[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtights.com, i'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and Collectibles at galactic comics and collectibles.com and at 499 Hammond street in Bangor, Maine.
Speaking of that, we invite Paul Eaton of Galactic Comics and Collectibles to the show today to discuss basically 2026 so far in the world of comics. Some of the highs and the lows and some of the comics we liked this year and some of the things that just kind of like piqued our interest and what we expect to happen for the rest of the year. Kind of like a roundup of sorts, like we do at the end of the year with our top 10 comics. But we're not actually ranking comics in this one, we're just talking about comics. So check this one out. But before you do, find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky, threads, all those places you can rate, review, subscribe over on Apple, Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts. And as always, you can find the video
[email protected] and if you want more, check out capesandtights.com for so much more. But this is Paul Eaton of Galactic Comics and Collectibles talking comics in 2026 so far. Enjoy everyone.
Good morning, Paul.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Good morning, Justin.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Welcome to the morning show here on Wkit. No, this is Galactic Comics. This is a new thing we're doing here. We're doing a mid year, which I also said to myself, like in the car driving the kids that work or this work tomorrow. Yeah, they're going to work.
School this morning was, you know, mid year and maybe like, I don't know, one in one of the fall sometime and then one at the end of the year. It's hard in Jan like this I looked back and I was like, let's look at some comics that I'm really excited about this this year so far. And it was like, okay, January, February, March, April. Oh my gosh, all the good comics came out. So it was like it is one of those ones like having one of these like kind of catch up episodes in like March or April, probably pretty boring because there's like not a ton of crap that comes out between January and April during the winter.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: It's a much slower release schedule. Nothing's really going on yet. I mean there's those, those like great books that hit there. Oh yeah, I feel like it's like movies. Like, it's good time to release something because nothing. There's no competition. Nothing else is coming out. But for us to do a podcast about it, be like, well,
[00:02:21] Speaker A: no, it's a lot of continuation, too. Like, it's like, okay, the sixth, seventh, or eighth issue of series or fourth. You know, like, it counts in that category of like, if we were included in comic books of the year. Because it's like, half of it was made in this year too. But, like, to me, it was like, it has a lot of that stuff, but it doesn't have a lot of like, this is amazing. I said this to someone recently. I was like, I do my four comics I love every week. And this time of year, I'm like, God damn it, I need to pick only four. And then, like, in December and January and February, I'm picking, like, I need to pick four. Like, it's like this weird back and forth thing where I can't. Like, it's so slow during that time. But yeah, six months is good. Seven months, whatever it is now. You. You there?
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah, whatever. Whatever for this. I'm here.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Okay. You're just glitching.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: We have a weird Internet glitch. I don't think we've had it. This store.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: No, it's probably the dance studio.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Probably is the dance studio. They're going this morning. We can just.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: But I'm excited for this because, like I said, it's one of those things that, like, maybe also you forget about things or, like, things are really cool right now. And then you read the rest of the series at the end of the year. You're definitely not going to include it on your comics of the year.
Yeah, exactly. Those kind of things.
Just also because you've. You're in it. I mean, we've. People who have watched our or listened to our episodes, movie review episodes have seen you in a new location, which it's kind of the way you're situated right now on your camera is not like, you'd obviously say that you were in a different location because of the fact that, like, you had toys behind you most of the time in your other location. And it was, you know, on racks like that in a sense. But in halfway. Halfway through the year, a quarter of the way the year through the year, I should say you moved. And so I wanted to talk about that too. So why did you move?
And then how's it been?
[00:04:02] Speaker B: So the first and foremost, most important thing for relocation was size.
We tried everything to expand the previous location, and we Tried this and that. And like, no matter what I always tell people, if we bought that building and we owned it, it still wouldn't be worth we wanted.
There wasn't any parking there. The front, like, curb appeal really wasn't there, all that. So it was a great startup. It was 100% what we needed for a startup. But we all grew it within. Oh my gosh. What. What do you think? Two years maybe? Yeah, maybe. And then we were there for almost six.
So 100% there was your, your biggest reason. The new location thankfully has. It checks off everything. The parking, the curb appeal, the size.
We're already chatting about potential growth in this space, all of that stuff. And it has been phenomenal. It's like night and day. I tell people I thought I was busy before because we were, we were busy at the old store. I think this, I had no idea what busy was.
This new location is utterly insane. Almost this from the time you unlock the doors until the time you locked it.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: I think there's a flow issue too with like your old spot. Like, there was no flow to the place. And so, like, I think we're in a community.
No. Yeah, See, we're in a community of, of introverts. And so, like, if you go into a place that you feel extremely uncomfortable just talking about some people who like, feel uncomfortable in busy situations before recording here and like, if you feel uncomfortable at all, you, you might want to be walking around longer and buy stuff or look stuff you may have picked something up to buy and then just put it back down because, like, I don't want to deal with it. There's people in front of the register and, and then leave. And I, I, I've been in your. I've, I've hung out many, many, many, many hours in your old shop. And I feel like there was that. Not obvious of it, but like the feeling of that sometimes where someone would walk in, you do it like, hey, can we find anything for, you know, where else that. And then they'd leave. And maybe if it was a little easier to look around and go through some long boxes or short boxes and maybe look at some cards or some toys. If it was like it felt more, I don't know, spacious, people might stay longer.
And I think that, you know, obviously the pandemic had a lot to do with that. People don't want to be around people as much as. And so like, you can move stuff in your old spot, but like, this is like, I felt that I never looked through back issues that much in your old shop because it was in the back room and you couldn't really communicate with the people up front and have conversations about comics and things that are going on in the world tucked away. And like I could go and like I could hear someone talking in your shop now and like we're looking through comics and like look over and see people or you, you're going to pop over because you're putting something away or you know, whatever it may be. So it feels like it's a lot more like shopper friendly in that sense too.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Oh, I think 100%. We've actually had customers, I've noticed that would come in that I'd go, wait, you used to come to the old store? I think like I recognize these people but couldn't tell you what they bought and maybe didn't buy anything at the old shop because they've told me they, they just felt like it was a little too cramped. They didn't want to be in the way.
And now they're in here for like an hour going through boxes and back issues and pulling stuff and bringing up stacks of back issue comics.
So it's awesome. It is a hundred percent what we needed. And I think we'll still find things in here to improve and we'll still find things here. We can do better and I don't know, different ways, maybe cataloging back issues and all of that stuff. But at the end of the day, this broke, this relocation has been phenomenal for them.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: I think you needed it. You couldn't just gone into the store without the pressure and stress of potential debt and things like that. You had to have started where you were like at home doing shows and stuff like that, being online and then going to your small store and then going from the small store to the bigger store. Like there's, there's people who have opened up bigger stores from the beginning and then they just. Every day like the slow snow day in New England and you're like, crap, I'm not gonna be able to make rent this month that could like this. And they probably do, but this is having to think about that. And so like you built yourself a
[00:07:52] Speaker B: little feeling of a lot of businesses is starting off all in. We're gonna go all in. I have this, this idea. We're gonna open a place the size of Walmart and the over invest and it takes a while to build your fan base and build a recognition and brand recognition, all that stuff. So for sure.
