Welcome to four guys in a comment. Welcome to the only four guys. Real estate in a niggas. Red, rusty, tap, and no.
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of four guys in a comic. This is Rusty Surfer here, and I am joined today by none other than the Red Soul Nova and guys, how's it going? How's the week been? Great.
I guess. Been down sick, but that means I got a lot of reading it. Oh, did you? Okay, so we're gonna kick it off with you just because you said that then.
You know what? First off, before we get into the reading though, before we get into the reading, I- I- no, no, no, no. I just want to bring up- did you guys hear about anything going on in the news this week? Like, you know?
Did you hear anything cool from DC? Was there anything cool from Marvel image? Whatever. Just something?
One thing that jumped out. I don't want a whole story. I just want one thing that maybe jumped out of you this week. Well, I know they're bringing back old-school corner box art for resurrection.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. I'm super stoked on that. Really not a big deal at all. No, no.
I saw- I saw Royals number one. I saw for you for that, but that's about it. No, but you know what? I saw the- the deluxe hard cover is coming out next month.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I know. I've had a pre-ordered for a very long time. I can't wait.
That's all right. Would you say that image full-size additions or DC absolutes are bigger? They're the same. Oh, yeah.
I don't know if they're physically bigger, but I think they're so far their better quality anyway. That's cool. That's cool. So it seems like a lot of things have been going on.
You know, I kind of wanted to talk about- I don't know if I can contain myself for it. Is we- I think all of us read Man-thing. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Oh, well. You know, I've been waiting for it, and I guess you can tell by the tone of my voice, I am, uh- I wasn't the biggest fan. Red, you got around to- I'll be honest, I didn't get to that one. Oh my gosh.
I- I- I'll be honest, I had it- Save the tone. I had it in my hand at the comic book store, and I was like, eh, I don't know. And the funniest thing is that Rusty started tweeting about how much he was upset with it, and I actually put it back. Because I was in the store when he started tweeting about it.
Yeah, and- and- My good Rusty- It was like, okay, you know what, he's complaining about it? Go back on the shelf. Good, good. It was like a- it was funny.
I laughed quite a few times. It was a funny stuff going on, but like, it's- it's- yeah, I didn't know what it was. Like, he's a film star. He's in- he's in Hollywood.
And he cracks jokes. Very cheap jokes. Yes. But, yeah.
He's not very intimidating anymore. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's- you know, he's having problems with his agent, and, um, people don't like the way he smells, and he's leaving a mess on the set.
You know, I mean, it is the first issue, but it was- it was fun. And he turned something and just- it's so great, so big, into a comedy. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't understand it. Red, you really- I mean, even though we're still talking about it, you still need to go read it. Because I don't- he ends up fighting himself. Yeah, I've never seen him about that.
And I was just like, yeah, this is going back on the shelf. I just- I don't get it. He is thinking, and he's talking, and I mean, I understand- I was told by, I think Evan in the geek room that, um, in a thunderbolt issue sometime in the past, it was Santana made it to where he could speak and think again or something like that. And I'm just sitting here like, that had to be like, you know, one of those late 90s moves or early millennium moves that, you know, was just part of the crap shoot that Marvel was putting out at the time, you know?
Yeah. You got his, um, you got his origin as well. That was in there for a few pages. Yeah.
It was a weird origin. Yeah. It's not unlike, um, I guess, Swamp Thing's kind of the same thing, but he's working on a- the same kind of formula, but he gets his house gets set on fire, and he runs as a burning corpse into the swamp. Um, obviously he takes his formula, which is essentially kind of the same thing that happens with Mantic, but he doesn't get burnt.
He just sort of drives his car into it. Like a pond-like thing. The swamp- he drives it into the swamp. He drives it into the swamp.
Yeah. It, um, I don't know. The art was kind of cool, but I guess we'll see how it reads out in the next five issues. Yeah, I think so.
I think so. That's the thing. Like, this first issue, I don't know what to compare it to. It's nothing like any other man things that I've read before, but hopefully in the second issue, um, it takes a turn.
Or maybe we even find out that it's like a dream or something, you know? So we'll see. You know, in the world of comics, too, you know, uh, Valiant, I'm really looking forward to the new, uh, Exo-Manowar series coming out. Um, yeah, you know, a couple of weeks for that.
And, you know, I had, uh, saw that, uh, this, uh, company, um, Fried Pie Comics, that they had released, uh, two variant covers for the Exo-Manowar series. And so I started digging into them a little bit more, and man, they put out some really, really awesome variant covers, and one of them, uh, is the man thing. Number one, I actually really like their variant. It's, you know, kind of a cut out, and it looks like the old man thing that we're used to seeing in the past.
