[Intro Music]

STEVEN:  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN! — the show where professional screenwriters talk about comic books that we love ...mostly from the 1980s. I'm one of your hosts; I'm Steven Bagatourian—

CHRIS:  And I'm your other host, Christopher Derrick.

STEVEN:  —And, Chris, we talked about a book in this episode that is arguably the single greatest indie comic book series of all time: Matt Wagner's GRENDEL. And if you love BATMAN, if you love THE DARK KNIGHT, if you love vigilantes, dark superheroes, antiheroes... If you love scifi, if you love dystopian worlds, if you love epic poetry, like the original poem of BEOWULF that inspired the character of GRENDEL ...you are gonna love this discussion of a concept and a character that, frankly, is a little bit hard to explain in a nutshell for people, if you're not [already] familiar with GRENDEL. 

GRENDEL is not just a single character; GRENDEL is actually a spirit -- an entity, if you will -- that represents aggression and / or evil as it manifests in the human world. And in this sort of...concept, GRENDEL began as one character, Hunter Rose, [who] was a vigilante/crime boss in New Jersey. And after he ultimately met his end in the initial GRENDEL story, "Devil by the Deed," published by Comico [in 1982], GRENDEL returned with another series from Comico ["Devil's Legacy" in 1986], which is what we cover in this episode that you're about to hear. GRENDEL, and the spirit of GRENDEL -- which works through a very iconic mask and a bladed weapon -- this mask and weapon are the conduits for GRENDEL's malevolent spirit that possesses multiple people [over the series]. And that's a unique thing about GRENDEL — it's not just one character -- it's multiple people throughout [numerous] generations that are possessed by this devilish spirit. And I would say that this is just a phenomenal concept. Oh, and actually, before we jump in... one last thing I want to say: No less of a source than Alan Moore was or perhaps [still] is a huge fan of the GRENDEL mythos. I say "mythos" because GRENDEL really does have kind of a mythic quality to the whole ongoing story, but here's a great quote from Alan Moore that I want to leave everybody with as we jump into the official episode.... He said, "GRENDEL is a brave and possibly even reckless experiment that has succeeded admirably." And I think that's a good place to leave it [for this episode intro].

CHRIS: I think we had a great discussion. I hope everyone who's listening, please don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you are listening on a podcast platform, you know, please give us [your] rating and give us a comment; we would love to hear your thoughts. And now we will get on with the show.


...And we're just talking about the Christine Spar issues, so we're not going to talk [in much detail] about Hunter Rose; this [story arc] is called "Devil's Legacy". It's Matt Wagner's book; he wrote and created GRENDEL. Pencils are by Arnold and Jacob Pander. Inks are by Jay Geldhof on issues 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8. And then the Pander Brothers did Chapter 7. Rich Rankin did Chapter 3. Colors by Jeromy Cox. And lettering by Steve Haynie. 

This is a crazy book from the '80s. You know, a new [GRENDEL] miniseries [was] just recently published...just wrapped up, eight issues Dark Horse did. ...[But] this book is about… an exploration of evil… is what [Matt Wagner] really wanted to explore. ...And about corruption. I mean, to me, that's what I look at it as.

STEVEN: Yeah.

CHRIS: I mean, I know that Matt Wagner has some other ideas that he's talked about more in-depth, and forgive me for not having my floppies in order to read [them] to get more of an understanding of what he wanted to do. ...I do remember not being able to read GRENDEL when it came out, like the comic store guy wouldn't sell it to me--

STEVEN: Oh, seriously?!

CHRIS: Yeah, like… It had that little, you know, ["Suggested For Mature Readers label"] …so he wouldn't sell to me—

STEVEN: Oh, sh!t. [laughing]

CHRIS: —So I didn't read any GRENDEL until the second GRENDEL TALES book that Dark Horse published. That was in, maybe, the mid-'90s. The cool thing was the letter column was done by Diana Schutz who I think is Matt Wagner's current sister-in-law—

STEVEN:  Right.

CHRIS:  —But she has the coolest letter columns…

STEVEN:  Yeah. [laughter]

CHRIS:  …And I was reading it, and I was like, "I need to know more about this," and I had to go back and get all the stuff we're talking about today. So that's how we got into [this episode], and that's why I said, “Steve, let's talk about this part.”

STEVEN:  Yeah, totally. And I'm glad you called out the letter column just because, in the floppies, I read a couple of these letter columns [while] reading these issues, and Diana Schutz was running these also, and they're highly entertaining. And they also print a fair amount of critical letters—

CHRIS:  Yeah.

STEVEN:  —which I know we've talked about a lot on [previous episodes of our] show, and it is fascinating to read the reactions in the moment from people who were not happy with the art of the Pander Brothers, not happy with the pace of Matt's storytelling, and Diana just engaging with those critiques in the letter column, along with all the letters of praise coming in, as well. ...It's a good mix in the letter column. Makes for some lively reading.

CHRIS:  So, [listeners], if you have a chance, get the floppies; don't get the Omnibus. Which… I have the floppies; I just don't know where they are. So, to kind of set it up… I don't think there are any kind of, like, stories in between about how GRENDEL is created. 

Hunter Rose [GRENDEL]...he's the original "Fiend," as he's called. He's beaten his nemesis named Argent, who's like a half-wolf half-human. And this woman, Christine Spar, is like the granddaughter ...of Hunter Rose's ...adopted daughter. And she, through the events of the story… She picks up the mantle of being GRENDEL.

STEVEN:  Well, for those who don't know GRENDEL at all, we should probably just back up and explain just even the GRENDEL concept, like: What is GRENDEL? I know it's based on the classic story — or inspired by the classic [epic poem] — of BEOWULF, and all that. Somewhat [inspired by].

CHRIS:  Yeah. The story is basically… the Hunter Rose stuff, which is published in something called, "Devil by the Deed," which, at the time, like when I was trying to get into GRENDEL, was this black-and-white comic that they did at—

STEVEN:  Comico. It was one of the first things they published, I think.

CHRIS:  —one of their first things, like 1983 or 1984 or something like that…. It was impossible to find. Just impossible.

STEVEN:  [laughs] Yes.

CHRIS:  …And then, later, when he brought everything to Dark Horse, they did publish some book or some condensed version or, I don't know, some version of it, called "Devil by the Deed," or it might have been its own story, but… [at first] GRENDEL is this guy, Hunter Rose, he's a vigilante. He has a black mask with these white eyes on it and a nose piece. And he carries, like, a bow staff with two blades at the tip—[in the books] it’s called a “fork”—

STEVEN:  Yeah, like a fork. 

CHRIS:  —It's like a fork, yeah. And he’s like a BATMAN-style vigilante, you know, and his main crime boss that he's after is this wolf guy, Argent. So it’s just like in the BEOWULF [poem]... which is kind of cool. I did think about it... but he kind of flipped the names, because Beowulf is the name of the hero and Grendel is the name of the fiend, the wolf that he's after. ...But [Wagner] switched it to this to make the wolf be Argent and Grendel is the hero or the antihero, per se, and he just... goes head-to-head with this crime boss. You know, he's kind of like the Kingpin [character] in SPIDER-MAN and DAREDEVIL, but he's half-man/half-wolf--

STEVEN:  Yeah, and everyone just kind of accepts it! [laughter]

CHRIS:  --They kind of accept it, and... I mean, obviously, [Argent]’s kind of hanging out in the background. He’s not like some public figure. I don’t remember... I don't think I've ever read this [series] -- I've had never been able to track it down -- and obviously, it's been republished now, but I... hadn't thought to look it up, but... like I mentioned, there was the that book called "The Devil's Hammer," which was the second installment of GRENDEL TALES, and that's when I first read of this, the essence of GRENDEL, because what he does in the book, which is very unique to any comic, is that Hunter Rose dies in this climactic battle with Argent. And Argent is, like, paralyzed, and he's kicked from his throne as the kingpin of crime ...I guess, in New York. And Hunter Rose is dead--

STEVEN:  And wait, I haven’t read this [GRENDEL: "Devil by the Deed"], Chris; I'm sorry -- just to interject -- I haven't read that Hunter Rose story, yet. Or if I did, it was a million years ago. The Christine Spar Comico series that we read the first seven issues of here [for this podcast], it's taking place kind of in the future, like slightly in the future, with flying cars and [ __ ]. It's like 40 years, 50 years in the future. The Hunter Rose story, was that also in the future? ...Or, like, what was the 
time frame on that? Because I don't
know when that was set.

CHRIS:  That was kind of set... contemporary-- 

STEVEN:  Ohhhh... OK, OK.

CHRIS:  You know, because think about it, right: So if Christine Spar is, like, the granddaughter, or she's called the granddaughter, of this woman named Stacy Palumbo, who was the adopted daughter of Hunter Rose--

STEVEN:  Hmmm...

CHRIS:  --You know, like, he's a millionaire, he's like a Bruce Wayne-type, and that's why I didn’t want to read it for this [podcast], because it felt too much, like, just a regular kind of superhero comic--

STEVEN:  Yeah.

CHRIS:  --And this is an entirely different kind of--

STEVEN:  [laughs] This is very different.

CHRIS:  --kind of story. It's a wildly... it's a crazy story. And it's about this woman, Christine Spar, who wrote a book about trying to like explain who, GRENDEL [Hunter Rose], was, for the masses. And she takes her son to this kabuki theater... and the first night they go there backstage, and they--
meet [this] guy, named Tujiro, who's the head of the kabuki thing. He like kind of licks her hand--

STEVEN:  He's the main performer. He's like super like... just creepy, and he's a very unusual fellow, and yeah, literally licks her hand to greet her.

CHRIS:  Yeah, like, he goes in like to kiss her hand, the way people would, you know, that kind of like thing that people do... to show whatever, some old sense of chivalry. But he actually licks her palm, and then he like kidnaps her son... and kills the child--

STEVEN: [laughs] This is so rough! This is such a dark story! [laughter]  

CHRIS:  --I mean, this is why this book is crazy, because it turns out that this guy, he's a vampire who hunts little boys and eats their blood--

STEVEN:  And takes out their eyeballs! [incredulous laughter]

CHRIS:  Well, the first thing he does is, he eats out one eye, and then he saves an eye, which he... Later on, I don't know, [issues] three or four, she [Christine as GRENDEL] finds a suitcase full of, like, eyes--

STEVEN:  And she finds her son's eye in a test tube! Ohhh.

CHRIS:  --in test tubes. It’s pretty [ __ ]. I mean, this is why, you know, as, like, an early teen, this is why the comic shop owner did not let me buy this book at the time.

STEVEN:  I can understand. [laughs]