And I think that was something we, we made sure we did Slowly so that it never was that. That danger per se.
You know, our lights are on and the bills are paid. We're doing okay.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: And you did that. You went from basically online, mostly shows and pop ups and like, hey, DM me, if you want this pop or whatever, it may be this comic or toy or whatever. And then to starting nights only and Saturdays at.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Working full time and doing that at
[00:08:40] Speaker A: the other spot in Hammond Street. And then you move into spaces, what a little, little. Roughly double the space size.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: It's just over twice the square footage.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And cleaner and organized and. And just nicer. It feels like a nicer store in general.
And that you can. When you have a nicer base, it's easier to keep it nice in that sense too. Like when you have a. A base that's a little bit chaotic, you might keep it chaotic because you're like, can't change these carpet tiles, so who cares? And then, you know, like that kind of thing. Not that you were. I would just say that has that. That tendency to try to do that. And then. Yeah. So having this place and then honestly, like I said, like I was saying to a lot of people, you live right next to a pizza joint. Like you're right next to a pizza restaurant, which people stop in quickly to go get their pizzas. Or for some reason they don't order online or it's taking too longer and they need to have somewhere to go to like kill the time. And they could just pop next door and be like, I'm getting a lot of that.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: And I'm amazing the amount of people because we're one roughly one block away from our oldest location. And the people that will go to get pizza then come in and go, I didn't know there was a comic store on Hammond Street. When did you guys open? And I'm like, well, here four months ago, but technically almost 10 years ago.
Like, did you manage to get all this stuff in. In a week? And I'm like, no, no, this stuff has been piling up for a while.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Well, I had a yard sale last weekend. Not just. Not the weekend. We're recording on Monday. Not this like past weekend, Father's Day weekend, but the weekend before that. And I had a guy come up and he's like, you know, I was talking about. He was talking about Spawn. And I was like, you know, sad to say, Paul, but I'm basically sticking to the Spawn main series now.
I've decided this moving forward. Not like next couple issues probably, but like in the next couple, it's just too much. I can't.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: You don't want to get all. Was there seven. Is there seven Spawn titles?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: I don't know, but I immediately thought that, like, okay, like, oh, 10 issues of King Spawn and then maybe another 10 issue series or where there's like breakups where you're gonna be able to like, take a break and like, move it along.
Oh, yeah, all of them. Now I'm like, oh, I can't stop coming.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Was it she. Spawn started the dark.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: And I just can't. I'd rather just stick with the main Spawn series. Maybe some of these ones. Like, he's doing the one that's coming up called Spawn77, which is like the. The original design of Spawn as a character, which is kind of cool. Like the design he drew the really ugly looking one.
Yeah. And so like that stuff maybe, but like, so I was like, whatever. So the guy comes up, he's like, do you have any Spawn? And I'm like, well, I'm not going to sell you any of my Spawn main collection because, like, I'm still collecting that still. There's still holes in that collection, however. I have all these offshoot things and things that I'm willing to move. And so I came and got these like, short boxes that I bought on Amazon. And I was like, these things suck.
And he's talking to me about it. He's like, yeah, I bought my short boxes at Top Shelf. And I was like, cool. And I was like, obviously won't say anything bad about Top Shelf. It's a comic book store. It's been there for a long time, whatever. But I was like, yeah, you know, that's a. My buddy owns a shop on. On Hammond Street. He's like, what? And I'm like, dude, you've been to Top Shelf. And you like to. Obviously this person isn't either. But I also thought to myself, like, you're collecting Spawns, so this is not like you're collecting. Hey, is there any like, X Men, which is like potentially like a peripheral comic book collector would look for, like, Spawn is. Is that. It's probably the.
To me isn't dependent. He's also looking potentially like King Spawn Spawn. Like, you know, all these other ones. And I'm like, this seems weird. So he's like, yeah, my guy, check out. Check it out. I'm like, it's just weird to think to me, like, I'm in it. And I like, we're friends and you know, I've been to the comic book store A number of times. So, like, to me, it's odd, but even people I know are like, oh, that place over on Hammond Street. Like, they like, there are people that did that. But then there's all these people that I'm like, how do you. Do you live under a rock? Like, is it really a rock? How do you not know this?
[00:12:10] Speaker B: But I mean, you can, I guess, you, like, you go somewhere, right? And the first thing you do is Google what's near me for this or that interest. If it's your hometown, maybe you don't, but you think you'd still hear about it, like I hear about.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Or if you start to get into it, like, where do I buy these things? And maybe the Internet's taking that away from everybody. Because you could just go to the Internet and find things. But like, like, like shop. I mean, like that, like search for things. But like, just go be like, I want to buy comics and like, buy them from midtown or wherever. Like, but like, I don't know, it's just kind of weird to me. But yeah, that's why I always said to you, like, it was beneficial to get a place next to a pizza place that has parking and all that stuff. But in the same sense, if there was like this random end of the dead end road that had like a big, huge warehouse space that was the same price, your price you're paying now. I was like, that also might be an option for you, Paul, because people Google comic book stores most of the time nowadays. This is not all I drive by. Oh my gosh, comic book stores, stop. That does happen. But I would say the majority of people like myself look out for these things. And so if you like visiting a town, you know, you hunt it down. And if you want to become a regular, it doesn't matter where you are because you just go to that spot. It's not like, you know, the beneficial to you where you are right now is you're going to cultivate a lot of like, future readers and things like that, or comic book play or card players or things like that. Because you're walking distance to schools, you're walking distance to families and things like that. You have a safe area.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: You're a friendly neighborhood comic.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And so instead of like being like a industrial park or some sort of mall where you have to like drive to and park, you might not have those kids that are coming in here might be like lifelong, like they're gonna say, friends and family members that I've gotten be going to this comic book store. For 20 years. You know, I bought my first Pokemon card there and now I'm like into comics or whatever it may be. I'm looking to open my own store, like, like that kind of thing, so. Which would be kind of cool. But you know, it's, it's, it's a small spot. It's not small spot. It's a great spot that's double your size, has parking. I never have to worry about that anymore. I mean, I'm going to gain like £700. Just be like pizza first and then, you know, like there's that pastrami sandwich today.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: What's the big deal?
[00:14:00] Speaker A: I got a half an hour drive home. I can finish that sandwich on the way. You know, just get my comics and my sandwich and go.
But no, it's right around the corner from Stephen King's house if anybody wants to do two, two birds, one stone kind of thing.
And you still can. Straight shot to downtown. So if you want to go downtown, visit some of the other stuff that's in Bangor. Like Briar Patch would be a good place. Or any of the restaurants and brewery stuff that's down there.
