Issue #3: Darick Robertson

Welcome to the Four Guys in the Comic Podcast. Turn up that volume, because here are your hosts, Ray, Rusty, Tap, and Noah. Welcome, everyone, to a very, very special Four Guys in the Comic interview. Just some quick hints, maybe these words will ring some bells, Transmetropolitan, The Boys.

Happy. We have one and only, Eric Robertson with us. Mr. Robertson, how is everything?

How are you? Everything's good. Thanks for having me on the show, guys. Yeah, thanks for joining us.

For the people that don't know who you are, why don't you give us a little rundown? Well, you did a pretty good job there. I also had a mainstream career before I did those creator-owned books. I was the regular artist on Wolverine with writer Greg Raka for a couple of years.

I did a night call. I'm doing series for Marvel, as well as various projects like Spider-Man and that kind of stuff. So I had that was going on before I did Transmetropolitan, but I also co-created a book called Ballistic last year, and known for most of my creator-owned stuff. I was saying, look at your bio.

You know, writer, penciler, anchor, cover artist. What haven't you done? You have done so much. Yeah, you gotta say the bills.

Yeah. Thank you. So let me do it. I try.

It's funny, I've had a long career in comics before I even started becoming a published artist. I worked in other areas of the comic book industry. I worked behind the counter at a comic book store. I worked out at Diamond Distributors on packing books back when I was in my younger years.

So I've seen this from many different angles long before I became an artist working in it. Oh, cool. I gotta ask what comic shop were you working at? Or a place that no longer exists, but it was called Peninsula Comics.

And it was in a Belmontale. It was the way they refer to it now. My home on a San Mateo. It was right on the border of Belmont in San Mateo.

And it's no longer there. But the shop owner was the first guy to ever look at my work and go, I think you're great. I want to publish you. And so he got behind the financing of my very first published comic, which was called Space Beaver.

It was a black and white funny animal comic, looking at funny. And I did that for 11 issues. I was only 17. I started getting published right out of high school, but I wrote and created the whole thing.

And I did the in-game and basically put the whole book together myself. And they published it. And it was at a time when comic books kept going through bubbles in the last 30 years, they've been through two or three. And this was the black and white bubble, which was created by the success of the Ninja Turtles.

The Ninja Turtles are now started out as a black and white comic book. And as a result, everybody could get their hands on early copies. They were sitting on gold mines. So people started pumping out these black and white funny animal books.

And it created a glutton in the market. But everybody was convinced that they were going to have the next Ninja Turtles. And as a result, like store owners were just buying these things by the case loads and helping them play the cover price 30 or 40%. And when that didn't work, they had a bunch of supply and demand is a pretty easy equation, except if you work in comics.

And so they had a lot of supply and no demand. And it caused a kind of an implosion. And unbeknownst to me, my publisher was trying to get in on that. And I didn't realize what that all meant, because I was just a kid.

And so I kind of got swallowed in that wave. And as a result, we weren't selling a lot of comics. And I wanted to work. So he put me to work behind the counter at the mental economics for a while.

But I learned a lot just on the retail and the things. Well, that's cool. Yeah, actually, while you're just talking, I started looking up space and be around eBay to get some of the ideal covers. And yeah, it kind of just reminiscing a little bit of the turtles looking at that.

That was coincidence to me. And my favorite characters at the time were Rocket Raccoon and Captain Carrot and the Nathan Zukru. Oh, cool. That actually looked at the fact that you see more of a resemblance to my turtle than the initial turtle.

So kind of in regards to your black and white work and stuff that you were doing, I noticed that Mr. Tom Riordan did a book called Killbox. And you did a variant cover for Killbox. That's actually coming out here later this month.

So I guess, how did you get involved with that? Because I know, I've spoken to Tom a few times. And I know he, this is his first book he's ever done. He's very excited about it.

So I guess I was just curious how they got you to come on and do a variant cover for him. I haven't been really good friends with the publisher of American Gothic Press, Phil Kim. He had had me do some covers for him for his other two titles, Born Home. And Gun Suits is the other title.

And I was doing variant covers for both. And Phil was so happy with what he was doing. He asked me if I would do one for Killbox. Awesome.

Yeah, I'm looking at it. I didn't have any reference. I didn't know that. I ended up doing a lot of those titles, where I just kind of had to dive in and create something based on the scripts.

OK. Yeah, I got to see like a nine page preview or whatever of the book. And I'm pretty excited for it to come out. But when I was looking at it, I saw that you had done the variant cover for it and that black and white style.