12:10CHRIS:  You know and so and so Christine Spar because she's so intimately involved in in like doing the research on Hunter Rose and the thing is when he died his mask and his [staff with forked blade] were like I guess this all that was recovered and it's in like a a library and she goes and she steals this so she can take on the mantle of GRENDEL, and she flies up from New York to San Francisco to track down this Kabuki troupe and to find out what really happened to her son; she kind of believes early on that her son has been killed and yeah she does she has that sense really early and she starts doing detective work and then she realizes that every city or almost every city that this Kabuki performance 
troupe had gone through has had a report of a missing child and so she starts to put the pieces together and she's like holy [ __ ] he's responsible for my son being gone and you're right she seems to have an intuition intuition extremely early on that her son is dead, and I mean it's weird ...but I also think it’s like look she's a journalist and she wrote about some sort of like True Crime type of individual so so to me it's it’s almost like that woman who's like Patton Oswalt's wife you know who died who did the thing about the Golden State Killer and it's it's almost like she's
that type of character, so her mind is 
already kind of like primed for like the
worst things to happen, because she's 
like she's like she's a I don't say a
criminologist but she studies that, and 
she's hired to work the New York Times
to do their crime beat because they 
realize that she's got like some sort of
like hand on the pulse of what of of like what some master criminal [ __ ] is about because because GRENDEL the Hunter Rose character even though he’s like an anti-hero, a vigilante, he's not beloved the way like Batman is like
he's more on the and and I don't know 
this from reading the books I know this
way that they're kind of talking about 
him like in this it's like he's more on
the line of like Spider-Man but but but 
worse because he's killed people and he's a serious threat and so the Christine Spar he hunts down this dude you know Tujiro you she finds out 
she she's learning what it means to put
on the mask and hold the fork of GRENDEL of Hunter Rose and be the GRENDEL and finds out this guy Tujiro was like a vampire and he's got this male, like, white slavery ring, and it just it just begins to spiral into this like he's a true true international criminal who happens to be a vampire yeah and it’s pretty it's and a kabuki performer ...and an internationally famous kabuki performer… yeah it's I mean it's pretty interesting kind of cover to do this and it’s interesting kind of like story design for what for what he wants to do and how he's trying to bring her into this, but the thing that I think is interesting and the whole story is told there's there's a whole lot of
narration, tons and tons of narration... a lot... and it's interesting because it's
done as like a diary as if she's like written this later, and we're watching it
like like you know like we're watching 
it, but she's describing it like after
the fact, and it's it's kind of an interesting storytelling motif, to
a degree, but you know like we 
were saying off-line, Steve, I mean like there’s a lot of repetition there's a lot of kind of I I think what it is is that it
like looking back at it now compared to 
Modern comics and again we were saying earlier it's like 26 pages as opposed to 22 so it seems even more dense than that I mean because we were saying like we read six is seven issues at 26 pages that's like the equivalent of reading like nine almost 10 issues of like a modern comic. it felt like it yeah it felt to me like it was nine or 10 issues like it was it was dense it was very dense. I mean the the the it's like it’s interesting I think what’s interesting about the I'm not saying I like it CU it is it's is a lot of kind of like diving in her psychology like in a way that maybe today's people artists or stuff I think post I think post early Vertigo work people would find ways to do like like a lot of what she's talking about in the narration they find ways to do it visually they find... somehow they use the art to kind of like show what she's going through in some degree now to a certain degree though some 
of her descriptions of stuff is [ __ ]
fantastic. oh yeah there's some great 
moments, there's really great moments
100% like I think there's beautiful 
moments in it I just to piggyback on
what you're saying a little bit I did 
feel like that Diana Schutz was not
necessarily always doing the most rigorous job as an editor with the writing on this, because you
know ideally an editor is looking for 
unnecessary repetitions and just sort of
things that are perhaps going a bit 
slower than they need to or just kind of
cycling back around the same kind of 
things over and over ,and I just found
myself reading it and at a lot of moments just feeling like huh, didn't we just kind of have this beat or like a 
pretty similar beat to this, or didn't we
just have a moment just like this and 
and also like little things but how many
times is Christine gonna call this 
this killer, Tujiro, a [ __ ] yeah she
calls him a [ __ ] like literally no joke 
like 25 times 30 times in the narration. It's crazy it's nuts, and I'm like what 
like it doesn't even feel dramatic it
just feels odd to me she's like you 
[ __ ] what's going on I'm gonna get you
[ __ ] and I'm like what is happening why does she keep saying that it's like a
verbal tic in the narration she's like 
[ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] yeah that's that's a
good way to put it a verbal tic. This is 
interesting too because it's like this
is like in the mid '80s and people didn't 
use [ __ ] like that as such a pejorative
to describe, and it's a dude, so to 
describe like anybody, so it's kind of
weird I mean it look I mean I'm not 
trying to dissuade anybody from reading this because I think this is a very like crucial book to read. it's worth reading. also just mainly and and mainly because of this this is what I want to get to and trying to because I try to explain as i was trying to explain the story through a bunch of the issues like it's just like she's in an investigation to find out what's 
happening to her son she finds out that
her son has been murdered and then she wants to get revenge and she only knows she can do that by being GRENDEL and then it's just kind of like this cat-and- mouse between her and the guy named and the vampire is it's like Tujiro and it's really and then the more she’s like stalking him the more his empire begins to unravel, like the guy like there's those the the other people who are in his Kabuki Troupe kind of like want the blood and eat the blood it's so kind of like it's interesting because there's interesting stuff that that’s hinted at that's not the not on panel that is like I feel like if if he was
telling the story like a little 
differently we could have seen some more like cooler stuff maybe that he's that he shows us like the back end of or
maybe just disgust and it's like I actually wanted to see that to see what
we're seeing but then again it's all 
to from Christine's point of view so it's sort of like you know like in Chinatown like Chinatown is a weird
movie where where where Jake Gittes is in every scene, like there's never a scene where he's not in it, and and it's actually like it's kind of a testament to how cool Chinatown is, because it's such a hard hard trick to do that as a writer, because there's no privileged scenes, there's nothing that helps the helps the audience get their bearings was happening because you've got to experience it as Jake Gittes [ __ ] experiences it, and it's kind of what happens in this book in a sense and how you know it's totally from her point of view like absolutely maybe a couple privileged scenes like when you go to see Argent and see like the girl named Jenny when she's you know trying to find what's happening and being stalked and stuff like that you 
know and then ultimately like like
Christine Spar she confronts Tujiro a few times and then they have this final
like climactic battle Yeah actually 
pretty cool in the way it's done there's
a couple it is that final battle is 
pretty amazing yeah like some double
some double page spreads that are pretty fascinating and props to the props to the Pander brothers because that last issue with the double page spreads and that battle that's the one that the Pander Brothers ink and I got to say them inking themselves is just sensational like once they ink themselves it's like holy [ __ ] like these guys are just [ __ ] incredible artists and I think Jay Geldhof does a good job inking them, and I thought the issue that Rich Rankin inked really was not a very good fit for the Panders, and I think that one that was the one issue where I was kind of like hmmm yeah probably not the best pairing there in terms of an inker for the highly stylized Pander Brothers I thought Geldhof was solid but that last issue with the final fight where the Panders take over the inking I thought it just leveled up to a whole another place where it's just it's a masterful beautiful looking book for sure for sure I mean the Pander Brothers I remember when I first read this I thought their art was too bizarre it’s very weird weird it's very like it's fashion art it's like fashion art very elongated very El Greco style like elongated torsos elongated fingers — almost like Aeon Flux-y — it looks very Aeon Flux meets like Aeon Flux oh yeah totally yeah now that you say that I feel like Aeon Flux stole their whole aesthetic from this. it's very similar very similar it's like Aeon Flux meets ‘80s fashion art you know like very stylish and in a way perfect for creating the character of Christine Spar who is like the ultimate '80s looking kind of artsy '80s girl, and it's a very 1980s feeling book, and I don't mean that as a pejorative but it just it's got the flavor of the style of of the '80s and the Panders really they create that that mood tremendously well you know what’s interesting is like I like if you remember there was I don't know if you remember there was there was a there was like a pop artist pop commercial artist in the '80s named Patrick Nagel or Nagle or something like that and he drew he was famous for drawing these like these very evocative  women and this it was it was it was no
was almost the same one all the time 
with like this black short hair and it
feels like he it feel feels like they 
model Christine Spar off of this this
you know I know I know this art yeah 
this art it's like like super iconic I
remember these images yeah these were everywhere at the time and basically it feels like they took that that aesthetic or that model and said let's just kind of crank this up and make it comic-y, and in you know I mean in its own way that's unique and it's very fascinating and it's yeah it's I mean this
interesting about this book art-wise like 
it is very '80s but it's... it’s unexpectedly very sexy, you know, like, in a way… not like, "Wow, this is sexy,” but… there’s a lot of shots of Christine like traipses around just... in her panties you know like ...after a fight 
there's there's no nudity really no
nudity but yeah it's... it walks right up to the line, and there is a sex scene but it's discreet and we don't really see anything but they walk you right up to the line but it's very fascinating the way they do that like they do a lot of work with her when she's like you know she's come back from being Grendel she's beat up and she's like in the shower or or in her bed and it's just like and I'm just like some of the poses are just like okay what is going on here because this is like it's not like you know it's not like some sex comic or drawing the women in a way that's like that’s over that's overly sexualized overly sexualized No, not at all just this it's too stylized for that. Yes. it's just it's interesting in just what they do and you know and even the woman like her friend Regina her friend it's this is something I noted I want to talk to you about see if you noticed this right, so she's Black, right? her friend is Black but she's drawn like a White woman who just has like brown skin and she's not drawn like if you if you know that we' said this before like if Trevor Von Eeden was drawing her or if Denys Cowan was drawing her, she would have like more of an aesthetic of like a black woman but she doesn't in this, and the thing is I don't mind it, because the book is so on its own kind of plain for how like everyone is kind of like expressed and stuff like that and it’s just it's it's just a it's just... I mean there's panels in here like sometimes the paneling is really page layout totally because they're very bizarre there's there's a whole lot of there's a whole lot of angles that they get I me these guys are actually Master draughtsmen because their angles that are like you know like there'll be a closeup on a doorknob hand grabbing and someone of the distance and it's like and everything is properly foreshortened, not I mean or not 
I don't know it's stylized in a way that it doesn't look... but it works they’re stylized yeah it works so well it's like these guys the Panders I’ve always loved the Pander Brothers and they are hyperstylized, but it's not the kind of drawing where the style is obscuring something or it's not the kind of hyperstylization where you can tell that there's a lack of knowledge like these guys seem like they they are like you say impeccable draughtsmen they have  an incredible command of actual anatomy and perspective and all of the like sort of basic draftsmanship that you need, but on a very high level, and then they’re pushing the style to this extreme degree and one thing about the Panders that I've always noticed that I just think is hilarious and and unique, and really striking to me, is they draw some of the best hands of any comic book artist I’ve ever seen and they're constantly putting the hands in the panel and in frame, and it's something that's so unusual because
I think hands are difficult to draw for 
a lot of artists in a multitude of positions; the Panders are almost like showing off their facility with drawing
hands and fingers because virtually every panel you can see the fingers and
the hands of the characters contorted 
and like butting into the panels often, and I just kept noting that I always think that when I read the Panders work like because it's so unlike most cartoonists but they are [ __ ] excellent at drawing hands in all manner of positions and it's just to me I remember hearing a cartoonist say once that you can judge the skill level of a comic book artist by how well they draw hands and fingers and that anyone who has-- yeah it's really difficult to do from a variety of angles the Panders just seem like they they laugh at that they're just constantly like, "Check this out, check that out, look
what I'm doing with the fingers here…" and the hands like it's amazing what they do, and it's just an example of how skilled they are and I find their work to be really just super unique and really compelling doesn't look like anyone else in comics and I really want yeah very like singular and I want to call out especially the covers because I 
think these are incredibly striking
covers for the most part and I love the 
way Comico was having them do these
wraparound covers which was kind of the aesthetic for all the Comico books at the time yeah and they have these incredible wraparound covers the Panders take full advantage of and one of the covers Issue Number Four I believe is inked by the late great Dave Stevens of ROCKETEER fame and I was stunned to see that because I never realized Dave Stevens inked a cover of GRENDEL, and I’m sure it's because you know, indie comics, Comico, what have you, I'm sure there was some relationship somehow somebody knew 
Dave Stevens, but but yeah it's a
really striking cover Issue Number Four 
Dave Stevens one of the all time masters but is ...but it is possible that he could have been a fan of the book you know because that's very possible you’re right because I want to say it's in a GRENDEL letter column somewhere I yes it is in GRENDEL column somewhere Jamie Rich yeah he writes in several letters yeah he writes in at least two two or three letters here writing in from California I noticed that Jamie Rich she'd go on to be a major editor and you know what I also noticed here and this yeah for sure it’s one of those things that we always talk about we love in letter columns as you do see people popping up in here whose names you recognize ...issue number five's 
letter column it's the first actual
letter column and Diana Schutz starts the letter column by giving out the sales figures for issue number one and these sales figures are eye-popping by today’s standards, and even back then I'm sure very impressive, Diana Schutz says okay “GRENDEL's Lair,” issue number five, the letter column, finally our first letters page as these words are being written… the first issue of GRENDEL has completely sold out of its initial print run of 68,000 copies. this first issue sold 68,000 copies, Chris. like that is pretty stunning for an indie book full color indie book 68,000 copies that’s mind-blowing all right let me a question because I have it in front of me what's the cover price for that book The Cover price for issue number one of Comico's GRENDEL is $1.50... $1.50 okay now that and it came out I think when comics are probably 75 cents yeah it came out in 1986, and I think you're correct I think comics were around 75 cents; this was double the price of an of a Marvel or DC book so they were making double. the fans
were willing to pay double for this high 
quality unique, more mature piece of work yeah yeah I mean it's crazy I mean the thing about it is is oh is interesting the cover of number one if you look at that looking at now in your thing the back is done by Matt Wagner that back cover, you’re right actually yeah that's true and it’s actually one of the only ones that's not a wraparound cover and yeah for some reason it's not but yeah that is Matt Wagner's art and Comico is such a weird and interesting comic company and for the longest time I thought they were Comic-co and I would say “comic-co" because that sounds normal to me you would think it was just Comic-o but I doublechecked before we did this episode today and I looked up an interview on YouTube to see one of the I was trying to find a Comico creator actually talking about the company and I found it was William Messner Loebs being interviewed talking about JONNY QUEST which he was doing for Comico and he clear he clearly calls them Comico and, because I've heard people pronounce it both ways, and I wanted to get like get some kind of confirmation but according to Bill Messner Loebs who wrote JONNY QUEST it's Comico, and I don't know where the [ __ ] that pronunciation comes from it's a weird way to say the name of the company, but apparently that's how you say it, but I just I learned that recently no because it sounds it sounds like it would be like it's almost like it sounds like it's got some sort of like some sort of like manga influence you know or some sort of you know you know cuz cuz there was a a toy company called Mego and they used to make I think I think they made the Micronauts toys if I might be wrong, but I remember there was one it was Japanese company ...I don't know, but obviously the that he would know because if he was mispronouncing it, the people the publishers would have told told his as$ you back in the day you know hey man it's not what we’re called We're called this it's I don't know it’s interesting like there is crazy I mean not I like there's some pages in there that are really striking, and I don't have like a list way that I that that I usually
would but because there were some I mean like look I'll give you an example
in issue five on page 12 there's a scene where Christine is like spilling her guts to Jenny right and she's just calling around the phone and everything like this and it's just it's like four pounds in a row like of her kind of like just like screaming out and saying she can’t figure out what's going on but
then there's one panel of like her 
friend this cut cut in the middle of
this little sequence and she's like not 
listening she's holding the phone to her
chest you know she's like oh and it's 
kind of like this [ __ ] is rambling the
[ __ ] on ...and interesting kind of just 
like page layout and it's I don't
know there's some there there's some 
place where else where it's like where
she's Christine Spar is crying think I 
think it's when she's going to give the
letter when she's leaving San Francisco 
she's going to give that letter to Brian
and it's like these four panels of like 
her eye quivering and then there's like
the tear coming down her eye and then 
it's like coming down her cheek and then it's coming off her mouth and then it's dropping tear drops are landing on the letter, and it sort of reminded me of that one issue of THRILLER, the Trevor Von Eeden one where the guy with the letter and I was like oh but he but it's it's but it's just the the way will kind of like sparse out moments back then you know like a full page to let somebody cry yeah yeah just let it breathe yeah just let it breathe in a way that comics people do that to a degree now ...you know like but they'll just do like a panel repeat it repeated... but they but they
these guys, like the Trevor Von Eeden THRILLER issue five, I need the throw I think it's issue five, or it's probably issue six, it’s such a different way of like of using the page that y'all help you kind of like fall into the emotionality of the... the story you know it’s interesting because we talk about like there is too much narration throughout... yes ...but there was one part where I think it's when she first shows up as GRENDEL at the guy's apartment and she just gets her a$s beat, and it's like the rest of the language when she's doing her diary it's like clipped and it's kind of like sparsely worded like she can't get her own thoughts out it’s there's like there's some there's tricks in there's tricks in that that he does which I think is smart it it doesn't justify the length of what it is most of the time but he does do things to kind of get you into her psychology in a way that I don't think I've seen like a lot of writers do when they do narration like this, which I thought was pretty you know like smart on his behalf, this is Matt Wagner, and what I don't know and I'd be curious, you know, I mean he's probably going to talk more about this when that Netflix series comes out is I don't know why he didn't draw this....

