ComicBook.beer - The Podcast

Episode 1: Enter the 36 Billion Chambers of ComicBook.beer

Welcome to the first ComicBook.beer: The Podcast celebrating a trip back through memory lane to rediscover the emotional connection to 1980s comic books and more. Produced by ⁠ComicBook.beer⁠⁠

Enjoy a long-format romp through the host's earliest days, collecting G.I. Joe and Transformers to newer series like Absolute Batman, Void Rivals, and Shaolin Cowboy. Mark talks 1970s and 80s comics, manga, and gives a bit of history on how the old Classic Game Rooms series turned into 80s Comics and now ComicBook.beer - a celebration of relaxing with a good comic book and a great beer.

Enter the 36 Billion Chambers of ComicBook.beer Podcast Transcription

Welcome to Comic Book dot Beer the podcast.

This is the first episode where I'll be talking about my history with comics and also telling you what to expect in the Comic Book dot Beer the podcast series.

0:17

Perhaps it's a silly title, but it's a title that I happen to enjoy because I love comics and I do enjoy a good beer.

But this is primarily a comic book podcast focusing on the emotional impact of comic books and losing 1's self in beautiful, beautiful nostalgia.

0:39

Particularly the 1970s and 1980s, though I'll be touching on stuff from the 90s and also the modern era, since retro throwback stuff is is pretty hot and for good reason.

The future is not as cool as many of us were led to believe back in the 80s.

0:59

Right?

Like Blade Runner made it look pretty cool.

You know, replicants seem way more awesome than influencers.

I'm just, I'm just going to say, I mean, yes, they're murderous, they might kill you, but at least they're not super annoying.

1:14

And don't even get me started on Buck Rogers in the 25th century, because I literally will not stop.

I will also accept Logan's Run as a wonderful vision of the future.

Carousel is a small price to pay to avoid social media.

Now, the the main reason I started comic book dot beer is not to create a podcast or or even a website, a commercial website specifically, but to catalog my own collection of comic books.

1:42

I, I once I saw that I could get a dot beer extension, it took me all of like, I don't know, 20 seconds to pull the trigger on that.

And yes, I own comic book dot beer because someone has to.

And it may as well be me.

Though to clarify, you do not have to enjoy beer too.

2:02

Enjoy this podcast or my articles or whatever.

You probably have to enjoy comic books though.

And you know, I love the art of comic books.

I'll be talking about that a lot here.

You know, I did video game work for years, video game journalism work for years.

2:17

And my approach to that was, was similar.

I, I love the arts of video games.

Now there's a bunch of other elements in video games like controls, graphics, blah, blah, blah.

But when it comes to comics, it's really art, writing, characters and a feeling and the feeling that those things give you.

2:37

And, and I'm from 75, so I got to grow up.

I had the privilege of growing up in the greatest age in history ever the the 1980s, back when cartoons were nothing more than giant advertisements for toys and comic books.

2:54

So when I read comics, I'm being transported back to the mid 80s, which is greatly preferable than today.

And also another main reason that comic book dot beer exists is that I'm kind of sick of staring at screens all the time.

Now I have to use them for work, but when it comes to like relaxing and unwinding, the last thing that I want to do is scroll through a bunch of garbage on my phone or even or stare at my phone in any way really.

3:22

So what I like to do this has become a hobby over the past couple years is depending on the time of year, I love to hop on my bike, ride like 10 or 15 miles to A to a brewery of my choice, grab a beer, pull out a couple comic books and relax.

3:39

It's like it's just, it's great.

Not only is it reasonably healthy, at least from the exercise standpoint, but it's but it's mentally cleansing.

Looking at pages, looking at paper instead of a screen, reading stories made by talented and creative people instead of a bunch of attention seeking jackasses.

4:03

Comic books are greatly preferable to most media these days.

It's it's going to cost you 2025 bucks to go to a movie.

You're going to have to sit through 45 minutes of horrible advertisements, and it's likely that the movie will be pretty disappointing anyway.

4:21

Now, an issue of Shogun Warriors might set you back 5 or maybe 10 bucks Max depending on the condition.

It's an incredible adventure, great characters, beautiful artwork, and the advertisements are not just complete trash, but they could be ads for things like Hostess fruit pies, stuff that's actually good, stuff that you want.

4:43

And I love Hostess fruit pies.

You'll hear me talk about that a lot.

I like Hostess Fruit pies almost as much as I like Buck Rogers in the 25th century.

But to clarify before I get started here, this show is really about relaxing with a great comic book and soaking it in, appreciating the story, appreciating the arts, perhaps getting a feeling of nostalgia.

5:05

There's also a lot of great new comic books and a lot of not so great new comic books, but I'd prefer to focus on the good ones.

