller there's no way you wouldn't be able to run so like the whole small town mentality about you know it's like we say here in Hollywood all the time we such a small town speaking of which you know they mentioned that he's a he wrote that 16 page 16 page the letter SW thing we had someone on the Rant Room our friend F's he was talking about his first job when he came out of well like he won something and he was working for Noah Holly and he did his show for FARGO the FARGO dude yeah for Haro before it's way before FARGO he had a show at ABC or something like that and I meant to look this up but he was saying that he knew that that Noah was a crazy [ __ ] dude because there was some actor or some actress that he wanted in his show that I don't think went or maybe did go I could look it all up but he but he wrote a 30 like a I don't know like a 15 or 30 page like letter to the studio head about why I want this actress and why this type of actress doesn't exist anymore like in someone from I could look up we did it maybe a couple months ago but I thought it's fascinating that like people actually do that people actually write these like you know these essays these you know these pleas to the money people do something cool and if you're a good writer if you're a really good writer then you can convince people because I like I was telling you before you know like I'm working on a project now I'm trying to get this big author to give me some life right to his stuff and I had got a copy of the letter the guy who directed that movie called room that thing that kicked off Brie Larson's career really K off career that movie and he wrote this five page letter to the author that I got a copy of and it's such a fascinating like just a piece of work like oh this is what you could do like you could write something like this and get someone to give you the rights of their work because she didn't want to give that the rights of that book up to make a movie she thought someone was going to [ __ ] it up but he like just wrote it in a very like personal tangible convince you to give me your [ __ ] kind of way but he never mentioned but he never mentioned money like or anything like that he just like so this is what it means to me this is why I think we could do this it's interesting that people do that and I didn't know that someone did in the comics industry but here's someone who did it you know so yeah that is actually super fascinating actually please send me that that room letter I'm curious to read that after hearing you talk about it I would love to read that cool thank you yeah this is really all super fascinating just to realize where the roots of the British Invasion at DC were where it was all coming from you know and Levitz and Giordano having these conversations and it's cool that you mentioned SKREEMER Chris because you're right when we think about the creative team on SKREEMER who are those guys Pete Milligan Steve Dillon Brett Yuan they're all 2000 AD folks you know they're all alumni you know ad and you know they also started at least Dillon and Ewins started DEADLINE magazine another huge comics magazine over in England and like you say small community of artists who were constantly working together and so when Alan Moore breaks through here in such dramatic fashion you can see Giordano says it right here basically Alan Moore opened up the floodgates like when things went so well with Alan we we decided we wanted to go get a whole bunch more British talent and and that you know does open the floodgates for so many writers you know your Grant Morrisons your Jamie Delano's just so many wonderful writers Gaiman what's his name Nai Reber I forget his name was his first name the guy he was he English I never knew much about that dude I think he had to be because he wrote so many Vertigo books he wrote Vertigo books but I feel like for him for for Neil Gaiman to give him the books of magic thing like he had to have known him he certainly if not if not he certainly had that vibe but also people who have those triple names like that you know they're usually [ __ ] British I don't know anyone in I mean not too many American writers are using their middle name as part of their damn name I mean you know I'm being whatever by it whatever some weird I don't know some weird stereotypes but it was a British guy who told me that one time a British guy was saying that he's uppercrust having that name like that I gotta I gotta say for just for the record since you said it John Ney Rieber apparently is an American comic writer oh OK he's an American OK there it is he's American he is from let's see where's he from does Wikipedia say they got him listed as American doesn't say where he was born but according to Wikipedia he's an American comic writer but I would have you know I would have been not sure what to guess either honestly I never never heard much about that guy he wrote a lot of books but I don't what's his name British though Barry Windsor-Smith oh yeah he is Barry Windsor-Smith is is British although he was like a he was an English dude who came over and lived in America I think from a fairly young age if I recall but I believe but if you remember he had gone just by Barry Smith for a while that's true then he went to the third name yeah and then he added and then he added the Windsor because that's when he really when he really became great nah he was always great but is just no this I don't know I kind of feel I still think back to THRILLER I still think he I wonder what he would have said 20 years later about THRILLER yeah it's a good question because this in is in the immediate aftermath of THRILLER and you know sometimes when something fails financially that's an artistic venture it's really easy for people to be disappointed and also when it gets cut short and it's an untimely demise for the book and you know one