[Background Music fades in]
[Patreon Spot Interlude]

Hey, everybody. Sorry for the interruption. Thank you so much for  listening, but we're here to tell you about our Patreon, which we hope very 
much that you'll be able to contribute a
couple bucks a month to… We're giving 
away a stupid amount of stuff on this
Patreon. Chris, we're completely insane, and I think we need to stop being so generous, but honestly we got no choice. So what are we giving people? We're giving people free episodes, a lot of stuff, all right please what are we what are we giving away here? A lot of yeah yeah they're getting they get so if you support the Patreon it's $2 a month you're going to get three things: one is that you'll get two one-shot episodes which will be a book by me covered and a book by Steve, covered solo, and it could be absolutely anything that we want to talk about that's within the time frame of that world, and we might go into the '90s a little bit... we're doing that ...if you're a a member of this of the community you can suggest a book that we can read and give the Comics Rot Your Brain! treatment to for Seasons 2 and Season 3 ...and going forward... and the last thing is you can submit questions for the Q&A Episode that we will do probably between seasons like one and two or maybe sometime within between it might happen sometime either then or or maybe within the middle of 
Season 2, but that's what you'll get for
like for $2 a month. Please support the show; we would really appreciate it. Steve, tell the people what book you might cover as one of your one-shots. I'm so glad you asked, Chris, I 
think one of the books that I will
definitely want to cover at some point 
during a one-shot episode is the
extraordinary comic book from the 
1980s, BLUE DEVIL, from DC Comics, drawn by the terrific Paris Cullins — I should say penciled by Paris Cullins, frequently inked by Gary Martin and written by the slam-bang combo of Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn. BLUE DEVIL was perhaps the first comic book I really really fell in love with from DC Comics as a kid. The 
character was just being launched, I
think, in '84 when I first started reading comics, and it's kind of apropos because the character is kind of like a 
mashup between Hollywood and comic books, much like this show here itself and BLUE DEVIL was a Hollywood stuntman who got trapped inside of a devil suit and became a superhero. I remember that. And man, man, 
is that a good comic, so super fun. Big
reason I fell in love with comics was 
BLUE DEVIL, so I'm going to enjoy
revisiting that book and talking about 
It. Yeah, man. So that's really cool. I 
remember that book a lot. I remember
seeing BLUE DEVIL in CRISIS [ON INFINITE EARTHS] first, and that's what made me like decide to go back to read the comic. What might I talk about? There’s a book that Ken Steacy did called TEMPEST FUGITIVE Ohhh! Ken Steacy! I forgot about that
dude! Yeah, yeah. There's a book he did called… TEMPEST FUGITIVE; it's like some like scifi adventure. A guy… Obviously it's a guy jumping through
time, and stuff like that, but it came out in like the mid ‘80s, '86 I think, ’84… I don't have the date, but… I remember it, and I loved it and I haven’t read it in like 30 years, or even longer, so I'm going to go back, and I'm going to probably read that as, perhaps, one of the episodes that you'll get if you support the show for $2. It’s one of the one-shots. That's great, man; that's a really
good pull, Chris! Talk about obscure 
comics from the ‘80s, that's a
surprising one. You know, that's why you pay the big bucks, folks: that's why you pay $2 bucks a month is to hear Chris talk about Ken Steacy's TEMPEST FUGITIVE. Great title, by the way, really clever, fun title; I like that title… Ken Steacy, he's a
really interesting [ __ ] artist. He’s 
one of those guys who was everywhere in the '80s, and in the '90s a little bit, and then his work has just almost completely disappeared from the comics landscape. In the Modern Era, people don't talk about him; people don't seem to remember him 
much, but that airbrush-y sort of like, you know, yeah yeah, poppy airbrush style that Ken Steacy had was super iconic and dominant across a lot of indie comics — I feel like he was the look of Now Comics, to me, when they were doing like, SPEED RACER, and RACER X, and ASTRO BOY, and stuff like that. All the Ken Steacy covers were what I remember. He also… it’s funny; I was reading recently he did this… scifi book called, THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE, I believe, and it was written by Dean… It was written by Dean Motter, who would go on to later create MISTER X, and it was something that was originally published in EPIC MAGAZINE in the Marvel
Comics EPIC ILLUSTRATED, I think it was called. THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE. And if memory serves, it was about, like, a nun in a convent in the future, and it was, like, some science fiction story about religion and the future, and, I don't know, I never read it, but I just was reading about the book [then], and it sounded really interesting, and was, I 
think, …it was collected after the
serialization of Epic, so anyway, Ken Steacy, a guy who did a lot of really kind of intriguing work that is not looked at nearly enough these days— Right. —So he's going to be… [his books] that we might take a look at, and so if you support the channel for $2 a month, we’d love it. And now actually… Oh wait, I'm sorry; I'm sorry, Chris, hold on. Hold on, one last thing about Ken Steacy — this… is gonna be the longest Patreon spot ever — but Ken Steacy… Did you know he illustrated a comic, 
actually, for Dark Horse, like two years
ago, and it was the first time I've seen 
him in forever, and do you know who wrote it? No. I had no idea that he even did a book…. Margaret [ __ ] Atwood! Margaret Atwood! She wrote a comic for Dark Horse a couple years ago, and no one [ __ ] noticed it, it seemed like. No one talked about it. I think I'm the only [ __ ] person in North America who read this thing…. It was called WAR BEARS; it was like… an utterly bizarre comic. It was just a phenomenally strange comic — we should probably cover it over an episode, it’s so weird …even though it's a modern comic — but it's called WAR BEARS. It's painted by Ken Steacy, written by Margaret
Atwood, not… not “based on a story by Margaret Atwood”! — Written! The comic is written by Margaret Atwood!  — and it was a four-issue miniseries from Dark Horse. I highly recommend it. I actually quite enjoyed it, but it's a bizarre piece of work, and I don't even think, yeah I don't think I could summarize it adequately,
but it's worth looking at, and since 
we're talking about Ken Steacy, just
something to look for. ...I'm gonna look 
that up. I'm gonna check that out. I'm
definitely gonna check that… it's so 
weird, so weird, that is crazy… See? We talk about these artists that everyone 
remembers, and [or] doesn’t remember, and now we get to come back [all this time later] and take a look [again] at this work! And now back to the show….

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[End of Patreon Spot Interlude]
[Show continues...]

