The Uncanny Covers of Marvel Comics, and a Tribute to John Romita Sr., with Ian Chalgren - The Short Box Podcast: A Comic Book Talk Show

[00:00:00] Intro music plays

[00:00:20] Badr: Yoo Short Box Nation. Welcome back to the podcast if you're new. Welcome to the show. This is the Short Box Podcast, the comic book talk show that brings you the best conversations about comics and pop culture inspired by them. My name is Badr and I've got the Special Edmund Dansart here with me in the Short Box Studio.

[00:00:40] Badr: What up, ed? What's up, man? Oh, that was really 

[00:00:43] Ed: short. Very brief applause. 

[00:00:46] Badr: We started getting feedback. That applause section is too long, so I cut it short. We'll make it comically short. Now what I will give you, ed, is this sound bite. All right. In exchange, anybody who is into 

[00:00:55] Ian Chalgren: comics knows that 

[00:00:56] Badr: name. Damn right.

[00:00:58] Badr: Edmond Dansart. You know Edmond Dansart? Okay. Today we'll be introducing you to a new friend that's doing some awesome things in the comic industry as a self-published creator. His name is Ian Chalgren, a book designer, focusing on special projects related to the comic book industry. He's also the founder of C M F publishing a business.

[00:01:16] Badr: He started to create and distribute his passion projects of the world. His latest self-published offering is called The Uncanny Covers, the Ocular Edition, which is a prestige format digital art book that highlights some of the best Marvel covers of all time and talks about the iconic artist behind them.

[00:01:35] Badr: If you've ever purchased a comic strictly for the cover, this book was made for you. Ed, is it safe to say you've done that a few times yourself bought a comic just for the cover? Oh yeah. A thousand percent. I think I still do it too this day. I still do 

[00:01:47] Ed: it. Variant covers are back and it's insane. 

[00:01:50] Badr: Yeah, big time.

[00:01:51] Badr: The Uncanny Covers Ocular Edition book is basically a art museum exhibit in book form, and it not only impressed me so much that I had to have Ian on the show, but it also caught the attention of publishers like Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, and Scissor, and some other very important people in the industry.

[00:02:09] Badr: So if you're an aspiring comic of creator, designer, or just a fan of books about comics or comic art, I think you'll get a lot out of this conversation. In this introduction, Ian will also be assisting us for the main event today, which is an overdue celebration of the life and career of a comic legend that we recently lost.

[00:02:27] Badr: The now late. Great John Rama Sr. Or Jazzy John Ramida. For all you OG Marvel heads who passed away on June 12th in his sleep at the age of 93. Uh, I think the news was broken or, or shared with the world by via his son John Rama Jr. Who is a comic icon in his own right. For those who know John Rama Sr.

[00:02:46] Badr: Needs no introduction to many, he's known as the quintessential Spider-Man artist, and for good reason. Johna Sr was a true pioneer and pillar of the comic community, and thanks to his role as art director for Marvel, he's had a hand and he's been an architect for the way these characters have been shown to the world through Prince, through memorabilia, through merch and and so much more.

[00:03:08] Badr: And that's why we're dedicating a segment of this episode to giving some long overdue words and giving flowers in honor of the man's legacy. In addition to that, we're also announcing another Comic giveaway contest. We need some help from listeners like you as we gear up for our 400th episode, which will be a milestone moment for us, and we've got some badass comics to give away in exchange free help.

[00:03:30] Badr: So keep your ears open for the announcement later to this episode. That's pretty much your overview for this episode. Check out the timestamps in the show notes if you wanna fast forward through anything or, or hear a certain segment. But let's finally get this show on the road. Let's start by welcoming our guest of honor to this episode.

[00:03:46] Badr: Like I said in the intro, he's a book designer and founder of CMF Publishing, and he is here to tell us how his latest self-published book, the Uncanny Covers the Ocular Edition, helped him get his foot in the door and working with publishers. Now, one very important thing to note about, uh, Ian's work in the Uncanny Covers book that we'll be talking about is that it's not available for purchase anywhere because physical copies of the books.

[00:04:11] Badr: Don't exist, which feels kinda like a, a crime against humanity cuz these books are gorgeous and, uh, they deserve to be on shelves. I know I'd be dropping a pretty penny to own one of these, but the good news though, is that you could download a digital copy of the book for free. If you take a look in the show notes of this episode, there will be links listed so you could download a high resolution PDF of the entire book, which I can't recommend enough.

[00:04:36] Badr: I highly advise you download a copy of the book and flip through it while listening to this episode, short Box Nation. Without further ado, let's welcome Ian Cgn from C M F publishing to the show. Ian, how you doing? Welcome. 

[00:04:51] Ian Chalgren: Hey, here we go. Yeah. Now we're, now we're talking. Sorry. I that's, 

[00:04:56] Ed: well, they know who I am.

[00:04:57] Ed: Yeah. It gets shorter and shorter 

[00:04:59] Badr: every time they've been, they've been applauding Ed for the last 10 years. All right, Ian, don't feel bad about 'em. 

[00:05:04] Ian Chalgren: Yeah. Thanks for having me on, guys. Totally. Uh, a surprise and, and an honor. So it's a lot, lot of fun. I enjoyed watching some of your vids this week, and, uh, you got a new viewer and myself for sure.

[00:05:14] Ian Chalgren: Oh 

[00:05:14] Badr: man, that means the world. Ian Bian. Let's put the spotlight on you, man. What was the impetus to the cover book? All right. This amazing book that you designed, put together and, and put out into the world. Tell us a little bit about the origin of the Uncanny Covers book. 

[00:05:31] Ian Chalgren: Sure. Try to make a long story short.

[00:05:33] Ian Chalgren: Um, I got the opportunity at my day job to design a, uh, 400 page book, and I had never done a book like that before. It was a coffee table book. It was. Best year of my life at my, at my day job. Um, really enjoyed that. And about the same time I discovered Id w's artist editions, uh, I'd never seen those books before.

[00:05:55] Ian Chalgren: It just blew me away. So I just started buying those and those and those, and I loved them. Um, and decided, you know, why am I, uh, sitting here doing, um, stuff that I, I, I enjoy my job. I don't love the stuff though. And I'm like, why don't I try and do some stuff that I love? It's not work if you love it.

[00:06:15] Ian Chalgren: Right. So, uh, I started throwing my own version of an I d W artist edition together and, um, started bothering Chris Ryle and kept bothering him and bothering him until he, until he gave, um, basically, and, uh, yeah, I just wanted to make the book. I wanted to look at was the key for me anyway. And, and maybe, you know, get some work doing 

[00:06:42] Badr: this.

[00:06:43] Badr: Why specifically Marvel covers? Because, I mean, the book title uncanny covers, but it's there, there is no DC covers, right? I'm not mistaken. No, it's, it's 

[00:06:51] Ian Chalgren: all Marvel. Uh, I was a Marvel kid. I collected from my core years were like, uh, 79 to 85. Uh, but my first comic was like in 73 that I remember, and I was just a Marvel kid.

[00:07:05] Ian Chalgren: That, that really is it. My, my next ocular, uh, ocular edition, I think I'm gonna be focusing on DC and it's not gonna be original art. Um, so it'll be a, a, a different, different version than my verse two. 

[00:07:18] Badr: Okay. And you mentioned, uh, first too, I, I forgot to mention the intro. This is book number two of, of your self-published stuff.

[00:07:26] Badr: Yeah. The first one being you did a book about rom and showcasing original artwork done by the, uh, series artist, uh, Sal pma. And once again, that one is also well designed. Looks great. And honestly, if you would've handed me that book if, if there was a physical edition, and if you were to hand me that book, I'd probably think that it too belonged in the I d w um, artist edition kind of like offerings as well.

[00:07:50] Ian Chalgren: Sure. That that was, uh, my first one was more or less a total ripoff of Randy Delks designs and, uh, the way Scott Dun Beer puts these together. The second one, I kind of went off on my, my uncanny covers. I just kind of took some liberties and I, I wanted to make the book, I wanted to see. Uh, it's been a lot of fun.

[00:08:08] Ian Chalgren: It's a lot of work, but, uh, really enjoyed it. 

[00:08:10] Badr: Ed, I I just had the opportunity to kind of show you, uh, quickly like the uncanny covers book. What was, uh, what was your immediate reaction? You know, 

[00:08:16] Ed: honestly when I first clicked it, cuz you send the notes out and I saw the books and I was like, oh, cool. He works on I d w stuff.

[00:08:23] Ed: That's neat. And I didn't read more and, and it totally just because it's the amount of work. Cuz like I said, I've done some. Page layout and book layout stuff. Very, not as to the extent you have, but I have little familiarity with, you know, desktop publishing and things, stuff like that. So just looking at it, oh this is this, this is a new I D W thing.

[00:08:45] Ed: That's cool. And then he's like, no, no. Read it. It's not, it fooled me, but it's done so well, and I'm just like, kind of going through your bio and stuff, cuz I was going to ask about, you know, the typography and if you actually did the TPO or like, what did you do? And I've read that you are, you've worked in this, in this field pre-digital desktop publishing.

[00:09:06] Ed: So you were doing like past ups and things like that and, and is there a correlation between showing like, the original art? Cuz I, I love seeing like those, those I d w uh, masterwork. Cause you can see the paste stubs, you can see like the coffee stain. You can see like the actual, you know, almost skeleton of the, before the finished work.

[00:09:26] Ed: So I don't know if that had a. That tied in with your own career, be seeing that you've kind of predated the, uh, you kind of predated the dig like way easier now, but you were doing this stuff back when you had to cut the stuff out and take a picture of it and do all the really, really hard stuff. 

[00:09:46] Ian Chalgren: Yeah.

[00:09:46] Ian Chalgren: That, uh, that whole process, um, I mean, I was just right before desktop publishing, so yeah, I did get to do all of that, that fun stuff, the manual stuff. And I learned a ton. So when I started picking up these I d w artist edition, it, it just, the, the process just fascinated like, oh, okay, you know, this is how it works.