But the artwork is just amazing. Um, but, uh, yeah, I recommend everybody check out the Fried Pie Comics. Their variants, really great stuff. And there's a lot of them that I'm like, you know what, I need to pick some of those up.
I love variants. I love cover art. So speaking of art, um, I mentioned Royals One, and I'm looking at the preview again. Now, something I've noticed, um, I guess, I guess it happens with DC as well, but I feel like Marvel sometimes gets the wrong artist for the wrong vibe of the book.
You know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. Um, because Royals Number One sounds like a cool title.
Like, this could be some crazy, like, super, I don't know, like, this is a cool title. I don't know, like, it could be like a Game of Thrones kind of thing. But the artist they got is, like, ultra cartoony. They've gotten a lot more cartoony over the years.
Yeah. It's very true. That's why I respect the guys like, uh, you know, Pepe Laraz, who's like a new guy, but he still is pretty detailed and it's not really cartoony. Yeah.
I think a lot of it is. It seems like they're trying to pull in a younger audience that they're trying to get more up-to-date with the times, but they're just doing it poorly. Um, it's kind of like, you know, you see that, you know, Marvel DC, they've kind of fluctuated throughout the years. They get, you know, all this dark and everything.
And then all of a sudden, boom, they shift the pendulum and all of a sudden it's like children again. And then they kind of grow that children back into a dark and now it's swinging it back again. It kind of has that feel to me that they're just now trying to get the younger audience. Oh, the older audience are going to still keep buying our stuff no matter what we throw out of.
Well, the thing is this artist in particular, the one doing Royals Number One was doing Teen Titans before. And for that, it was perfect. Like, it's super ultra cartoony. It looks like a TV show.
But something like Royals Number One, like, it's this in human, in human-based book. You could make it cool, like I said, Game of Thrones. But his artwork makes it, like you said, kid-oriented. I don't think kids are going to necessarily want to read something like this.
But for Teen Titans, it worked. You want kids to read it? You give them an ultra cartoony style. They're going to read it.
It's Teen Titans. I mean, it's one and one. The Teen Driven book, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Whereas, yeah. But, you know, on that note, like, something like Steve Rogers, they got great artists for it. You know, they're more serious, not serious, more real. You have to go to his Zeus, uh, Siazz, yeah.
I don't know how to say the last name, but he's a big as art. And I am digging Steve Rogers as well. So, probably. I'm telling you, the Marvel has some good stuff.
You've got to look. The best way to list the podcast will let you guys know. Or, honestly, yeah. Say away from Teen books, seriously.
Like, the- Lots of things. You will look at books like, what is it, Young X10 or whatever. No, Uncanny's good. You know.
Extraordinary. I mean, people have their opinions on and stuff. But, I mean, then you have, like, all new X-Men and stuff, which is one of those Teen books. And I don't really hear people talking about that title.
You know what I mean? Like, I keep my ear to the ground when it comes to Marvel. And, uh, it's just one of those things. I don't understand, I guess.
I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of like what you said right there. I got to play off that because I kind of keep my ear to the ground also. And I hear people say, oh, this is good.
This is good. But I never hear anybody say, oh my god. This is great. And they're like, they're jumping on their seat waving their hand on their ear.
You gotta read this. I just don't see this. I just don't see that anymore. I'm only one that gets that excited about it.
Oh, man. Yeah, I know. It's coming out. Man, things coming out.
Oh, crap. Yeah. It's true. Yeah.
It's happened. I mean, I will say, and I keep bringing it up just because it's the only, really the only Marvel thing I'm reading, the whole Steve Rogers thing. I mean, I'm not sure if I'm going to get into it, but there's like, you know, you gotta give it a few issues. You gotta give it the old five issue try, which is fair as well.
I mean, you know, none of your books going to get you right away. But yeah, it's tough with most Marvel books. And then against something, get you right off the hook and then it just dissipates. Yeah, that too.
Yeah, they'll be like, I've noticed that of a Marvel here, God damn sneaky with it. They'll put like an incredible artist on like the first three issues. You're like, oh my god, Steve McNiven is driving this and it's like, no, no, here's Joe Blow from, you know, none of it Ontario. Sorry, none of it Canada.
Sorry guys. He's doing the rest of the series. And you know, you got to keep doing that thing on your pull list that just pisses the shop owner off. You're like, I'm going to add this two weeks later.
Yeah, listen, I got to have to take a few bucks off. I'm going to get a grumpy look with her car and get a damn Marvel. Well, I mean, I told you, I told you. So, you know, speaking, you brought up in humans, but with X-Men, they announced the full lineup for the new title and the, well, I guess the title name itself for astonishing X-Men.