I like to have fun with my hobbies.

You'll hear me talking a lot about GI Joe, Transformers, Shogun, Warriors, the Warlord, Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonia, Micronauts, ROM, and who can ever forget the greatest thing to come out of Marvel's new universe?

5:36

And you know, I'm talking about Mark Hazard Merc.

You know, with all this rebooting of franchises going on with like new Transformers, new GI Joes, like Thundercats, I, I appreciate all this stuff, but where is the reboot of Mark Hazard Merc?

5:56

Chain smoking and shooting his way through the 1980s?

I think Mark is the hero that we need now more than ever.

Well, you can't have that mark, as it turns out, but you get this Mark.

So for what it's worth, my name is also Mark, though my name is not on fire on the cover of a cool comic book and I don't chain smoke.

6:14

Also, I don't disassemble and reassemble machine guns on my kitchen table, but I do like to bike and grab a good beer.

So let's kick this off with a trip down memory lane to some of my earliest comic book collecting or reading experiences.

6:33

Now many of you will remember these feelings.

Many of you will be familiar with this time and place.

And for some of you, I suspect you may have only seen this stuff on like Stranger Things, which I could you know what I'm not going to talk about that the first season was good, but what was my first comic book?

6:56

I have no idea what were my first comic books.

I I really don't remember that either.

But if you remember the early 80s, you could get like these bags that contained multiple issues of comics, like 3 comics in one bag.

7:12

And I don't remember what they cost her anything I can, I can I can remember the the the general sense of cigarette smell everywhere, shag carpet.

And you know, Michael Jackson and Duran Duran were on high rotation.

So which they still are in my house if anyone cares.

7:31

But anyway, I remember my mom would buy me these bags of like, I think the earliest ones I remember were like the Whiteman comics.

You know, they would like the Roadrunner comics.

And you get like, I don't, I'm not sure if Archie was in the same the same bags, but you get like Roadrunner and like Bugs Bunny, like kids comics.

7:55

And like, I still have a bunch of these and these are not the comics I like to read these tastes, but you know, I look at them and like, I remember having those as a kid.

I don't really remember much about them.

And it wasn't until a little bit later that I specifically remember getting into GI Joe and Transformers.

8:18

I have early memories of seeing the the GI Joe TV show and I can date this by which house I was living in at the time because we moved in 1984.

So if I was in this room in like 1983 or whatever year I forget where your GI Joe TV show came out, it was like 82 or 83.

I suppose you can probably Google this, but I remember seeing that and then like collecting the comics because it looked awesome And it, well, it is awesome.

8:44

And I have very clear memories, probably 848586 of seriously collecting GI Joe and like laying on the floor and just like rereading issues.

And I remember issue 21 when it was new and like, I loved it.

9:00

It didn't even really occur to me at the time that GI Joe issue 21 didn't have dialogue.

I, I just liked Snake eyes.

I mean, everybody likes Snake eyes.

And I believe that was also the first issue of Storm Shadow and like Scarlets and it's awesome.

And I just remember that one And I, I really enjoyed that era, that early 80s era of GI Joe.

9:20

And those also came in like the three pack bags.

I think they're the, I'm not sure if it was three or two, but I know they were like the multi pack bags.

I had to add a bunch of those.

And I, I remember clearly when Transformers came out, that would have been about, that would have been 84.

9:39

So somewhere around 8485, I remember seeing the Transformers ads on TV and like you had to be there, but there was just nothing else even remotely like Transformers.

Now, I know Gobots had already been out, but like Gobots kind of sucked.

9:55

I mean, it was a cool concept, at least if you hadn't seen transforming robots before.

But like Transformers came out with this layer of just style and Polish and like the like the Starscream and Thundercracker designs and like The Jets, I mean they were just like something out of another world at the time.

10:14

And the GI Joe and the Transformers comics were both both published by Marvel And Transformers started to come out in 84.

I still have my original issue and I've I think I shot some videos of this.

It'll be on the website soon, if not yet.

10:31

But it's just that it is all kinds of banged up and mutilated because I took this comic everywhere.

I think, I think I took at the summer camp like twice and I probably read it 1000 times.

Like the first couple issues of Transformers, which started off as a four part mini series and then and then and then Transformers obviously got so big they continued and you know, it's one of the largest franchises in the world these days because Transformers are awesome.

10:58

Now I want to point out these earlier Marvel Comics based on the toy franchises where for the most part, I think a little bit easier to follow than the superhero stuff for for one thing, I was starting at the beginning.

11:14

So, you know, you jump in with issue #1 or at least one of the earliest issues, you start to, you know, know the characters and, and you also saw the characters on screen and then collected the characters as toys.