[00:10:04] Ian Chalgren: Cuz you don't get that from just looking at a comic. Yeah. But you could see the lines, you could see the, the paper cement destroying things. You could, you know, it, it was kind of neat. So that, that was, uh, the, the process side of me was just as excited as the art lover in me. Cool. When I, when I got those and I just adore those 

[00:10:23] Badr: books.

[00:10:24] Badr: I'm gonna say it, Ian, I think this book could easily stand side by side with any of those i d w books that you mentioned and love so much, the execution and presentation is, is there, you've got it all from a great cover. Uh, you got a table of contents, you included an author introduction. The blurbs you write for each artist is a nice touch.

[00:10:43] Badr: You know, you inject some of your own personality and, and commentary. You have great back matter and, and extras included. I mean, you've really thought about it all. And that's not even talking about the actual contents of the book, the lineup of, of artists. You have range from iconic artists that we all know and love, like, you know, from John Burn, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller.

[00:11:02] Badr: And I love that you gave Marie Severin her own chapter. That one was probably my favorite, uh, part of the book. How did you go about picking the artists in covers in, in comic art that are highlighted in this book? Was there a general criterion or was it strictly based on your personal favorites? 

[00:11:19] Ed: Um, 

[00:11:21] Ian Chalgren: I went in with some criteria right off the bat and I had like 30 artists, um, that I wanted to consider and I, I narrowed it down.

[00:11:36] Ian Chalgren: Um, what I wanted to do was I wanted to, number one, whatever artists I could have access to high resolution scans, like from heritage auctions. That was key. Cuz if I couldn't find a dozen Bill svi, well then okay, he's out. Um, the other thing was I wanted to be able to focus on artwork that had. For the most part, not been seen in an I D W artist edition.

[00:12:06] Ian Chalgren: So like for Burn for example, there are no uncanny X-Men covers. And you know, that's my, one of my favorite runs of all time. Uh, but, but, but you've already seen them. So I wanted to, uh, put stuff in there that folks hadn't seen. And, um, yeah, that, that was the key. It was just a, a elimination period of just like figuring out the artist, figuring out who, who, how much I could grab, how much was high res, how much was not in I d w already, and just throwing it all together.

[00:12:39] Ian Chalgren: It was, it was a long process. I'd say half my time making that book was figuring out and downloading art and, uh, Abiding by my criteria and 

[00:12:51] Ed: crossing my fingers. 

[00:12:54] Badr: If your goal was to make this feel like a seamless addition to the, uh, i d w artist, uh, you know, books and, and offerings, I think you went well and above, uh, beyond, uh, in being successful.

[00:13:05] Badr: Thank you. I know that you printed like a few, uh, for, um, uh, handing out to editors and, you know, people in the industry. How's the reception been within the industry? 

[00:13:15] Ian Chalgren: So far it's been great. There are like, just even yesterday, I dropped four more books in the mail, um, to different editors and publishers. Um, I've reached out to a lot of, uh, big shots straight, straight away.

[00:13:32] Ian Chalgren: Like Mike Richardson. Um, he replied right away and said he'd forward my email to his art director. 

[00:13:38] Badr: Um, and Mike Richardson for those unaware, real quick, Mike Richardson for those unaware, he's the editor or an editor at Dark Horse? President. President. Okay. 

[00:13:47] Ian Chalgren: He's, he's, he's the main, main man at Dark Horse Top Dog.

[00:13:49] Ian Chalgren: Okay, got it. Yeah. He is the top dog. Um, I've been chatting with Gary Gr and Eric Reynolds over at Fantagraphics. Um, they have said that I'm definitely on their radar and wow, they have some stuff coming up for me that are in my wheelhouse, which, you know, which would be, uh, fantastic. Cause I love, uh, Fantagraphics stuff.

[00:14:11] Ian Chalgren: Uh, I got some Marvel people in mind. I'm gonna send off to, um, I sent a message to Todd McFarlane. He's not replying and that's fine. I didn't expect him to. Yeah, 

[00:14:23] Ed: there's no spawn in here. Why am I not in this book outta here? That might be it. 

[00:14:29] Badr: Ed might be on something. What you 

[00:14:31] Ed: did is very impressive because you, you're basically presenting a finished product as your portfolio, you know, so it's, it's like going up to someone reviewing pages with a fully published, fully done comic so that, it's such a great, I guess, plan.

[00:14:49] Ed: I don't know, um, just to. Basically you're showing the publishers I know how to do pretty much every part of the process. I can lay the book out, I can do, I can thematically come up with what the book will be about. I know how to get this print ready to go and not, so basically what you're, if, if I was a publisher, if I saw someone just have, okay, this guy knows what he's doing.

[00:15:14] Ed: So that's, that should put you on top of everybody's list cuz it's such an impressive amount of work you put in as a portfolio slash like a resume piece. 

[00:15:24] Badr: I think what, what Ian is vying for, like this position is, is really cool and is unique, right? Like a designer, you know, a book designer that thinks about, you know, thinks about the, the product, the presentation, you know, is a, is an interesting goal.

[00:15:39] Badr: I've 

[00:15:39] Ian Chalgren: had stuff online, I've sent people PDFs, It was just the, the lack of response. They get a million PDFs, you know, um, I know how to do this. I got a background in print. Um, I can write, my mom still tells me I should be a writer. Um, I just felt like, and I had some, I had some extra cash working for Chris Rle, um, doing some comics and stuff 

[00:16:06] Badr: for him.

[00:16:07] Badr: Ian, who's Chris, who is Chris Rle for those unaware, 

[00:16:09] Ian Chalgren: uh, he is the ex, uh, president, uh, publisher and chief creative officer of I d W. He left I d w and I was pinging him for a few years and he'd always reply. And then, uh, then he started his own thing and I got an email from him out of the blue and I'm like, yeah, man, let's, let's do it.

[00:16:32] Ian Chalgren: So it's been about over a year now. Um, but Chris has been super empowering, just. Fantastic. 

[00:16:38] Ed: Does him and uh, Ashley Wood still have a, some kind of company together? 

[00:16:43] Badr: We got the shirt on, man. The scissor. Oh, nice. Okay. I think it's called, uh, the company's called Scissor G or the publishing arm, 

[00:16:48] Ian Chalgren: right? Yep.

[00:16:49] Ian Chalgren: Scissor G Uh, right now they, uh, they've got Ashley Wood does his thing. Uh, Chris does his thing sometimes they come together and do things. Um, there's some comics that I've worked on for them. Um, they've got, uh, a book coming out, uh, with a different designer, um, Sean Lee, who's fantastic. Um, and then I'm working on one book for sure with Chris right now, and there's two other ones we're kind of, which will be my dream fricking job, uh, which of course I can't say anything about that.

[00:17:26] Ian Chalgren: We're just kind of waiting on someone else to say yes. But, uh, yeah, Chris has been great. Can I, can I show you some of the stuff 

[00:17:32] Ed: right now that I worked on for him? 

[00:17:34] Badr: Sure. You like, we, we won't say no. 

[00:17:38] Ian Chalgren: Okay. So there's something coming up in November. It's called, uh, self-Help. It is a, uh, kind of a. A crime, uh, body double kind of thing.

[00:17:50] Ian Chalgren: And it is written by, uh, Owen King, Stephen King's son. Oh. And Jesse Kellerman with Art by Mariana Igna. Colors by Fabiana, me Melo. And I get to do the design and the lettering for the whole thing. It's, uh, I've heard the, I've heard the first two issues. It's super neat. I'm really excited to be part of that.

[00:18:14] Ian Chalgren: Um, and then the other stuff that I've worked on with Chris is, uh, have you heard of All Against All? Yes. It's, uh, Alex Pac Natal. I'm 

[00:18:25] Ed: butchering names here, man. It's all good. We do that all the time,

[00:18:31] Ian Chalgren: but kinda rush shtick. Yeah. The trade paperback, I think comes out next week, but I got my, my comps on that. Um, it told. Is one 

[00:18:41] Ed: that I 

[00:18:41] Badr: worked on with Chris. Oh, tell me. It's awesome. Scissor Gee has a lot of really interesting titles, and one consistent thing I've noticed is the art and all of them are badass.

[00:18:51] Badr: Especially like the covers and the thought to like design itself. The covers 

[00:18:55] Ian Chalgren: are 

[00:18:55] Badr: amazing. And what would be some advice you would give to people looking to do something similar, which is leveraging their existing talent and, you know, producing a, a product and putting that out into the world, uh, in, in hopes of, you know, not, I think not only, you know, as a means of self-expression, but also getting your foot in the industry and, you know, creating like a unique and and noteworthy, uh, portfolio.

[00:19:20] Badr: Like, like Ed was saying, like what, what advice do you have based on the experience that you've had so far with getting this book, uh, printed in small quantities and dealing and, and you know, messaging and emailing editors and getting feedback. What words of advice do you have? 

[00:19:33] Ian Chalgren: Uh, do something different that other people aren't doing?

[00:19:38] Ian Chalgren: Um, that's the, the, the message I've been getting from a lot of these people I've reached out to, um, just kinda like Ed was talking about. They're like, man, no one's done this before. You know, um, do something different. Uh, just keep bothering them. You know, I broke, I, I broke Ryle down, finally gave up. He's like, he's like, okay 

[00:20:06] Badr: dude.

[00:20:06] Badr: Right. Geez. He's like, if it means not getting 500 emails an hour, yes, you can work 

[00:20:11] Ed: for me. He's up on my Gmail 

[00:20:13] Badr: space. Yeah, yeah,

[00:20:17] Ian Chalgren: yeah. I got lucky with Chris Royalle cuz he's a nice guy and he isn't, doesn't have an ego. Um, we're about the same age, so as we got chatting, we're like, oh, that was my favorite. Well, that was my favorite. And it helped, it really helped that we had a lot in common. Um, and it also helps that he's very, very well connected, uh, to other people.

[00:20:40] Ian Chalgren: He, um, he's the one that sent Gary Roth an email and said, Hey, check out Ian. He's pretty cool. So do something different. Be persistent and, and, and be positive. Um, I, I try not to whine. My emails at all. Like, oh, poor me. Those would be my big things. 