That's coming out. Everyone thought it was going to be an X-force title. And then here it comes. It's just the grown up book for X-Men, basically.
Pretty much with a weird looking game. But it's, yeah, you got to think about it this way. I mean, we have our blue and our gold team. The, you know, the gold team is still, it's like the more experienced, like, official X-Men, you know what I mean?
And then the ones you would think of mostly from like the 70s, I would guess, you know? And then you have the blue team, which is just all new X-Men, the ones that are time displaced. And then you have Generation X, which is like the 90s team group because they don't want to use new mutants. And then you have the Weapon X group, which is like the, all the Wolverine characters, basically.
But then you have Astonishing X-Men, which is like the 80s, 90s, you know, the ones that you kind of grew up with. And so, I mean, for people like Red Skull, who, you know, went through the hard times of World War II and, you know, grew up in a different era. Yeah, I'm making old jokes about your end. I'm sorry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the Silver Age X-Men. But no, we have Cyloc, we have Rogue, we have Old Man Logan. You have Bisha.
You know, it's like the original, like, okay, these are the adult X-Men now. You know, they're- There's villains in the group too. Yeah. Yeah.
I know weird Mystique is in there. Is it Phantom X? Phantom X is in there. You got Ark Angels in there?
Yeah. Ark Angels, but Ark Angels been around. He's been in it on Canny. He's like a mindless killing machine right now, so.
Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah, I mean, speaking of X-Men, Rusty, how did you like the ending of, in humans versus X-Men? Kind of like a, just passed by like a fart in the wind, didn't it?
Yeah, it did. Like, I mean, after the issue, the second to last issue, whenever you kind of just like, I don't know, I feel like they ruined it on that second to last issue. They had all this momentum going and then they announced, you know, the whole thing with Emma and how she just doesn't give a shit basically, sorry for the language. She just doesn't care and she's just trying to cause problems and there was, and that and then the whole thing is like, okay, we have this Terajan problem.
We'll fix it in one issue. Yeah, it's like, and it's hilarious because they're like, oh, it's killing them? We should have talked about it. Really?
You should have talked about it. Like, it's killing us. Just telling humans it's killing humans. That's all you have to do.
That's all you ever had to do. But the thing- I'm pretty sure- I thought Beast had told them too. Like, I thought Beast had said it's killing its toxic to mutants. I thought he'd said that.
I thought that was apparent all along. Well, that was the thing. I think the third issue or something, whenever Beast- because Beast mentioned that to Medusa and he also brought up to them and he was like, look, this is what's gonna happen. And then basically, remember he sat up in the top part and listed them and be like, well, we're not gonna like this happen or whatever.
That's when everyone was like the Inhumans or jerks. And then it ended like, oh, well, it was Emma Frostfall. And we're only- No, not the intentions that the Inhumans had the whole time regardless of Emma Frost. It's something wrong or not.
If this was a pure coincidence thing, they were about to be like screw the X-Men. Screw the mutants. We're just gonna chill. We can't- It just- It just- It just- It didn't seem very well thought out.
I guess is what it comes down to. And that's something that we were talking about too, how you brought up earlier that these Marvel titles will bring in some big-name artists and then switch it over sometimes. In this situation, they did a reverse of it. Because remember when it first started, we were making fun of the Sunfire and all the other characters in it.
And then it ended with a really good artist. I think it was a win or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine of Francis U.
They had this huge name. Yeah, and how was it? Okay, what happened here? We went from some guy no one's heard of before to this giant name and they improved the arch the whole time.
It's like they reversed roles though, because the story started out strong and the art was bad. And then it ended up with the art being really good in the story being like, man. Yeah, and what happened is Magneto's helmet not protected from mind control anymore? It's supposed to.
That was the thing. Because that turns out Emma Frost had him under control the whole time. Well, this is what happened. I don't know if you caught it or not, but there's one panel where he removes it for one second and then it goes back to Emma Frost talking, but it's completely unrelated.
You just see him in the background and take his helmet off. And I think that's when it happens. That's the only time in the whole comic he doesn't have his helmet on. Okay.
Anyway. Anyway. But I'm excited for resurrection. I'm excited for that.
It should be cool. So I guess since we're done with our news and stuff, we're going to give someone a call real fast. You guys ready? All right.
Stay tuned. Fantastic. Oftentimes laughs all your favorite styles are available. The classic is on the black one white team and the awesome white and black team.
You could be the first owned entire collection. Think of the awesome source. You could be reading right now. Your brand spanking new four guys.