So it's like you're, you were in this whole ecosystem of GI Joe and Transformers.

11:31

And I guess I'm kind of, I'm leaving Star Wars out of this, but I wasn't as into the Star Wars comics at the time, though definitely the movies and the toys.

But I don't have a really firm recollection of what my favorite superhero comics were back in the early to mid 80s.

11:49

I certainly remember, you know, the the hype over the Superman movie and Superman 2.

Really like the early Superman movies.

Now for those who don't know, this was long before superheroes became a thing in movies.

This even the early 80s was before the Batman movies Michael Keaton came out and those were actually really good too.

12:11

But I remember liking Spider Man, though I can't tell you exactly how many Spider Man issues I might have had back in the day.

I don't have, I don't have a really clear memory of that one.

It's, it's the toy stuff that really sticks in there and I think shaped adolescent Mark's brain and turned me into the whatever kind of adult I am these days, which is debatable.

12:33

I I'm using the word adult loosely, I can assure you.

In fact, recently, not too long ago, I thought, you know what, I think I should start collecting GI Joe figures and vehicles again.

And then I saw the prices and I'm like, you know what?

I'm just going to stick to the comic books.

It's a really affordable way to get nostalgia.

12:50

The toys are insanely expensive and yeah, for good reason, I guess because they're, they're 1000 pieces, the plastic deteriorates.

And it's a fascinating thing that people are collecting the toys and then you can like 3D print replacement parts and stuff.

I think that's a major commitment because you're going to, you're going to be, you're going to be, you're going to be in thousands of dollars before you know it.

13:10

But with comic books, you can start with like a $20 bill and you're good to go for the afternoon.

So as an adult, you know, the comic book dot beer lifestyle is that you can capture this feeling of, of being a kid once again, but you can also throw back a beer in a, in a relaxing and fun environment.

13:31

Comic books and beer greater than symbol sitting on your couch watching an overpriced streaming media platform.

They, they, they, they drive me nuts because it's not just the content, it's the whole like experience of just turning one of them on and then like pops up with like 1000 different shows and it starts playing previews and it's, it's like, OK, I, I could choose from a million, million different programs, but like, I don't want to watch any of them.

13:58

It's almost, it's just overwhelming.

So if you haven't tried it, just the sense of relaxation when you just open a comic book and there's, there's, there's nothing blinking or shouting at you.

There's no, there's no alerts.

There's no, there's no boinging things popping up on this on the page.

14:14

And if there is and there's something wrong with your comic book or, or well, perhaps there's something wrong with you might want to have that looked at.

I'm going to take you through the rest of my 1980s comic book journey here.

As I remember it, GI Joe and Transformers were definitely my go TOS through 858687.

14:34

Those were the years I was reading them and I still have all of my originals.

And at some point, you know, the 80s toy craze started to get pretty saturated.

The 80s cartoons turned into toys and you know, we, we we had stuff like Thundercats was kind of one of the earlier ones, but you Thundercats, He Man definitely one of the earlier ones and Thundercats and he Man didn't really make huge comic book series back in the day that though they both did have comic book series.

15:05

In fact, He man's came with comics.

I was not a he Man collector, so I didn't really get into those until much later when I now have a collection of the old He Man comics, which is actually really cool.

I assume some of you know what I'm talking about.

It's like 1000 pages of He Man comics.

It's a pretty good book.

15:25

They were banging out 80s cartoons left and right and stuff like Jason, the Wheeled Warriors and Might.

One of my favourites was Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.

Those never really got comic books.

Galaxy Rangers did, but I think only in Europe.

Could be wrong on that, but I don't think we got.

15:40

For some reason we didn't get that one over here.

Sectors made a great comic book.

I don't remember if there was a cartoon for that.

Silverhawks not as good as Sektar's.

Visionaries, Great comic, short lived comic book series.

Can't recall if there was ATV show for that one.

15:58

Air Raiders, Air Raiders and Visionaries.

And some of those were like the the later runs of toys I started to get into like I started to get into video games at that point.

And you know, Atari 7800 Pro system because I'm a professional gamer.

NES, Nintendo less than symbol.

16:16

Atari Forever.

If you go to the website you can check out like the Air Raiders.

Visionaries and Sectors books were all made by some of some of Marvel's top talent at the time, and Mark Teixeira drew a number of the Sectors books.

Kelly Jones was great.

16:33

Did he did some micro?

Not stuff a lot.

He did a lot of stuff.

He drew.

Aerators and Visionaries drawn by Mark Begley and a lot of this stuff actually can you can trace the history or the style of a lot of this stuff back to Shogun Warriors?