That's awesome.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Downtown Bangor for a beer.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: And you're touching everything. You've got toys, you got comics, you got tcg, you've got collectibles, you've got high end stuff, low end stuff. That's like a little bit of everything for anybody. So you want to go in there? I've been into places that you go in. You're like, this is that like I went into REI yesterday and I'm like, okay, cool. I bought Nova, little tiny, like 16 ounce Nalgene bottle for 15 bucks. I'm like, that's what I could afford in this entire store.
It's not like that at Galactic comics. There's like dollar stuff. There's $2,000 stuff. I guess there's things in there that
[00:14:54] Speaker B: you can do it, cover the spread, you name it. I like to think you, if you name it, we probably got something of it for the most part. Within our, within our comic world realm, you know, when there's stuff we've, we've changed.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: Do you have a shovel? Can I buy a shovel off you?
[00:15:08] Speaker B: The guy?
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Actually, hold on. I bought a collection last week.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: I don't need this anymore.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: And the one short box had a collapsible shovel in it. That was weird. Yes, we have that for you right here at Galactic Comics. It was signed by Stan Lee. What I need to. I'm camping and I need a Poop shovel. No, please don't use that one. Please don't use that one.
But no, it's great and I'm so pumped about it. And you know the next. And one of those things that to me is like now you're in this spot and you can like generate the revenue to generate the customers. You can get the extra things like book club and card playing and all that stuff. There is like the next goal probably is something like an online store where you can expand a further online store where you can expand business.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: That's our next big step is we are, we're bringing on a new employee.
We're going to be doing some life changes at home and my wife is joining the team full on to be running our web store and doing our ebay store and trying to get more product and inventory up there and a cleaner, cleaner look at it. A lot of our inventory on our website is photos all generated by our point of sale system itself.
So we're going to start trying to do more in store photos of items. That way you can truly see what item you're getting.
And especially that gives us an opportunity doing that to put more comic books on our website.
So you can just see flat out here's your. Well right now with Amazing spider man number 51st appearance of the Kingpin. And people put that up on the website with a full on photo of what this book looks like that someone could be getting. So that's something we. I just don't have time to do now.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: No, then that's what it was. And also space. I always said to someone if your online store outdid the sales of the in person stores and brick and mortar store sales for you, you'd have a problem because where would you find the place to store these boxes to ship and the product? You know it's nowadays hopefully at some point you can figure that out in a way that like even if some of that stuff like okay, all these 10 things have been sold, they go into like a tote and they go to your house and you're in, in your wife is there putting things together and getting them shipped off, you know, or the back room or in a table.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Now we have like an office space in here.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: You have. But you also have like the tables.
You have the ability to put things on tables and do things. Whereas before it was like okay, let's move the DC comics and you know like that kind of thing to do things. So yeah, but you have to create
[00:17:26] Speaker B: a table on top of this items because there's nowhere else to do it.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: And you did your first signing, which is awesome, with four people.
A little Galacticon mini we did with George Deep and Bob Tackic, Amanda Call.
And it was fun to do that too. And so we'll do more of those coming up. And I'm excited for that. And yeah, Galactic Comics is now a different address. 499 Hammond street in Bangor, Maine. And then Galactic Comics collectibles.com but at
[00:17:56] Speaker B: this comic book store, our view outside is a little nicer, too. This end of the neighborhood's a little nicer. It's a little. It is.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: And you get this nice, like, orange sports car that drives around all the time. You can watch.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah, you can. You can go take your picture beside a Corvette that's randomly parked here a lot.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: But yeah, at your comic book store, fittingly enough, there's. Com Books for sale, which is weird.
And, and this year's been so far.
I don't. I want to say different, unique. I don't know what. How to say it. I guess we'll see again when we talk again in December. But, like, it's definitely.
It's had a different vibe to me, and I think I'll. I'll say it right here and you're probably going to agree to. It has a lot to do with the Absolute Universe.
I think that is a big thing.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Is.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Is absolute.
Do you know, speaking of that, Sorry. I was at BAM over the weekend and they already have a collector box of the Ultimate Universe. The new Ultimate Universe of, like, trades.
I didn't see it anywhere else that I didn't know if it was like a, you know, like, big box store, retail store. But it's like, I look down at the shelf and I'm like, isn't that still kind of going on?
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Like, it hasn't finished yet.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: This week is like a lot of, like, the ultimate. And, like, there's like a couple different ultimate, like, ending things this week. But, like, is there four.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: There's three or four ultimate this week continuing to wrap up the Ultimate Universe thing. And yeah, that's odd.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: That was a. That was a squirrel moment. But, like, that's the. I think that's also like the, like, this shows the difference in Absolute versus Ultimate this year. Is that, like, Marvel tried to do that, but Absolute absolutely killed it. And again, this is last year, too. So we're not just talking about that this year, but I think it's, it's. It's spread into this year. January, February, March, April. Because of the fact that like, people are going to comic book stores more now to buy comics. I think because of something like DC made with Ultimate Universe, we have a
[00:19:47] Speaker B: lot and it is, you know, the new location and drawing in new people. But a lot of new people coming in are asking for the absolute series. They are looking for back issues, they're grabbing the trades. They. I've heard about this. I want to read this. And I've told a lot of the new people. I said, you know, there was a time when we first opened that I was almost dropping dc.com if I had to pick between, like, I can only order from one, DC was going to get dropped. We didn't sell enough DC books to justify it. I would order Batman, Detective, Superman action comics, the ones that you should always be selling. And if I ordered a half dozen of them, I back issued usually a half dozen of them. Like they just weren't moving.
And Marvel was always the big piece. And we always do a lot of independent, you know, we've always done a lot of stuff and a lot of that. I think Indy is a lot more like by recommendation. I've read this, I like this. You should try this. And that's where someone goes into the independent side.
But there was a long time that like we couldn't, couldn't give DC books away.
And now I think we sell more DC books than possibly anything else. People are back issuing the DC side so much more. We, we have a beautiful selection right now of Silver Age books, Marvel and dc. And those Silver Age Marvel books are definitely getting attention.
But your average stuff, the Ultimate Universe they tried to push.
Ultimate Universe was gonna be big. Spider man was, was great at the beginning and we did a lot of that. But you could see the Ultimate Universe just kind of slipping away in interest as the absolute series just not stopped at all. Like, if anything, it's just growing momentum.
So I think Marvel is, I would think, a little bit in trouble on that side. And it'll be interesting to see where, where they go that. Because like the big summer arc or at least one of the big summer arcs is the. The Queen in Black series. And we'll see where that goes. Does that gather interest? Does that gain people?