of the writers like or the writer himself I believe you know he was asked to leave the book by the editor whatnot there was all that conflict there with Alan Gold that we detailed earlier in the episode and then Trevor Von Eeden quits the book you know not feeling good not feeling happy after the next issue so all of that I'm sure had to figure into Dick's sort of feeling that the book was a noble failure in his mind because I guess when you're inside of something and you've got this Vision obviously of what you want it to be he didn't want it to be something where the writer got fired and then the artist quit after six issues or whatever and then everybody was and this also the time when I mean he's and Trevor's quitting because of that chair incident too so this is around all that kind of [ __ ] in the office I mean it's interesting because you think about like you know like in your head you kind of think oh like there's a lot going on at at DC Comics because they're doing so much work but then you think about it it's like it's not like the New York Times it's not like Time Magazine yeah and it's cly it's not really the Wall Street Journal they just but in terms of like the size of the offices I mean honestly if you think about it they're actually putting out more material than Time Magazine but Time Magazine's got more of like the editorial staff is in a different way and and then you think about you know those artists aren't there those artists are working at home and they're coming into the office to to to kick out because you always we we talk we learned all these guys used to have studio space together they would share studio space somewhere in New York or you know like whatever like Von Eeden and Miller and the Neil Adams and stuff with them they had those little spaces where Denys Cowan they hanging out with each other right but that's not at the DC offices that's not at the Marvel offices and I think kind of in at least my mind as a kid I'm not I'm seeing it the way I seen some of these comic things from you know or from movies and stuff but this it's different you know it's probably it's probably like a small probably just a small office in like a some like some overstuffed office in some you know that there's that's in New York in one of those skyscrapers it's maybe like five rooms ten rooms and it's just just stood a wall with paper and [ __ ] and just it's everything crazy it's not it's not probably not as like as glamorous it's not as house on as like it's definitely not as cool as Stan Lee makes it sound like in his little soap box thing he's like oh the great people at Marvel The Bullpen you kind of think it's like this cool area but it's probably not dead at all you know probably mad at each other like [ __ ] there's no heat in this office I don't no no I think you're right man I think you're totally right anytime I hear Reflections from Giordano or Jim Shooter or like any of the people who were like running these offices back then it's never anywhere near as as just fancy and lavish as I kind of always pictured it as a kid I think it is closer to the picture you're painting you know it's just it was like it was a smallish workspace where everyone was overworked and under under-appreciated underpaid but they were doing something they loved and the pressure was high because it's a deadline business and it's brutal I mean the [ __ ] deadlines and comics are monthly that's crazy to be producing the amount of work that everyone's producing well I mean he was complaining not complaining but he was pointing out that DC I guess they had missed some deadlines and some stuff recently and they got some like some kickback from some of the retailers and stuff like that and in the article he was he was like oh we're not going to miss he to get up there and publicly say we're not going to miss any deadlines again I think it's interesting though because you know like when DC had a chance to move out to Los to Burbank where they are now where the DC offices like everybody jumped at that chance because it was these new offices whereas that the place where they were in New York they' had been in there like 50 years and they're like oh we're tired of this place and like they all were so happy to move out to [ __ ] LA and being that that one building in Burbank was all kind of new for them the DC entertainment building and it's like got these vault I mean like look I've not been there the actual DC offices but I know the building that's in I've been in that that that building that Warner Brothers this building and it's like a dope building and I'm sure they were like where I don't know I think Marvel's out here too now but yeah you know just I don't know so it's the era that's gone and and I guess some of them are happy or some people probably now probably have got no idea what it was like before so you know I mean he even I mean think about Giordano though like where's he living got to take like a 2-hour train ride each way I think he lived in like Connecticut either Connecticut or Jersey somewhere in the suburbs he was living somewhere nice yeah yeah or some place cheap yeah hopefully nice I like to picture it was very nice I'm not saying it was I'm not saying it was it was slumlord but I'm just saying like I'm saying he's letting you know I can't afford to live in Manhattan I can't do that at all with the money I'm making gosh I never thought about that you're right yeah and despite his the big bonus he was he was so he was chling about that's still not good to live man I don't mean to but I'm just saying makes you makes you wonder about like Manhattan real estate and everything particularly the office space yeah I you know I don't know it's interesting to just hear like you said somebody there it's you know what it's like it's kind of like when movies fake and people get fired because they don't perform