Well, I'm thinking, you know, jeez, he had just drawn the previous ...he drew 
the Hunter Rose story, yeah, and he was finishing up MAGE, at this time, because …I think… and he was drawing — writing and drawing — MAGE, of course, so some of these issues feature advertisements for Issue, I think, 15, the final double-sized 
issue of MAGE, and there's like a great kind of hyperbolic ad in here somewhere calling it, like, “The most anticipated event in comic book history: the finale of Mage!” ...so that could be part of, you know, what was taking up his time, art-wise, and, you know, let's be real: drawing this
elaborate eight issue, 10 issue, 12 issue [series] of GRENDEL …that’s a lot of [ __ ] work. And if… he's doing MAGE at 
the same time, I'm guessing Matt …Matt was probably really happy to have a break and to let the [Pander] Brothers just run with it for awhile, but at the same time, if he’s… getting close to 70,000 issues sold, and that ...and I… think that first issue… did
did three print runs, so they could have broken 100,000. Wow. Like easily broke 100,000. Wow, that’s f'ing nuts. And I feel like he was... I betcha he was like, look, they want more Grendel, because the Hunter Rose stuff was so successful, and he was, like, 'I can't slip…’ because… I can make a money off of this…. Yeah. So I need to have someone else come in here and do it. But you know what? …Reminds me, I just 
want to tell you something, and I'll put this in the show notes… I have to look for it, because Erik Larsen wrote something on Twitter last night that was really fascinating about why artists don't do extensive runs on books anymore, and he was saying that, in the '70s and ‘80s, when he started out, a lot of ...there was a different type of… that there's more abstraction in comics, like he was saying that, like, backgrounds and stuff like that, and cars and stuff, looked more abstract, so the artist could just come in there, and just kind of, like, you know… Just kind of fake it. Well, yeah, they come there, just like, ‘Here's the background,’ doesn't need to… just buildings, blah, and then, Boom, there it is, and he said sometime like… in the ‘90s, like, some people started drawing stuff hyper photo-realistic and using so much reference that that became the standard of how artists drew backgrounds, and stuff like that, and it slowed down the ability of artists to do, like, one… to do more than one book, you know, per month, so
he said basically it like it takes too 
much time for an artist now I mean it
takes them the full month to do a book, so they wouldn't be able to be on
something for a long time, because it's 
just like you know because only he's
mentioned these guys he made it sound like people could do like two books a month right, and if you were an artist or a writer doing two books a month that’s actually like that's probably good money for you, you know, and if if you cut down to doing like one book a month, that's 
but but to work maybe twice as hard,
that's it's probably probably it's 
eating into your sales in a certain way
and it also means that you know these 
guys don't stay on books that long because
they got to keep doing new material for 
the press because like hey something's a
new press announcement means that the 
sales spike will go up, you know hey
issue one of this issue one of this, so 
so there's a higher degree of of sales
if they get percentage of sales, they get 
more money, whereas like if you're on you
know he says something like he said you 
know like the first issue and issue 30
of a run are the ones that get the press 
but you get ...and you'll get a sales spike
for those ...right yeah but but 2 through 
29 like people don't give a [ __ ] about
you know ...and so so it's interesting why 
he was bringing it up I bring it up
because, if you look at the artwork in 
this book, like the backgrounds are so
crazy, like the buildings and the cars 
and like everything is so abstracted out
in a way yeah that it's like it and to 
me I kind of think it's cool because I I
because it kind of makes you focus in on 
what's happening with the story and the
characters more. you know, it works 
totally it totally works and they're so
stylized it would look odd if this if 
this had backgrounds that were highly
photo-referenced or anything because the 
characters like we described are these
elongated Aeon Flux-y looking super-stylized you know people and so you
can have photo reference you really need 
to have kind of kind of wonky stylized
backgrounds which they have and you know 
it's like when Paul Pope does
backgrounds and Paul Pope's not using 
like a ruler to do or a T-square to do
his backgrounds he's drawn buildings 
with a [ __ ] brush you know and and
everything's got that just that energy 
and that vitality to it ,and for me, that
works great for comics, you know, and I 
think that's a fascinating point that
Eric Larsson's making and it makes a lot 
of sense because I think so many comic
artists these days because of that more 
laborious bar that's been set so many
artists these days can't even do one 
book a month, and I can understand why
because it is so time intensive and it's 
backbreaking and it actually like makes
me sad for what's expected of 
professional mainstream comic artists,
because I think that it's just it's not 
realistic to expect artists to produce
work at that, you know, at that level of 
detail on a monthly basis without
burning out, and and I think that's 
unfortunate ,and that's why it's so hard
also to get these lengthy runs, and there 
are some artists I think today who do
really great more gestural quick work, 
which tends to be my my preference often
anyway, like works that's looser it's 
got more vitality to it, and you know
and I think those artists can handle 
doing a book a month, because it's not
backbreaking for them you know there's a 
a young artist named Hayden Sherman,
these days, who does a bunch of books and 
I really like his style, but it's clearly
a style that works well for speed, and 
he's able to draw things at a fast clip
and I think his work looks fantastic but 
it's not overly laborious, and he's able
to finish books on time, and he's done 
he's been very prolific the last five
years; he's done a ton of books, and and I 
I like that kind of a vibe for a monthly
comic artist; reminds me of like Ashley 
Wood also back in the day great you know
what I mean and I heard Ashley Wood used 
to draw 10 pages a day and and Ashley
Wood used to draw on on I think he might 
still maybe, if he does comics these days,
but he used to draw on typing paper so 
it was literally like typing paper size
just like normal normal sheet like 8-1/2" x 11" paper and he would do
10 pages a day I remember I was talking 
to his art agent at a convention once
and he had all these original pages of 
Ashley's ,and I was like wait are these
originals? like: Why are they so small? and 
he was like, "Oh no, this is how Ashley
does his originals, and this is how he's 
able to do you know eight to 10 pages a
day and just get them done quickly," and I 
was like damn, well they look beautiful,
but it's the kind of style where you're 
not going to have a nervous breakdown
drawing because you are just suggesting 
the background you're suggesting things
but you're doing it with a high level of 
skill and knowledge and so it doesn't
look shitty it looks [ __ ] cool and it 
works no yeah no yeah I mean I mean
that's the thing about like this book I 
noticed is that like every once in a
while you know like they'll do these 
little I mean because like he would do
some of the thing they do when this 
would think is fascinating is there's a
level of kind of 
like I would say kind of like art house
kind of film editing in some of the the 
panels yeah totally you know like like
when she first gets her a$s beat by 
by Tujiro and she thrown out the
window and she she goes to Brian's house 
the guy across the street it's it's it's
it's like there's a shot of her like 
approaching his house she's oh hope he's
there and I got to call him and then 
there's like you know I got to get
inside and then it's like oh it's like 
the elevator and there's this real pop
flat there a real pop panel in there 
that's just like you know just like it's
just like the floor indicator you know like 
like there's no her going in no her
hitting the button it's just like bam 
you know she's fall out of the elevator on
the floor there like there's all these 
little pages like that where they would
kind of speed the narrative up like real 
fast like visually I the book is
interesting it's like visually The 
narrative goes real fast yes, then he
slows it down with how he's like 
describing it... you know it's kind of a
weird way that he's doing that, and I I'm 
was wondering is like is he not trusting
the audience or did he want to say more 
or you know because I'm not sure what
he's doing, like is he giving them a 
script or what? you know, like a full
script? I mean, I'd be curious to know their process... Yeah,
me too, actually I'm I'm very curious 
because I kept being struck by the fact
that like when I look at Matt Wagner's 
work as a writer-artist I've always
thought he was one of the best sort of 
page designers in comics, you know what I
mean, like yeah he he brought a strong 
sense of design and layout to comics in
an era where very few artists were tuned 
in to design the way that Matt Wagner
was and so so it was unusual to me to 
kind of note how text heavy these pages
were because I felt like there was like 
there were certain pages here where I
just felt like he wasn't even giving the 
art enough room to breathe because he
was overloading it with captions on like 
certain pages ...not all the time... but there
were a number of pages where it just 
surprised me that someone with the
design acumen and instincts of Matt 
Wagner when he went back to do the final
pass on the script once he saw the 
Panders' art that he wouldn't have kind
of pulled back a little on the text 
because to me I was just like, "Wow, some
of these pages look way over-stuffed" ...and 
I'm used to seeing that from someone
who's a writer-writer who doesn't 
understand the art, you know what I mean
but but it's odd for me to see that from 
someone like Matt Wagner who's not only
an artist himself but who's an artist 
who really understands page design and
minimalism, and so with this I was like 
wow this is really kind of an experiment
where he's attempting to kind of, I guess, 
just write a lot of verbiage, but here I
would say like issue number one Chris on 
pages 15 and 16 is sort of an example
of what I'm what I'm talking about here 
but maybe you can you can see just some
of these panels oh yeah raise it up yeah 
yeah yeah it's just like it's just
I mean I mean like I remember we talked 
about one time a long time ago like Warren Ellis was like Hey you know do you 
have more than 30 words yeah that's like
that's a crazy panel right there yeah 
that's just I mean it's I mean I mean
look there's three dialogue 
balloons on one woman and two narration
boxes it's like damn D yeah there's like 
three dialect balloons and four
narration boxes in one panel this is 
page 16 of issue number one of this
GRENDEL run, and I was just like good 
Lord that's a lot of verbiage. yeah it's
a lot. I mean it's you bring up the thing 
about how his page design I
remember getting like a copy of that 
Dark Horse thing, "Devil by the Deed," the Hunter Rose story, right, and I remember this is one page like the page when he when
when Hunter takes on GRENDEL I mean 
takes on the wolf [ __ ] Argent
battle and I think there's like 32 
panels on that page I've seen that page
yes, and it's and they're really small 
like they're like it's it's basic like
basically he took like a like a a like a 
true chess board and was like here's
what it is I'm going to just draw in all 
the white blah blah blah, and but then he would
intersperse like text within some of the 
square so he I think he even in
his own work he writes a lot you know at 
least at this time but I feel like he
probably like what the process of this 
book was because was he
thinking if I was doing this I could do 
this in 22 pages with this amount of
text, you know, but my art 
would be able to like design it
the right way, but these guys needed like 
26 pages to cover what he could do in 22?
Maybe, I don't really know ...but but the 
thing is he had to have [ __ ] found it
workable because he let them go for a 
whole year, like doing his book, and it
sold well, you know, I mean, to a degree oh 
it worked yeah yeah it worked well,
although it is interesting though, and 
like I mentioned to you before the
letter column has some some rave 
letters and some critical letters, but
here let me let me just read you briefly 
their first letter column in GRENDEL
issue number five, and Diana Schutz is 
responding, and there's they publish
three letters, and one of the letters 
that they publish is from Chris
Romano in Pacific Palisades, California 
and Chris says, "Dear Diana, Let me point
out that I'm not what you'd call a 
devoted GRENDEL fan. I've read the first two issues of the black-and-white 
episodes, and I've read for the most part the stories that have appeared in the back of MAGE. Unlike MAGE and the first three black-and-white issues of GRENDEL, the new color GRENDEL is very wordy.
Matt's writing style has changed greatly. 
I'm assuming it has changed for the
character, although the style is similar 
to that of the Demon..." (which was the mini-series that Matt did for DC 
also around this time -- Kirby's
Demon), "...Nevertheless, I feel the tremendous amount of
words bogs down the story. When GRENDEL 
appeared in the back of MAGE, I thought
the novelistic type of format was due to 
the limited space. It seems even with
about eight times the amount of pages, 
you've decided to keep it. For me, it
makes the book a lot less readable. How 
bad can it be, you ask? Well I put issue
number one down on Thursday when 
I hit the staples, and I didn't pick it back up until Friday, 
because I needed a rest. The artwork is
interesting; the Pander Brothers have a 
unique art style which seems to be an
incorporation of Japan's famous yet 
primitive work and the angular more
artsy pictures that have been 
popularized by many American artists...."
(STEVEN: OK, not really sure what that analysis 
of the Panders' work means, but OK)
"...It's interesting, but I found it getting 
a little tedious toward the end of the
book, the pictures of The Night 
Watchman stick out as being unsatisfying.
I'm going to give GRENDEL a chance; its 
two predecessors were intriguing, and I
feel the story 2 has promise. One 
more comment / complaint before I go:
Although Matt Wagner is not drawing the series, I would have liked to see him draw the cover; he's a fantastic artist in his own right and should take some part in the visuals of the series, and no, I don't think the back cover counts.Thank you for your time." OK, so there's a pretty critical letter to publish in your first letter column which again -- hats off to Diana Schutz for even
publishing that -- because that is something I adore about these letter columns in the '80s, especially where you get this 
spirited debate about what's happening
in the book, and I think it's honest and 
and I think it's fair, and I and I heard
editors some editors at the time say 
that sort of the working theory
at least for some editors back then was 
that you wanted to publish a
representational sample in the letter 
column that basically gave a rough
estimate of the kind of reaction you got 
to whatever issue and so if you got all
raves for an issue then you publish all 
Raves but the fan base was split 50/50
then the letter column should be split 
50/50 that they wanted and it sounds so
like charmingly honest that they would 
even have that thought but there was the
thought that this was supposed to be an 
honest reflection of the reader
reactions and at least you know I'm sure 
not all editors went by this but I
remember hearing at least a couple 
different editors talk about how they
wanted the letter column to be that 
place where you got like a real sort of
sample like a little survey of what the 
reaction was, so anyway Diana Schutz here
chose to publish this, and her response 
is:
"Matt is taking an extended break from 
published artwork, Chris, though he will
continue to provide the color for all of 