Comtees shirt. Check out the fantastic color pictures. Perfect shirts on our Facebook page. And the first 100 customers get bragging rights.
Yeah, bragging rights to say they were the first lucky fans. Oh, yeah. What are you waiting for by now? All right, everyone.
It is that time of the podcast where we have our weekly interviews and this week we have none other than Mr. Eric Burnham. I know Eric person. Well, I don't know personally, but I know his work from Ghostbusters and his work on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for IDW, but he's also done other things for Marvel and just about every other publisher out there to be quite honest with you.
So Eric, thank you very much for joining the show. It is an honor to speak with you. Oh, gosh. Thanks for having me.
I was appreciate getting to come on these shows and neck like I have a social life for five minutes. Well, no, we greatly appreciate it. I'm actually a huge fan of your Ghostbusters work and the Ninja Turtle work that you've done to. So it's an honor to speak with you.
Well, thank you. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself, kind of how you got your start and you know how you progressed through there? Sure. Well, it may not sound like it, but I used to work in radio and station got bought.
I got laid off and was sitting around with not a lot to do for a couple of years. I wanted to be online a lot more chatting a lot more on message boards and meeting a group of people. One day we were on the old instant messenger, grousing about comic books. Hey, this sucks.
This sucks. Could we do better? Well, let's put our money where I'm out of this and we did an anthology and it just kind of snowballed from there. The stuff I did in that anthology caught some attention.
I got a chance to pitch for some other things that led to one of the first thing was an anthology at IDW horror comic. Which led to some work for higher stuff based on a little Pokemon game comic book for that. Then to the A team and they were happy with that and said, Hey, why don't you pitch a Ghostbuster story for their first big crossover infestation? That went over so well they let me pitch an ongoing and it's just been go from there.
Now, I got to say with your Ghostbusters work, you channel the personalities of those characters spot on. I mean, you have a perfect Ernie Hudson. You have a perfect Bill Murray. You have a perfect hair.
It's like you were there for the movies. Now, I know you're about my age or whatever. So I'm assuming you grew up watching these movies religiously like the rest of us 80s kids did. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. And you know, I mean, the voices was my goal from day one. Any kind of a plot you have. If the voices sound right, it'll work.
You don't need to strong a plot for Bill Murray to make fun of it. If you can get the voice right. So that's what I was always aiming for and hoping that I nailed. And so far, folks have seemed to think so.
So, you know, not what it stays that way. But yeah, no, I grew up watching. I mean, not just Ghostbusters, obviously, but throughout any of the Second City cast and all of the movies that they came up with all the Saturday Night Live, After Movies. So, you know, your catty shacks and your gosh, you know, okay, tell you what, I'm just going to wind up listing 45 movies.
So I'm going to stop myself after catty shack because I know how long this is going to go on. We got to edit this. We got to edit this. Come on, man.
Geez. Just tell them to look at MTV. So anyway, yeah, I mean, just all of that stuff. And it's stuck in my head.
You know, I moved around a lot as a kid. So there was a lot more TV than maybe for some people. And yeah, those filled a large chunk of my childhood. Well, you did a fantastic job.
Like I said, nailing those characters and personalities. Very cool. So, you know, it seems that you've been, you know, kind of into the pop culture thing, you know, you know, with Ghostbusters and you've done 18 and all that. But when you were growing up, what kind of comics did you grow up reading?
Or did you actually even grow up reading comics at all? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I never lived near a comic book store. So it was always whatever I could find on whatever comic book rack was available.
In the 80s, I was, I was, I was, I was lived in Arizona. I lived away about a mile away from a circle case. So I bought comics from there. And then it was up in, up in Alaska, there was a general store.
They had comics occasionally. It was, you know, hit and miss. You never knew if you were going to see two issues in a row from the same title. But, you know, I got what I could.
And then there was finally a little bit more consistency when I moved back down to Minnesota. So, yeah, I grew up just whatever I could, whatever I could grab a hold of. But the stuff that popped up most consistently was Spider-Man, the X-Men comics, the classic X-Men, reprints more often than the main title, because I seem to be able to find those more regularly for whatever reason. And, and Batman, those were the ones I was able to find most, religiously, most regularly, wherever I went.
Everything else was, they go find it. Maybe I won't. So, so yes, those three were the ones that kind of stuck with me the most throughout my travels. Very cool.
Nice. Now, I noticed on your website that you are going to be doing an upcoming arc in the TMT Universe book. Is there anything you can tell us about that right off the bat or? Oh, no, yeah, I can.
Now it's out there. I'm super excited because I love working in the Turtle Sandbox. And I'm going to be doing a 4-issue arc with Sophie Campbell dealing with Karai, which she's been off to. She left the book in issue 50.