So that's really awesome. So they colored it. It's just they wanted to roam with it before the color version was available. OK.

So I have to ask just because I'm curious, what are you working on right now? Correct. I was born to the same thing. Yeah, you're talking about how you're you're inking right now, right?

Inking while you're talking, right? It's going to be a really boring conversation. I can't talk about it. Would it happen to be something for image perhaps?

No, it's not really. It's like literally I can't talk about it at all. I had to talk about it for this particular project. Not a problem.

I'm working on a few things. So at the time, my image project is still in the works. It's just been incredibly delayed. But I'm actually the person that wrote the movie, Rogue One, which is getting a lot of attention right now.

He and I started on a comic a few years ago and Gary would have and all over. And I thought things would go a little smoother in the last few years than they have in my schedule. But we announced it back at San Diego in 2012. But I'm still working on it.

Yeah, I've been excited to see that. Image is one of my favorite publishers. And I saw the preview for it. And I was like, oh my god, I just thought I'd get something that's really cool.

I'm really proud of it. And one of the nicest things about working in an image is that they don't treat things like a product house. And when I started to get jammed up in my schedule, Eric Stevenson was trying enough to take the time you want. Make it the book that could be.

We haven't solicited it yet. So when it's ready, we'll put it out there. There's no reason to rush it if you want to take more time. And I've never had that offer in my whole life in my entire career.

I've never had somebody take the time you need. And it shows in the work in a way that I'm out of that I'm excited that when it comes out, it's going to be something I can really say, well, there's my best work. Oh, cool. Now, is all of it going to be an ongoing series?

Is it going to be a limited series? We have a set for 12 issues at this time. It's going super well and time and everything for me does to keep going. Well, cool.

I'm really looking forward to it. It looks like it's going to be an exciting read. The art on that is just amazing. The basic, but it's for a screenplay.

So it's interesting to see his career blow up in the time that we've been working on this. When we met, he hadn't really gotten the success that he's had in the last few years. He hadn't even done book of Eli yet. But in this time, to watch his career explode the way it has, it's been really interesting.

So I know in the past you had done some work with, I don't want to butcher his name, and I'm still sorry for doing this. But Roberto Aguirre Secasa, that how you say it? The Aguirre Secasa. OK, so I saw you had done some work with him in the past.

And currently he's doing After Life with Archie and chilling adventures. I personally love those books. I think they're phenomenal. Any chance that maybe you might pop on as a guest or maybe do a variant cover or anything like that on those books?

I think that's just really been that I've been flamped since. I've been juggling four projects. So it looks like to the outside world, I'm doing nothing. But as a result, I haven't even had time to arrange a cover with them.

But they have been very generous and inviting me over. I just haven't had a hole in this schedule. Well, if you ever get one, I look forward to seeing it. I absolutely love those series.

Yeah, I would love to go to Roberto again. He's actually a really great guy. And we had one at one at one working on Nightcrawler together. When you were starting to draw, who inspired you?

And I guess what drove you to start drawing and inking and getting into the comic business? My earliest love was Charles Shultz and I'm T.S. Step. That goes back to my being a real look.

And one of the first things I learned to draw was Miss Snoopy. And I think early on, I was Snoopy. And I remember one of the lead teams stuff. And I remember being able to do them convincingly enough as a little kid that people would get real excited and they'd go, I'm like, wow, you can do this.

And so that kind of took a bug in the early on that, oh, wait, I'm good at this. But I didn't really, only in that I knew I could think other people don't react to it. As I got older, I discovered the Flash when I was about 10 years old. And the ongoing series that DC was doing at the time really sucked me into comics.

I loved the way they would show different artists on Flash, which showed different poses of him to make it look like he was running. And that blew my mind. This is a bunch of the most attractive thing to me, no need to tell a story. And making it still when they just appear like their movie.

And there's always the most interesting aspect of a comic book art to me. And then later on, it was Frank Miller's Daredevil and John Byrne on the X-Men and George Perez on Teen Titans and Joe Kubrick on Turgis Rock and Neil Adams Batman and Green Lantern. That stuff was to me just pivotal. Can't argue there.

So Derek, I'm dying to ask you, you know, that you like to write music and sing and play the guitar. So have you been doing anything like that professionally? I have. Actually, the closest I've come is I've done open mics and played in front of people.