16:49

That was from the 70s.

And I'm going to do an entire podcast, in fact, maybe the next podcast entirely on Shogun Warriors, which I missed the first time I got into like Transformers and stuff.

Shogun Warriors is like the precursor to that.

Now.

17:05

At some point I started to get out of the toy comics as it's, you know, it's eventually everything runs its course.

And GI Joe and Transformers both got pretty silly after, you know, the initial couple of years after the first couple of years.

And also I was just, you know, just getting older, changing 1 to get into some more, some more mature stuff.

17:25

Which of course meant the Punisher went back into Spider Man comics and one of my all time favourites, the Uncanny X-Men.

Now, heading into the 90s, this was like the golden era of at least commercial comic book sales.

17:41

I don't think I realized that at the time, but you know, the late 80s getting into the the early 90s, nineteen 91.

This is when you know, they some of these brands like spider man were so big that they ended up making like multiple Seri.

I mean, Spider Man always had multiple series, at least at some point.

17:58

Was Amazing Spider man sensational Spider man 1990 we got just spider man.

The Todd McFarlane one.

X-Men got a similar treatment.

It was so big.

They started making it like multiple times a month.

And then they eventually gave Jim Lee and Chris Claremont their own X-Men series, which it was some of these were good as long as the main artists were doing them.

18:20

But then eventually they well, they all left informed image and you know, they lost their way.

But this is the period when I started to get into more superhero stuff.

But it was, it was definitely confined to Marvel for one reason or another.

Though I always liked Batman, It's not a comic book I ever read.

18:37

Some of them are a bit intimidating.

Like where do you jump into Batman when they're on issue?

You know, 500 something, which is perhaps why they're numbering everything these days, like per year or per series.

But I find that even more confusing.

I I would just prefer to jump in an issue 500 something.

18:54

Well, nowadays.

So anyway, early 90s, I was a huge fan of those couple franchises, Punisher, X-Men and, and Spider Man and followed them for a while.

And actually I really, I, I, I don't think I ever thought they were nearly as good.

19:12

Bear with me for a second here.

But when they started coming out with I guess the, the original run of Image.

So we got Spawn, which was of course, well, that was incredible.

Spawn is awesome.

Like then we got like Jim Lee's Wildcats and stuff.

And well, I thought Jim Lee was just an incredible artist people.

19:28

He is obviously an incredible artist.

I loved his work on X-Men and Punisher and stuff.

Definitely Punisher.

He was really good at Tron Punisher.

Wildcats just seemed so.

It was so it was so much.

It was so much style over substance.

19:46

That was my opinion of it.

I never got into the characters and that was that's basically heading into like the mid 90s at that point when sadly I stopped, I stopped collecting American comics for a while.

It's OK.

Here's where I'm going with this.

That's about the time early early 90s and the mid 90s is when I started to shift over into that first and early wave where we got manga over here, or at least when I started to see it now.

20:12

Now keep in mind many of you know this, but some of you perhaps do not.

But the landscape was pre Internet.

So like, you really didn't know what was going on, except perhaps by reading like comic book.

Magazines or whatever ads the comics were selling you or going to the comic shop and talking to people about stuff and seeing what was on the racks.

20:33

But somewhere in there is when I started to see like obviously Akira, one of the 1st and I got into Masamune Shiro's work at the time with Appleseed, Shiro, Masamune.

And then by mid 90s, Ghost in the Shell came out, which is one of the biggest franchises in the world today, and for good reason.

20:56

It it's incredible the the world that he created.

Brilliant guy.

Wish he would have just stuck to science fiction instead of, you know, the other stuff he does.

So mid 90s, I was definitely a manga collector.

It's back when Dark Horse was putting a lot of this stuff out.

I still have all of those issues.

21:12

You know, this is before they started releasing things where you'd read them from right to left.

This is all just the left to right publications and nobody thought anything of it.

Now by late 90s into the early 2000s I was pretty busy with work, filmmaking, and just, you know, life as a supposed adult at the time.

21:34

I I read things here and there but not I didn't follow anything religiously until really much later until perhaps even after like mid mid mid 2015 era started getting back into some Transformers stuff.

I actually think IDW did a really nice job with a lot of the Transformers.

21:53

I started to notice some of the newer characters, like I thought Wind Blade was actually a pretty cool character, but there were so many different Transformers series at the time.

I was also busy doing a lot of other stuff.

It's back when I was like transitioning from the old, back when I produced the classic game room stuff into running my own company.

22:09

So I was kind of busy.

But by 2020 20s, I started to really seriously get back into following some series and collecting stuff that I that I liked, like the old GI Joes, they got 80s comics.

I created this series called 80s comics, trying to think of what year that was.