[00:21:02] Ed: You know, curious to say you were lettering on one of the, the comics.

[00:21:07] Ed: Are you doing hand lettering or digital or a combination? Bad lettering can make a beautiful comic look bad. You know, you can have the mm-hmm. Nicest artwork, but bad typography. Bad lettering. And that's just coming from, I guess, my design background. But bad typography, bad lettering can really make the most beautiful art look unprofessional.

[00:21:29] Ed: Um, so I was just curious if that was a avenue you would like to pursue or would, are you more, would you prefer to do more the design part of things? I 

[00:21:39] Ian Chalgren: am a, um, Adobe Illustrator nerd. Um, I've been using Illustrator since like 1992. Um, it's my favorite software. I know it inside and out. And when I learned that that is the software that letters use, use.

[00:21:55] Ian Chalgren: I just sent an email to Chris and I'm like, man, I, I think I could do this. He said, I was thinking the same thing. So I bought a book by Nate Picos, uh, who's a letterer on like everything, um, his book. Any aspiring letters out there, go get the Nate Picos lettering book. It's amazing. Um, I basically used that book to letter, my first comic, which was these just came out last week.

[00:22:24] Ian Chalgren: Um, so I did, there's, it's a two story thing through Ciggy and I, I lettered the, uh, dream Weaver stuff, and then Ashley Wood does all his own stuff, but these are just the two, two variants. Oh, cool. Um, I also took a class with Taylor Esposito, uh, another big time letter out there through the Joe Bert School, just an online class and learned a ton from Taylor.

[00:22:50] Ian Chalgren: I enjoy it, but it is so much more difficult than you think. Like Sure. Putting the word balloons in places that mm-hmm. That flow and don't cover up art is just, I was blown away at how time consuming it is. Um, I think. By the time I got done lettering, that first comic, which was only 12 pages, I figured out my time and I made, uh, $3 an hour.

[00:23:17] Ian Chalgren: So,

[00:23:21] Ian Chalgren: not even kidding. Uh, I enjoy it. Ooh, I like it. 

[00:23:24] Badr: Struggle is real. 

[00:23:26] Ian Chalgren: Right? Yeah. I'm gonna continue lettering the, uh, tales of suspense for Chris, and I'm going to continue lettering the self-help comic for Chris, but I don't know if my heart is in the lettering. Sure. Um, but yeah, but much respect to the letterers out there.

[00:23:46] Ian Chalgren: Um, I bow my head to that. I had no idea. Hell 

[00:23:50] Badr: yeah. And Ian, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that among the positive reception that, you know, your books have, have, um, have, have gotten you. Among those is, um, you know, a, a spotlight from, you know, good friends of the show, uh, the cartoonist Kafe boys, right?

[00:24:08] Badr: Like, uh, I believe you sent a copy of the uncanny covers to, uh, uh, Jim and Ed, and they actually spotlighted that in one of their videos, right? 

[00:24:16] Ian Chalgren: Yeah. Uh, they're huge in me doing what I wanna do. Uh, they do what they wanna do, and they, uh, like Ed calls some the jobbers, they're like, these guys aren't jobbers.

[00:24:28] Ian Chalgren: They're, they're doing what they love and is so inspiring. Uh, so when someone reaches out to me for a book design, I don't want to just be the designer. I wanna really sink my teeth into it and be part of the whole thing. Um, otherwise it's just a job. Uh, so that's kind of what I'm looking for. But, yeah, and Jim, they also did a video on my Rom book too.

[00:24:52] Ian Chalgren: I, wow. I sent them one copy, just, just. For the hell of it. Cause I love the show. Never dreaming that it would even be mentioned. And then one day my emails started blowing up. I'm like, what the fuck? And, uh, I look online and here's a whole episode on my book. And it was, it was shocking. That was an honor.

[00:25:11] Ian Chalgren: And, um, yeah, there, there're huge, huge inspiration. Um, those two guys and Chris Ryle have done so much for me, whether they tried to or not. You 

[00:25:22] Badr: probably have got a few dms, like, how much, I got a blank check how much you want, Ian. People have come knocking down your door trying to get Oh yeah. A physical copy if I'm not mistaken.

[00:25:31] Badr: Of both books, right? Oh yeah. 

[00:25:32] Ian Chalgren: I, I have got a few, um, which were very tempting offers, but I gotta stick to my guns. I, I, I wanna play by the rules. I, I, I wanna do this. I don't wanna get sued, I wanna get hired. 

[00:25:44] Badr: I fully respect that cuz I know I ain't got the willpower or honor to do the same thing. So I'll say this, that I'll have links to digital versions of both books, the Rom and the Uncanny covers book.

[00:25:55] Badr: Ian was kind enough to actually, um, I think that's the great thing is that, you know, you are allowing people to, you know, take a look at it and download a PDF version and, you know, look at it digital, which I think is a great way to like stay legal, but also like, you know, put your artwork and, and your work out into the world 

[00:26:09] Ed: sight unseen.

[00:26:10] Ed: And without, I would think, oh, this is, this is cool. Where can I get this? You know, this would be in my 

[00:26:15] Badr: library. You probably thought you I got an advanced review. Yeah. Copy from I D W. Yeah. I saw we're what I thought. Lucky yet, we're not that lick. Not that, not yet. 

[00:26:23] Ed: But yeah, they're beautiful. I mean, they're super professional.

[00:26:27] Ed: It is. Well, well executed 

[00:26:29] Badr: and I'll wrap up this segment by saying, Ian, I think you exemplify something that we hear on the short box. Champion as, as much as we can, which is aspiring artists and creators taking their God-given talent and combining that with hard work, ingenuity and leveraging the power of self-publishing.

[00:26:45] Badr: I mean, we talk about it all the time, anytime, you know, especially that like coming off of like Duval Comic and Zin Fest and being surrounded by, you know, indie publishers and, and you know, small comic creators. I think what you're doing, um, as a means of both self-expression, but also getting your foot in the door.

[00:26:59] Badr: Yeah. I mean, you are seeing like, you know, you, you're reaping the, the fruits of your labor. Like that is awesome. And 

[00:27:04] Ed: can I ask one non-com related question, if you will, humor. I was going through your bio and I saw the reason you stopped collecting and I saw a picture of Iron Maiden as a huge Iron Maiden fan.

[00:27:18] Ed: I got to ask. Fuck yeah. Favorite album, peace of Mind. Oh, very nice. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Easy, easy. Overpower slice. 

[00:27:28] Ian Chalgren: Yeah, I've seen a, oh yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Peace of Mind was really my first maiden album. Um, and that just kind of sticks with you? Sure. Iron Maiden Rules man 

[00:27:43] Ed: my age. My first one that I really got me in before I went back, it was kind of that since era, so like Seventh Son.

[00:27:53] Ed: Yeah. And somewhere in time, which we're kind of, kind of laughed at cuz of the hardcore metal guys. But going back and listening to them, they're awesome. So, but I do like Peace of Mind is, is probably up there for me as well cuz it's pretty much I can listen to that whole album, you know, straight through.

[00:28:11] Ed: Yeah. Except for the one at the end where he talks about the dinosaurs and stuff. That's, it's kinda outta, 

[00:28:17] Badr: that's, 

[00:28:18] Ed: yeah. When dinosaurs roll it's like, okay, take it easy, but like, fly to Icarus. Uh, yeah, 

[00:28:24] Badr: that album's great. Ed, we're gonna have to have you sing on the show more often. That was good. That was beautiful.

[00:28:30] Badr: All right, GenZ, how about we get into our, our main event? Let's talk about John Ramida Sr. And before we dive in, I do want to give one slight disclaimer. Uh, someone like John Ramida Sr. Obviously deserves a very comprehensive, full artist spotlight for today's intents and purposes. I think the focus of this conversation, uh, will be on his work with Marvel, specifically Spider-Man, uh, and just really our personal relationship with Verda and his work.

[00:28:56] Badr: So we won't be diving into the full, extensive, uh, history and career that he has just yet. We'll do something like that in the future. Uh, with that said, um, you know, ed, how about, how about we, we kick it off with you, man. What was your first conscious exposure to John Rama Sr. Like, what was it, what's your earliest memory?

[00:29:11] Ed: Earliest memory is in it. It's gonna be, I'm think for 99.9% of everybody is like Spider-Man. Cuz like I said, my, I used to, I said that. When I was growing up, when I was a kid, comics were pretty much worthless. Um, crashes happened. Every bookstore had like a nickel box, dime box, quarter box in the back corner tucked away, you know?

[00:29:33] Ed: So my dad would always grab a stack, read them first, of course, preview them, and then I would get a stack of comics. And a lot of that stuff was a lot of John Armita stuff, like the covers for like, you know, we've cage, uh, heroes for Hire Spider-Man. So a lot of that stuff, you know, Was my early intro into comics, which you know, is older than me, but it was what I had because, you know, that stuff was so dirt cheap back then.

[00:29:59] Badr: I think my earliest memory of John Mea Sr was, um, in those, uh, essential Marvel books. Like those black and white. Yeah, trade paperback, phone books. Size books. I remember getting like essential Spider-Man volume one and you know, those books collect about like 20 to third, maybe 30 might be a little too much, but at least like 20 issues worth of comic books and glorious black and white, like newspaper kind of, uh, newsprint.

[00:30:24] Badr: Yep. Yeah, newsprint. Actually, the more I think about it, I think it was between, I had like amazing Spider-Man, essential, essential, amazing Spider-Man volume 1, 2, 3, 4, like up to like six or something like that. And I remember the first volume were primarily all the Did kill issues. And I just was not the biggest fan of Did Kill.

[00:30:39] Badr: I grew up in a household where, uh, you know, I was reading all my dad's Marvel books and his favorite artist was John Bema and, uh, John Ramida Sr. So when I got to Essential amazing Spiderman, I think volume two is when his artwork, when he took over the, the title and we were getting his issues and man, it was like night and day.

[00:30:59] Badr: Oh yeah. Like my excitement of, of like just reading and plowing through these essential books like John Rama Sr. Is he is quintessential in my early comic journey and getting caught up with like Marvel books and just like, you know, resonating and connecting with my dad over a shared artist Rama Sr.