the GRENDEL covers..." So, apparently, he's
coloring these covers, which is 
interesting. "...Sorry to hear that his
intentionally complex writing style 
adopted in this series isn't quite your
cup of tea, but not everything in life is 
easy. Personally, I feel this is Matt's
best writing ever. I'd stick with the book 
a while longer if I were you. --Diana"
...Well, there you go; at least it's not 
it's not [ __ ] Alan Gold in the letter
column of THRILLER, it's not ...it's not 
Alan Gold being like, 'You're right, our
creative team's out of control. The 
book's gone off the rails. I'm sorry." ...like
at least it's not him being, you know, 
being a prick to the creative team. Diana,
at the very least, although I don't 
totally agree with her, she's got Matt
Wagner's back, and I appreciate that. yeah 
well here's the thing... a couple things
about this one I forgot there is that 
backup in MAGE, right? ...And I kind of remember like he was kind of mixing like true kind of like prose with kind of like like the way like 
picture book kind of art it was like it
was like a story book almost yeah yeah 
and and he's taking an extended
break from penciling I wonder if he got 
something happened...when he did MAGE where he didn't want to do 
any more art for some reason. Because... I don't think that he did any 
art I can't remember what art he
did I think the next art I saw him do 
was when he did like a BATMAN GRENDEL team up oh that and that's beautiful yeah he did a great job on that that BATMAN GRENDEL team up is yeah I think that's some of my favorite Matt Wagner
art that was gorgeous and and then he 
also did a BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT with Two-Face that was like a I think a two or three issue run I think it was called faces and that also was very very striking yeah yeah yeah but for some reason he didn't do a lot of art anymore after he did MAGE and I
don't really know why I mean he came 
back when he did the second part of MAGE and his art style had had had gotten really loose and in my opinion very lazy you know I mean I mean like I actually never finished reading this the
hero defined I think is what it it's 
called because I thought right I thought
I thought the artwork was just like un 
uninspired I do know that in like I said
that thing called "Devil's Hammer"
the GRENDEL TALES thing
yeah he was doing the backup story 
because it was because it because that
you know because once the 
because once the Comico like Grendel
ended and he brought it to Dark Horse I 
think that Diana Schutz went and became
one of the Edward Chiefs of dark 
something like that and she brought it
there with him he did that thing called 
called GRENDEL WARCHILD and oh yeah yes which is which is really great which is really really that's a that's a
beautiful looking book yeah yeah and 
because I covers by like I don't I don't
Simon Bisley I think was it b b covers the insides were great but he didn't do
artwork either but and it's a story about 
the guy GRENDEL Prime right right right
but but what he does do in this starting 
with the "Devil's Hammer" which is the
second like GRENDEL TALES thing is he 
tells these little three-page backups
called you know the search for GRENDEL PRIME right and in knows he does the artwork but it's painted art it's all painted like it's like he doesn't do pencils anymore you know or he didn't do P or at least he he wasn't doing like
GRENDEL pencils except for that BATMAN thing you know because because maybe you know what else he did pencils you know he did pencils on we talked about this a while ago remember the Dark Horse present series that he started but never finished THE AERIALIST oh THE AERIALIST yeah that was like a cool
looking a cool looking thing for a few 
chapters and then it got abandoned I
think for some reason yeah I mean look 
like he like there was like in
those GRENDEL like I read THE AERIALIST because in the GRENDEL tales letter columns people would always ask about it they would go oh
was it was like you know then and then 
later I they think one time like Matt
like answered someone's letter 
specifically saying I'm not going to
finish it but you know blah blah blah I 
you know I mean and the a people
don't know is the story he did I think 
it's only three chapters in DARK HORSE PRESENTS I think there's like I think 
you see it in the cover of all of them except maybe one actually I mean it's like the third you know how they would kind of cut the cover in pieces you know and so it's only like maybe like the little like the third of a cover eighth of a cover but it's about a guy it's in 
some weird future where the aerialist is like is a football type sport and THE AERIALIST is like he's a he's a star like of that sport and it set up in a world where like it's predominantly I think it's predominantly homosexual and he's a
homosexual but he's pretending to be 
homosexual he's really a heterosexual and he's you know and he's and he's and he's I think he's being a homosexual he's got a love and everything like that you maybe even husband so he can be an aerialist you know so it's kind of like a weird kind of story but very unique very unique I remember he goes and meets with the commissioner of the sports league and it's like a woman and it's like she's this big interesting clothing on but her tits are hanging out you know she's like and it's like it's like it's like it's like a bra without you know
the cups and it's like she can walk 
around that way because society is like
kind of like in these weird demarcation 
lines about sexuality it's such a weird
book and I and it's only maybe around 
like at the maximum 20 pages total maybe did eight pages I know he didn't do a lot a lot and I think he I think he got a lot of [ __ ] for from somehow from somebody and never finished it and never wanted to finish it but it's truly a fascinating little story that's funny that we talk we're talking about this right now Chris this is something I was going to bring up off the air but I 
might as well mention it now since we're on the topic it would be kind of a fun thing to consider sometime for
the podcast to do like episodes where 
we focused on unfinished comic series
like you know what I mean like there's 
THE AERIALIST and then what made me
think of it was I was listening to 
episode of [Cartoonist] Kayfabe earlier today where 
they were talking about Stephen Bissette's
book TYRANT where he was telling the 
life story of a dinosaur a Tyrannosaurus
rex from like birth to death and he only 
got to like issue four or issue five and
had to abandon the book but it was 
beautiful brilliant it was like a
masterpiece in the making and there's 
been so many big numbers with Alan Moore, Bill Sienkiewicz, there's been so many 
really like consequential series that
were launched in comics and we know 
because of like what we were talking
about with artists earlier specifically 
espe
that just the making of a comic book 
especially at the level of something
like big numbers and you know Tyrant 
which is so research intensive it's a
backbreaking arduous Endeavor and if 
suddenly your financial situation
changes or if someone offers you a lot 
of money to do something else like it's
really hard like it's such a huge lift 
to finish like the last couple hundred
pages of a series and sometimes you know 
real life intrudes and you have to just
abandon ship and move on to something 
else but but I think there's something
fascinating about these finished 
projects by these major creators and I
think they're worth discussing and worth 
looking at and you know taken seriously
because like these are books that could 
have been something amazing and whether
or not they got finished I think it's 
it's a shame that you know they'd be
completely 
forgotten that's interesting you talk
about that because I'm trying to there 
are probably at least a dozen books that
I read that they just stopped like 
whatever reason like they didn't sell
well but they didn't end you know and 
yeah I mean we should totally do that
should I mean I mean like like nowadays 
they don't do that nowadays I mean like
well 
maybe there's image books that that
don't sell well I remember there was a 
James Robinson I just because I was
looking through something this weekend I 
totally forgot about this there's a
James 
Robinson image book called
THE SAVIORS was book where it was like oh 
oh oh saviors savior savior yeah yeah
that's right that's right and it was 
like J. Bone I think was doing the art
on it it was a really cool looking book 
yeah yeah yeah and it's like you know he
never finished that and I want to say 
that I don't know if he ever finished
leave it to chance and you know I 
think there was a bunch of those books
what was that one series well there's 
that book whole whole publishing called
Crossgen like those books never finished 
yeah that went down in flames
spectacularly and same thing with the Malibu Comics like those books never finished either they flamed out but I'm sure there's books that are like you know some epic books or some other like I mean I look I'll tell you what I almost finished I remember that like the original like Epic Comics like AKIRA 
run like ran pretty successfully from
like from like the mid '80s to like the 
early '90s and then it stopped and then
like like a book would come out like 
every 18 months or something like that
it was some weird kind and I I don't 
even know if they ever finished
publishing the whole story through Epic 
but it was this long process before
like is like I remember like I 
years would go by before issues would
come out for that I couldn't understand 
why and I I was just like well because
it was it was done yeah it was done I 
mean it wasn't color because the
American stuff was being colored Steve 
Steve Oliff ...Steve Oliff was coloring it
right yeah but yeah I mean that's an interesting thing to think about too I 
mean you know bringing this stuff bring
it back to the a of Matt Wagner I mean 
like obviously I mean I think there was a there was like a GRENDEL TALES story that never ended either kind of remember I don't remember I was just I I was looking for these books these pan 
brother books the last two weeks
trying to find him I couldn't find I 
just found the GRENDEL TALE stuff
there is an interesting little 
two-part one that we should talk about
maybe later there's these guys who 
are from [Croatia] did the book that artist Edvin Biukovic I believe was a brilliant artist like he was one of the 
one of the best artists that I saw ever
draw GRENDEL like I thought his work was just stunning like masterful work yeah so really really sad that his life 
was ended in an untimely way
that's horrible but that was a beautiful book he did was it one GRENDEL
tales he or did he do two I couldn't 
remember two issues it was two issues it was two issues okay yeah it was one 
story two issues yeah yeah I mean I
heard he was supposed to come back into another one but then he died and then they so those guys never finished it so sad but what does some want to say about this Matt Wagner's thing oh you know what there was some interesting moment where you know she's over maybe it's an issue five right she's overhearing the Japanese troupe
talking and they're speaking in Japanese oh yeah and it was she's like oh they're speaking I wrote they're speaking Japanese like fools believing is still not much spoken in the states and I was like this book it's it's much like BLADE RUNNER is channeling the fear zeitgeist of the time that Japan was gonna take over the US economically in a way that they couldn't do it like by force like 40 years earlier I think it's a really interesting time yeah to like that time period in America because the... anger and the fear we have about China taking over right now you know the Japanese had that because they were like I remember they bought Rockefeller Center there was all this talk they were just like gonna be just just buying up
everything and and they're [ __ ] us 
over with the our industry it was this
really crazy time that is crazy they he 
kind of like channeled this like in the 
to the to the story in a way there's something else about that I that 
was F other part also in issue five
there's a woman there's a part with a 
guy named Brian Lee Sung he's being
questioned by a cop and he's like yeah 
have you seen this woman and he's like
well he he kind of brush it off and he's 
like no if You' seen this woman and he
was like I can tell white women apart he says this line right yeah yeah and it
makes and it's a weird line for Wagner 
to write in the book because at
especially at that time in America 
because he's like trying to show he's
he's "woke" in a way because it's like he 
knows there's an accusation among white people that or you know all all black people look alike or all ages look alike or all you know what I'm saying we kind of like kind of subing stereotype yeah yeah yeah he's flipping it he's flipping it and that's a really good point because that line totally stuck out to me as being a very unconventional dialogue exchange for that time for sure and it also does point out what a interestingly and admirably kind of multicultural book this GRENDEL run was because I don't know if we mentioned it specifically here but Christine Spar the main character you know she ends up having a you know a brief love affair with this guy Brian and who's Asian American and you know and Christine's White and her best friend is Black and you know it's writing this is a comic in the '80s where like the three central kind of heroic characters are white black and Asian and you know and two of them are in a in a love affair you know that's something and also two females are the least too those two females and Asian male is which is so kind of like it's groundbreaking very progressive for that time oh very progressive I think that to me this book like the idea of this book and the idea of this run like 
there's so much greatness in the idea of
GRENDEL and obviously the continuing 
legacy of GRENDEL is a testament
to what a brilliant idea it is what a 
brilliant character design it is and
just what a resonant concept it is, so 
even though this particular story I
don't feel like all the pieces totally 
add up to a masterpiece like I I think
that in seven issues to my mind we've probably got about four issues worth of story that are kind of padded out into seven issues which is what makes it feel a bit slow and frequently really redundant to me so I don't think it's like masterful on in terms of the actual execution but when we start
talking about the concepts conceptually the ideas the fact that it's women leads in a in a brutal action story and people of color in the leads and and like you know having multicultural love affairs at that time just the ideas behind this book are way ahead of their time and phenomenal and, so even if the execution wasn't 100% spot-on perfect, it's clear it was clearly good enough that this book I think justifiably rightfully has 
become beloved and GRENDEL is obviously a [ __ ] phenomenon these last 30 years in comics that has not gone away and is soon to be a major Netflix series yeah it's funny because I was talking with this I was I was having an interview with some agents the other day and he was talking about like stuff I'd be interested in and I was like and he could one of the guys like oh I think you love to be the guys at Dark Horse I was like yeah I mean I mean I think it'd be cool that I said but look the do that GRENDEL thing I'd rather work on seasons three and four when it becomes the Christine Spar story, not the Hunter Rose story, because they're doing the Hunter Rose story first because I think that's not as interesting and the reason why is because one of the bigger themes of GRENDEL and because something that you don't quite know he's going this direction like like in these issues but there's one little page that just's one little moment that does tell you what the what the real cool thing about GRENDEL is and which is this I think it's somewhere in issue six or something like that when Tujiro shows up at her bed somehow and it's like oh I can taste you and blah blah blah it's like, then later on she's like she knows he's showing up and she says something about like you know he can't sense her as well when she's wearing when she's GRENDEL like when she's wearing the mask there's one line about this and why that's a fascinating line is because what happens in the after the Christine Spar story wraps up is for those who don't know bug Ken the mask is like is like magical like it's a totem that whoever puts it on actually begins to channel the essence of GRENDEL and so I think which is like a which is like a weird thing where and then later on like around issue 20 or so like this it's like far far future where like GRENDEL has become a cult it's become this or not cult it's become a religion it was like these and... it's like where he extends the concept of what it means to be GRENDEL to be this corrupting force that channels that brings all your internal evil and paranoia to the surface of your thinking which I think is what makes this a fascinating character or concept that the Wagner came up with it all begins it all kind of starts here, and I think he was saying somewhere else he's like well I didn't