22:28

I'm going to say roughly 2019 era.

So after I produced gaming content for a long time and that market just became an over saturated mess and the channel imploded and was demonetized and that pretty much put that out of business real fast.

But 80s comics was like a cheaper alternative to reviewing things because I shot them with a phone and I was this was like the the rise of short form content.

22:53

I was trying to figure out like, how do I celebrate these, you know, beautiful 1980s comics that I really enjoy.

And while the series never really took off and then I got busy and publishing print work and stuff at the time, the eight 80s comics is basically the precursor to comic book dot beer.

23:10

So I guess the the evolution of this podcast is classic game room into 80s comics, into comic book dot beer, the spiritual successor of all this stuff.

And then I think I post pandemic, I started to get really into biking.

And once I discovered I could bike to breweries and comic book shops like it was all over.

23:29

I'm like, this is exactly what I wanted to.

This is great.

Not only did I start to catalog my collection a little bit better, which had been sort of spread all over the place, and now it's now it's alphabetized and organized and there's even a whole website and a podcast dedicated to it and you're listening to that.

23:47

I started to get into collecting more seriously, like the Conan the Barbarian stuff, which I never read the first time around.

I just wasn't into it as a kid for one reason or another.

I started to more, more seriously collect Conans and finish my print runs of like Shogun Warriors and the 80s stuff.

24:03

I was collecting like Silverhawks, you know, and visionaries in those books and.

More recently, I guess it's 2023 is when what Image and Skybound started to re reboot all the Hasbro stuff.

24:25

And I'm not going to say that all of it's like my favorite, but I do appreciate that these series that I love, that I grew up on are continuing and some of them, like Transformers in particular, I think are just incredible.

Is it better than the Marvel run?

24:41

It's subjective.

I definitely think there are some things that make it better than the Marvel run.

There's other things that don't.

But I really like the new Transformers series.

I was delighted to see, even though I knew it had been running for a while, I didn't care for the art style.

24:57

It's some of the IDW stuff the way the way for the GI Joe I'm I'm trying to think about GI Joe, a real American hero here.

I didn't care for the art style for a long time and I saw and once Image is Skybound just recently rebooted GI Joe, a real American hero with Larry Hamas still at the helm.

25:17

I started to get back into that and actually I'm pretty pleased and there's no the other GI Joe series and they're Energon Universe Void rivals and I've been enjoying that stuff.

It's fun to get a subscription and just head down to the comic book shop once a week and it's like getting a present.

It's like, oh, I didn't even know this came out today.

25:33

Great.

Now I've got my brand new issue of GI Joe to go and read at the bar with a beer and as a joke.

I guess I'm not sure how serious I really want to make this, but I think comic book and beer pairings are definitely something that I should do around here.

25:51

Again, this is entirely subjective and up to your taste, but you know the joke is what?

What beer goes well with Conan?

Probably the strongest beer that you can find.

What beer compliments GI Joe?

I'm going to have to go with Iron City on that one in honor of Steeler who was from Pittsburgh like me.

26:14

And you know, Steelers got some cup holders in the mobat to stash some cans of Iron City during combat.

You don't want your cans rattling around in the tank when you're blowing up Cobra soldiers.

Very important.

And I think it's also important that you you have cans of Iron City and first of all, they're more affordable.

26:31

You can get like a 15 pack for 18 bucks and they're not going to smash all over the floor if you happen to take a take a Cobra shell or like a laser blast and rocks the tank.

These are the things you need to think about.

Now, what about collecting advice?

26:46

Am I going to give you collecting advice on this podcast?

I, I don't know much about collecting for value, to be perfectly honest.

That's not my thing.

I'm not collecting comics for value.

I actually go and look for the cheapest comics that I can find.

If I'm digging through long boxes like Conan the Barbarians or whatever and they have 3 or 4 different issues.

27:06

If they if they have 3 or 4 copies of the same issue ranging in price from $6 down to $3.00, I'm buying the $3 one.

I don't care if somebody's already clipped out the coupons inside.

Actually, I do care a little bit because maybe I'd want to use that coupon.

But I guess my point is, I'm not AII don't collect for value.

27:22

I don't know what anything is worth, nor do I really care.

But I do like my comics in in in a in a bag with a board for some reason.

I do like a bag and board presentation.

And when you go to a brewery or a bar to read your comic book and there's there's a sequence of events that you need to follow to do this properly.

27:43

For starters, you have to enter the establishment and then order yourself a beverage.

Then survey the situation where is a comfortable spot with good lighting to read, preferably not next to some really annoying loud people.

28:02

Then you need to sit down.

I mean, you can do the standing too.