[00:31:15] Badr: Holds like, A super special place in my heart, Ian, you actually dedicate, you have a section, uh, dedicated to John Rama Sr. In the Uncanny, um, covers book. Um, do you care to kind of like, share what you wrote about Johna Sr and your first conscious exposure? Um, my 

[00:31:32] Ian Chalgren: first exposure was this comic right here, the, uh, reprints.

[00:31:39] Ian Chalgren: Um, I lo I just adore this cover. I just think that's 

[00:31:41] Badr: badass For any of our audio listeners, that was, uh, looks like that was Marvel Tales, uh, Marvel Tales 

[00:31:47] Ian Chalgren: 47 with the Vulture, the Spidey super Stories. This is one of my first ones, but my. My favorite, uh, Ram cover of all time is, uh, this guy, uh, astonishing Tales number 22 featuring it.

[00:32:02] Ian Chalgren: I just think that's freaking terrifying. I mean, look at these people. Oh my God. But, uh, these are my favorite, uh, Ram covers. So, I mean, these 

[00:32:11] Badr: are just, yeah, all those, uh, son of, uh, the son of Origin, the Meet the Bad Guy, books, like all those, uh, early trade paper, bad, um, Marvel books. Yeah, yeah, those 

[00:32:21] Ian Chalgren: are, those are wonderful.

[00:32:22] Ian Chalgren: He's just, it's such a classic. He's got such a classic style. It's so smooth. It's so, he's so easy to read visually. Um, yeah, and just a classy guy, you know. Um, so is his son. They just seem like wonderful people. I've never met either of them, but they just seem like really nice guys. 

[00:32:41] Badr: Ian, that, I think that is a, a, a great word.

[00:32:43] Badr: Classy, I think classy. Talking about the artwork. I think Ramida is like, got a classic style. I mean, hell, he was, you know, his style was like the Marvel style house style style. Kirby, well, he's the art director. Classy also to describe the fella as well. You, you haven't heard a lot of drama around like, I don't know, too much drama around him, you know, and, and, and he's from that era where artists justifiably so could like Oh yeah.

[00:33:09] Badr: Had justifiable reasons to like, complain and, and talk bad about like the industry and things like that. Like if he had any beef or coral, it probably would not be outside the realm of possibility. But I feel like he's always been mm-hmm. Jolly really respectful. I don't know, it's just like he's just got a good energy to him.

[00:33:26] Badr: And if anything, very humble too. Like almost too humble. Yeah. And 

[00:33:30] Ed: I think there's a lot of artists during that time too, where there, the artwork wasn't considered, I guess high art, if you will. Mm-hmm. So they were not looked at as, you know, top-notch illustrators and things like that. So they kind of carried that.

[00:33:45] Ed: A lot of them carried that chip on their shoulder, you know, and like I said, I, I've watched an interview with him and he said that, you know, oh yeah, everybody thought was the end of comics cuz he, he lived through the, he's been around like a lot longer than I thought. He survived the whole seduction of the innocent, where the government shut down a lot of comics.

[00:34:02] Ed: And he was saying that, you know, we were expecting comics to just eventually go away, have a big party and do what's next. You know, we were not expecting this industry to last. And working in that kind of, with that kind of blade over your head, you know, basically this industry can go away at any second.

[00:34:19] Ed: And the fact that he's seems always pleasant. There's one thing that I thought he threw some shade even when like Stan kind of did him dirty a couple times, he still had nothing but good things to say about him. And there's one thing, and I can't prove. He's saying that he made this blanket statement that the seventies artists didn't fill the gap.

[00:34:42] Ed: That's, you know, what I was disappointed in. It's like they basically took these higher paying jobs and they did not keep the comics, they did not fill the gap between his generation and into the eighties. And the only person I can think of is Neil Adams as the only person I can think he could be referring to, but I can't say that for sure.

[00:35:01] Ed: But I'm seventies artist, the one with the most, you know, you know, like conflict and Yeah. You know, and definitely the gravitas and conflict causing polarizing figure. Um, but yeah, that's, that's the closest I get. And he didn't even drop a name and this was like, you know, 10 year, this was 10 years ago, so it wasn't, he had nothing to really gain or lose from it.

[00:35:25] Badr: So I guess, uh, his son, John MEA Jr. Had, was doing a few interviews. Uh, I was looking at the New York Times, uh, article, uh, or Tribune about John Mea Sr. And maybe they interviewed his son, uh, junior. But, uh, Ram Jr. Said, you know, the man had no ego that kept us on the ground end quote. So, I mean, to even hear it from his son, you know, and his son speaks so highly about his dad too, like, you know, no ego.

[00:35:48] Badr: I think he also tells stories of like, you know, family vacations and trips where his dad is like, you know, talking to them about storyboards and, you know, uh, spider-Man issues and getting their ideas and, you know, I, I guess incorporating even some of those ideas from, uh, junior at, at, at a young age, which I think just kind of paints the picture of, of a man that loved his job and it became a family, you know?

[00:36:11] Badr: Yeah. A family business. I, and I'm still in Cesar's joke, but he's not here to say it. Uh, but Cesar had a great remark in terms of John Mita Sr. That he was such a great Spider-Man artist, you know, that he gave birth to a great Spider-Man artist. You know, that's how good he was. 

[00:36:25] Ed: But who draws a completely different style?

[00:36:27] Ed: Yeah. You kind have to, I mean, you can't draw like pops. Yeah. You know, Yeah, I've heard just from that is like, he, he really, I think, lasted so long and being an art director and everyone, like I said, no one really has bad things to say, at least from what I've read. Same, 

[00:36:45] Badr: same. I could not find one, like I said, there's not a lot of drama controversy, uh, like attached to him.

[00:36:50] Badr: It sounds like he did his thing and, and I won't even say like fizzle up, but he kind of just like took a bow and, you know, like retired kind of peacefully. It sounds like even though like there are some, like there's, I think he did a, um, in 2014 he did like a, a Superman cover when, uh, when his son took over the title.

[00:37:08] Badr: You know, like there's like little bits of like covers and works that he did up to in modern times, but not a lot. Yeah. And I think he 

[00:37:14] Ed: embraced that, especially kind of being an art director and kind of, kind of being in charge of everything. He's, I think he really enjoyed, and it seems like everyone said he enjoyed that kind of mentor role, teacher slash 

[00:37:26] Badr: mentor role.

[00:37:27] Badr: Ian, how would you describe, uh, Ramida SR'S style? Like, uh, if we're looking at it from an artistic lens and you being an an artist yourself, like, how would you describe his style? What words come to mind when you think of Ramida Sr. 

[00:37:40] Ian Chalgren: Uh, for me, he's kind of seemed a, like on the leading edge of the little bit more realistic style, like Perez Burn, um, which at that age was what I was really into.

[00:37:54] Ian Chalgren: I wasn't into the cartoony stuff as much at that point. Um, So that, uh, realistic, uh, bit of it and, uh, just the, it's just a, a classic look. His line, um, is just so smooth. Uh, those are the two big things. His, his, his smooth line, the classic style, and the are three things, and the realism that really stand out for me.

[00:38:20] Ian Chalgren: Uh, it's just fun stuff. Any of the stuff. It's, and when I did my research for my book, I went to the Wikipedia page that lists everything he's ever done. Geez. It's shocking. It's, it's, I didn't even list them all in the book. Uh, it's just unbelievable how many titles he worked on. Uh, stunning. Just a machine.

[00:38:42] Ian Chalgren: Yeah. 

[00:38:43] Badr: And it's like one-off issues too. That's where I was getting a, a little confused, I knew he drew a big chunk of amazing Spider-Man, you know, starting from issue 39 after Ditco leaves, and I think he's got like a big chunk from 39 to like 60 and then like he, he kind of sprinkles in and issue or two, he does some layouts, but then it's like Jim Mooney is doing the, the pencils or, or, uh, Don Heck.

[00:39:05] Badr: And then you're like, you know, then he, he takes a step back. He's inking maybe, you know, so it's kind of like when you look at his Spider-Man run, even if he wasn't the main artist, like you prop from 39 to, I'll say about a, I'm just gonna go for like a hundred. I'm gonna say from issue 39 makes requirements to about a hundred.

[00:39:22] Badr: He's had a hand in some way, whether it was direct pencils, maybe assisting layout, maybe inking or just like a a, um, or just like for setting the template that other artists had to follow. It seems that Stan Lee was, you know, maybe this was like Stan Lee was so excited to have an artist of his caliber bring, you know, a fresh vision to Spider-Man that did co uh, that did, you know, in a unique way that did co wasn't able to respectfully, and this will be 

[00:39:49] Ed: my last Iron Maiden comparison, I promise.

[00:39:51] Ed: So it is like you're an Iron Maiden fan. So it's basically, I love the first two with Paul Deano as vocals, right? Mm-hmm. There's a standard right there be, yeah. But I don't think they would've gotten as big without Bruce. And that's kind of how I see Ditco and I see, um, Ramida, because dit CO's style, it's very, he's got a bizarre, he's one of the greats, but.

[00:40:15] Ed: He's not the draftsman ram is, and I think he would even say that, but, and his stuff was so bizarre looking and it was just rereading it. It's like this is like three shades from a horror comic. It's, you know, cuz of how weird everybody kinda looks and just how his, his figures and his, his, his artwork is.

[00:40:34] Ed: But Ramida brings that close to 10 years of doing these romance comics of, and bringing that kind of soap opera element and these kind of movie star, good look, good-looking people, attractive young people with, you know, their problems. And basically being able to, what he would call in this interview call, like nothing pages basically I was drawing romance novels where nothing was going on.

[00:40:57] Ed: There's no action. It's just kind of bickering. But if you look at those covers, you can see, oh, okay, you can see the, you know, he did close to 10 years. That's a career for a lot of people. 10 years doing. Almost exclusively like romance comics for DC before giving Back to Marvel. That's an incre that's a whole career there that a lot of people overlook cuz his, his Spider-Man stuff is so strong and so influential.