Said, okay, I'm going to take off. She went over to Japan, so we're going to take 4 issues to show what she's been getting up to over there. And it's going to be a lot of fun. Sophie and I probably not the go-to team for something really bloody and violent, but that's what we're going to do.
And, you know, so there's going to be organized crime and dragons and ghosts and curse swords and more mutants. And it's just I'm halfway through it and I'm having a blast. Very cool. Because you did the secret history of the Foot Clan too, right?
I did. Yeah. It was mostly that I wish I could take more credit for it. It was his plot that I just kind of built on too.
But man, that was a fun book to work on. Yeah, I really love that story. And he is by far, I mean, no discredit to any of the artists that have worked on the newest Teenage of the Ninja Turtles series, but his artwork by far, whenever he's doing the interiors, I'm all over it. He's my favorite TMNT artist as it stands now.
Oh man, yeah, I met him for the first time at San Diego this year, this last year. And it was funny, I had a picture in my head from his avatar on social media. I was expecting a skinny guy. He's like the Hulk.
He's a big muscular dude. I'm like, well, I'm kind of intimidated by you. I'm a friendliest guy. So, I mean, it was fantastic to meet him.
And, you know, it's just I'm jealous that he has as much talent as he does. But I can't be graduated because, like I said, he's such a nice guy. So awesome. Yeah.
Now, a storyline like the upcoming one in the TMNT universe book, is that something that you pitched or was it an idea that they sort of came to you with? Well, in this case, I had so much fun writing Karai in that Secret History of the Foot Clan a while back before they started, before they had the Teenage universe nailed down. I told Bob, I kind of like to do something again and something with her. And he said, yeah, I got pitches and ideas.
This actually got pitched the story in January of last year. I first pitched the story and it just took because he decided Sophie would be a good fit for it. I think it was a little bit of a difficult time to go out for her schedule to line up. But, yeah, it was just one of those things.
I really like to work on this character again. Okay, give me some ideas. And then, you know, it just took a little while to nail down between me, Bobby and Nickelodeon, what would work? And so, yeah, sometimes he has people have come to me with, we would like you to come up with an idea for this.
Here's a general thing of what we're looking for. What do you got? That happened to me twice here. This year already with Dynamite.
When the editor asked if I might come up with an idea for a one shot for Kiss and for Red Sonja. And it's just like, so this is kind of what we're thinking. What do you got? Here's some ideas.
How long they got to do? You got two weeks. Okay. So, I mean, it's a mix sometimes, you know, you come to the editor with an idea in hand and sometimes they come to you.
And when they come to you, it's a little bit easier to get approval. So they already have you in mind. So, yeah. Yeah, I got to bring up, you know, you mentioned Kiss.
You know, you got to love Jean, Paul, Eric, and Tommy. You know, this is really cool to see them out. I mean, it's done a lot. There's been a lot of comics with Kiss in the past.
And it's nice to see them still coming out. How did that come about? How did that work? Did Kiss reach out to you?
Did you guys have to reach out to Kiss? How did that all pan out? Well, in this case, the new ongoing is being written by Inichu. And she has so much work on her plate.
She just said, Hey, I'd be fun to work together. Would you like to, you know, co-write this upcoming miniseries, the demon, which is we're about, she's about to come out. I said, that sounds like fun. Let's do that.
So it's a prequel to her ongoing series. And yeah, it was completely 100% her just thinking to be fun to work together and bring me in. And from that, her editor said, you know, would you like to try the one shot, which is going to be like, Kiss forever. Yes, it's going to be like, um, demigods.
It's kind of, you know, in four different areas. You know, so I mean, I've got Pirates of the Caribbean, Passiche, you know, take out Johnny Depp and the humor and then, you know, what you've got going on there. I've got one that's set in around the burning of Rome, you know, Emperor Nero. I've got one set around the NASA's first, you know, few moonlocks.
So I mean, these are, you know, the kind of differences stories we've got, just something wacky and fun and pulpy. And I mean, the same thing, same editor was working on Red Sonya. And after I turned in this one, he turned around and asked if I might be interested in coming up with something for that. And again, it led into something that Amy was doing, although I wasn't working directly with her on this.
And it was just something different and something fun. And I've never written Pulp Fantasy, you know, barbarian stuff before. So I mean, hey, I'm all in. Let's do it.
And it was a blast. Tom Mandrake is drawing that one. I didn't know when I wrote it. Otherwise, I probably went a little bit more nervous.
Oh, that's awesome. I love Tom Mandrake. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen the pencils.