But here's here's The thing is your your glass of beer leaves a leaves a wet ring beneath it.

And you got to watch that.

You don't want to make an amateur move and like open up your comic and drop it into the wet beer ring.

28:20

And we've all made this mistake.

It's life shattering.

So once you make it, I think you'll learn quickly to always set your beer off to the side and if perhaps you had it down closer to where you're going to be reading, use your sleeve or get a napkin and wipe up that beer ring.

28:37

And here's this.

This brings me back to the bag and the board.

Gently take your comic book out of the bag and the board and set the bag and board down 1st just in case you screwed up or maybe there's something there you didn't notice.

28:53

And then you put your comic on top of that and then carefully open it.

And it doesn't matter if this is a $50 comic book or a $0.50 comic book.

You don't want to drag it through the wet beer ring.

Now, if you spill beer on your book while you're reading, you don't even deserve it.

29:11

That's an amateur.

Shame on you.

You know what?

Shame on me for even thinking of that.

I've never.

Actually, that's not true.

I have done that, damn it.

Now, when I was a kid, I've always loved art and I've always loved to draw.

And I learned to draw by copying comic books.

29:28

I think everybody does this.

You just go through and you copy the stuff that you like.

And especially when I started to get into the manga era, I mean, I love that style.

And that's really where I learned to draw comics.

And I always liked cartooning.

And I had ambitions of being a comic book artist and more specifically a professional cartoonist as an adult.

29:46

And I almost got there.

Believe it or not, I've got a story on this one.

I did comics all the I drew comics and cartoons all the way through the 90s, all the way through the 90s into the late 90s and actually had a comic strip picked up for national syndication 9798.

30:05

Though I was also graduating at the time and this was like when the Internet was exploding and I had self-taught myself Internet stuff with a business degree and I was going to be going into the Internet as a career, but I still wanted to do comics and it just wasn't my best work anyway.

So it it fell apart before it ever made it into print.

30:21

Which was probably in the grand scheme of things a good thing because how much longer did newspapers have at that point anyway?

Not a long time.

This was a dying industry in the late 90s.

It's obviously completely dead today.

Unless you're Garfield or something, I guess.

Then later after I had my Internet career, I did some web web comics and then got more serious about publishing some actual comic books and graphic novels.

30:46

And of course that runs into the reality of this takes a lot of time and you need to do it every day.

It's hard to do that and do other things at the same time.

And that's still a thing I struggle with today as I'm actually wrapping up my what's probably my final graphic novel right now called Sword Roam.

31:01

Not because I don't love to do it, but because I don't have the time to do it.

I hope to continue working in comics more on the producing and or writing side, But you know, it's, it's, it's an art form that I love.

And actually I wish I could have done that as a career, But as anybody in the art career and any art career knows, it's damned near impossible.

31:23

And especially these days where you really have to be an influencer first and an artist second.

I I'm not sure that's something I'd even want to think about.

So what's that have to do with comic book dot beer?

Well, I love the art and I think it's fun to talk about and maybe I'm even good at talking about how much I love this kind of stuff.

31:44

Celebrating feelings of nostalgia, celebrating the the joy of collecting.

This guy hinted at.

You know what, what are my collecting tips?

You know, find a good comic book shop that you like.

You can order stuff online.

31:59

There's nothing wrong with that.

You're going to pay more because you're always going to pay for shipping.

And if you're going to order stuff online, if you're going to, if you're going to pay for shipping, pay for shipping on like 50 or 100 comic books, not just one to maximize the shipping cost.

But I think it's best to go to a comic book store, talk with the folks, work in there, get to know them, get to know what's going on, get to know what they've got hiding under the tables and their long boxes that nobody probably ever digs through, and just buy what you want to buy, Organize it, have fun, read it, go back and read them again.

32:39

I, I was going to say a lot of people think it's stupid, but actually, the more the people I talked to about this stuff, like nobody thinks it's stupid.

Well, except maybe my wife, but you know, she has to live with me.

Now let's talk about the comic book industry in general.

What do we think?

Do we like the comic book industry these days?

32:55

You know, I'm not in it, but I do know a couple people who are.

So I hope to talk to them about life in the modern comics world right now, because I think there's a lot of, I mean, there's probably never been more comics than there are today.

33:10

And I'm not, I'm not just talking about print comics, but you've also got other options like web comics and whatnot.

And you can, you can get print versions of comics, digital versions of comics.

You can buy them in collections, trade paperbacks, omnibus collections, you can get them out of the library.

33:26

You can go to the store and buy 50 or 80 year old comic books.

It's just your, your choices are, are endless and they just keep coming out with more.