know where to take this and someone said oh now that the GRENDEL is like a mask like what would like what would happen if it infected a crowd he said it in one of the letter columns and he was
like that was my inspiration for doing like putting in the future where like the 
mask and the essence of Hunter Rose like he's such a primary force that he even dead and him being an evil entity is able to like live on and it's just like I think that's the thing that the book
becomes like further and further on 
it becomes this look at like what corrupts you know and how do you find solace because I think what happens in every time is it's almost like the Grendel thing is sort of like the black costume right the Spider-Man black costume yeah yeah The Symbiote because what happens is like all these characters have something tragic happened to them and then and the
way they have to exercise their tragedy is by becoming Grendel and he's called the fiend he's called the devil called Devils by the deed so he know it has this sense of like this is the most corrupting thing on the planet yeah yeah it's right it's right out there they're not they're not hiding that like literally the word the word devil is all over the Grendel mythos yeah exactly it's right there and what's interesting is it makes you realize that Argent is actually a force of good yeah he's trying to stop the whole concept of GRENDEL because he can smell it like he smells it when she get when she put when she steals the mask like he's so tuned into that to to to the frequency of the like of the corrupting force that he's like I can't let this exist it's almost like because he looks like a demon he looks like a like a strange you know half-man half-wolf no one he can't be believed is saying that like what I'm trying to do is to rid the world of this entity. That's a fascinating point, Chris, because like yeah the he's like Wagner does subvert that idea of like you assume that Argent is he's the bad guy because he looks like a big evil hairy furry wolf and that's just the assumption and you don't assume that this feral savage wolf creature is actually a force of good yeah yeah it's wild Yeah! I mean... again, that's why... like you said... this is not my favorite GRENDEL story, but reading it again now -- and having not read this in like 15 or 20 years -- --Sure ...Still, there was a thrill in reading it [again]. I mean, and the thing that he does really well is: He does end every book with a really strong ...usually a splash page-- Yes. --and, they end every book with a really strong cliffhanger moment-- Yes. --where she's usually on her back foot, but getting, you know, whatever it is ...there's great storytelling in it. There's great stuff in here. Yeah there's great stuff in here. And I don't mean to be overly critical of the book because there is great stuff here scattered all throughout it just feels a little bit to me it felt a little bit hit or miss but I agree with you a lot of the cliffhangers are terrific and there are so many wonderful lovely storytelling moments throughout all of this like there really is a lot of great stuff in and I think Christine Spar is a very iconic looking character and just a really cool unique lead character to be this savage brutal lead who's on this mission for revenge and there's something about her that feels very iconic with me and the way the Panders portray her and her sense of fashion and style and everything like there's a lot about the book that feels like very appealing and just the design of the package too like it's a very exciting feeling book you know you know so I'm not surprised that it was thrilling in a way for you to revisit it because it does have like the pop of it's got the pop of like pop hs to it in the way that for me comics can be so exciting just these gaudy colors and these brutal brutal images like it's a very exciting looking book it's I mean you know it's interesting too I noticed this every once in a while they do something that like a lot of comic artists don't do and I remember there's some of this like it's something that Miller does a lot I remember this in like DARK KNIGHT not DARK KNIGHT but the BATMAN: YEAR ONE and also the BORN AGAIN thing right especially it's PR in the BORN AGAIN when he does that kind of weird kind of zipatone stuff when he's with Karen Page the little Karen Page story yeah is that and the Pander Brothers do this too is that a lot of times they'll draw the shadows on people's face yes you know like I mean and it's very kind of film noir with these hard kind of angles and blinds and we that show like that and he and they draw stuff like that on there and then it's like it's not black it's like but the whoever colored it just kind of darkened the color the shadow of that main Hue it's a really interesting way that that book is is like and it's put together and colored because there's there's not a lot of black used in it yes not at all but they know how to use color in a way to like to do form and and to make it like feel 3-dimensional in a way that books at that time weren't doing not at all and actually toward exactly what you're saying Chris if you look at the cover to issue five which is colored by Matt Wagner and it's Christine Spar looking really distraught and bereft in a phone booth in like inside of an old school glass phone booth and she's taken off the GRENDEL mask and she's got this big bulky oversized leather '80s jacket on and she's dropped the phone receiver inside the phone booth and she's got her hand up against the glass the phone booth and if you look at her hand there look at the way it's colored and the way it's drawn you can see the the hand pressing up against the glass and the way just like the glass is reflecting and hitting off of her hand smooshing against it you see the inside of her palm and the way that little aspects of her palm are lit up and just like the white is popping on like her skin tone because it's like the reflection of the glass just like in the white parts of her palm it's very subtle drawing and
coloring there by Roger and the Panders 
and it's is just it's a beautiful cover
but just toward what you're saying these are not the kind of coloring effects that you were seeing in hardly any comic books at this time like very
sophisticated no no I mean and I think 
it has to do with the fact that like you
know I was kind of hitting at this when 
we talked about the THRILLER book one
time in terms of how he's able to draw 
faces in a way because he's not doing
superhero stuff I think the fact that 
they're not doing I think that like you
think about it there was an aesthetic to 
Marvel and DC Comics the way they were colored at that time y that people 
didn't steer away from yes and because
these guys and there's other Comico 
books like ELEMENTALS and stuff like
that where they and AIRBOY I think AIRBOY I think that AIRBOY AIRBOY was
Eclipse [Comics]. yeah they did coloring 
differently because I think they wanted
to like okay well we're not hamstrung by some house style yeah totally just
do whatever we want to do and I just 
just looking this book again it made
me realize like how many it's like how 
many chances were they taking was Wagner
and company taking to publish this book 
I me we said it was double the price of
most books when it came out and doing 
and not just double the price because
they wanted money but I'm but but I'm 
sure that kind of coloring cost more you
know like there's a lot to what they do 
and the paper the paper quality
certainly was better than whatever 
Marvel and DC were using at that time it wasn't newsprint at all well it couldn't 
be because to put that kind of color on
stuff you couldn't do that on newsprint 
you know yeah and I mean it's
it's there's a lot about this 
book that I look at and just kind of
marvel at and 
say this is not what guys would be would
be able to do today even if someone was 
publishing a book like this today I
don't I mean like an indie book like an 
Image book wouldn't do this you know I I
actually don't think people draw this I 
mean draw so stylized like this don't
and I think the Pander Brothers are 
controversial artists in a way because I've liked their work a lot forever 
and they did a an extended like 12 issue
maxi series for Dark Horse about 10 years 
after this book I think and it was
called TRIPLE-X and it was like this 
dystopia you remember that it was like
this dystopian futuristic story that had 
to do with like just like
revolutionaries in like a future world 
and it was all done in like duo shade
sort of like you know it was like gray 
tone artwork and so it was like not it
was not color but it wasn't like 
straight black and white it was just
kind of interesting and it remember the 
duo shade gray artwork was printed on
super glossy paper and it was a very 
unusual interesting looking package and
it was printed with really glossy covers 
and very just unique looking book trip X
the story as I recall was not the 
greatest story but it was again just a
visual extravaganza it was a really 
striking book visually I remember loving
it but I also remember bringing that 
book up with a few other friends of mine
who were comics fans at the time and I 
was the only one who was feeling the
artwork like my my friends I pointed it 
out to you were like I don't know
dude that looked kind of ugly like all 
their people look really gross and ugly
and I was like what are you talking 
about this [ __ ] looks amazing but
particularly because this I'm sure that 
was post Aeon Flux so like everyone kind of
you know it reminds me of a book did you 
read this book called
MISTER BLANK she read this book 
blank MISTER BLANK it was kind of like a
character that was like a white he like 
a white he look this up we'll try to put
show up yeah it was like I'm pretty sure 
it's called MISTER BLANK it had a weird
style too that was very kind of like 
like I think it's called MISTER BLANK I'm pretty it's you know and it's 
in it's MISTER BLANK not Mr.
period Blank oh interesting okay MISTER BLANK I think that's what it's called I
can see the covers now but it's like but 
like L times people do stylized work
that is so like left field of what 
of what anybody's doing yeah yeah
yeah I see the book here I see it I'm 
not familiar with this comic MISTER BLANK here published by slave labor okay 
slave labor
and their Amaze Ink imprint and so 
this was I missed this book this came
out in 2000 or January '97 to May 
2000 okay now just hold up for a second
I'm take a look at just let me see what 
you're looking
at MISTER BLANK yeah because it's I I mean 
but you know what that's actually a
really good story is it really I mean I 
mean like if anyone hasn't read a a it's
like this guy who's like he's just he's 
he's just every man gets involved in
this corporate conspiracy where someone 
has kind of cloned him you know
and it's it's I think it's only six 
issues maybe something like that I'm
totally curious I completely missed this 
yeah it's really cool really really cool
but again is this this artwork is so 
stylized that I don't think a lot of
people got into it yeah I don't know 
why I got I think it's because there was
some other kind of like slave labor book 
I was reading at the time and I just was
like oh just let me get this too because 
I kind of like these publishers and
just was blown away by what that guy did oh wow I remember even writing to the author and saying I want to make this a movie or a TV show very and he was very keen on it he was like well how much you offer me and I was like I don't know how much I canay figure I was trying to figure out what the or maybe he might have been an animator or something like that but there was something about 
it because it feels like a kind of
animated book you know okay which 
reminds me that's something else that I
kind of talk about Matt Wagner's art 
like I feel like Matt Wagner's art was
stolen by Bruce Timm to do BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES I feel like it's such like like it's channeled to you know like that particularly when you
mentioned that that one Two-Face 
issue that he did of the the the BATMAN
thing I just feel like there's a there's 
like a a playful quality to his art when
he does it and not that say is not 
serious but it feels like what Bruce Timm like kind of like extrapolated from that's funny I can definitely see the lineage there Bruce Timm's like 
slicker he's slicker but yeah Wagner's a
bit more organic feeling but they've 
both got a big retro sort of a fixation
and they've both got like one foot in 
the 1930s and the pulps you know
like and Wagner you know Wagner loves 
that pulp [ __ ], and he's written THE SHADOW he wrote SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE forever so and I think Bruce Tim also draws from that really old kind of well something about Wagner that pissed me off the most I thought for sure he was going to do one story he would draw one storyline at SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE and he never [ __ ] he never got around to it but and this and this actually breaks my heart to say this I got him to draw me a Wesley Dodd's SANDMAN oh you did Wagner yeah like in like back when that book was being published like in the mid '90s I went to San Diego Comic Con and I had him and I and he drew and he drew it's like $30 commission or something like but he drew me this really cool [ __ ] like SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE thing and but I lost it thing it sucks because I had it framed and everything I was in for recently and I was like I don't even know where that is anymore dude I hate when that happens I I met Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti at a comic book shop signing like [ __ ] 25 years ago or even maybe more it was right be it was before they launched Marvel Knights it was when Joe had just drawn sort of asriel and me and my buddy me and my buddy went to a comic shop signing and like no one had showed up for it and so it was basically us hanging out with Quesada and Palmiotti for an hour just and we were like kids but we were just chitchatting bullshitting with them and Joe was like you guys want some sketches and we were like we don't have any money and he was like I don't care and he just started doing Batman sketches for us and I had this great Joe Quesada Batman headshot that was a beautiful like pen you know pen drawing pen and in drawing and same thing he drew it on a comic backing board for me and I had it forever and I had it up on my wall for a while I have no idea where it is now totally lost it see see that that's just terrible too is that I have an like I
had a Paul Smith drew me an what's what's the guy the who's the Alan THE GREEN LANTERN oh Alan Scott Alan Scott he drew me a Alan Scott Green Lantern on the back of I mean like on like a comic like the backing boards and I don't have those he did I got three or four guys to draw me stuff you love Paul Smith so much like you and I you and IPA Smith yeah no because it was that because see what people don't realize is they probably don't forget this is that there was a time in like the mid-'90s at where you could go to Comic Con in San Diego and you could get these guys to draw free [ __ ] for you know or maybe it was $5 for like a custom sketch, and they would do it you know it was like a 10 minutes 10 minutes you I actually have a hold on just for a second I'm see something you're going to show all right okay I want I want to see this Chris has walked away from the microphone and he is going into his chamber of original art where he has no doubt an endless array of original art piled up God knows what he's about to return 