Because the ultimate side I think was, was probably their big push and we've seen it that just like I think
[00:21:54] Speaker A: it was they were thinking about an entire, like they were thinking long term. I don't know for sure and obviously I don't have any insider information on this. But like, I feel like they were going for a longer term push on this than what they got and, and they wrapped it up because it just wasn't doing what it wanted to. But they also can't just do like what a TV show does and just cancel it and issue, you know, issue seven, start move on right through these people.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: I feel like the 90s, they were like we were gonna try to do like the 10 issue series, but we got three of them out.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: I remember during the Pandemic there was like a five issue Hawkeye series where they, they obviously they stopped selling comics and stopped distributing comics for a little bit there. And then they just decided not to release it in physical form. They only released the fifth issue on digital form. And I was, I was like pissed about. I'm like, as someone who likes to have all five issues, it was like, like one issue. You can't throw that out there somewhere like and do like on a. You could do it. Could you even do it like a direct from Marvel or like a pre order on like your store owner only orders X amount. Like they'll wait till your order comes in. So they make it for what people knew.
But to me, I also was like, okay, this potentially manipulated the market. The fifth issue could be worth way more than the first, all of that stuff. But like, I don't know, I just think so like to me, like they just can't do that. So I feel like they had to like do that way. Marvel still outsells in volume than dc, but I feel like DC is looking for the long, long push and quality, like less items, but quality items.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: And I think that's the big thing. And I think that's why Marvel still sells in volumes because they put the so much out. Like in an average week we might have, let's say eight DC, maybe 10 DC titles drop. There's probably 15 to 20 Marvel titles. And there are so many Marvel titles that we like. You have to order like you feel like I've got to order this as a store. What if somebody asked for it? I go, geez, yeah, I didn't order it. It's a Marvel title, so we order it. Yeah, it's a Marvel title. It's got to be on. You got to have it in stock. So we order it and then.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: But see that's the thing is like, but to me is this is amazing. And I loved it. It was so much fun. I'm a big jade sound Bob, a big Kevin Smith fan with James Bob, a lot of those jays of future past. But my thought was, is that DC's not doing this as much either though. So like. So there is this like Marvel's doing a lot of random things as well that dc.
However, DC also has a very good job at like Black Label but Vertigo nowadays and lots of. With Marvel doesn't have. And so like there's this gap between it. But to me it was.
I put together a list of some comics that I was like happy about in 2026 so far.
And I did some Marvel. And there are. These are not Marvel because I'll pick Marvel because you got to pick Marvel. These are Marvel because I like those books and they have Marvel legitimate.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: They're on your list. And these are.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: So I like. And it's weird because they're all not your core things. So you're talking Civil War on mast. I'm really pumped about and like the first issue because it's pulling in something one of my favorite story arcs in Marvel history and then adding some things to it and some depth to them. Some behind the scenes stuff, some stuff that you didn't see because they were focused on other characters or so on and so forth. Illustrated, sorry. Colored by the same people who colored the first series. So you like, you had that connection in there and all that stuff again. Offshoot Jay and Silent Bob, J's of future past was fun because it was like, okay, it's this comedy thing so you can't take anything seriously. Jay Silent Bobber like, yes. And then Planet of the Apes versus Fantastic Four. And in that because it's like to me it was like one of those. I talked to you about mashups before or crossovers. There's some that ultimately make sense and who would stumble into the Planet of the Apes world. The Fantastic Four. And so like to me and there's like, you know, just. It screams at stuff. So like that's amazing. But on the D.C. side though, that's three. I just said three. And it's probably more. But I just said three. There's seven, including one that comes out in a couple when this week this episode comes out which is Clayface Celebrity dirt.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: But though DC's first.
First horror book, which is like, I think that's a. A gray area with Swamp Thing and with, you know, some of their other stuff. But yeah, their first targeted horror to me.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: And it's a mixture of things. It's got your next level with Lobo and Deathstroke, which I'm really enjoying. Some of the creators that I really like, obviously Absolute universe. Absolute Green Arrow was fantastic. Can't wa for more of that. But then you Got Bizarro Year 1, Year 9 again, Kevin Smith fan, so it was pretty fun to read that. And then you get elsewhere. All stuff like Superman, Father Tomorrow and Supergirl Survive are all elsewhere. So it's not. Again, it's still not. None of those really are like, main universe stuff. Like, there's not. Like, these are all the separate stuff. But I just. I don't know. Every one of those had way more volume to me. I don't know why, but, like, more impact and more, you know, excitement. And part of it. Part of it is I don't read that DC that much. So, like, it's newer and fresher and things like that.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: I'll be new to you and it's easy. Probably a lot of that stuff is easy. And I think that's a big part of the Absolute Universe is it's easy to jump into as a new DC reader because it doesn't have any in the background you have to worry about.
It's a quick launch, a quick explanation maybe to what's going on. And a lot of times I don't know if there's necessarily that much explanation, but it doesn't need to be there.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: It's the same goes for Elseworlds, though, too. Elseworlds is like, you have to have to have a little bit more information. No Elseworlds than you do absolute. Because of the fact that they take a story from the past and they alter it. And so it's like a legit.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: If you understand this side of it, you understand how different it is.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Over. Yes. Like, you're not. You read. You read, you know, Superman, Father of Tomorrow, which is basically Jor El coming to Earth and being the lone survivor from Krypton instead of his son Kal El is that story. You need to know that part. But since once he lands on Earth and things that happen, you could do comparisons and go, oh, how crazy it is. But you don't need to. You just need to know how that story turns out. You know, Supergirl, you know. Yeah. And enjoy that stuff. And so, like, so else Worlds. Is that. Is that what Marvel does with ultimate in a sense, too, where it's like, similar and then they just slow it. But it wasn't enough. I don't think there was enough Absolute, like, blowing shit up and making new shit. Whereas ultimate was like, Wolverine has three claws instead of fork, you know, like that kind of thing. It's like, okay, very different.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: But the ultimate, the new ultimate side of it just didn't seem like, okay, Peter Parker was happy and didn't become Spider man. And I was. I was on for the first volume of it, but I haven't.
It didn't impact me enough to make me go, I've got to read the next volume of Ultimate Spider man. While I am reading all of the absolute stuff.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Speaking of alternate stuff, this is just random because I just had them here because I bought them on New Hampshire this weekend is I stumbled into these. This was eight bucks for a book. And this was like six bucks for a book.
A whole new world. A twisted tale, twisted tale novel. Oh, they're both called twisted tale novels and set in stone. This is what if Arthur wasn't meant to be king for the sword in the stone?
And what if Aladdin never found the lamp?
Like what Aladdin's life would be like? And it's a twisted tale and it's like, yeah, they're like middle grade novels. Like obviously, like you can see, like, it's not that hard. It's like big text and like there's not a lot in here. It says 354 pages, but like that's like, it's probably 160 pages for an adult novel.