So in a way it is kind of overwhelming, which is which is the problem I have one of the problems I have with streaming video platforms, it's like I stopped shouting at me to watch your stupid whatevers.

33:47

Netflix, I don't care.

Comics are kind of the same way because you go to the store and there's just like this mass of just beautiful covers everywhere and you're like, do I really want to pay 5 bucks for 2222 pages of something that's going to be mediocre?

But that's where talking to the people who work there makes makes a difference because you can ask them questions and they can guide you in a certain direction.

34:10

It's harder to do that with like, you know, streaming services or whatever.

Suppose you can go online.

But like a big point of this whole podcast is to stop going is to avoid going online.

Even though you're listening to this online, unless you get the eight track version of this podcast.

That'll be a special order.

34:28

So there's there's a lot of new stuff out there.

I don't know if that's necessarily the focus of this podcast.

So I will tell you that what I've what I've been reading in addition to the Image and skybound stuff, is is the newer Thundercats.

I still, I'm still reading Spawn, the new Godzilla series.

And I started reading absolute Batman at the recommendation of the comics, the comic store guys when they were right.

34:51

It's great.

Absolute Batman is absolutely great.

And let's see Lobo.

I see.

I see Lobos coming out.

Always liked Lobo.

Lobo was fun.

I'll read anything that Jeff Darrow ever puts out.

He's always been one of my favorites.

Just talk about that.

35:07

I think when I think it was in high school when I saw Hard Boiled, when Dark Horse put out Hard Boiled.

And if you've read Hard Boiled, like, you know, if you know, you know.

Wow.

I mean, to this day, I still go back and I'm finding things in the artwork that I never saw before.

35:22

It's like, oh, he has an entire machine full of dildos back there.

I never noticed it before.

Right next to the guy with the trench coat in the chainsaw.

Yeah, Hard boiled.

I remember, I think I read the, I, I probably have this issue somewhere.

35:39

I, I tend to rely on the I've read, I read the, I read the book so much, I've memorized the dialogue and I have one of the giant like oversized enormous prints of hard boiled.

And I'm sure that's been out of print for a while.

That's probably actually worth something.

But that's one of my favorite books, which just has the line drawings and so much fun to go in there and just pick out because there's just the details of the penmanship.

36:02

And I have one for Rusty and Rusty the boy robot and big guy as well, which was which was like his take on Astro Boy and Godzilla.

Obviously I'm going to have to talk about this stuff.

And more recently they have been putting out these enormous collections, what they call them like artist editions or you know, like 11 by 17 inch books.

36:22

I've got one for Star Wars and I I have one for Conan.

I should talk a bit about my collection these days I've been collecting forever got a bunch of long boxes filled with the stuff that I've been been talking about.

I also sometimes will collect giant collections like I I think the omnibus collections well there's a time and a place for an omnibus collection.

36:48

I should.

I should preface this by saying it is very difficult to throw one of the hardcover omnibuses with a dust jacket into a backpack and go biking somewhere without damaging the dust jacket.

Now, as an amateur move, I totally screwed up the dust jacket on my Micronauts Volume 1 omnibus.

37:09

But yeah, you know, I guess it's a small price to pay for taking Micronauts with me wherever I go because Micronauts are pretty cool.

Though you might, if you're going to do that, if you're going to buy a hardcover, like an expensive hardcover with a dust jacket, you might want to like get a dust jacket cover like one of the plastic things or just wrap that thing in some kind of protective padded sleeve before you take it anywhere else.

37:33

But sometimes when I'm collecting these days, I, I look at a series like Micronauts, which ran for quite some time.

I decided it was probably more cost effective to just buy the omnibus collections than trying to go out and hunt down all the individual, individual issues.

And I've done that with Savage sort of Conan as well, which ran for a long time.

37:54

I don't have all of the Savage Sword omnibuses.

And I guess by now they've changed publishers.

They're no longer with Marvel.

But I've got a bunch of omnibus collections.

I have a shelf filled with.

I have a shelf full of omnibus collections right next to like some other hardcover books.

38:15

Probably wouldn't expect this from me, but I've actually really enjoyed the Monstrous series.

Really.

I really like the art.

Not as wild about the the writing specifically.

The artwork on that is incredible though.

I like the writing enough to read it, but I come back for the art on that one.

38:30

Got the hardcover collections, got my He Man collection.

Got a bunch of modern manga sci-fi stuff.

I always like Sutomo Nihai's work.

So Knights of Sedonia, which I'm embarrassed to say I have that digital I got, I must have got that mid 2015 or so before I started buying everything, before they started releasing everything in print.

38:50

But I got blame bi Omega.

Blame is really good.

I'm sure I'm going to have to put together something on digital versus physical because there actually is an advantage to digital reading, especially if you have something like a nice iPad or whatever, they look good.