well but then they become like these cult classics exactly yes it doesn't happen anymore now because there's no more videotape but there was that thing where a movie could like like like classic example was [ __ ] Blade Runner I'm sure people's heads rolled when that movie came out and for the following year everyone over at Warner Brothers and the lad company and everything like that they all got [ __ ] fired and let go but but then you know 20 years later 30 years later it's this genius thing this genius what was this guy saying it's incredible I was listening to this podcast today called The Art of the Cut which I think every person who works in the film industry should listen to The Art of the Cut but they had the guy named Joe it's all about it's interview with editors film and TV editors and the guy named Joe Walker who did DUNE was on there and he was saying that like he also did BLADE RUNNER 2049 he was saying yeah like we were doing he was say we were doing that it's a great thing he said a great term he said we are walking on sacred carpets cinematically when we were doing the Blade Runner sequel and I was like that's actually kind of a cool like you know like description of it but you know but you're right it's like you get too close to it you know he was obviously doing really well Dick Giordano that is terms of like his what like you know he was saying like hey if I like win five out of 10 I'm doing good if I if I win like one out of 10 the company's [ __ ] you companies not mad comp's mad at me I feel like he might have been on a roll with like doing really really well with his experiments and that project like like was maybe is one that didn't do well and he was like [ __ ] it I was betting a thousand now this [ __ ] happens or or whatever it is there's probably a blemish on him that he because he was saying I had these big ideas about what I wanted like sales wise and numbers wise and everything and just couldn't hit it for certain things and but you know I I don't know just expectations that they weren't were unfulfilled and that is why he's not he doesn't feel happy about it but as we said everybody needs to read that book because it's [ __ ] fascinating [ __ ] Trevor Von Eeden you know to schooling people with his art and as we said before people like you know like you know like he was supposed to be doing BATMAN I mean we said earlier he supposed to be doing BATMAN: YEAR ONE and Mazzucchelli all people like were borrowing from him like wholesale like borrowing like total influence in a way you know I actually want to I actually want to hear the Kayfabe guys talk about that I don't know if they would though they would do THRILLER they've talked about they've talked about Trevor's BATMAN BATMAN annual they did a did a video on the BATMAN annual which is brilliant and that's the one colored by Lynn Varley that is a gorgeous piece of work but they have not covered THRILLER as far as I know on Kayfabe which is which is weird to me that they haven't frankly but you know glad we had the time to cover it at length which I think you know I think honestly it's a book that deserves a lot of discussion and I'm glad we gave it so much time here yeah because I think just like thinking about now what we were saying earlier is that you know that's why I think the Kayfabe guys could do an interesting thing because it's like they could talk about because they always talk about like oh this is the ly quality of somebody else or this is someone so you like like they really break down the art in a way that they know who this line quality was taken from so- and so this is like the Alex Toth type of inking or blah blah blah and I love to hear how if they would look at that book and then see you know like who would influence afterwards you know because we were very clear that we know that that it influenced Mazzucchelli you just look at it but I wonder who else I mean I mean I just get there opinions on that but who knows totally totally it would be it would be fascinating and you know I think that's really one of my favorite things about comics right now is that we've got such a an embarrassment of riches when it comes to comics podcasts and I know like we talked about this Chris and in discussing starting this show but for me like you know I've spent probably about as much time the last 10 years listening to comics podcasts probably I might have even spent more time listening to podcasts some years than I've spent reading comics and during like the times of my life where I've been too busy to like catch up on all my reading like it's been amazing to have so many dope podcasts out there to feel like I can still keep somewhat connected with the medium that I love even if I don't have time to read and I'm stuck driving in a car traveling doing whatever so you know shout out to everybody doing a serious comics podcast that's out there for [people like] me it's been like you know Kayfabe of course recently but historically 11 O'Clock Comics Wait What? there's this English comics podcast called Silence that I used to really love there was an Australian comics podcast called Non-Canonical that I listened to years ago there was an indie comics podcast called Indie Spinner Rack that was based out of New York years ago yeah I mean there's been just so many amazing amazing comics podcasts out there Word Balloon of course and you know I appreciate all of them you know these days of course I listen to Robservations for kicks also because his stories are wild and he is [ __ ] wild I mean wild there was that Rob Liefeld one when he was on Kayfabe recently he was talking about Alan Moore oh yeah that was an excerpt that was an excerpt from the larger interview he did with them and by the way when I say he's insane I mean that as a compliment I really enjoy hearing Rob talk about his stories from from you know the history of the