It's beautiful. So, yeah, I'm excited. So I got to ask, so we're going to be seeing any blood into the red ink and any of these other issues. Probably not this time.
I do know what you're talking about. I think they probably got over. And seriously, though, at this point, how could they top Mark Grumwald, who mixed his ashes in with the printing of, you know, of his book? So, I mean, you know, they can't top that.
Why they're going to bother? I think we talked about that in one podcast. I think the only thing that came out to top that is if he has something like Chip Zardowski to mix in some of his sperm or something like that into an issue. I think that's the only way to top it.
You know, and at some point, I imagine he's going to tweet out that he already has. What does surprise me? One of his Spider-Man books, for sure, will have some very 3D art. Very special Uncle Ben issue.
Anyway, yeah, no, it's, it's, but yeah, it's, oh, gosh. No, no, no, I'm just thinking of his, uh, his Uncle Ben meme that he put up yesterday and the discussion over how long it would take before that was on a t-shirt. I'm guessing a week, but that might be generous. I mean, he's, he's got his own yoga pants blind.
Yeah. Perfect. I never know. You've done, you know, a bunch of indie work here and there.
Do you have any ideas that you want to do yourself that you want to bring into your own creative realm for a creator-owned book that may be in the future? I do. You know, I mean, I started out with creator-owned stuff. And I was just doing a goofy, you know, little character named Nick Landheim, who, you know, he just threw him into a weird situation and see how many jokes I could bring out of it.
But I had a couple other things. I wanted to do, um, there's a, uh, an author he, uh, I noticed a bunch of his work he is, is setting in his home state and he's, you know, he's doing fantastical stuff. He's doing crime stuff. And I'm like, you know, that would be awful fun.
Although I don't think I could do an Elmore Leonardish crime humor thing set in the state in which I live without people calling it Fargo. And I don't want people to call it Fargo. And of course I probably can't title it. This isn't fricking Fargo.
But, um, why not? You know, I said, you know, but maybe what if I mixed in, mixed in a little little fantasy horror into Fargo and then they could also say I'm ripping off me. You know, um, so there's really no win there. But no, I've had a bunch of, uh, a bunch of ideas.
You know, um, I got a deep love of mythology. I got a deep love of humor. And like I said, those, uh, the Elmore Leonard genre, which is between straight crime drama and just farce. I have a love of that.
I'd love to mix some of these things together and see what happens. And I would love to do something in the area in which I was born and mostly raised. Like I said, Fargo loons so large over that it would be tricky to come up with something that wouldn't be seen as a take off of that. I mean, I live in Brainerd.
So I mean, that's straight to the movie right now. But, um, but yeah, no, I have a couple of pitches in that I just need to see if I can get an editor and or an artist interested in and then we'll see what goes from there. Sounds very cool to me. Yeah.
Yeah. Because the drawing thing that I used to do, it takes so much longer. I'd really rather have somebody else do it. So now I'm, do you, of course, I mean, everyone had aspirations for creator on books, but if you ever had to sort of move from the IDWIPs, maybe into the Marvel DC world, do you have any affinity for characters in those universes?
Or are you more happy with the? Oh, sure. No, I, I, well, you know, I mean, as far as it goes, the ultimate mercenary answer is I'm there for wherever the check is. Of course.
You know, it's the Winston quote from 84. You know, there's a steady paycheck involved. I believe in the same. But, um, no, I got to work a little bit with Marvel helping out Chris Yost on Starlet Spider and New Warriors.
So I got to scratch my edge a little bit there, but I'd love to actually just, I mean, even if it was one story, one issue. It would be a blast to write a Spider-Man story. You know, childhood favorite would love that. And the DC side, it would be, it would be a blast to do something with plastic man, you know, it would be fun.
But, um, but, you know, the, the lines to write these characters behind the scenes are almost as bad as the lines at Disneyland. So, you know, I mean, if an opportunity presents itself, I'm excited and will be there and will be happy to do it. But if it doesn't, you know, I'm more than happy doing the stuff I've been doing. Very cool.
So you mentioned Spider-Man again. If you wrote your own Spider-Man book, who would be the villain? Oh gosh. This is, I mean, this is like option paralysis.
So many possibilities. You know, I jotted down at one point some ideas and, and, and the Ghostbusters are just doing it. And I were talking about putting together something fun, just as a sample and, you know, I had a couple ideas. The first one I had years ago before I was doing anything professionally, I just, I liked the idea of him swinging around, landing, seeing the old molten man once again on fire, just melting the street, walking down the street, and keep, keep, keep trying to call other people to come and deal with the molten man, as long as he's just walking the street melting along and, and then that, you know, falls through.