with oh this silence may be edited out maybe not oh he's returning did you find-- --this is crazy so I do have this is this little Sketchbook I got right oh [ __ ] okay and here's this is Brian Bendis like who did JINX oh my God that is whoa that's an elaborate looking piece that's a lot of black ink yeah oh my God that's like mostly black ink who wow this David Mack doing KABUKI oh
oh [ __ ] and this is this is like all 
free work oh here's Tony Harris doing
the SHADE from from Star 
STARMAN yeah the female shade
yeah here's David Latham who's 
doing like a STRAY BULLETS thing oh
that's so cool oh that's like Joey from 
stray bullets I think yeah oh that's
[ __ ] dope yeah this is just like it's 
crazy oh that's so cool man I never knew you had this little Sketchbook of like original art like this Scott Daniel like who did a Flash wow oh [ __ ] that's actually that's a nice piece yeah I mean I mean these guys did all oh this is a Charles Vess did a Dream for me from SANDMAN oh that is amazing 
because that's just like a like an
elegant doodle but every line looks 
perfect yeah yeah that's beauty this
Michael Allred did MADMAN yeah it was 
had this classic it's crazy it's crazy here I always see you might want to include one or two of those in the show notes do that totally do that Rudolpho Damaggio did Oliver Queen [GREEN ARROW] for me the time he was that's a beautiful piece actually that's really nice at the time he was doing he was doing Green Lantern green AR what he was doing to Connor Hawke story and then here's Michael Lark did something from TERMINAL CITY oh [ __ ] I love Michael Lark and TERMINAL CITY is a really beautiful book yeah this is from 8 97 this is this is this is where this is who did this Green Lantern from TANGENT I can't even read that yeah Lantern five minute sketch these guys are do these five minute sketches wow that's a nice one actually yeah Green Lantern from the TANGENT Universe oh oh this is J.H. Williams III holy [ __ ] oh my God no wonder that's a beautiful sketch holy [ __ ] that's a oh you got to put that in the show notes that's actually a pretty elaborate five minute sketch that's amazing dude J.H. Williams is like [ __ ] incred the thief of Baghdad yeah oh my God you got some heavy hitters in that book yeah this is all gonna go J.H. Williams and P. Craig Russell those are two of my favorite comic artists of all time that's incredible that's incredible man I mean got some real heavy weights there the thing is that this is like this where Comics has changed because this that's all from 
from '96, '97 that's when those guys would just be like I'm want to hook up the fans you give me my livelihood I'm gonna do something that I mean I just walk up these guys hey can you give me a sketch five minutes and they would all be like sure if there's if there's no line you know like around their place they would totally do it you know now but now they need $30 $40 $50 do something like that you know which is like or even or even more kind of outrageously just for a signature yeah yeah you know no like I I don't want I don't want to say any names but like I you know I've been at cons and seen artists charging kids you know $30 bucks $50 bucks for a signature like 
that that seems that seems outrageous to me yeah but they want their money yeah yeah no I get it I get it it's crazy it's crazy I'm trying to think is 
there anything else about this I got
a couple more notes on this book on 
GRENDEL couple more quick notes I just want to point out just for people who aren't familiar with GRENDEL one of the obvious thoughts that might strike people when they look at the character design which is amazing is holy [ __ ] does that mask look similar to the mask that Todd MacFarlane a few years later would give spawn and just the way that the GRENDEL eyes look and that GRENDEL mask it is so similar to spawn that I have to believe that Todd McFarlane took a a little bit of inspiration from GRENDEL and you know there's nothing wrong with that necessarily comics is a you know it's a continuum of everyone inspiring every and people building on each other's work and all that but it's just an interesting thing to note for me because they're both rather iconic characters in comics and I just I can't think of any other characters who have that sort of design for white eyes that have like teardrop sort of spikes going down and up from the eye against a black background like I just when I saw this spa mask I was like oh that looks like a GRENDEL homage and that's not again not a bad thing but just an observation well you know what about three or four years ago I was at The Writers Guild and I was 
talking with this guy who was at end game and he was telling you about what he was working on and he was like yeah I got this comic or trying to develop it's called GRENDEL most people haven heard of it I said what I know about this I was talking to him about he was saying yeah the thing hold the thing that's made it hard for us is his mask like his mask has been like co-opted by some other characters [ __ ] yeah like it might not feel so it might not feel that new he was complaining that that was some of the trouble they were had with the developments wild the the like of the book and I kind of feel like you know because SPAWN had been around like spawn had been a movie and I think it had been a cartoon I think that other people put have I probably would have seen it and was like oh well SPAWN already did this as opposed what what you're pointing out is that SPAWN basically stole the idea I'm not I'm not saying that ladies and
gentlemen that's Chris Derrick saying 
that say basically stole I'll say basically stole I outright stole but you know
I will say if you look at the GRENDEL mask one thing that is kind of funny it's like like it's also the little nose the little circular nose there I don't know if that like if that's gone later I suspect maybe it is gone later but that circular nose that's there early on and I'm looking at like the title page to issue number one looks almost comical like it's like a like a little circular clown nose on the mask which looks odd to me but that's just yeah no it totally it totally does interesting because like she mentions the book that he had like he installed like these filters in the nose had some weird ability to like filter out you know to to to increase your sense of smell but to filter out like gases and [ __ ] like it was just I was like yeah yeah along with also infrared lenses in the in the the eyes like you infrared stuff yeah me I mean and  here's the thing too the fork the fork
has got like the fork his little staff 
Fork has that electrical charge or that
fire whatever it is you can like cut 
through [ __ ] it's like it's a interesting I'm very curious to see what they do in the Netflix thing I just yeah totally curious be very interesting yeah but you're right but but but but Tomy fren he he owes a debt to Matt Wagner I mean I feel like you know again but also see the black Spider-Man the black Spider-Man suit is after this I'm pretty sure it's after it is yeah yeah because that Devil by the deed was like 8485 something like that so that's like a it's a weird kind of it's a weird thing the that lineage of the black Spider-Man costume though and it's funny because we talked about this a little bit before on the show but I I found out something 
just recently that was actually really
fascinating did you that the original 
Spider-Man black costume design where it came from originally was apparently a fan wrote into Marvel with an idea for
how Spider-Man's costume should be 
redesigned and I believe that fan was
like a young fan I think like 18 19 years old or something and they drew a sketch of this the Spider-Man black costume and said that Spidey's costume has been the same for so long I think it 
needs a refresh I think it needs to look
more like an actual spider look more 
badass and Jim Shooter somehow saw saw this letter as this is the Legend 
the story that I've heard just recently
that kind of blew me away and the Jim 
Shooter saw this letter and I think I
heard Jim Shooter talking about it on an interview recently and he confirmed it that he somehow this letter made its way to his desk and he saw the fan sketch and he liked it and he thought it was cool and he wasn't sure what he was going to do with it but he wanted Marvel to own the rights to this fan's design so he contacted the fan and he got the fan to sign away the rights to that costume design and he wrote him a check for like $200 for Marvel and this random fan designed the initial version of that black costume and then shooter gave that design I think to Rick Leonardi and asked Rick Leonardi to just kind of spruce it up and sign up fine-tune it and then a year later when Mattel came to Shooter in Marvel and said hey we want to do a toy event what can you do something with us and he came up with SECRET WARS Shooter was like oh this is the moment that I want to use that Fan's costume design and switch Spidey's costume in SECRET WARS but he had it in his back pocket for a year and it all started with this writing in a letter to Marvel which kind of blows me away I mean look I never heard that story I do know that in I think there's that you like there was that magazine not mag There's a
comic called MARVEL AGE yes that was 
kind of like kind of like their monthly
book that kind of was like their it's 
like their in-house it was like their
in-house promo mag which they somehow like G in a genius move they got peopleto pay for like 30 pages of advertising for like 50 cents and some stories but I remember thing I remember the most of 
that is there was a version that was in
print of the black costume and the eyes 
and the spider were red not white oh oh weird a version of that seen that oh 
that's wild I've seen that and I I put
to say it was in the one of those Marvel 
ages and it was like it was the sketch work and I'm pretty sure it's The 
Ricki sketch work that you're talking
about he did it with red the red which 
to me I thought was [ __ ] cool as [ __ ]
and then when I saw with the white I was kind of like you guys bitched out and did it with the white that but then 
I realized that the red on black is like
hard it be hard to just to reproduce 
that and it's like in the contrast of black and white was a lot better for 
totally yes that's really interesting CU
yeah the black and white is so iconic 
and so striking but that's fascinating I
haven't seen the red version with the 
the black and the red but just to make
sure that we're not spreading misinformation and fake news in this
podcast I just fact checked myself and 
my story here and so here's some the
actual information from Spider-Man. 
fandom.com the black costume originated in 1982 from an idea submitted by 22-year-old fan Randy Schuler after Marvel ran a competition for aspiring writers and artists to elicit new ideas for the Marvel Universe and Schuler's idea was to slightly upgrade 
Spider-Man's abilities and appearance he would don a new black stealth-like suit designed by Reed Richards and and the Wasp of The Avengers composed of the same unstable molecules found in the Fantastic Four's costumes this new suit would be more durable and stealth more durable and stealth-like than the handmade red and blue costume the idea was purchased by Jim Shooter at Marvel who was of course the editor-in-chief at the time and shooter purchased the costume design from the fan for the sum of $220 the equivalent of over $500 today and the opportunity to craft the store Schuler the fan submitted different versions of the story but ultimately Marvel took creative control and it was not until 2 years later in 1984 that SECRET WARS happened and shooter decided to use the black costume there and gave it gave it to Spider-Man there anyway so that's the story the official story I didn't know that 'til I heard this epic Jim Shooter interview just recently yeah it's kind of kind crazy I never heard that I've never heard that story before that guy [ __ ] Randy Schuler got robbed. Welcome to comics, Randy Schuler. But you know what is but I tell there's another story like this too I don't know all the details on this but I know this part of it is essentially true there was a woman who was a friend of Phil Knight who designed the Nike the Swoosh oh my God yeah she friend his at college or something like that and she still in for like $75 or $200 or something like that in like they were college students in the like early '70s this woman did that that's nuts I mean you know she I mean she basically like here's a design okay I'll buy it off of you like work for higher boom kind of thing and she never saw a dime associated with that afterwards she might have got more money she might have work for the company I don't really know what happened to her after that but I know that's what happened that's how he got cra it's crazy when stuff like that happens I don't know if you heard the 
new epic Kanye West interview that he did last week with the podcast, Drink Champs, but Kanye West tells a similar story along these lines about how he was saying that he feels like he owes Beanie Sigel his fellow rapper from the Rockafella days he owes him money because it was Beanie Sigel who gave Kanye the name Yeezy which Kanye then has used for his you know sneaker Empire and for everything since then and Kanye was saying like hey I want to give beanie some because beanie actually he made up Yeezy and like Yeezy's become this giant international brand now so it kind of reminds me of the Nike Swoosh story you're telling though it's funny though 
when sometimes or read the Randy Schuler story when someone has this incredible idea and then somebody else takes it and just makes billions of dollars with it like yeah so wild so so the so the moral of these stories are if you design anything cool for anybody or give anybody a name and they want to use it from you use it from you do not sell it get a percentage to them Li them for a fee or sell to them that you and that you get a constant licensing fee imagine if the woman if if the woman let's just say the woman who sold like who did that Nike design was like all right I'll give you this if I get a dollar for every time it's used or even if I get 1% or if I get half a percent if I get yeah anything nickel or like 25 cents I mean that Nike Swoosh on [ __ ] everything shoes shorts underwear shirts pins car car [ __ ] I mean on so much [ __ ] and she got nothing it's amazing it's amazing man it's yeah it's totally totally nuts one more thing on Grendel I have one other note that I wanted to just mention my last thing that I kind of bumped on with the story that kept bothering me as we were reading it and as I was reading the whole thing just I felt like the idea that Christine's son had been killed right Anson and that she was on this search to get revenge and like you know hunting the killer of her son I felt like her attitude or her approach became awfully leisurely at a certain point and like I just felt like she got very sidetracked and and there's whole is issues that go by during the seven issue run where you know at first it's all about Anson for the first couple issues it's like I must get my son get I must get my son back whatever and then it's like by issue three or four she's having sex with the dude she's like talking to her friend on the phone she's doing all kinds of stuff but there's like whole issues that go by where Anson's barely mentioned just like once or twice and I kept thinking like wait like what about your kid like aren't you still grieving aren't you still like you know a wreck aren't you still a mess because I felt like that really kind of faded to the background for a few issues there and it was really bothering me because I was just thinking imagine your son was murdered God forbid and you were like on this Revenge mission for your son's killer I just felt like that needed to be front and center in everything she was doing and I just I felt like it really it almost became just like oh she's on another Stakeout she's on another mission I felt like we were watching like a cop show and she was just staking out these criminals like as if it wasn't something that had this incredible personal cost where she had had been broken by it but instead it was just like it got added to this laundry list of tragedies at a certain point where she was like well I already lost Peter I guess I don't know if that was her husband or somebody else and then she's like and now Anson and whatever and now this relationship hasn't gone well but I just felt like at a certain point the just the primacy of this most recent devastating loss really faded and that that bugged me because it made it really hard for me to kind of just feel like I was with Christine on this journey of Revenge because it didn't feel like the Revenge was front and center for a lot of it that was my quibble well so that's interesting you bring that up because I kind of felt certain things about that too and here's something that I kind of feel two things I think about that like one I think is maybe like a deeper kind of it's just a