But I saw them and I'm like, yeah, you know, whatever. And then I stumbled upon the next one. I was like, you know what? This would be some fun reading. And I think that like, to me it's like, I don't think I would read like an Aladdin book that's like a adaptation of the story that I like the movie or whatever. But like, I would definitely, like, this is fun. So part of that is like again, having that small bit of knowledge and just twisting it a little bit. I think that that's something that Absolute's done. But Absolute's also been like gritty and like doing different genres and like in pulling in creators that people want to read or some of them are fairly new, they're hot right now, or some of the classic people. And I think it's a mixture, a
[00:29:48] Speaker B: unique story to tell within a character they've wanted to do. I feel like Martian Manhunter is that that unique story, that unique way of telling the story they wanted to do and bringing that out.
And I, and I appreciate the fact that they said we are going to do 12 issues and that's what the story is we want to tell. And because March Manhunter was hugely successful, number 12 comes out what, July 1st, July 3rd, whatever that is. Yeah, July 1st. And they have done so well. They Easily could have said, okay, let's fine, we'll extend this to 16 issue or 20 issues or keep going with it. But they said no. We told our story of our. Of our 12th part and we're done.
And I think that has been a key thing of making sure this stuff isn't running on for no reason. It feels like there's more story to tell. Feels like there's more purpose in it.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: You mean like King Spawn and Gunslinger Spawn?
But it's true. I think it's like that. I think it's the whole Seinfeld going out with season nine because it was like they were on their top basically in order to go by down at this point and let's take off when we're on top. And so like Martian Manhunter has been successful for 12 issues. Doesn't mean they won't meet re. Meet up with them at some point in the future. It just means that this run and this creative team, it's done and we're going to move on to the next thing. And. And some of these are five issue miniseries, some are five issue pluses. Meaning that they're like they're five issues, but they do. Well, we'll do 10 issues and those kind of things and. But I think it's not just. I think what other publishers are learning from DC on this absolute thing is doing these similar things in other places too. Like the Godzilla stuff over at idw, the Kaiser. It's like, okay, let's take Godzilla and say, okay, let's make up new lore. Like it's still the same similar lore, but we'll do some fresh stuff on it.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: And so those people side of Godzilla. The masterpiece theory stuff has been great. Yeah.
This past week.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Godzilla Odyssey. What a fun like concept change.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: And it's always gonna be like that because God says always had that. Like I honestly, I just read last week or two weeks ago and I actually enjoyed it was Godzilla and Sonic the Hedgehog and so same thing. I didn't know. But what they were able to do is make it like still scary because it's obviously a big giant Kaiju monster. But like, but like also like characters want obviously there's what's the doctor Robotnik wants to.
Wants. Wants Godzilla for himself and Godzilla for himself because like obviously he wants to take over the world with it and stuff like that. But like. But then I was like, it just, it was really cool to read. I was like that's kind of cool. And those are the kind of things that like are different That I kind of like this year in that sense. And yeah, so like this is the Godzilla ones for idw. But like, I think it's because they're learning. I think like Absolute comes out and they're learning. People are learning that like doing these like twisted tales of old stuff.
Try to make it fresh. I think before it was like they were too afraid to piss off longtime readers.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Right. And I think a big thing is like make accessible material. And I think that's a big one. Like understanding the world we're in right now is we're gaining new, new people with the Absolute universe. We're gaining new readers and new stuff like the, the movies have been out for a long time and there's still new movies coming there or new shows coming that are drawing in people. So having more accessible launch points of stuff to read is a big thing.
And I think the, I don't know, hitting the spot of where we are. Like, I love the idea of IDW crime starting as, you know, the true crime stuff has been huge. And well, there's those books out there, those sort of like fringe horror thriller books that you know, are sort of semi true crime based. Here's a specific target audience. True crime.
Also a huge one. Dungeon crawler Carl. Like the huge phenomenon of dungeon crawl, Carl. And here's the graphic novel. This year we had the free comic book day book for it. And then the graphic novel series starting up that has been like, I, I think we've already sold like 40 issues of that. 40 copies of the graphic novel.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: How crazy is it that it's going to compete with something like your number of number ones you're going to sell? Like how you're going to compete? Like it's going to be like top two. We have sold trades that are non. I would say not including book club trades because obviously that's Right. That's different.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Regular to the customer, you're gonna be like something kill. The children's gonna be out there again and then it's gonna be like Dungeon Kirk.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: And we've sold almost a hundred copies of something Skillet Children, Volume one, which for our little shop in Bangor I think is. That's that's pretty impressive.
And you know, going back to the, the move and the relocation, one of the things I really want to do is like try to find a way to make our graphic novel stand out. I feel like the previous store, it was great. We do a lot of trades, we do a lot of graphic novels. It's something I really enjoy and I'm passionate about reading and bringing in new readers and young readers and all that. So I wanted to make sure that this was like a focal point. And at the old location, it was a nice built in area, but it's pretty easy to walk past and not pay as much attention to the trades. And here we bought these room encompassing bookshelves that are just.
You can't help but see them. And the amount of people now buying trades because I think it's accessible and it looks good. And, you know, we still have our staff picks and our focus and all of this, but being able to get those books out front has been huge in the new location.
And there's nothing I love more than the fact we go back through here week after week and go, holy smokes, we gotta do another reorder. The trade shelves are getting empty again.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Like, you could have skipped a couple of weeks. Like, we're doing reorders on the old shop.
Go to every. It's got to be a. Gotta be a checklist list thing for all your employees that do every week is be like, okay, we gotta check trades.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: Because a Monday morning go over and see what has moved over the past week in the past weekend and say, okay, this is all the stuff we need to get. And that's the thing I'm hoping, you know, as we expand the store and bringing, bringing Liz onto the team is being able to say, okay, now we can ensure that we're getting notified of missing inventory as we're like, okay, we've sold out of the last Ronin was a big one and something Skilling Children is a big one and be able to go back through the, the store sale history and go, we have more of these books that need to be kept on hand all the time.
So it's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. And I mean, the Absolute series has been huge this year. Absolute Batman Volume 1, we managed to get a few more issues that came through.
They must have been lying somewhere on a shelf that one of our distributors found. But overall, Volume one is once again out of print and isn't supposed to be back in a print until the end of August. And the Absolute, like dc cannot seem to keep up with getting the trades out for these. And we're, I mean, absolute volume or absolute Batman number one's already like a 400 book. Like I've had. I just had a new customer come into the store that said, oh, he goes, I'm gonna say something. You're gonna really think I'm a schmuck But I want to collect absolute Batman and I want to collect only first prints. And I was like, now he's like, I'm like, good luck man. Well, trade and enjoy.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Two through whatever, three through whatever. And then go back when you finished it to see what the price has come down to.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Maybe 7 or even 10 now because everything pre that is just getting so much harder to find. It's so much more expensive.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Hey, I did it with. I did with Something's Killing the Children. I went backwards and eventually bought the four or five hundred dollar book at the beginning because it was like I want to have this and so on and so forth. So it is possible.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: I think that's a big one for this year. Is like, are we gonna get this movie? Are we gonna get this animated series? Are we gonna get Something's Killing the Children?