So that would be fun. The other one is after a long day at a coffee shop, just getting into the bathroom, Spider-Sense goes off, walks out and, oh God, it's Hydro-Man. This is just not fair. You know, I mean, that's, that's the kind of bizarre thing I would like to see happen.
Of course, you know, is it ours. He's probably already written something like that. And we'll see it, and it'll be funnier than anything I thought of. But until then, that's, those are the couple of ones.
I'd like to go up here. It's always better. It's always funnier when he's, he's kind of offended that he has to deal with somebody. Years ago, they had him, you know, an intentionally funny issue was listed on the cover, the white rabbit, the walrus, and frogman trying to be his partner.
And so walrus coming up to us. I had the proportionate strength and speed of a walrus. And he's just, you know, this one was the one that got DC to sue Marvel because they wrote in Bwaha Ha, which was an old Justice League international thing. And so they, they went through a short little lawsuit there.
I thought that was kind of funny. That's one of the reasons to remember it. Anyway, yeah, the answer is, as obscure as you got. I told you, I would ramble.
No, no, I mean, yeah, obscure characters are great. That's why I think, I don't mean to like sort of tell you what I think you should do, but I think you'd have a nice voice for a booster gold as well. You can do one of those characters where you could do just the crazy stuff with them. You would be fun.
I wrote, I was working on a pitch with a friend of mine, while back for something booster gold related. And it turned out this was before, this was before the show. It turned out basically we pitched a similar plot to the Legends of Tomorrow show. Oh, well gosh, beat us to the punch there.
Darn, you know what I mean? Time traveling in Vandal Savage and you know what the heck. But no, no, he would be fun. And I mean, Dan Jurgens created him.
He's a local Minnesota. So maybe that has something to do with it. Next little through line to the voice. Speaking of booster, just up to blue beetles.
Another one I would love to get a crack at. Oh, that'd be good. Yeah, he would. He would be blast right.
Ted Kord, but again, another one with a whole long line of folks waiting behind the scenes. Now you and Dan Shonning, you guys got to do like a Ghostbusters crossover event with the real Ghostbusters. And how was it? Because I grew up watching the real Ghostbusters cartoon that was, well, first I watched the original Ghostbusters cartoon with Tracy the Gorilla.
And then I moved on to the real Ghostbusters cartoon. So how was that being able to kind of go back and write like this real cartoony version? Your version. You know, I mean, it was it was just it was fun, which is one of the things I look for in the projects that I do.
And this was, you know, just barn on fun. This whole crossover came out because we were positive that they would tell us no crossing over with the Ninja Turtles, which we did the year before. And that whole thing started with Tom Walts, my editor on Ghostbusters and the writers of Ninja Turtles. We were the first time we met at Comic Con in 2012.
We're like, you know what would be fun? This is two o'clock in the morning with some beers. It'd be awesome if we get a crossover. Two years later, it took us to convince them.
But while we were in the middle of that, we we said, okay, we should have a fall back because the crossover would still be fun to do. What's something crazy that we could do that they couldn't say no to and it's an odd about the real Ghostbusters. That makes no sense. And I love it.
So after the Turtles crossover became a little bit easier because we're able to bridge from that to this with a few of the plot points there. And when I turned when I turned in the first script, I got an email back from Tom where he was relieved. He said, I'm glad that this reads so well because up until I got the script, I had no idea how you're going to do this. So it was just a matter of the voices being similar but not the same.
And he wasn't sure that was going to work until he got the script. And the senses of humor being the movie version is just a little bit, a little bit edgy or a little bit more cynical than the cartoon was. So would we be able to make those things mesh? And a huge part of that of course was Dan and Luis Delgado just nailing the look of the animation of the cells in the pages that took place in the real Ghostbusters world.
And that made it all seem plausible. And then the voices were close enough for the folks who were fans. So it just boiling it back down. It was just fun and sailed through it with a smile on my face.
Yeah, they nailed the looks bringing back the real Ghostbusters. I was really, really impressed with, I mean, it was spot on to the cartoon. It was really, really cool to see. And you're writing once again, I'm a huge fan of your Ghostbusters writing and your Ninja Turtle writing.
And you just nailed Bill Murray. Like it was like Bill Murray, I can just build Murray. It was so fun to read. It was probably one of my favorite Ghostbusters events that you've done honestly.
Once again, childhood dream of watching Ghostbusters things like that. But that was probably my all-time favorite one that you've done. But I guess my next question is you've done cross over with Ghostbusters and you've also done some work with Back to the Future. So is there ever a chance of like a Ninja Turtle slash Back to the Future crossover or Ghostbusters Back to the Future crossover?