[00:41:23] Ed: But a lot of those elements you can see, oh, they, he brought a lot of those elements into, you know, that kind of glamor, you know, that kind of, you know, glamorous almost style to Spider-Man refining it and then bringing it as much of a hit as it was, kind of bringing it to that next 

[00:41:41] Ian Chalgren: level. You mentioned the, uh, how he inspired, uh, artists.

[00:41:46] Ian Chalgren: Look at Ross Andrews stuff after, uh, Ram's and there'd be times where I could pick up a, a Spider-Man comic. I think it was Ram and it was Ross Andrew. So just him inspiring other artists to, to do, do it this way, man. You know, it was pretty 

[00:42:04] Badr: neat. Fun fact about, uh, you bringing up Ross, Andrew, and you might already know this Ian, but I, this was news to me, but, uh, Ramida did uncredited art corrections on the first, you know, DC Marvel, uh, crossover Superman versus Spider-Man.

[00:42:19] Badr: You know, uh, Ross Andrews is credited as the main penciller, but I guess Ramida did some, you know, once again some art corrections and, you know, had a hand in it in the back. I, I didn't know that. No, I didn't know that. But Ed, um, I'm glad you brought up the, the romance comic, uh, career that he had, cuz that was real surprising to me was the amount, how long he had been in the industry Yeah.

[00:42:39] Badr: Before even touching a superhero book. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. We, we all know him now as a quintessential Spider-Man artist, but this dude, like you said, lived almost like two different lives and careers prior, like, uh, the, the un the the ghost artist era, right? Yeah. Like him drawing layouts for a friend of his that was already working at Marvel as an anchor, Lester Z Z Lester Zacker.

[00:43:00] Badr: Yeah. You know, like, uh, and I forgot how long he ended up doing that, but he was drawing. Layouts for him, giving it to him, letting him put his name on it. Yeah. You know, like for, and it sounded like for a good bit, gets drafted into the Army, does romance comics, and then goes to Marvel like, look, I'm the guy, I'm the ghost, you know?

[00:43:18] Badr: Yeah. He's like, I'm Lester Zach. And yeah, 

[00:43:21] Ed: I, I listened to the interview and he talked about that and he was actually still in the military, but on, like, when he had time off, he would go to the Marvel offices in full uniform to try to get some work too. And that's when he's like, yeah, I'm Zachary. And then he basically got saved his, he, he did get drafted even though he had kind of a, a leg issue cuz of polio.

[00:43:45] Ed: He's like, Nope. He said they, I was good enough to go to war, but he had a buddy that kind of got him a gig basically. He was, he said he was about to go on a boat to I think Germany, and they said they. Pulled him out and then he and essentially did like a posters, right? Yeah. Recruitment posters and things like that for the military.

[00:44:02] Badr: That's so badass, man. I'm, I'm telling you, we, we, we will probably do a full on Ramit, a senior artist spotlight cuz his history is insane. But to go back to his style, I, I ed, you brought up the romance comics and, you know, that whole, that whole aspect. And I've seen a really good description of, uh, Ramida bringing like that soap awkwardness to superheroes.

[00:44:22] Badr: And it was, um, quote, uh, Ramida depicted beautiful suffering that combined soap opera and fantasy themes. Beautiful. Suffering is a great phrase for a lot of those, uh, of, of his run of Spider-Man. Even as a kid, I, I was like, this feels like a soap opera and I'm so much more interested in the Peter Parker life Yeah.

[00:44:42] Badr: Than sometimes the Spider-Man stuff. Cuz it was just so engaging and like, I'm, I'm reading these issues like freshman and, and sophomore year of, of high school and feeling that connection of like, oh, I'm kind of going through these things, but I'm nowhere near as handsome as Peter Parker. Yeah. 

[00:44:56] Ed: And he's supposed to be the nerdy kid.

[00:44:58] Badr: Yeah, right. It's looking dude, it's like what I would date Peter Parker, you know, it's crazy. But his style has always been like, dynamic. It's been strong, uh, agile is is a great word, I think, to describe him. And I think it's a word that he would probably use to describe himself. I, I've seen an interview where he was talking about, If you're drawing, he says something to the effect of like, if you are an artist drawing Spider-Man and you're drawing him standing up or on the floor, then you're wasting Spider-Man.

[00:45:23] Badr: Yeah. Like he's gotta, like, you have the opportunity to draw a character that is in dynamic poses and different perspectives and, you know, kinetic, uh, you know, like you have the opportunity to insert so much kinetic and energy and movement to the character that like, you'd be wasting and doing a disservice to the character if you weren't doing that.

[00:45:42] Badr: Yeah. 

[00:45:43] Ed: He would say that if, if when you're doing what he would call, like, you know, non-action pages, nothing pages, you have to still, it's your job to still make it visually interesting. You know, like even his, like the romance novel romance covers and stuff, you'll see that big, a woman in the front foreground crying and doing like a dramatic.

[00:46:02] Ed: Hand over her forehead, and then you'll see some other two, a couple like smooching in the background. And she's a single tier, like I said, his composition on that stuff and his covers. And like I said, he became like the, the cover guy. 

[00:46:14] Badr: The amount of iconic covers this man has, I under his belt is in insane.

[00:46:19] Badr: I mean, some of the ones that com, uh, come off the top of my head. First of all, his first issue, uh, of, of Amazing Spider-Man, which is 39. So immediately after Ditko leaves, and just think about like the pressure there is coming after Ditko, right? Like being the first artist of Spider-Man. Uh, after the, the co-creator leaves, right?

[00:46:38] Badr: Like the, the amount of pressure. Someone that has already defined the character for a generation, now you've gotta come in and do your own thing. And I think he even says that like there was a lot of pressure for him and he tried to stick as close as possible to Ditko as he can kind of even like subverting his own style and, you know, his own quirks.

[00:46:55] Badr: But off the bat, issue 39 is that famous cover of Green Goblin flying. Uh, and he's got Peter Parker in, in, you know, in a torn Spider-Man suit and civic clothes. Oh, it's like flying tied up. Yeah. He's got like, that's such an iconic, iconic cover off the bat. Yeah. That's your first cover in your first foray into the character.

[00:47:14] Badr: And it, it's like, okay. And I told you, you know, he's, he's done things from issue 39, uh, up until the hundreds Issue 50 Spider-Man. No more iconic, right? Like, how many times have we seen that homage? We've seen that homage to death. Um, and, and the list really goes on and on. When I think of seventies, I think of things like, Woodstock, I think Jimi Hendrix, I think, uh, like student, uh, uh, activism.

[00:47:40] Badr: Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. Like, uh, student protest. And I also think Spider-Man, because I think it has all of that. Like, he did such a good job of encapsulating the time period, um, that it's still, it feels like more like a historical book than a superhero book at times. You know? Especially while you're like seeing the positions and, uh, drama going on in Peter Parker's life and how well drawn and realistic that feels.

[00:48:02] Ed: I, I see that too. But like a lot of times when I look at it, and even when I look at more modern Spider-Man artists, like his work doesn't look as dated to me. No. You know, it's a classic, classic. It's, there's that, there's that fine line between, you know, old fashioned or dated and then classic, you know, it's a fine line.

[00:48:21] Ed: And like I said before, I love Todd McFarland, but his stuff, I look at his Spider-Man stuff and it's like, oh geez, that's super nineties. You know, it's like, I know when this was made, but like ramdas stuff. And like I said, he had that longevity too, but his, his artwork can fit almost any era of comic books, you know, it's just, it's just a pristine, clean, like beautiful style.

[00:48:44] Badr: Yeah. And you've got, um, uh, I'm, I'm flipping through your, your ramida section of the book and you've got, some of the covers you've got on here are like defenders number 10, which features Hulk and Thor, uh, squaring off. Uh, you've got some of his lesser known stuff, like you said, astonishing Tails number 20, featuring, it kind of showcases his ability to draw like, you know, monsters and, you know, big kind of, uh, creatures and designs and things like that.

[00:49:07] Badr: And obviously a bunch of amazing Spider-Man covers like number, uh, king size, special number six, et cetera, et cetera. You've got a cover on here that I, I didn't know was a Ram one, it's Captain America and the Falcon Number 1 39 and it shows Steve Rogers from, uh, a back profile. So we just see the back of his head.

[00:49:24] Badr: But on one side he's got the Captain America outfit on the right hand side, he's got the, um, like a, a, a cop uniform. And it's, I think this is the issue where Steve Rogers gotta decide if he wants to be Captain America or, you know, goes, you know, full-time civilian to be a cop or something. But it reminds me of like Spider-Man number 50, spider-Man, no more.

[00:49:41] Badr: That iconic cover of Peter kind of leaving behind the suit. And it, I think it, I bring up both those examples cuz he, even at the cover stage, Ramida has a way of like, Drawing or, or, or, or inserting a lot of drama into it. And, and, and those two covers in particular don't have any action. There's no super villains on the page sharing it, like, it's strictly like a moral dilemma going on for these characters.

[00:50:06] Badr: Just 

[00:50:06] Ian Chalgren: the, the stature, the gesture of Steve Rogers, his shoulders are kind of down. He seems sad, you know, he's trying to make a choice and he, that's not easy to capture. He could have just drawn big superhero shoulders and here's this big tough guy. He pose, he nailed it. Yeah, right. With his arms up. But he, but he, he nails it.

[00:50:28] Ian Chalgren: He's, he's a 

[00:50:29] Badr: master. But Ed, do you have any favorite, uh, uh, covers or panels or standout artwork by Ramida? One of 

[00:50:35] Ed: my favorite ones ever is another Mysterial one. It's I think 1 42. Where you see the back of a stereo and he's holding his head up and the line is going like through like his, where his head would be, and he's holding the fishbowl head over his shoulders, like headless horseman style.

[00:50:52] Ed: Oh man, that is so cool. What a cool idea. Awesome. And what perspective? A cool angle. Yeah, what a great perspective that is. And it's, it's one of the ones that kind of stuck with me that I really like. And of course I love the Luke Cage hero for hire. It's, it's kind of, it's not an exciting one, but just the way that the yellow, the costume kind of pops and they have the red background of kind of like, almost like his origin story in the background, but like all like kinda saturated and red and then his figures just on top of that and that yellow just like pops off of the cover.