I could buy a professional with a guy. It was always more of a passion because for me when art became my job, me that became my art. That was sort of my thing to do when I don't worry about getting paid for it. I'm so curious when you write music, do incorporate your characters and stuff into the songs?

No, no, it's usually like it's a very different part of my brain and personality. I don't know that my artwork really reflects my music or vice versa. When I'm writing music, I'm writing usually about very personal things, you know, like any musician would like you to break your heart or things with issue off, you know that kind of stuff. So do you have any music out there that people could go buy or listen to?

Nope. So what I'm going to mention in this entire hand, Neil, happily play. So what we're looking for now is in all over with image for some of my little codes where we can download some songs from you. Well, maybe in the future, but as of right now, there's no there ever been album and you can count your belt.

But yeah, I read that I just had to ask. I'm just curious about that. I'm not terrible at it. It's just that it's not something that I like it's one of the places where I spent all day just filled with self out and anxiety that I'm not drawing well enough.

And you know, the artwork I'm doing isn't going to be good. And after a while, there's nice. It's nice to shut that part of your brain down and just create it and not worry about the outcome. And just doing it for yourself for enjoyment.

Yeah, I just want to for the sake of doing it. And like, you know, I have the best entertained walls in California. So I have a question for you. You've worked on numerous, numerous things.

If there was a book that you could return to or would be asked to return to, what series or book would it be? That's a really good question. You know, I've always had a desire to reboot the new Warriors with Fabian the C.A. and that the way things are in the climate of comics, I don't see that happening and the new Warriors that we did, they don't even exist in the same format the way they did once upon a time.

That's always very special to me. But Fabian and I are now talking about creating something original. Oh, really? Yeah.

You want to talk a little more about it? You have it just like you can see right now? You know, that's about as much as I can. Okay.

You know, until things are, you know, designed and things are prepared to come out, it's not a lot that I can elaborate on. Yeah. I just say that we're having the conversation and things are in motion. It sounds like an interesting project.

Yeah, it's going to be fun. It's just a place for us to go back to what we love about working together. You know, and he's the guy that gave, he had to do his personality and the same time, like working with him on New Warriors was a lot of fun. It was my first monthly book for Marvel.

And I learned a lot about how to keep a monthly book on schedule and kind of work on a team book as opposed to solo characters, things like that. There was a real learning curve to me. So when I go back and I look at that work, I can see so much of, you know, a guy who just broke into Marvel trying to make his mark and at this point in my career, I think I get more into the art of it and more of the craft of the characters than I do worry about competing with guy to the right of me. And as a result, I think my artwork would come from a much more interesting place and drawing comics from that place to be on more fun through the audience as well.

Yeah. Very cool. Well, speaking of characters, you once did a limited series for a talk scene, right? Talking.

Yeah. Yeah. One time working with Peter Miller. Would you have any like opinions on talks and now being Eddie Brock?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Spoiler alert.

I didn't know that Eddie Brock had become talks and how did that happen? Well, Eddie was separating him and died from the cancer. And I mean, past and the symbiote made a deal with Brock that he would keep him alive until they got whatever he wanted done done at the time and it just stuck with him. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. It's interesting. No, it was a going bun. Oh, very nice.

I was on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a good story. I think that's a good evolution. I thought that character was a little bit, I thought the character was at the time when I was working on it, it just felt I don't know like they were trying to come up with new characters to fill out that line as opposed to having a really good inspiration for the story. Like we have a bit of timeless with Marvel when they were only sending spinoff titles that I don't know that I ever really fell in love with the character at the time.

But that's not like a more interesting evolution for him. Is there a similar venom? Yes, there is. Oh, wow.

That's cool. I need to get caught up on my experiment. Yeah. There's some cool things going on with symbiotes right now.

They even have a car in a drone going right now and that's the one I'm most surprised about. It's doing pretty well. I personally think the book center has to go longer than better than ever. So I mean, just the way they look and when I hear it going on and when I do pick them up, the writers are working over there and just doing great stuff.

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of crazy. They're trying to, I guess, evolve Marvel a little bit, you know, especially with all the cinematic stuff going on right now. It's a big time for them.

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask you, you've done a ton of genres. What was your favorite sort of thing to draw? Was it like the crazy trans metropolitan stuff or the, you know, down to earth, basically whatever you did with Venice?

I always liked that. I mean, working on stuff with Garth Dennis, it was always challenging to see, it was always so research and knew what he wanted in a way that made it. I felt an obligation to capture the realism that he was putting into the script. So even when it was a fantastic story, there was something grounded about it.