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Well, I will tell you this. This nothing to do with something that's killing the children. But I did see that a guy named Tyler Kirkham posted yesterday to make sure you guys grab your copies of Final Boss because there's a big announcement coming. So there's a possibility we're getting some sort of adaptation of that. Okay. We talked about this animated series. Oh my gosh, an animated series. That would be good.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Final Boss anime series would be awesome.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: But a real life one, we have a lot of cgi. Might not. May not that much, but like even like a manga inspired one like would be dope or. Sorry, yeah, anime inspired spider one would be dope.
But yeah, it's a crazy thing but trades are huge. And I think that the Dungeon Carl is a big one, which is crazy because this guy self published these books years ago and then finally got picked up. And now this guy is the hottest thing that's hit like anything in a long time and he's hitting home runs with every single book. I guess I have not got a chance to read any of. Any of it yet.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: I've already read the first volume of Dungeon Crawler Carl, the novel.
And I'm reading volume two right now. And it is. It's a fun read.
It's easy. It's fun. And the graphic novels are gonna take. I think it looks like it's gonna take at least three or more graphic novels to make one novel of Dungeon Crawler Carl.
But so far I highly recommend it and I might even go try some of his other books that are not in this Crawler universe. I guess now is speaking of Gibran isn't one of the books for the
[00:39:17] Speaker A: upcoming book club yeah, his sci Fi whatever. I think it's a sci fi. Is it sci fi?
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: His sci fi book is that.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Yesterday while I was leaving Bagel Central, they had the poster up for the Briar Patches book club and I was like, oh hey, that's the Dungeon Cola Cola author.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: It's the eighth book though. So it's like, I think it's eight books. I think it's eight books books, eight total novels. And so like you have to get into it. So like to me, I, I got asked to read a different, a fifth book in a series that I hadn't read any of the series yet. I read other stuff from this author but I hadn't read the rest of it. And so now I've got to read those four books before this comes out so I could read that. And so like my goal is eventually to read these. Dungeon crawler Carl again, stupid friggin name. DCC is what everybody else says.
And yeah, so it's like, it's crazy. And I do appreciate there's too much backlash to him a little bit right now about how he's like coming into a market that's not really his place to be. He should stay in the novel. Shut up, shut up.
Everybody should be access to comic books. I don't care who you are.
The more people we can get if someone picks up the DCC comic book or graphic novel and then picks up another graphic novel there, bam. We've got a comic book reader at our.
We got them over to our cult here, Paul.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: We've had multiple people that are dungeon crawler Carl, people that come in to get the graphic novel, then said I'm really enjoying this. What else is there in this kind of, this kind of vein? And we're selling murder hobo graphic novels. Our buddy Joe Schmolke, we're selling those. Like crazy is like a. Well, this is a pretty dark, twisted, messed up version of the same idea world type build. And they're like, oh, I'm down for it. So we're selling tons of murder hobo with it.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: But like you've got to have a crappy life right now to be shitting on someone for wanting to make comic books. Shut up. Like it's so stupid. But I digress because there's all kinds of people. If you are obviously going, I'm going to get into comics because I know I can make some money. But no one that I know of is really doing this. And I.
The guy Matt, is it Matt Dominion. Dominion Dominion. He.
Yeah, he wants to tell stories. So screw you. He wants to tell what format? He wants to tell stories. And you get upset with someone because their books get made into a TV show.
No. Why can't his book get made into a graphic novel? I don't understand that. But again, I digress. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna harp on it too much because there's another one that's out. Mr. Mr. Magic was a phenomenal book by Kiersten White, who then just recently came out with. It is a graphic novel format and it's phenomenal in graphic novel format too. Who is the co author of James Tinian in her Kristen White's Summons Killing the Children. Hope is a Knife. Graphic or novel? That's coming out in October. So the two of them together. So they both love comics. They both like telling stories and all that stuff. So like.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: So coming in October, we also have the whale fall movie.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: Are you mad at that, Paul?
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Graphic novel. I think we could do Dale Krause. Come on, let's get the graphic novel to Whale Fall.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: But are you mad at that? No, no one's pissed at that. We're all pumped about that. I'm gonna be there with the. I'm gonna go to Orno and watch it with him.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: Cider self. Excited. I was. And I think one thing is missing is too bad it's in October. I feel it could be. It's like the Jaws vibe.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Like show the movie on like a. Put it on an actual boat and I sit out in the water.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: You know, that's gotta be coming out this summer. And I looked, I was like, ah,
[00:42:33] Speaker A: crap on the beach. Can we do that? Can we like work on getting one where it's like free to go to so we don't have to worry about like rights or anything like that. Just like put a projection screen up on a beach.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Trust me, we don't make money off anything. We do.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: But no, but we talked about at obc, we're talking about going as a group, like, and doing it and like going on a night where like as a Friday night so you can get beer in Orno.
Yeah, yeah, one of those two. And I go in there and get beers and watch the show. And like we talked about the idea of making a small batch of whale fall again and having it sent to that theater so you can drink a whale fall where it'd be cool in that sense. But yeah, no, I'm like not obsessed about this whole cr. I don't care like to me, I'm like, if the story's good, the art's good, it's artwork. Why does it matter who's making these books? Like it doesn't. Like if it's another way for people to get the stories. There are people out there who are never going to pick up one of his novels ever.
But yet if they go to the comic book store and see it in a graphic novel format, they'll get the story. So why is there a problem with that? And the story probably could have been told first in the graphic novel if he knew how to get his story told in graphic novel format. Like, it's a very visual story. So like you're talking like it makes sense to have it that way. So I don't sell all those graphic novels. I'm so pumped. That's the graphic novel. It's not even funny how much I like how that's the graphic novel. And yeah, so it's.
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna start. I'm stopping, Paul.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: I'm stopping.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: But you mentioned. Go back. You mentioned IDW Crime too. So there's killer influences and Seven Wives that have her out now or are soon to be out. Because actually, well, killer influences will be out by the time this episode airs. This is actually airing in like two weeks. So our buddy Joey Esposito has that coming out. Killer influences as well as Seven Wives, which is about like Mormon wives and like mystery murder, I think is kind of.
And it's really good. I read the first issue.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: It's Station. That's another one that's coming in.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: Yep. And then. But that also is like the piggyback on to IDW Dark, which was the other imprint that they came up with the past couple years. And so they've got more. They just announced any given Smile. So it's a sports related Smile spinoff, which is pretty cool. Written by Stephanie Williams, who is a Eisner nominated writer.
And you have.
What did I just see? Oh, one based in Florida for.
[00:44:50] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, I saw that. Well, and we did. We've done really well with the Event Horizon run that started its second volume of the Event Horizon stuff. And that's so cool because there was a movie that you could probably do another adaptation of it now, but the actors have age, things have changed.