[00:51:25] Ed: I really liked that. And did he 

[00:51:27] Ian Chalgren: design Luke Cage's costume? 

[00:51:29] Ed: Do you know? I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. We put him on a first issue, put Ramit on that first 

[00:51:34] Badr: issue. That's what I'm saying is there is so much that he's done and iconic covers and just images that you've probably seen. If, if you aren't like someone that's like actively looking for the artists or the credits, like you can easily overlook so many of the iconic images that he's done for Marvel.

[00:51:51] Badr: And it's 

[00:51:51] Ed: one thing too, it's like just to, those are probably my ones that are my favorite, but check out like his, he's, he's done a handful for uh, chamber of Horrors, which you can see him do some horror stuff, which is interesting cuz looking up Ramida stuff, at least for me it's like, it's hard. To not get 

[00:52:09] Badr: Spider-Man a thousand, you know, you go on Google Images and type in genre me to senior art.

[00:52:13] Badr: Yeah. And it'll be, you gotta go to page 1001 to get to anything. Not Spider-Man related. Yeah. 

[00:52:18] Ed: It's like, it's, which, which I totally understand, but just being able to see him work in, even like the western stuff, romance stuff. He did a Jungle Girl book, I think. Um, a couple covers for that. I forgot which one.

[00:52:31] Ed: There was so many of them back then. Um, but just. Seeing that he can pretty much do any genre. Yeah. And even like, he did like war comics, so he's done pretty much everything. But you know, definitely. Yeah. Spider-Man's gonna be his signature. 

[00:52:46] Badr: Yeah. Character for sure. Ian, you brought up a interesting point that I want to get to.

[00:52:50] Badr: Uh, you mentioned, you know, uh, Ramida Sr. And we've kind of talked, uh, ed br brought it up too, but Ramida Sr was, uh, promoted to art director, I think in, uh, 79, or it was right as Stan Lee was, was promoted, like President 70, publish 79, something like that. Yeah. And for those unaware, when you enter the role of art director for a comic company like Marvel, especially at that time, it means that his duties included supervising and hiring other artists, uh, providing corrections.

[00:53:17] Badr: Like we've kind of mentioned, uh, cover sketches when needed, really kind of being a hands-on, uh, in regards to anything artistic going on in Marvel. So that would also include, uh, character designs and, you know, uh, kind of a, a new piece of trivia for me was. The credit that John Ramida Sr. Gets for co-creating and helping design some iconic characters, uh, such as Punisher Wolverine.

[00:53:44] Badr: That was a new one for me. I didn't know that he, uh, you know, designed the whole, the original suit and the cat light look of, of Wolverine in his first appearance. Uh, Luke Cage, uh, he gets credited for Bullseye Tiger Brother Voodoo. And he also gave Black Widow that sleek black body suit that, you know, we all kind of know.

[00:54:00] Badr: And Mary Jane, which is another, you know, like Feather in the hat, right? Yeah. Like issue, I think her first full appearance is like issue 42. If I'm not mistaken. He is responsible for drawing the first full appearance of Mary Jane, which is the iconic scene that we all know and love by now, right? Like, face it Tiger.

[00:54:18] Badr: You hit the jackpot. How many times has that been homage on his own? You know, it's like he's got such. His bibliography of just Spider-Man. I think that's why it's so easy to just like look at, you know, just put a spotlight on his Spider-Man contributions cuz they're, they're huge, right? Like for the character, he essentially developed the lore that we all know and love.

[00:54:38] Badr: Like I 

[00:54:38] Ed: said, I did watch a couple interviews with him. He, I found out his, like first, uh, his first paid art gig was, um, basically, I'm not sure how he got recommended, but I guess this, uh, kinda rich doctor paid him to do this, kind of set up this kind of like art show in one of the floors of his hospital as some rich Dr.

[00:54:59] Ed: Guy. He was like 17. So he basically did these four foot by eight foot cardboard panels, which that's bitch to paint on, but, um, doing like medical illustrations and stuff like that to, and basically he was getting paid 60 bucks a week to do this. So it's basically four, uh, by eight cardboard panels on like wooden frames.

[00:55:22] Ed: For this kind of medical themed art show this doctor wanted him to do. And he was making more than his dad was doing this 60 bucks a week. And he's like, I was like, I got this gig in it, you know, I got paid for two months. I kept trying to stretch it out more, you know, but, uh, that was his first, uh, his first paid art gig was doing this like weird medical art show for this rich doctor.

[00:55:45] Ed: It's like Anthes anesthesiologist that he knew in New York. So I was, I thought that was a pretty, and he says, and the guy was like, do you have any pictures of this stuff? I was like, it was terrible. I don't wanna see that. It was awful. I was like, I thought it was good at the time. But no, he is like a kid.

[00:55:59] Ed: But imagine coming outta high school, like, and getting a gig that gets paid more than Pops does. So it's pretty, pretty wild. So you knew he was kind of destined to do something in this, in the, in the arts somehow? Mm-hmm. 

[00:56:13] Badr: That art director role. Meant that his style was the house style for Marvel. So things like merchandising, like it was Ramida Sr.

[00:56:21] Badr: Like everyone wants to base it off Ramida Sr. You know, like John Jack Kirby was the house style prior to him, which I think just says a lot that even though he's the second person to do it, that is still like a huge role in a huge honor to have like an entire company base. Their style on your artwork, I think says a lot to like just how fucking good you are.

[00:56:41] Badr: Yeah. 

[00:56:41] Ian Chalgren: Un under Roos. Oh, my Under roos were by, uh, John Ramida.

[00:56:48] Badr: Ian well said. It's like, look, kids aren't just flipping through the pages of your books with your art in it, but they're wearing your art. You know, they are, you know, playing with your art. You know, like, think of all the, uh, uh, toys and merchandise poster on the wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it, it's, mm-hmm. It makes sense why for so many people, his artwork is the quintessential Spider-Man because it's just like his style graced so many things.

[00:57:11] Badr: It's like, even if you probably aren't into comics, like I said, if you're, if you're someone from a certain age, I think if you, I think it's safe to say if you grew up in the seventies, especially the eighties, if you saw anything, spider-Man, it was probably a good chance a ramida Sr. Uh, spider-Man with all this praise they were giving.

[00:57:26] Badr: And one of the most interesting things I found was how humble the guy was, like I said earlier, almost like humbled to a detriment. Um, and a few of those interviews he talks about like, You know, uh, feeling, um, you know, uh, less than, maybe less than great because he came, uh, he came after, you know, like your dit cos and, and Kirbys, I'm trying to find this.

[00:57:47] Badr: Um, you gotta think 

[00:57:48] Ed: about like whose footsteps he had to fill. Yeah. You know, like you said, like Kirby with, I think fantastic for, he had to come in and do some stuff. Mm-hmm. Cema and then like Wally Wood and Daredevil and like Steve Ditko, like three of arguably the top comic book creators of the era.

[00:58:06] Ed: And he's shoulder to shoulder with them. He's like a colleague, you know, he's not a disciple. He wasn't like a a, you know, a student of these guys. He was a colleague and he was holding his own for sure. And he was able to transition from like freelance artists to office and basically made a entire career, which I think a lot of those guys didn't know how to.

[00:58:26] Ed: Smoothly make that transition or they would burn a lot of bridges or, you know, so he, he, he actually made that transition to office and was able to have such a, such longevity in this 

[00:58:36] Badr: business. Well said. Yeah. Ramida on a, on a few different interviews, but one in particular from 2002 for the comic reporter, he actually like details, his regret of not being a part of, like, that first generation of professional cartoonists.

[00:58:50] Badr: Like he always felt like he was, you know, once again, like coming in second place cuz he wasn't part of like that og, you know, set of names. And I, and I got a quote here I wanted to share from him from that article. He says, no matter what success I've had, I've always considered myself a guy who can improve on somebody else's concepts.

[00:59:07] Badr: He said, A writer and another artist can create something and I can make it better. Um, and apparently I did not cop or paste the rest of that quote, but it just goes to, uh, uh, the rest of the quote is basically him saying like, You know, I'm always improving other people's ideas. I'm never basically the one to come up with said idea.

[00:59:24] Badr: And I think that's a such a interesting, I guess like juxtaposition between how people view him and in his colleagues and his peers. I mean, I, I got a quote from Alex Ross here. That is, that thing sums up everything we're saying really well. He said, uh, about Ramida Sr. Quote. For me, John Spidey is a design of such perfection and beauty, so as to be simply the greatest looking character in comics by his hand, which is a remarkable compliment to get from someone like Alex Ross.

[00:59:52] Badr: But then you've got like his own internal, you know, ramit's internal views that he shared with the world, which completely like, kind of contradict that, that he's like, nah, you know, these guys are the greats. I just, you know, touched up and, and improved where I could, you know, what they created. Like always having that sense of like, damn, I didn't create these guys.

[01:00:10] Badr: I'm simply just playing with someone else's toys 

[01:00:12] Ed: is, I don't know if it's part of his, his generation or just. The fact that he did work most of his career in such a volatile industry. You know, like, oh this can end any second now. It was such a disposable, undervalued art form at that time. So that might lead into that kind of, you know, that kind of guess thought where you just second guessing, you said, well I don't wanna, you know, I'm not gonna say too much cuz I'm just doing comics big, you know, big deal.

[01:00:37] Ed: You know, it's just a lot of those guys had that, that train of 

[01:00:40] Badr: thought, that mentality. Well said. Good stuff. I mean, we, we truly fascinating guy. I mean like, you could just stare at his, his artwork for hours and I mean, once you start getting into his bio and learning about, you know, the, the ghost art, you know, the ghost artist period and the art director and just everything.

[01:00:58] Badr: He's had a hand and it's remarkable and hopefully, uh, one day soon we'll be able to really dive into his career in full detail. Cuz like I said, there's plenty more to be said about the legacy that Ramida Sr leaves behind, um, as well as the, you know, mini contribution that he's given the world of comics that we all enjoy.