And I liked that about his work and born with the best example of trying to get something, trying to make something very realistic. And also, I felt an obligation to the veterans of Vietnam to not make it a cartooning. I wanted to try to make it at least accurate because I felt that anybody that was acting that were looked at it, I wanted them to see that I was paying attention. And I got that compliment to feedback on that from some veterans that told me that I read it.

That was very satisfying. Trans metropolitan. I think I've got to throw that only because I got to create that world. And as a result, you know, there was no wrong there.

Anything that kind of popped into my hand or any kind of impulse that I had to take into my own direction. And I was able to do because Lauren, as we went on, would give me left and left direction. And as soon as he kind of understood it, you know, what I knew what he wanted and what I was doing, he would just start to say, okay, just draw the city here. What's important is this.

And you know, he wouldn't, and a lot of people would go, if he'd tell you to draw those little things, it was important to the story I would draw it. And there was a lot of times I was just kind of improvising on the spot because we had to put that book out on a monthly schedule. Amen. For a book I came out on a monthly schedule.

It looks amazing. I could do it again twice. There's a lot that I see that I wish I could have. But always my dream is always to eat that book.

I never, we got through so many editors on that book that it was really the creative team, completely together, but they had it for you and kept changing. So just within this last week or so, it was announced that the boys is going to be turned into, it looks like an AMC series or a Cinemax series. Yeah. Cinemax series.

Okay, that's right. And Seth Rogan's helping to get off the ground much like he did with Preacher. He's going to direct it from what I understand. Okay.

So how are you excited for this to come to life? Is it something where you're like, I preferred? Oh, I've been aware of this for years and it's been through a few incarnations where it was going to be a movie and then it wasn't. And so it's been, for me, it's like I've had this lottery ticket that apparently all the numbers are right, but every time I go to take that my prize, I keep getting told to come back next week and it's been a long road to get to the point where I've actually had something out there that says, yes, this is happening.

This is where it's going to be. These are the people involved and the people involved seem very excited and dialed in. And I understand that they're all the fans of the comics. And of course, I can't and my enthusiasm say too much other than what's out there publicly.

But yeah, it's good news and I'm very happy with the people that are involved. I think Eric Crypty has done an amazing job keeping supernatural in the fact that it's still on the air after 14 seasons that's got to run it. So and then I, you know, and apparently he tweeted the other day that I was excited he has to be working on the boys. So that makes me feel glad that he's got to do the Azim for this.

And it's not just another project for him, but he really is excited to be doing. Oh, that's awesome. I'm a big fan of Eric Crypty's as well. So I saw that he was writing it.

I was like, yes, I'm a huge supernatural fan. Yeah, I'm early on the series, but my 14 year old son was it. And I, you know, I found out watching. I'm always going away with how good the show is.

Yeah, it gets better. Yeah, it gets better. It's great overall. Still going after 14 seasons as a live.

Yes. Yeah. So it's going to be on CineMax. Obviously you're going to go kind of all out.

They're not going to hold back, right? They're going to, you know, the grandkids. I mean, I think they're going to be in for, but again, you know, we're really, we're just at the announcement stage with this. I don't know.

I haven't seen anything or read anything. There's all brand new. So all I know is that I know the people involved and I'm excited about it. Fantastic.

Well, congratulations. That's awesome news. I think CineMax is going to be a good home for it because it's not going to be reliant on, you know, sensors or. Advertisers come in and say they don't want to see and anybody that read the boys needs, you know, can come on and serve it.

It needs to be on. Yeah. And if you've ever seen the Nick with Qui-Gong on CineMax. I haven't seen that.

Oh, that show is amazing. And if they could just accept that they did and that was so brave and groundbreaking, he thought it was. But you know, CineMax got behind it. And that obviously, if that's the power of shows that you're willing to do, I think the boys are just going to have a great, great run.

Who is someone alive or dead that you wish you could have worked on a comic that you would have done. Oh, that's a good question. Are we just talking like I can get in a time machine or? Yeah, you can just get in a time machine and go.

Oh, man. That's a, that's a, that's a, I think if I had my way, I would have been standing here, it would have been amazing that he would have gone over with. Well, why would you choose him though? Because I could be like Alan Moore and would know exactly what he would want and trying to bring that vision to a comic would be an impressive challenge.

Okay, cool. So, so, okay, the next question then gets to know you a little better, okay? Okay. What something outside of comics and music that you do that most people don't know.