But to be able to go back and add on to that story in comic format with no budget.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: We talked about this with Kenny Porter about Power Rangers Unlimited, which is coming out soon, which is gonna be fantastic. Is it's basically like Justice League Unlimited and the sense that like each comic is different. So it's multiple things, each comics a different genre, alternating artists. So one artist will do 1 and 3 and 5 and the other one will be 2, 4 and 6 and. And the second issue is a horror comic book based in Power Rangers universes. And what they're doing is like whatever team of Power Rangers would work the best to complete this message mission is what's being put together to put out there. And so like there's like, there's no. It's very hard to do this in a TV format. It'd be like a Game of Thrones, $10 million an episode type show. But we could do it in comic format because there's no budget. The budget is as much as it costs to pay the writer and the artist and to print the book.
That's it. You can put explosions on every page and there's no cost, additional cost to
[00:46:06] Speaker B: that bigger and badder and destroy more stuff and just doesn't matter.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: And so that's what's great about some of these comic books is that fact that these are coming out that you can do whatever you want to. And so yeah, that goes for all these books like event horizon and 30 days a night, you know those ones. But Beneath the Trees has a the Rite of Spring graphic novels coming out, which is the sequel, which is phenomenal. And then you got the Halloween special coming out in October which is super pumped which like Tinian writing a story. And like it's, it's, it's, it's so much fun to see other creators get to play in the, the Beneath the Trees universe and that stuff too. But also Operation Iron Iron Coffins, one that's coming out soon by Kenny Porter, but it's like zombie or sorry, Dracula and Nazis and it's the first that looks awesome. Creator owned. Yes. Yeah, it's phenomenal. It's like basically bombs that fall out of the sky. You're like, oh my gosh, they're bombing this train. And one of them happens to be an iron coffin which has Dracula in it. And he comes in and just like rips the crap out of a ton of Nazis on there. And it's like Dracula's a bad person or bad thing because he's a villain. But like in the same sense, how do you cheer for not so like you have to like, who do you cheer for? And it's a redemption story because like it's, it's Dracula coming back to fight the evil with the Evil Dracula's coming back to life after dying.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: Terrifying and bad. But if you drop them in the middle of like a like ship full of murderers and criminals, you're like, well, run them loose. Go get him.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: But he died at the end of the book, Bram Stoker's book. They revived him in this story, but the idea was that he had back to go back to his redemption, to redeem himself as a person on earth. And part of that is to take out this Nazi train and so on and so forth. Some crazy shit's gonna happen. That's the first IDW Dark book that's not based on an ip. So you have like any smile outside of Beneath the Trees. But Beneath the Trees is already an established book. So this is the first like brand new story coming in the IDW Dark, you know, imprint, which is really cool on those things. So there's some really cool things. I mean, Ignition Press is killing it this year. I think there's a lot of cool stuff with Ignition Press and they've got some creators out there that are just killing it.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: Dude, I can't wait for Exquisite Corpses to like.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: It's on there right there.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's going to wrap up and then we're going to be a Exquisite Corpses gaming store, which will be fun. I already got people asking, are we going to host like how to play? We're going to host some like, I don't know, just some general play free play area for it. And we're totally going to do that. So that will be exciting.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: Rascal Randy's coming, which is the spin off. And then they just announced over the weekend or last week or late last week, they did Fox Mass Killer spin off on that one too. And they're gonna do one for a bunch. I don't think they're do every character, but I think they're gonna do it for a bunch of the characters in there. And there's more to come, I guess. There's season two and.
Yeah, there's more. Season two is coming for that one too. So there'll be more of that coming. Which exclusive? Corpses was our comic book of the year basically in 2020. But like the other one that really surprised me, Paul, was if destruction be our lot. I think a lot of comic book stores were surprised by that about how much people wanted to read this book from Matthew Rosenberg and his brother and. And it's phenomenal.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: We ordered up on it because I was excited and I had read it digitally originally and said, I am all in on this one. And we still didn't have enough. And that was one that I think it got that international recognition. It got us pushing it.
And we sold out of issue one. We sold out of issue two. We sold out of the second. Prince is an excellent, excellent read. I am so stoked for that one.
What a great time in the world of comics, right?
[00:49:41] Speaker A: Oh, it's. It's so amazing. And there's a ton of stuff. Then there's the stuff that we want to do. Deep and deep into the white skies, the nectar, the. The dork, the of it all. And the. The ones that, like, just value of the first issues went up so high for no real reason.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: And Scalper Community came and found us in Comic World, which to me was
[00:50:01] Speaker A: not so much fun.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: We got Garrett on a mission. We have customers in shop.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: Yeah, we're. We're finishing up here. And so the. The nectar part of it was. I didn't like that book very much. I'll be honest. Okay.
Dork of it all was great, well written, amazing. The artwork's phenomenal because Brett Bean is just. It feels like I hate Fairyland. And you know me, I'm a big guy. Fairly same to you. I just didn't connect with me as much. I'm not really into that orcs and dwarves and mythical and rare fantasy stuff, but I liked White Sky a lot. And a lot of people thought it was boring in the sense that it's like rehashing other stor that are out there. But I thought it was really good. So I pissed off that it was sold so high because I missed out on the first issue. And I'm like, God damn it.
This. But.
But yeah. So it's been a fun year. And so far, I think that we got a lot coming up here pretty soon, too. I think that there's a. Again, this is where it starts. It's almost like we should start talking to each other again, like two months and then again at the end of the year.
Because the next two months is going to be a huge thing.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: Summer.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Yeah, like a summer recap. Because summer is going to be huge, I think, in the world of comics. And I don't think the absolute universe is going anywhere.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: Right. It's almost like summer in comics is kind of like your summer movie vibe. You have the big arcs, you have the big stuff going on. You know, what's supposed to be big. So I know our releases are huge. This week's release, I had to. As I typed it, I had to shrink it to get it to Fit on a piece of paper. I'd put all the trades on it. On it was a full sheet of releases because there was so much stuff
[00:51:24] Speaker A: coming out and some of them was good, some of it's bad. No, it's true. It is. But I'm not gonna say.
[00:51:30] Speaker B: I mean it is, it is what it is.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: There's something you read, you go,
[00:51:36] Speaker A: I mean there's benefit.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: I've benefit of doubt this year podcast practically of you and I dedicated movies that are like that. Why was this made?
[00:51:44] Speaker A: And it's easier to say about multi million dollar movies than it is about comics. Like on, on air. Like it's not, it's, there's, there's like a separation to it that you don't feel connected to it in a way that you can't just shit all over someone's comic book when you're like, generally
[00:51:56] Speaker B: our movies are pretty old too.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: So we want to talk about like the Silver age Marvel comics and just crap all over those sometime and see what happens.