[01:01:15] Badr: But I'd like to look to our listeners and ask them to chime in of a few words. Like I said, we weren't gonna cover everything in full detail, so if there's anything glaring that we missed, uh, that you want to chime in with, maybe there's, uh, something in particular that means the most to you. When you think of Ramida Sr.

[01:01:29] Badr: An image, a cover, a panel, a comic, whatever it may be. I invite you guys to join in on the conversation, man. Share some words about what Ramida Senior means to you, uh, in an email, or you can shoot us a dm. We'd love to hear what you guys got to say, but I think it's a, it's a perfect time to move into our next segment, which is our fist full of comics.

[01:01:47] Badr: Here we go.

[01:01:50] Badr: You can either have a mouthful of tea or fist full of comics. Yeah. Fist full of comics is a segment dedicated to helping all you comic curious newbies and loyal Wednesday warriors. Find the best new comics, upcoming titles, and fresh starting points that you can't afford to miss. And as always down to help us with that mission is our friend Ben Kingsbury, the owner of Jacksonville's premier comic shop, Gotham City Limit.

[01:02:18] Badr: He's compiled a list of the top three comics you can't afford to miss next month. So if you're someone looking for the right title or starting point to get into comics. We got you covered. Let's get some music going and see what he's got for us this week. All right, so Ben has gotten really good at creating a theme for his picks lately, and I'm all here for it.

[01:02:37] Badr: I, I love the creativity and this week is, is no different. I'm not gonna spoil what the theme is, but I will say there's a few image number ones on here that piqued my interest. You guys know how I feel about image number ones and those being like, easy recommendations for new comic readers. So here's his first pick of the week.

[01:02:53] Badr: Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, short box listener. I'm Ben Kay representing Gotham City Limit Jacksonville, Florida. You know what, let's just go ahead and take to the limit. What would you give up for a better tomorrow? First up, image Comics presents sacrifices number one right off the bat.

[01:03:13] Badr: This is an image number one, which means it's worth picking up regardless of the story and throwing. Rick. Remember, as the writer, think low or deadly class, and this has a making of a hit Comic. Tomorrow is Harmonious Paradise. Thanks. To the five families who make everything perfect, but what is their sacrifice theme for the day?

[01:03:33] Badr: The grass is always greener on the other side. There we go. Theme for the day, grass is always greener on the other side. And I'm gonna echo Ben's point. You can never go wrong with a Rick remainder joint if he's writing it and if it's a new image, number one, that's a win-win. All right, next up on Ben's list is another image number one that I'll go ahead and say, I think I might have found my personal favorite out of these three, but I'm gonna go ahead and let him tell you all about it.

[01:03:57] Badr: Here's pick number two from Ben. Next up Image Comics presents the call number one of a five part series. One of my personal favorite Marvel runs over the past five years is Kelly Thompson's 2020 Black Widow Run. It's a must read for any Black Widow fans. However, back to the call, Kelly Thompson promises to bring some, something is killing the children Horror vibes mixed with the little Goonies adventures.

[01:04:26] Badr: Five friends are about to find out that one of them has lied and it will change their lives forever. Remember, the grass is always greener on the other side. Ben 10 outta 10 theme this week, and great choice as well. The CU number one comes out August 16th. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. This is my, uh, i, I co-signed this pick, this cover looks amazing.

[01:04:48] Badr: Something so grabbing about this cover. Um, can't wait to check it out. All right, and last but not least on Ben's list. This one, uh, kind of hearkens back to a few episodes ago, ed, when we were talking about the whole Frank Miller cover art controversy. Oh, yeah. Well, that book is finally coming out. Here's Ben to tell us all about it.

[01:05:09] Badr: And last but not least, ghost writer Wolverine, weapons of Vengeance, alpha number one, presented by Marvel Comics. Does anyone write Wolverine stories better than Benjamin Percy? Nope. Am I a little biased because his name is Benjamin? Yep. But back to the story though, let's head back in time to the first ever meeting between Wolverine and Ghost Rider and its Prime for a first appearance to boot the Weapon X program is back, and this time they are playing with hell itself.

[01:05:41] Badr: All I have to say is the grass is always greener on the other side. Well, another week is come and gone and I'm still Ben Kay representing Gotham City Limit in Jacksonville, Florida. Remember, you don't have to climb mountains or run Colm steps to find the best comic shop in Jacksonville. With great power comes great responsibility and always take it to the limit.

[01:06:03] Ed: That one's a, but I do like the, uh, the Coliseum dig is pretty funny. 

[01:06:07] Badr: Makes up, makes up for it. That is absolutely inside Jackson Joke Problem Jack Space listeners. But once again, that was Ghost Rider and the, uh, ghost Rider Wolverine, weapons of Vengeance Alpha number one. That comes out August 9th. And what I'll say about this is there was a, we talked all about the, um, Frank Miller cover art controversy and, and people talking oh two about it.

[01:06:29] Badr: But there is a George Perez Wolverine variant to this. Oh, cool. That looks amazing. Like, I did not see this cover, and I don't know if I've ever seen George Fer draw Wolverine. This might be my first time seeing that. I don't know if you, I'm actually of the Xmen. He is drawn, but I might have to pick up this, uh, variant.

[01:06:46] Badr: He 

[01:06:46] Ian Chalgren: did some covers for the Burn Run. Uh, it's like 1 28, uh, pro to pro Tous saga. Uh, he did, he did a few covers. So there's, I would imagine there's a Wolverine on there, but I'm looking at that cover and that, I gotta get my hands on that. That looks awesome. 

[01:07:06] Badr: Sorry. So listeners once again, just in recap, uh, Ben's top three comic books for the month of August are the sacrifices.

[01:07:13] Badr: Number one, the Cole, number one in Ghost Rider, Wolverine, weapons of vengeance alpha number one. I already said that my pick outta these three is gonna be the cole, number one strictly for the cover. Uh, Kelly Thompson as the, as the writer. Um, I'm not familiar with this artist, Matea de Luli, I think that's how you say his name.

[01:07:31] Badr: But if, if it's, if the interior is anything like this cover I'm in for and it's a new image, number one. So that's my pick. Ian, of these three picks, which one, which one are you co-signing? The 

[01:07:40] Ian Chalgren: call looks fantastic. The variance look great. Um, I think it's funny that these two image comics that he picked have the logos at the bottom.

[01:07:54] Ian Chalgren: I tried to do some logos Yeah, at the bottom. And for some of the stuff I was doing for Chris Royal, And he just said, no, the logo has to go on the top because the retailers bitch if the logo's at the bottom. Oh, because if they have 'em stacked, which, oh yeah. So it's, so I think it's interesting that those logos are at the bottom.

[01:08:15] Ian Chalgren: The other thing about the call is the letterer, uh, Hasan. I'm not even gonna attempt to pronounce his last name. I worked with Hassan on, um, the All Against All. Nice. And he's super or super organic lettering. Um, very unique, uh, very unique style. Uh, you don't, you, I like, you could, once you look at his stuff, you, you could pick it out when you're looking at other comics.

[01:08:41] Ian Chalgren: My last comment about the ghost writer Wolverine, I gotta get that Perez cover. Um, that's stunning. And the Frank Miller, I love it. I absolutely love that image. I, I like it better in black and white. Than I do in color. Yeah, if you see, go look for the black and white image. It's much cooler than, I don't know what happened with the color there.

[01:09:05] Ian Chalgren: It's just, I don't know. He's not doing it for me. But the uh, The, the CU looks cool. That's most my pick as well. 

[01:09:13] Badr: Oh yeah. And ladies and Jess. Andhow Green. A k r, John Byrne, Xmen correspondent. R uh, uh, comic cover Design Correspondent. Good stuff. All right, ed, what about you, man? Which one are you co-signed?

[01:09:25] Badr: The clean Sweep. 

[01:09:26] Ed: It's the cu Yeah. Um, I'll probably getting, cause I like Rick remember, and I always think he has Interesting. 

[01:09:31] Badr: Wait, wait. The, the call or the other one? Um, 

[01:09:34] Ed: so the call for sure, but I'm probably gonna get the Rick Reinders. Well 

[01:09:38] Badr: Got it. The sacrifices. Yeah, the sacrifices. There's a free comic book day, um, issue of the sacrifices that came out.

[01:09:43] Badr: Uh, if I got out, I'll let 

[01:09:44] Ed: you borrow, but the Cole like definitely sounds the most interesting out of the 

[01:09:47] Badr: three. Good stuff. All right, listeners, as a reminder, Ben's picks will be linked in the show notes. So if any of those pique your interest or any, if any of the commentary, uh, colorful commentary we provided, piques your interest, check them out and make sure that you get your preorders in with your local comic shops.

[01:10:03] Badr: Now, uh, like I said, these are books for, uh, that are coming out in August, so you'll have to get your pre-orders in, uh, here in the next week or two for final order cutoff. And remember, even if you don't live in Jax, you can still take it to the limit. Comics, collectibles and exclusive variant covers that you won't find anywhere else are available on gotham city limit.com.

[01:10:22] Badr: I think the latest, uh, Gotham City Limit exclusive that I I want to mention is, uh, they have a run of, uh, what is it? Okay, here it is. They got this run of edge of spider verse number three. So I think the second appearance or the, the first full story appearance of Spider Boy. They have a limited run of 667 copies, which is an interesting number to go by, drawn by Tyler Kirkham.

[01:10:46] Badr: These are available on the Gotham City Limit website. If cash is a little tight, we are doing a giveaway for one of these and I'll mention the rules, um, after a music break. But those are your three options for today. Big shout outs to Ben over at Gotham City Limit for providing those for always being a good sport and for such a great theme as well.

[01:11:03] Badr: And Ian, I'm have links in these show notes for people to download, uh, both books of yours, the uncanny covers, as well as the Rom book. Um, I have links to the website, uh, but do you have anything else that you wanna share with the listeners? Any upcoming projects or anything of the sorts? Feel free to shame this plug away.

[01:11:19] Badr: Sure. 