Music and comics. I love chess. I play a lot of chess. Chess?

Okay. Is that something you've been playing since you were a kid or? No, I kind of fell in love with it in my boat. I think it's probably like I'm so into it.

Yeah, I like chess. I'm kind of just now, you know, how can I be more of a nerd? You know, I'm not checked off on that. What makes me a nerd list?

I usually wear every day I'm usually on a superhero or a solo or a D-shirt. I have to wear glasses now. You know, I spend most of my time in front of my computer or in front of my drawing board drawing comics. And now I love to play chess.

I hadn't found me a life at this. I'd probably be a pretty desperate character. Well, I had saw online that you also like to create custom action figures? Yeah, that was a real passion of mine for a while.

I haven't been able to do it since, like I said, you wouldn't know that I'm as busy as I am, but in the last few years I've taken on a lot of projects and none of them have been released outside of the Listed. And I just kind of had the time, like I used to, but I'm so loud there. And also, it was a little bit of a bummer on the curve of how things rolled out. But at the time I started doing them, the only people that had the Star Wars license were 12-inch figures was Hasbro.

So I would just, I would harvest the clothes off them. You could find custom heads on eBay and I would paint them and, you know, and then put them heads on the sideshow bodies, sideshow toys bodies that were much more posible. And I was making something when I saw configures and anonymously putting them on eBay and selling them for a pretty good price. And for a while, that became like a real passion of mine.

And then the hot toys got in on it and sideshow's there putting out actual Star Wars figures. And it sort of like deflated my balloons. So there's some people out there with some Derek Robertson original Star Wars. But then you just know it.

They don't even know it. Yeah, I did. I was just a punisher. That came out pretty good too.

I was making punisher figures for a while. Well, maybe if you're out there and you might, you might have a Derek Robertson original folks. Like comic book music, I tried to keep that separate. I don't know, I feel like it was changed that people would listen to an album I made just because they liked my comics, you know, or want to hear me sing just because I like my comics.

I feel like, I don't know if I necessarily want to look at a comic book that a singer would do just because they're famous singer unless the comic was good. So I kind of feel the same way about music. Like if the music's good, it should stand on its own merit. You know what I mean?

So it's sort of the same way with the action figures. Like I didn't want anybody to go like, you know, cut me slack because they like my comics. I don't know, work for Tom and Carlin. I know.

But there's one person that knows how to make all that work for him that would be Tom and Carlin. Yeah, or PC-POM, right? No, Derek, I'm going to throw you a bit of a curl here. How do you feel about stock photos and stock drawings?

Let me just read my Twitter feed. Yes. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of stock photos. Make me face, like Space Palm all the time.

Like who sits there and holds both hands around a cup of coffee like a baby. You know, a great page of women laughing eating salad is a perfect example. I would get you a stock photo or they just living in same because they make a problem with stock photos. They don't want to really maybe just do it.

But what are you thinking? I have to look up a lot of weird stuff when I'm working because I never know what I'm going to be any reference on. It's a story thing. And I'm, you know, so I find myself looking at a page about alcoholism and I think it was like a warning sign or something like that.

But it was definitely anti-alcoholic, something that wasn't a page celebrating alcohol. And what do you think smack dab in the middle of that article? A picture of beautiful cocktails. I mean, gorgeous.

What's the line of them thinking? If you're a guy, your person that's gone to this website, looking for how, the last thing you're going to want to see is delicious looking cocktails. So they're just like, oh, it's a story about alcohol. What's with this stock photo of cocktails in here?

There's nobody that thinks far enough ahead that, you know, it's almost like the use of them that makes me as crazy as the stock photos themselves. But then because at the same time, who doesn't know what alcoholic drinks look like? Oh, I didn't know this story about alcohol. It's about alcohol.

It's like, glad they put this photo here. It makes me crazy. Yeah. I love it.

I can tell you're very passionate about it just from your Twitter feed. It seems like a fun place to share because I hope everybody knows everybody with it. But it cracks me up. Really?

Is that how you give somebody a thank you card you hold in both hands and presented? And everybody's always like, they're usually beautiful and Caucasian and everything's going down in an all-white room. Yeah. They have any photo on their furniture, they'll color on the walls.

They're wearing white clothes and a white room. And they're doing like community theater for the camera. That's now now. Now, Jenny, I want you to look like you're going to leave him.

And I want you to hold your hands and turn it right towards the window. All right, perfect. So I got to ask, what do you keep in your short box? My shorts?

