Blinded by the Blight: The Toxic Avenger Returns with Matt Bors and Tristen Wright

🥣 Season 13, Episode 6Remember your first happy hour? Saturday mornings — when you’d wake up with the sun, grab a bowl of chocolatey cereal, and lose yourself in a world of cartoons, commercials, and pure, unfiltered joy. We’re still chasing that feeling, one episode at a time.This week, the Saturday Morning Cereal crew dives headfirst into radioactive sludge as The Toxic Avenger returns… and he’s aiming at the Capitol. Hosted by Grim Shea, Marke, Johnny Heck, and Jimmy “The Gent” Leszczynski from Retro Cool Nerd, the gang explores the newest chapter in Toxie’s long, weird, and wonderfully grotesque legacy. The timing couldn’t be better. AHOY Comics recently released Toxic Avenger Volume 2: Love and Blight, the trade paperback collecting the latest comic book adventures of the mop-wielding mutant hero from the classic Troma Films universe.Written by two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Matt Bors, with art by legendary Toxie artist Fred Harper and contributions from a lineup of talented creators, the new volume sends Toxie shambling through horror, crime, science fiction, romance, and fantasy. The Toxic Avenger remains the perfect radioactive antidote for a toxic world.But what is “toxic,” anyway? The crew gets into the generational shift that makes Toxie such an interesting character to revisit today. In the 1980s, toxic meant sludge, pollution, chemical waste, and the looming fear of the ozone layer disappearing — the kind of environmental nightmares that gave us Tromaville in the first place. Today, the word toxic often points to behavior, politics, culture, and the way we treat each other. Different decades, different anxieties, and somehow Toxie still fits right in the middle of it all.To celebrate the release, Grim Shea and Marke sat down with writer Matt Bors and artist Tristen Wright to talk about reviving the Toxic Avenger for a new generation, balancing satire with mutant mayhem, and why this bizarre cult hero still has something meaningful (and messy) to say about the world we live in.Grab a bowl of cereal, crank up the cartoons, and join us. Because when the world gets toxic, sometimes it takes Toxie to clean it up.Stay crunchy, my friends. 🥣🥣Saturday Morning Cereal — the show that celebrates the themes of Saturday Morning TV that we not only grew up with, but that grew up with us.We talk with the talent and creatives who continue to shape the pop culture we love.🎙️ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and visit mattypradio.com for more episodes, interviews, and Comic-Con and pop-culture coverage.