39:06

You can zoom in on panels.

Digital is ideal for those of you who may not have a whole lot of shelf space or who just don't want to fill up shelf space with a bunch of books.

So I, I can't actually come out on this podcast and say that I don't like digital digital comics.

39:22

I, I do.

In fact, I was reading one last night.

I got out of the library.

I said, so there's something to be said for being able to check a book out of the library that you're already paying for out of your tax dollars.

Read it on an iPad and then make a decision later if you want to buy it on in physical in print.

39:39

Reading reading some of the new Blade Runner stuff right now, which I didn't expect to like, but I'm actually really enjoying some of the new Blade Runner comics.

And maybe, maybe I'll talk about that later after I after I've read a couple of couple more of the the collections.

So I'm about 40 minutes into this podcast and I think I've hope, well, hopefully I've made it fairly clear what you can expect here on Comic Book dot Beer, the podcast, the relaxing, everyone is welcome environments.

40:09

To hear me talk about classic comics collecting, collecting, journey collecting adventures, modern comic books, different experiences and ways to enjoy these comic books.

And I got a couple friends out there I might try to get on the podcast and talk about life in the industry, what it's like to run a comic book store, fun things like that.

40:31

And of course, beer and comic book pairings.

Though that's even even though that title is Comic Book dot Beer, that's not actually the focus of the website.

So for the next episode, I'm planning something on Shogun Warriors.

I'd also like to do an episode on Marvel's new universe, or perhaps at least just Mark Hazard Merc.

40:51

I'm not sure the rest of the new universe is really worth talking about.

Kickers Inc more like Kickers stink, sigh, force or whatever.

Wow, most of it was so forgettable.

You had to wonder what they were thinking about with new Universe and why did Mark Hazard end up in new Universe like Mark Mark maybe Mark Hazard got sidelined because he's kind of he's kind of similar to the punisher.

41:18

Like the Punisher definitely had more.

Frank Castle has more of like a comic book kind of vibe and you know, he fights crime next to Spider Man and stuff and he's been around for a while.

And you know, people love the Punisher.

Feel like they just got started with Mark Hazard Merck, which only ran for one year.

Like just when they could have expanded it, Mark Hazard was cancelled before his prime.

41:41

Mark Hazard Merck is the hero that we need today.

Chain smoking, disassembling and reassembling machine guns on his kitchen table, killing bad guys with a Wrecking Ball.

Maybe a topic for another podcast is old series that we would like to see back and not screwed up.

42:01

It's very important to include that caveat.

How about we?

How about we bring back Starhawks?

That's what I've been into lately.

I feel like I'm going to do an entire pod.

I think I'm going to do an entire podcast in Starhawks.

Gil Kane's comic strip that ran from 78 to 81 and I recently collected.

42:20

I went out of my way to collect the IDW prints of that, and I have the Hermes Press edition as well, so I've got all the Starhawk stuff.

Search that one if if you're interested.

The first IDW collection is, I think fairly affordable, and I've also got a lot of the old Buck Rogers stuff from Hermes Press, like the stuff from the 30s and Flash Gordon.

42:45

But Buck, Buck Rogers is my favorite for various reasons.

It's really one of the greatest crimes against humanity that Buck Rogers in the 25th century only ran for two seasons.

And the first season is the one to watch.

It was it gets so much better than anything else that was out at the time.

43:05

And even this is around the time of Battlestar Galactica.

And that was pretty good, actually.

I've got some Battlestar Galactica comics, got a giant oversized one.

Need to talk about that.

I'm not sure I can do a whole episode though on Battlestar Galactica.

It's been a little while since I've seen the originals.

43:20

Boxy was like the precursor to Jar Jar.

Maybe that's where Lucas got the idea for Jar Jar.

I was watching Battlestar Galactica and he's like, that character really sucks.

It's super annoying and it almost ruins the whole thing.

I'm going to make a character like that and shoehorn it into Star Wars.

43:37

Though arguably that movie was ruined even before Jar Jar.

That's a topic for another time.

Thank you for listening to the first comic book dot beer.

Prepare for a trip back through memory lane.

And also into the future, a future where it's just basically a giant trip back in back through memory lane to the 80s, which is the preferred future.

44:00

Check out the Comic Book dot beer website for cover galleries.

And of course the daily Comic book mission.

Perhaps some of you don't know I'm I've been recording that daily comic book missions short little podcast like bits, but recommended reading something to something to get you up off the chair into your comic book shop and buying a couple issues to check out Daily comic book missions.

44:27

I'll see you next time Comic Book dot beer.

It's an actual website extension and it's mine.