LAUGHTER I keep, oh, you mean like comic books go? Yeah, comics. I'm a holder. I have like titles of comic books everywhere.

Oh, I have a book shelf that is semi-organized, but they're overflowing. I can't get enough of all the stuff that makes me love comics. So they're just all around me. I read somewhere that's a sign of a creative personality, that was all particularly organized.

I might be more mentally unstable than I likely am, but I'm going to go with that one because I don't want to be pushing me on mentally unstable. So what's some of the series that you would like to play? Like comics that are really, that are really good, Cherish? Yeah.

Is there some of the series that you really enjoyed collecting and reading? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, you know, the stuff that I really love now, like I've gotten older, the stuff that I loved, I was so concerned with keeping up with multi-comics when I was younger. And I just can't anymore because I don't have a comic book that's 20 or nearly.

So I always like stack up when I get to a comic book store and doing a signing or a friend store. So I'm like, that'll load up and get caught up. And I love it right now. So my favorite thing I think I've read in the last few years is Umbrella Academy was amazing.

And I love Sombia because I got to work with Ryan and Brian's sort of a friend of mine. And him and Fiona Staples, I think they're just creating masterpieces. That's amazing. So I love those.

My old stuff that I still love. Now I'm back into like Jaime Hernandez's work and Dan Klow's work. I love that stuff more than I even had as a kid because I don't know what to speak to me more now. And also I like to think how I can, I think they're both very original voices.

And I'm always in fact seeing people that have kind of always been on their own path. They've never really be heard into the mainstream. So everything that they put out is always so uniquely original that I feel like I'm going from there. I think it's about the time to wrap it up.

Hey. Well, we thank you again for taking the time and joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on your show.

I hope that was fun. It was. It was. Hopefully we can have you back again sometime in the future.

I know I'd have to come back home because I can talk and talk and stuff. I know. Diamond and Redoliver. I know Diamond and Redoliver.

I know Diamond and Redoliver. You know, at least when the comic books have been announced and it read Redoliver, I would love to discuss the work that I feel very useful at the moment to have to be quiet about everything that I, you know, people get angry when you still see great and spoilers. Yeah, exactly. It's one of those questions that's going to remain.

It's going to be like, what was he thinking that night? He was thinking the last time. He was thinking the last time. I remember the page because I will know that I was working on this page and I was talking about it.

OK, folks, let's get started with some of the things we've been reading this week, particularly comics, of course. I'm going to let Tab start this one off, just because he's always reading something interesting. Yeah, so lately what I've been reading is I went back and I actually read the latest arc of birthright. I'm a big Joshua Williamson fan.

A lot of the stuff he does is off the chain. Like, it's just amazing stuff. And he is such a diverse writer. He's doing fantasy and superheroes and comedy and horror.

And I mean, this guy is just, he does it all. And that's what I really love about him. So this is also kind of a Joshua Williamson plug. Thank you.

Hey, Josh, feel free to come on the show. But overall, birthright. So this latest arc takes place. And I'm trying to do this as spoiler free as humanly possible, but in a nutshell, the mom now understands that Mikey is actually, you know, this the grown man that's come back from Tureynos.

And she now believes in that. And so you find out that one of the feds is actually one of the legendary mages that Mikey is quote unquote, sent out to kill. And he's trying to get the mom to tell them where Mikey is and whatnot. Well, we come to find out later on that Mikey's trying to use his older brother slash little brother in the comic, so to speak.

It's trying to use him to do more evil work. So basically Mikey's not a good guy. And we know it as the reader that he's not a good guy. But Brennan, the older brother, is just starting to figure this out.

And nobody else knows. So now Brennan's got this diviner. They call it a diviner. It's like this mystical, bluish beast thing that's kind of now attached itself to Brennan because he's a pure spirit.

And he's kind of telling Brennan, go with the flow. Follow your brother's lead. We know he's bad. You know he's bad, but still pretend like he's good because we want to see where he's going with this.

So it's kind of interesting. I can't wait as more and more come out to kind of see how this plays out because not only that, but you have one of the Gideon's from Tureynos, who's actually Mikey's pregnant girlfriend. And she's trying to stop it. And nobody believes that Mikey's now evil because he has this never mind attached to him.

It's really crazy fantasy stuff. The art is amazing. It's always been amazing. I've done it on how many reviews on birthright in the beginning prior to the reviews that we do now.