question this going into psychology of 
Matt Wagner is that I I don't know how
old he is when he's writing this story 
that's a good point so he might have
been in his like mid 20s for like he 
could have been very young well I mean
you know whatever he I mean it's not his age it's more like did he have children yet is like is more to the 
question right probably no I'm gonna guess he did not have kids at point you know so because I feel like look I mean was the movie we saw prisoners you seen the movie PRISONERS no but Alcon made it yeah my buddies at Alcon made that I should have seen that but I have not yet yeah so that movie that movie Hugh Jackman his son gets his daughter gets kidnapped and killed yeah and the whole movie is how he just slowly like gets unhinged and like and the design the drive for revenge
unhinging him completely and I'm like oh and I don't know what the guy who wrote that how was it he's like you know it's like it's like Andrew like you know he wrote RAISED BY WOLVES 
oh yeah yeah yeah yeah it's was it
I want to say oh gosh I know who 
you're talking about because my old manager represents him yeah I want to say Googan no it's not Guggenheim it's David oh it's gonna drive me nuts I'll look it up it's like a Polish or Russian last name or something like that can't remember but the thing Is... look that bumped for me too for a certain amount of this yeah but I also realized that it was like oh and this is this is me like this is again like coming out after knowing the history of what Grendel becomes I feel this is probably a fault in the storytelling at the time, but... maybe he hints at the end in, like, issue seven... once she's defeated, you know, the kabuki guy, she's going back, and she's like I can't be GRENDEL anymore; it's ...too much. I feel like being Grendel, when she put the mask on, it just overwhelmed... That's a great point. That's a fantastic point. But you know what I would have loved here is... I would have loved if... On the second-to-last page of the story, there is that great page visually that you mentioned where she's crying about the end of her relationship with Brian... I'm like you're [ __ ] son just got murdered! You're crying about this dude that you just [ __ ], and it didn't work out?! Your [ __ ] son was kidnapped and murdered by a psychopath! By a psychopath who ripped out his eyeballs! eyes eyes is left yeah and you're crying because this [ __ ] dude you had a fling with, it didn't work out?! Like, get the [ __ ] out of here, are you kidding me? That's your... that's the final beat. like that just look I'm not I'm not disagreeing with I'm not with any of that I mean like because I'm reading and I'm just kind of like everything you do should be about [ __ ] the Sun or because see the
thing that I like about this is 
interesting about the mask when she
puts it on she becomes Grendel when she takes it off the next day and everything like that it's almost like it's a drug yeah you know it's kind of like she has this withdrawal symptoms where she takes the mass off everything like that but that still doesn't counteract the fact that the quest to bring the son's killer to Justice yeah is because 
ultimately it feels like the reason why
she's there to stop the guy at the end 
is that because he's G to kill Brian not
because yeah it turns into a love story 
it turns into a love story and I just
thought that was really poor taste 
because I'm like you can't do a love
story about someone who's on a revenge mission for their son who was just brutally murdered that's like a [ __ ] if MYSTIC RIVER turned into Sean Penn having a love affair with one of the cops who's searching for his son's or
his daughter's killer or whatever it's 
you be like wait what like you know
MYSTIC RIVER is another good example 
like with prisoners where you remember how unhinged and devastated Sean Penn's character was as a father I remember the scene where he finds out I think that his daughter's been murdered and it's this absolutely brutal heartbreaking scene where he like lets out this Primal Scream and you could just see that he's just decimated like his [ __ ] soul is ripped out by what's happened you know to me that's what this should feel like yeah and I and I and I feel like I feel like the only I'm not I don't know like I'm suggesting The fault in his writing is I don't think he said a child and I think that it's possible that as a writer where he is in his life and his career because he's doing comics there could be something where his kind of like full range of like human emotions and everything like that are potentially
not fully developed yet yeah I think 
that's fair I think that's fair and I don't know I mean you know because I 
I know later on in you know his older
when he's older was the Wagner older you know because if you look at stuff when he's writing like SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE which is what me 15 years later or something like 15 years later he's got a lot more there a lot more nuance was happening yeah Wagner was Wagner was born in '61 so at the time that GRENDEL came out I think it was '86 he was what 25 he was 25 yeah so he was a he was a very young writer I think you're right on Chris he likely didn't have a kid life experience so yeah I don't mean to be too you know too like too much of a you know a jerk about it like I I don't mean to make too big a deal out of it but that just I kept bumping on that through the whole story no because well but see it's interesting because think about because it's interesting just like you this is what happens this is what someone was complaining about to me one time about just writing in general and a lot of times why people complain about like like what makes Hollywood terrible is that this thirst for you know like for the it's the thirst for the new idea yeah and the fresh idea has been and and what and that has been reduced down get me the young writer because the young writer has a new idea not that I should get the mature writer who knows his craft and knows humanity who has a new idea that I just need someone who hasn't been exposed it's not J you're right you're right it's such it's such [ __ ] and like you know you and I both the screenwriters can speak to this 
it's so frustrating when you know that
you're actually a way better writer than 
you were 10 years ago but yet like 10
years ago all these people wanted to 
meet with you cuz you were like the hot new writer town so you had all these meetings and now you're like I didn't know what the [ __ ] I was doing back then like you should want to meet with me nowbut they're like no no we want to meet with like the new hot writers in their 20s and you're like no that's dumb they don't know how to do the job those people don't know anything I mean I me and the misnomer is that is that there's very few I mean look there's few people who are young who make movies young that really kind of hit some accord like for instance like I know that the [ __ ] his name we got he did WHIPLASH and and LA LA LAND oh was that Damien Chazelle yeah Damien Chazelle like he was 28 when he won that best the Best Director nod land and he was the youngest person ever to win it and I think Coppola was at age and he was nominated for GODFATHER PART ONE,
but he didn't win. ...And was P.T. 
Anderson nominated in his 20s for
something like BOOGIE NIGHTS or I 
maybe MAGNOLIA I don't know yeah
maybe but he didn't win it but you get 
nominated so there's always these outlier people that he look at as like that is the and they think that's the norm that yeah and that's like a super outlier it's so out people to perform at that young at that level like or type of thing because it's kind of like dude something in your life has given you insight into Humanity that just the average person needs like life 
experience to be able to do and I feel
like he's choosing the sexual 
relationship that doesn't work as the
cornerstone of how he wants to end the 
storyline because as a 25-year-old
that's what you know more than what it 
means to have a kid stolen from you I
think that's a great observation Chris 
and I think that's I think that's right
on I think that's and Matt Wagner if he 
revisited this story at 45 I think it
would be a whole different focus and the emotionality would be much deeper and more substantial regarding like the death of a child I'm quite I'm quite positive you're right about that well yeah because I think I think the scene after she like finds her son's eye in that test tube I mean I mean look she gets caught by the guy and they have a fight she gets thrown out the window but like in true comic book fashion yeah yeah but it's one of these things where like the next two or three 
pages of story and the next in terms
of like what the next week is like for 
her yeah is like is gonna be like
I'm like my son is actually dead like I 
want to jump off a bridge like I can't
even believe this like you because 
it's one of again you bring up like
MYSTIC RIVER and some these other 
stories when like people lose their son
they gets kidnapped or something like 
that again that was like in prisoners
like he doesn't know the fate of his 
child you know like it's one of these
things where if you knew the fate of 
your child oh like that's part of thing
about these kidnappings and that when 
children it's like it I think if they
knew early on the kid was dead the blow would be hard but it but you'd begin to heal or not even heal but you'd begin to process it because you know the fate but whereas the longer it rolls 
that you don't know what happen to your child it then the anxiety like expands exponentially and that and even when
you maybe do find out maybe it's a month later you've had a month to allow this to like fester like in your in your life she maybe has like a weaker the most a week you know between when the kid disappears and she finds out so there is some level of that but it's not I mean it's played so light it's played really light yeah I mean it feels like you needed like a pay you needed like you know like she's C for like 
exactly for at least a week yeah yeah
like you need like you need a bunch of 
silent panels of her just alone in a
room she shuts the door and like you 
just see her weeping on the bed for a
week or like you know she doesn't come 
out she doesn't open the blinds for a
week you know like this is the kind 
of [ __ ] that makes you not want to go on
I mean that's yeah yeah I mean I feel 
like you said like if he's revisiting it
today that 
Revelation [ __ ] her so bad that she's
got to find him another city you know or 
she's got to you know or basically he's
left and gone to Japan and the final showdown of this happens in Japan
right right right you know like not San 
Francisco because she's broken enough
time to get she has to like put she has 
to put herself back together you're
right that's the thing so I yeah 
I just I wanted to mention that because
that was something that I think really 
hampered my enjoyment of it because as I
was going through every issue I was just 
kind of like what the [ __ ] what the [ __ ]
but yeah where's the kid yeah I mean I 
think she finds out de like early maybe
early yeah like she suspects it in issue 
one or two and then she confirms it by
issue three or four so then you got 
another like few issues still there's
like there's four issues before it's 
over yeah yeah it's kind of weird but also just to do a little 
bit of housekeeping here on the name
of the guy who wrote PRISONERS it was 
Aaron Guzikowski yeah that's right
that's right who's a very good writer 
and it's a great script and I don't
know if they'll do a RAISED BY WOLVES sequel or second season, but that was
a crazy crazy series. anyone who hasn't seen 
it or is thinking about seeing it I
actually never saw the last two episodes I just really I wanted to see that I
haven't seen it yet I actually am very 
curious too I think I started my
current show job so I didn't so I never 
got around to finishing it but yeah I
mean I don't know so I guess that's kind 
our yeah that's Grendel that's
GRENDEL it's a legendary book for 
good reason, and I think that you know
please nobody mistake our critique or my critique especially of this
particular run for a critique overall of 
the Grendel mythos because,
frankly, I've read GRENDEL just piecemeal here and there over the last like two and a half decades and so I read a 
few of those GRENDEL TALES miniseries
like I remember I read the Darko Macan 
Edvin Biukovic one and I think I read
one that Terry Laban wrote and I remember 
reading read GRENDEL WARCHILD because
of the  covers I was just curious 
by the way the Bisley covers but Bisley did
the covers for the first four issues of 
WARCHILD I looked them up just now
while we were talking and they are all 
[ __ ] exquisite like it's peak peak
Simon Bisley just gorgeous [ __ ] top 
yeah I think it's like a 10-issue miniseries yes and Wagner takes 
Wagner the cover for the covers after Bisley leaves I think it's Wagner who takes over painting them and they're still striking they're still striking covers 
but Bisley has those first four and
they're just bonkers I mean yeah I mean 
his style is his own kind of like
explosive thing that amazing 
paralleled yes kind of unparalleled it'd
be interesting if he could actually do 
like a whole book like if he could do
full sequential but I mean he did back 
in the day you know or like his early
his debut with DC way back when of 
course was Lobo and that was like he did
pen and Ink on the four issues of 
LOBO and I remember as a kid when I was
15 reading those those blew my mind yeah 
I mean it's as wild but I'm just wondering if he could do painted sequential [interior pages] or would he even try? he did ...some stuff with Kevin Eastman like where he did painted sequential on I think a book called MELTING POT but
just like one-shot one-shot right right 
but never he I don't think he's ever
done it like monthly but I think he's 
done little one-off yeah I mean it's sort
of like what's his name Geof Darrow... who did HARDBOILED is that who that
is? yeah yeah Darrow HARDBOILED and then although Darrow did SHAOLIN COWBOY for ...I don't know how many issues he's done of that... maybe 10 issues or eight issues
total? But, yeah, Bisley's style is just 
[ __ ] insane his DOOM PATROL covers
also are some of my favorites those his 
his run of DOOM PATROL like all those man
are just 
exquisite yeah so I guess that was
Grendel this is what we're talking about 
Matt Wagner and...WARCHILD, and all this, so, you know... I mean, 
look, I think our critique is not... it's not criticism, per se, it's just, like, it's true critique. ...Look, because, overall, we're recommending [that] people 
read this book, re-visit it, you know. There are Omnibuses [large collections] available, [but] you [ought] to get, I mean, should get the floppies, if you can, because... you see how it's colored
differently. Yes. ...and [get the opportunity to] read the letter columns and all the extra cool stuff, plus the covers. But... do that, and read GRENDEL, and we will be back next week with another semi-obscure [or] potentially super-obscure comic series from the '80s that you might 
have forgotten [or] never read and completely slept on. And, yep, that's it for this week. Cool. Thanks, everybody.

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