At the end of the day, as much as I would love to say yes and be proven wrong, I think the answer is no because the guy you got to convince his Bob Gale, who's, you know, who created and wrote the scripts and is heavily involved in the comics. And he's just not into the idea of crossovers. I'm not going to say that it's 100% never going to happen. But the last time we tried, it didn't look good.
So maybe someday, but I don't see it in the near future. Because Back to the Future, I mean, it's just right there to be able to do cross-dement. Like you have the DeLorean. It's just very simple.
Like how do you explain how you get to this universe? Well, there you go. I mean, it's just perfect. So hopefully someday you'll see that.
I can't fault them for wanting to keep it self-contained either. That's fair. Eric, what are you reading now? Gosh, I am playing catch up on a lot of stuff.
I'm still catching up on Division, which was good. I'm reading that on the Marvel Unlimited, so I'm getting it monthly and pacing myself. Also, I tend to keep up most often with the work that my friends do. And I have a lot of friends now, so it's getting to pile up here.
But my buddy Mitch Draz, Sheriff of Babylon. And I just finished that, which was really, really good. And also not the kind of thing that I read for enjoyment at all. So it was surprising that I enjoyed it as much as I did.
I picked up the first volume, just support my friend. I'm sucked in. This is awesome. And, you know, flipped and through it just read the Squirrel Girl graphic novel, which was also delightful and funny.
And, you know, I'm just cherry picking things that I've missed. I don't live in your near-economic shops. So so much comes out that I go and I find them like all of this stuff. I picked up the Twilight children at the last con.
I was that. That's a couple years old at this point. But the other stuff I pick up when I remember to, when I'm in a shop, this super server by Slott and All Red. Fantastic.
And my love for the Ninja Turtles, I dip in and get that whenever I can. Although talking to Thomas, I do, I often forget that more often because he might let slip some things. He's thinking about it. I'm like, well, gosh, now I know it's been six months in the future, I guess.
But, you know, I bump and pick through. And the one that I have my eye on that I haven't gotten to yet that I want to read is the fix. That sounds like it's right up my alley. And it's huge on the fix.
I love it. There we go. See, yep. That's I'm glad to hear it.
It's been something I'm meaning to get. I want to pick it up at a con where somebody signing if I can. If not, I want to pick it up from a shop and I just haven't been to a shop in a while. Speaking of con, do you have anything upcoming that you're going to be at that you want to kind of throw out there?
Oh, sure. I'm going to be at C2E2 this year next month and sitting with Brent Scoon over. And then after that, I will be in May, Supercon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and the MSP Comic Con in St. Paul.
And that's as far as I know into the future. But yeah, excited about C2E2. Very cool. Yeah, I was looking at how far Sioux Falls, I mean Omaha, Nebraska.
So I was looking to see how far Sioux Falls was from me. It's only about two, two and a half hour drive. Yeah, it's not a long stretch. I mean, it's not too bad.
So I was thinking I was like, I might have to try to see if I convinced the wife to take a day trip up there. There you go. There you go. Yeah.
Hello. Yeah. Well, please do. If you can.
I keep wanting to get down to Nebraska because of the, of that theater, the, why am I blanking at the Elmo? That Elmo draft house? Draft house. Thank you.
I want to see Roadhouse for some reason. I knew that was my house and the Star Wars lobby. I want to see that. It looks so cool.
Oh, yeah, it is amazing. It is really cool. You get to sit in the Emperor's chair and stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. I want to check that out. It's kind of thing. I keep thinking, you know, I need to do a road trip.
Maybe not when snow is this bad, but you know, I mean, and then of course summer comes along and everything goes through my head until it's cold again. And I realize I should have done it a month ago. Yeah. But yeah.
Well, if you ever do make it down this way, you know, it'd be cool if you could, you know, do like a sign. We have some really good comic shops down here too. So. Oh, yeah.
No, I've got a meaning to check. Yeah, legends is huge. Legends and then Krypton are probably the two big ones. So yeah, well, yeah, no, I mean, whenever I think about going someplace for any reason, I look to see if their comic shops because I'm like, well, if I set up a sign, this could totally be written off.
There you go. Yeah. Speaking moves. But yeah, no, it's and definitely that's been on my mind.
So, you know, you never know. Maybe at some point this summer, I'll figure out a way to get down there. That would be awesome. Yeah.
Then you wouldn't have to make the road trips. You know, we went. Fair enough. So you mentioned the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing.
That book has just been one of the greatest things for me. And I remember two years ago with them sort of saying, we're going to be going to issue 50. I was like, Oh my God, I never imagined how they're almost at 70. It's incredible.