So if you guys have been listening to those, you know exactly who these characters are. If you don't know, go back to the beginning and check them out. You will not go wrong. Birthright is such an amazing story.

I believe it's at the issue 15 or 16 right now. And this last arc has just been nonstop twist after twist. I mean, it's fantastic. I can't speak highly enough of it.

I absolutely love birthright and everything that Dr. Williamson does. So go back, check it out. And yeah, feel free to let us know on Twitter and whatnot.

You guys think of it or Dr. Williamson's work in general and try to say, hey Josh, you should go on tour guys because they're cool and they want to interview you. So go do that. Truth.

It's the truth. So yeah, Red, what have you got for us tonight? Well, I'll give you three guesses to what company I'm reviewing in the first two don't count. Does it start with a letter I?

It does. Yes, and it's not Indigo. It's image. Well, for image comics, I present to everybody.

Great Pacific brought to us by the creative minds of Joe Harris and Martin Marazzo. So a great Pacific came out in 2012 and it lasted a total of 18 issues. A very interesting read, basically the story is about a guy, Chast Worthington III. Does exactly give his age.

You'd guess maybe probably like early to mid 20s. Think of him kind of as a Tony Stark, OK? But it was no common sense. Best way to put it.

All right. He's the heir to a great Texas oil fortune. A lot more money than he knows what to do with it. Egotistical and self-centered and everything else that goes with it.

And he's gotten older. He's realized he's got to do something with his life. He's got to make a change in the change. But the thing is, though, how to make a profit off of it.

The bottom line, how to make a profit off of a change in the world. So he comes up with this idea where he fakes his own death, takes his best friend, and some technology. And they go out into the Pacific Ocean. And they use this technology within the Great Pacific garbage patch.

Are you guys familiar with the Great Pacific Park at Garbage Patch at all? No. No. All right.

So basically in the ocean today, and this really exists. I'm not making this up. We have roughly the size of Texas, a huge layer of plastic film within the ocean. About the size of Texas.

And yes, and it's huge. It's just destroying our ocean. And it just keeps getting bigger every year. Well, he uses technology to start bringing in all of that plastic and basically get it to form, as well as collecting all the trash and debris that is floating around, lying on the bottom of the ocean, and have it all centered into one central location.

He ends up producing so much trash out of the ocean, it creates a mountain of trash twice the size of Texas. And he decides to make it his own country, which he calls New Texas. No joke. Yes, no joke.

This guy doesn't like Texas, does he? Not at all. In fact, the country's flag is solid blue with a lone gold star in the center. So he goes ahead and creates his own country, but then he starts going to the trials and tribulations to go with it, how to try to get things set up through the UN, having to deal with pirates, the Navy seals, tribal warriors from nearby islands.

He gets hunted. He gets kidnapped. He's threatened. He goes through all sorts of things, just so he can set up his own country.

On a trash island. Correct. He even goes as far as being able to get the USA to pay him to take 20% of all their plastics. And so he's just making his own country even larger, and they're paying him for it.

Out of trash. Out of the trash. Called New Texas. Called New Texas.

Tell him a little offended by the Texas. I mean, even in his first little city that I colonized, it's like an old Western Texas city. He's got a saloon, and he's got a whorehouse. He's got a lot of stuff.

Yeah. Of course he shuts that down. He shuts down the drug rings. Of course, new country.

New drug problems, which were created from the toxic leftovers of the plastic. So it's plastic drugs? Plastic drugs, yes. So he goes and has all the new problems that come with being a ruler and saying up into country, everything, he has to go through.

So I recommend giving it a read, 18 issues. It's a fun, quick read. And you'll highly enjoy it. And the ending, I can't spoil it.

You're going to have to read to find out what happens at the end because you absolutely won't believe it. I have a quick question. Yeah. What's the electricity deal there?

Well, he's not too worried about electricity because he's brought in the generators and all that kind of stuff, including when they're bringing up all this trash in the ocean. One of the things that they ended up bringing out a old loss forgotten about Russian nuclear satellite filled with nuclear warheads. So he even goes again saying, hey, I'm nuclear capable. And who's the writer on this?

That's Joe Harris. Joe Harris. OK. Joe Harris, yes.

It's interesting. It is. It's very different, very different. You can find these issues in dollar bin.

It's not hard to find. They're not expensive to get. But it's a good read. What did you think of the art?

Dart wasn't bad. It had its moments here and there. But all in all, I'll give it a beat. It wasn't too bad.