[00:52:04] Speaker B: That'd be a good way to get some different opinions.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: But it's, but it's true. It's, it's, it's a busier time of year. It really is. And so there's a lot of good comics coming out. And I think that there are. I mean I've been. I guess my year is so far is DC's ultimate universe is killer. Absolute universe is killing it continuously. I think that there are other things like Elseworlds and Next Level are also doing extremely well and fun and doing some fun different things. Like Clayface is going to be amazing.
[00:52:32] Speaker B: I think Philippines looks awesome.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: The introduction to the imprints at IDW have been phenomenal. And then I think that the books that I thought were going to be bad because they were pitched to me in a certain way ended up being good. Is another thing to take away from me. There's so many things were like, hey, read Godzilla versus or and Sonic. And I'm like, holy crap, this is good.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: It feels like a money grab. Then you're like, oh, this is actually really fun.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: And so that's another thing for me. It's like this year's like the year of surprises that things that shouldn't work are working. And I, and I love it because I want com book publishers to take risks. Take risks. Because if you're just doing a five miniseries, it's just as well going to fail. That is any other series that you didn't take a risk on. Like there's this opportunity to Fail everywhere and so have the opportunity to succeed
[00:53:18] Speaker B: pushing comic world like Sesame street meets Pennywise. Do you want to try to get.
[00:53:23] Speaker A: Dude, I would take any of it. I think that's one of those untouchable ones. I don't think Sesame street will ever be in something like that. However.
However, I would take a lot of this stuff we saw this year. Archie versus army of Darkness.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Right?
[00:53:36] Speaker A: Like we're in this spot now where we're in a spot where like it. No crossover is ultimately untouchable because it is because Sesame street teach Pennywise how to be a good person and how to count.
Maybe it is there.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: I don't know. He's just consuming all of the souls of Sesame Street.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: I want the IP version.
I want the IP version of exquisite corpses. Like season three where it's like all the serial killers that are in the.
The town fighting for power is all like monsters and things. We know you got like Michael Myers in there and Freddy and. And Pennywise and all these different people in there or like universal monsters crawling. It's all image cross over with skybound there and do a tiny young and skybound kind of come where it's like Dracula and Wolfman and all those guys fighting for supremacy in the world we live in. I don't know. I'm down for it, Paul. I'm also down. Always there for it.
547 Ham street is no longer the address. 499 Hammond street in Vancouver.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: Still go to 547 Ham Street. But we're not there.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: Nothing there. So. And you have not closed. They're down the street.
Just keep driving and get some pizza.
Maybe do your. Get some insurance and if you have a young kid who wants to dance, they can go right on dance. Is there like a window replacement or some sort of.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a windshield. Like a windshield replacement place. So you can get your windshield done. We have. That's another weird crossover. You people that are like, I have time to kill because I gotta get one shot done. So let's start wandering around here and grab. Com books.
[00:55:09] Speaker A: It's a five dollar minimum to be in here.
It's a credit back. If you buy a comic book that will give you the money back. We can use it towards it. But if you just come in here and leave, then you can't that Garrett.
[00:55:24] Speaker B: That's Garrett.
[00:55:26] Speaker A: Hi Garrett.
[00:55:27] Speaker B: Bye Garrett.
Answering questions. Customers are looking for things.
[00:55:31] Speaker A: Okay, well you know what, Paul? We could talk for hours about comic books in the world and stuff like that, but we're not going to.
[00:55:37] Speaker B: You have an entire like podcast and website and everything all dedicated to that.
[00:55:41] Speaker A: It's weird. So we've now figured out that the flux capacitor will last an hour. So that's. That's good. Look at that guy. That's. That's. I like that. I gotta turn off in between. I'm gonna kill a battery. I don't know how many. How much? Two double A's. How much power is that actually taking to do that?
[00:55:53] Speaker B: Probably.
[00:55:53] Speaker A: I mean, it's not good to sound. So it's not. It's only half.
[00:55:55] Speaker B: Did you do the thing in science class where you had to. To get the. The battery and then the light bulb and run the stuff to it and like, I mean, seemed like.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: I'm guessing it's just LED lights and it's not like it's like that much power.
[00:56:07] Speaker B: You say that, though. I've got the galactus popcorn buckets up there with the glowing eyes. I can't leave those things on. Of course, that doesn't run double A. That has those little tiny. Yeah, those things you get like. Oh, God, maybe an hour and a half and then you're changing batteries.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: I gotta talk with Patrick Horvath at. Later on this afternoon. And so I'm turning off in between. But maybe after I'm done with him, maybe I'll leave it on and to see how long and then have the batteries come out. But I'm also afraid that, like, it would just die and then it's just a piece of plastic sitting there. But yeah, so read comics and don't do stupid stuff. People read comics and stay off the Internet.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Well, only from this podcast you can have the podcast on the Internet and
[00:56:54] Speaker A: then, well, you can't really get too much trouble just going to Apple Podcasts or Spotify than it is to go on the actual Internet. So if you just go on the Spotify or Apple podcast and find it, that'd be great. And if you want a good time, go back and listen to all the movie reviews that we've done.
I use that sparingly. Good time is
[00:57:12] Speaker B: some people's opinion.
[00:57:14] Speaker A: But yeah, I like this. I'm glad. And I actually think I have an idea for end of the year that I thought to myself that, like, do we do the 10 comics we love in a post format and just talk about the comics of the year? Like comics into kind of this kind of thing at the end of the year. Talk about highs and lows and what trade sold a lot and all that stuff. Touch on maybe the top three comics that we've talked about each one of us, and then do the top 10 for each of us. It's just a post. This is all them listed so people could read it. But like that. This episode's really more of a roundup of comics of the year and stuff like that. We'll talk about some of them. But like that, it's not fully on. Just going back and forth on the comics.
[00:57:47] Speaker B: Not the back and forth on the list.
[00:57:48] Speaker A: No. I think it'd be more fun.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: Change it up.
[00:57:51] Speaker A: Paul. Happy Father's Day.
Even though this episode airs like two weeks after Father's Day, but happy Father's Day.
[00:57:56] Speaker B: Father's Day. And it's the day after Father's Day and all, but it's whatever.
[00:57:59] Speaker A: And it's after fourth of July, so happy fourth of July. Because it is actually the Wednesday.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: That means at this time when this airs, I will probably be sunburned. I hope I'm sunburned. Let's pray to God I'm not, like, out there in the rain. Because we'll be out camping and laying beside a lake, hopefully drinking beer and reading comic books. That's the goal. That's. That's the goal.
[00:58:22] Speaker A: And today we celebrate Independence Day.
No. Is that.
I just. I just write quoted entire line from. From the movie Taylor the other day. I'm like, name this movie. She's like, it's obviously independence.
I don't remember from the movie, but I just. By the context of how you're saying this right now. Yeah. So cool, Paul. Thanks a lot. Let's. Let's sell some comics.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: Comic time later.
[00:58:47] Speaker A: Peace.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: Sam.