business yeah because he's the is the only creator who's doing a podcast I think he's not the only one there have been others but like I think he's the only creator of that magnitude certainly of that era who's doing a regular podcast two days a week I mean he's really in it you know he's like he's seriously doing it there's been indie comics creators for sure who've done podcasts but like no one from that era that I can think of yeah that's what I mean like I mean like I mean obviously like you know you know like the era before him those guys aren't those guys are all you know I mean those are getting interviewed by Kayfabe like you know Walt Simonson and burn and Miller stuff like that but that next generation of guys like like you know it's life the Image the Image era you're not those guys aren't doing it I think you did you say that Tim King he did a podcast for a while Tom Tom King Tom King Tom King did that and then he transferred then he became a serious writer yeah yeah he did yeah Tom Tom King was a huge fan I believe of 11 O'Clock Comics and then he and a bunch of other guys who were 11 O'Clock Comics fans they launched a podcast I forget what it was called because I never really listened to it but they used to reference it occasionally on 11 o'clock but but yeah Tom King did that for quite a while I think before he started writing comics yeah yeah so it's it's a cool space a really cool space it's interesting to be in that about so OK well I don't know it's interesting you know so you gonna say oh go ahead go ahead oh no Tom King's story I'm so off topic but just reminds me his story kind of reminds me of like Francois Truffaut and like Jean-Luc Godard like those guys are like critics before they became filmmakers you know they were yeah that's right you know and their work was so influential because they had like absorbed it in a way as a critic and they were going wait a minute wait a minute I know how I could do something that was that blow everyone's mind I think that's part of why the fact that Tom King is so successful so quickly is because he he had been like a critic of it you know then realize he could do it yeah you know who else you know who else did that in the screenwriting world Chris one of my favorite old screenwriters Paul Atanasio who wrote QUIZ SHOW back in the day and also I believe was technically credited as the creator of my favorite TV show HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET because he wrote the pilot episode of it He had been a film critic as well oh and he also wrote of course DONNIE BRASCO, another classic film, but Atanasio I think he was a film critic for like The Washington Post Yeah that's what it is I just looked it up he was he was the film critic for The Washington Post from '84 to '87 and that preceded his writing career and so that's another example like what you're talking about yeah a couple people I know woman named Anna Classen she does that yes it's interesting it's interesting about like like the people's journeys yeah all right I guess that is I guess is is that it about this I think I think that's basically it from the Giordano interview it's a fascinating interview it's from issue number 100 of THE COMICS JOURNAL as you said Chris so I'd encourage everyone to grab this off eBay if you're interested it's actually a 244-page special anniversary issue featuring interviews with 26 top creators and it's quite a quite a laundry list of people interviewed here interviews with Neil Adams Chris Claremont Will Eisner Steve Engelhart Bill Gaines Steve Gerber Dick Giordano Archie Goodwin Harvey Kurtzman Danny O'Neal George Perez Marshall Rogers Dave Sim Al Williamson Marv Wolfman John Workman Bernie Wrightson and more It's quite an issue so yeah definitely a great issue of THE [COMICS] JOURNAL to check out I will I will leave us here with the final exchange from the interview between MacDonald and Giordano just where Heidi asks Dick if he has any comments on the occasion of the comics journals 100th issue and I kind of like Dick's answer to this question Dick says for sure for sure yeah yeah he says this is important I suppose because with everything that I feel about this industry one of the things I've always been remiss in is communicating with the trade press I've never written a letter to THE [COMICS] JOURNAL I've never written a letter to the comics buyers guide I've never written a letter to any of 'em even though I read them all every month cover-to-cover I enjoy THE COMICS JOURNAL immensely I sometimes disagree violently and I sometimes agree equally strongly, yet I never find time to write them a letter, so I'd like to say thanks for being around as long as you have I hope you'll be around for another hundred issues or certainly for as long as I'm in this business, because even when I haven't agreed at least it got my blood going. So there you go words from Dick Giordano a good dude a really interesting dude and I think we were very lucky to have him in the position that he was in at DC Comics for as long as he was because I think he was a great advocate for artists taking risks as you hear him talking about throughout this interview and I think he's a big part of the reason why you know along with Jenette Kahn of course and Paul Levitz and everyone else who was there he's a big part of the reason why we had the '80s be as incredible as they were and we had our our WATCHMEN and our SWAMP THING and our DARK KNIGHTs and our BATMAN: YEAR ONEs and also our THRILLER. Yeah, and our British Invasion Yes. OK, everyone, thank you for listening to this episode of COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! And we will be back next week with another comic that you've probably forgotten about that we're going to give some time to.... Goodnight, goodnight. Good afternoon, good day

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