Cool. It's not Ryan Anley. It's not brain explosions. Yeah.

Oh, there actually is some brain explosions in it. But I'm not going to spoil that either. Uh-oh. Yeah, very interesting.

So I'm going to tear it over to Rusty. What do you got for us? OK. So you guys know beyond the cosmic universe, I'm a big mutant fan.

You don't say. I know, right? Who would have guessed? But just recently, they continued X-Men 92 from the Secret Wars series.

And it's Chris Sims. And I mean, Chris Sims is the nicest guy from when I hear he's done some stuff. But beyond that, it's a pretty good writer. And the story is compelling.

The whole series so far is only on issue three is really good so far. They changed artists from the Secret Wars series. So it's a little bit different to a guy named Alty from a Nansi for Monsi? For Monsi?

I don't even know how to say it's not easy. It's just a little bit more important, obviously. But the art really resembles like, it would remind me something that would be like art in an animation series, not in a comic book. And I think he was really trying to go for it since this is based off the 92 cartoon, basically.

In the latest issue though, it made it to where I want to just keep reading the series. I mean, the first issue, I mean, I was like, yeah, let's see what happens next. Second issue, I was like, what are we doing? And the third issue, I'm like, OK, I want to keep reading what this guy has for you.

You know what I mean? He brought it back pretty quick. There's quick action. And yeah, in this issue though, had one of the biggest shocks.

In the second issue, there was a guy they brought into the scene. He was a Russian experiment from the Omega project, but it was before Omega Red. So he's called Alpha Red, OK? And he's the predecessor to Omega Red.

But the problem with Alpha Red is he was too good at his job. So they said that he deployed him in World War I. And he went over to the enemy territory. And he just destroyed everybody.

He killed both sides. Russian and the Europeans. Like anyone that was there, he killed them all, basically. So and that was actually, they said he did his job too well.

Well, he's released by the, what are they? The Von Strucker's or whatever? The Von Strucker's. Yeah, the Von Strucker's.

He's released by them because they buy it. And he, they're like, are you crazy? Are you buying this? You know, this piece of land?

I guess he's on there. They let him go. They're nonchalant about it. And they're in some kind of contest.

But we don't know what the contest is like, Hellfire Club members in it, Von Strucker. It has acolytes and other people. It's interesting. And their goal is to figure out a way to kill the X-Men in the first group that figures out how to kill the X-Men or whatever, get some kind of prize.

Well, this is the Von Strucker's, I guess, first step. And I'm assuming, through the series, it's going to be different people's attempts at their way of trying to kill the X-Men in this contest. Yeah, the Von Strucker's released Alpha Red, and he is crazy. Like, I cannot, he looks kind of like Hob Goblin, but in an Omega Red kind of thing.

And he has a moon knight hood on. He can't really see his face and stuff. And would you consider him anti-hero or villain? Villain, straight up.

Villain, straight up, okay. Yeah, okay, cool. He's like, are you killing people and stuff? He's ruthless.

But the craziest part is, it seems like he's biting people and draining their blood. And so they, Hintism, is like a vampire. And then the second issue, he actually bites jubilee of all people, go figure. And she's dead.

Yeah, right? She turns, and she dies. And then she wakes up in the X-Man, she goes like trying to figure out what to do with like a healer in there to bring her back to life or something, right? And she wakes up and she's a vampire.

So. And obviously, and the. Mute and curse. Yeah, and mutant curse, she's been a vampire.

So they went ahead and just kind of followed through with that in the 92 cartoon, you know, series. I guess, well, not in the original one. I mean, it hadn't happened yet. So they just kind of like put it in there and made it like a canon thing.

Oh, so the X-Men 92 is not a, see, I was under the impression that X-Men 92 is a separate universe. It is like a separate universe. That's the thing. Like, Time Hop, like we took the X-Men from X, from 92, and made it into a modern story.

So they have like cell phones now and everything else. Oh, see, this whole time I thought it was like literally taking place in 1992. So it's just the costumes from the 1992 show. Oh.

I thought it was actually. I was tapped. I thought it was the same thing. I thought it was the same thing.

I thought it was the same thing. It's going back and forth like it's weird because I think it's like something to do with Secret Wars to where they're like still acting like they're there in that time period. But there's just little random modern things that pop up. So I don't understand it completely if it's just something like the artist is doing or what.

Going back to Alpha Red, you find out later on that he is a vampire origin. But I mean, can you guess who that is? Yes. What is this?