[01:11:19] Ian Chalgren: Thank you. Um, just wanna represent, uh, SGY, Chris Royal's and Ashley Woods imprint. Um, they've been so great to me. Um, like I said, I got some books that I'm working on. Everything's secret. I don't understand the secrecy in this industry. I just want to tell you, um, one of them, well, two of 'em, two of the books I'm working on are be super, super cool.

[01:11:44] Ian Chalgren: Um, I think I can say that one of them is, An artist edition, a real one, but it's not for i d w so I'll say that and leave it alone. I don't wanna get fired before I even get started, you know? 

[01:12:02] Badr: Do you know the amount of guilt I would have, Ian, if you can fired because of us? That would break my heart. I'd be like, no.

[01:12:09] Badr: That'd be so ironic too, the fact that I, I got him on the show to like spotlight this great thing that he's doing on his own and he tickets, what the hell? 

[01:12:16] Ian Chalgren: Yeah. I'll, I'll get, I'll get blacklisted once this thing posts, but, uh, no, it's, it's not an I D w, our dis edition. It is the same format, different company.

[01:12:28] Ian Chalgren: Um, but it's gonna be cool. Yeah. Super excited about that. And just thank you guys. Uh, For bringing me on. Wow. Uh, what an honor, what a treat. And, um, need to send me your, uh, mailing address, cuz maybe there'll be a couple of things popping in the mail for the two of you here soon. 

[01:12:46] Badr: No, I got you covered. I'm gonna send that, um, me expeditiously.

[01:12:49] Badr: S t I would say. I got you. But it's been, it's been an honor to have you on. Yes. Uh, fantastic work. Love what you're putting out into the universe. Thank you for being an inspiration and thank you for being a co-host today, man. You have a good rest of your day. All right. Thanks, Ian. Thank you. All right. And for the rest of you listeners, don't go anywhere cuz like I said, we're going to officially announce another comic giveaway contest.

[01:13:10] Badr: We're gonna read some emails. And we're gonna get to our champion picks this week. But first we're gonna go on music break. I got some music from our guy Mecca, the Marvelous that I wanna play. And uh, yeah. And then we'll get to the rest of the show. Stay tuned,

[01:13:55] Badr: yo, and we are back once again, that was music by Mecca the marvelous. If you like any of the music that we play on our show, whether it's the intro, the the background music, the music that we play on, music break, check out the short box music team. I have a link to each individual producer's, uh, website and, and SoundCloud, et cetera.

[01:14:14] Badr: So if you like music from me of The Marvelous or DJ Crumbs Lear, our collectable beats, check out the short box music team linked at the bottom of the show notes. Now, before we get to emails or go any further, it's time to announce this month's Comic Giveaway contest. We are close to hitting our 400th episode.

[01:14:34] Badr: We are planning a colossal q and a episode for the 400th episode, which might include some familiar voices you haven't heard in a long time in the same room. Hint and hint, and we want you to send us your best, most creative and entertaining question. So if you got a burning question about our favorite comics, if you got a question for one of us specifically, like say Ashley or Cesar, hint and hint again, or if you want to hear some behind the scenes stories about the podcast.

[01:14:57] Badr: Now is your chance. Everyone that sends in a question for us to answer will be answered in a raffle to win some awesome comics that really we should be charging for. But no, that's not how we roll. We're giving away some comics. The grand prize is a copy of Edge of Spider verse number three that got them city limit retail exclusive variant.

[01:15:16] Badr: Fun fact, there's only 667 copies out there, and one of those could be yours. Since this is a special occasion, we're gonna open the short box hotline for this contest. So that means you can record and submit a short voicemail@speakpipe.com slash the short box. You can send in a question by emailing us at the short box jacks gmail.com.

[01:15:37] Badr: Make sure to keep it short and sweet, or you can hit us up on Instagram and Twitter and send us a DM there. Once again, in recap, send in a question for us to answer for our 400th episode by the end of the month, maybe even sooner than that, we might record, uh, before then. So send us your question as soon as you hear this.

[01:15:55] Badr: You'll automatically be entered in a raffle to win some comics, including the grand prize of Edge of Spider Risk Number three, that exclusive variant you can email, leave a voicemail, or DM US links for everything I just covered will be in the show notes. Get those submissions in as quick as possible.

[01:16:11] Badr: I'm looking forward to seeing what we get. With that said, we do have some emails to read today. Ed, we got some fan mail from our glorious short box nation, and the first one we're gonna start off with. Is the newest member of our Patreon community. Uh, we got a new member and that is Captain Bruce Squid who goes by Chris Jinx, and he's gonna get around applause, captain Bruce Squid for making one of the best decisions, financial decisions of his life this year.

[01:16:40] Badr: Right? Good investment. Yeah. Great investment. Sound investment. I mean, what's the name of that? A financial guy on tv. Something Kramer. Mad Money with Jim Kramer, right? Even Jim Kramer would agree that investing in our Patreon is a, is a smart financial move. All right, so big shout outs to Chris Jinx, a k a Captain Bruce Grid, uh, Bruce Squid for not only becoming a member of our Patreon community and helping us, you know, keep the lights on and helping us keep this, uh, podcast going, but also for submitting the first email that we're gonna read today.

[01:17:12] Badr: Captain Brew writes Sin and he says, yo, what up? Short Box. Patreon Nation feels pretty good to say that first time joining a Patreon and it was a pretty easy to join. Yours, you guys put in the effort and it shows and provide awesome entertainment. Throughout my work week. I'm normally gone for about four days a week, so any way to get my geek on is appreciated.

[01:17:34] Badr: After the Flashpoint episode, I had to go back and reread it. It's been a while and I found a copy pretty cheap at my local shop. Scare cro, year one. Books one and two and Superman. Doomed. That's all I have for now. Thanks for all you do. I'm assuming those are his champions of the week. Have you heard of any of these Scarecrow?

[01:17:51] Badr: Year one and two? I didn't even know Scarecrow had a year one and two. I haven't 

[01:17:54] Ed: read them. I've seen Superman 

[01:17:56] Badr: doomed. I spelled scare Crow. So wrong. I tried to, what? Google didn't even know what you wrong, was like, what the fuck? I'm spelling scary year like an idiot. Sorry. Scary year. Scare crow. Year one and two.

[01:18:08] Badr: Okay, let's see. Let's see what this is all about. Oh, is this based on the video game? Bruce Jones and Sean Murphy. Whoa, whoa. All right. That's worth checking out. All right. Yeah. Can color me interested. So this is a two issue series. Came out in 2005, had no idea that Shawn Murphy, uh, did Batman work before White Knight.

[01:18:27] Badr: Yeah. Watch it be like a different Sean Murphy. I'm like completely wrong. No, no. I think Lou, Lou, Lou Ridge I think is a, um, what is it? Color or an artist? No, he's a colorist and I think he's done a lot of Sean Murphy's stuff. Okay. Not good Fucking champion. Yeah. Wow. Joined the Patreon, gave us his money and gave us, and was still humble enough to give us, uh, uh, some good champions.

[01:18:49] Badr: Which one is Superman Dooms That where he becomes like a doomsday. Yeah, that doomsday virus thing. I've got a soft spot for Doomsday Man. Like Doomsday is one of my favorite. A memorable character. Yeah. Just, you know, he's just like complete bat. Remember, you know what it is? It's because the Superman, Nintendo game, super Nintendo game was the, when he punched the guy in 

[01:19:06] Ed: the space and then Superman is like, Hey, what happened?

[01:19:10] Ed: Oh, this guy punched me through space. 

[01:19:12] Badr: Well, there's a scene in the video game where, uh, the first level you play as Clark Kent Superman. Mm-hmm. And then you fight Doomsday and then there's a scene like Right. I think as you beat him, he gets back up and there's like a little, you know, uh, what pass as a cut scene for Super Nintendo where they both like punch each other Yeah.

[01:19:31] Badr: And then they both die. Yeah. And I remember as a kid, like thinking. Whoa. Like a moment like that where it caught me off guard. And it was like years later that I'd actually read the comic and it was like, oh, that was in the comic book. Oh, that's crazy. Okay. Good stuff. All right. Captain Brew. I like it. I like it.

[01:19:48] Badr: And welcome aboard to, uh, to the Patreon as well. All right. We got another email as well. This one, uh, comes from Matt Godwin who joined the Patreon as well a month ago. It seems like a very Patreon or a very patron heavy email, uh, section today. Hmm. Interesting. You think it's a conspiracy Ed? I'm not saying I just, that was interesting.

[01:20:07] Badr: You think I'm sending other people's emails that are non-res, like must folder, you know, just a coincide. You can't prove it. You can't prove it, right? 

[01:20:13] Ed: I don't know. I don't have access, 

[01:20:14] Badr: so, you know. All right. It's coincident. This one comes from Matt Godwin. He sents it via DM on Instagram and told me I could read it on the, uh, on the next pod.

[01:20:22] Badr: He wrote Yo Short box team, sorry for using the incorrect greeting last time. What did you say last time? I think you just said like, hi. Last time. And you know, like, I guess what he's noticed is that everyone that emails always uses uh, my catchphrase yo. Uh, but he goes on and writes no prompt, so I thought I'd write it.

[01:20:39] Badr: Wait, yo's 

[01:20:39] Ed: a catchphrase. That's just one word. That's a catchphrase. God damnit. 

[01:20:42] Badr: Okay. All right. Alright. Right. What you want me to do? Yo, it's got eight, eight Os. Yeah, that's what it is. The unnecessarily extra eight os are the other words. You know, I treat as two words. Fair enough. All right. Uh, he writes No prompt as I thought I'd write in the champ in a couple things and maybe prompt you.

[01:20:58] Badr: Instead. The tables have turned. Firstly, I read Little Bird and that book was absolutely beautiful. I love the story arc and uncovering the layers within, and the art was phenomenal. Secondly, nice house on the lake, been reading more horror thriller. And this is up there with the best I've read so far. It is really awesome.

[01:21:18] Badr: Uh, he goes on now, I started my comic journey as a DC fanboy and now deep into indie stuff, but more often not. It's all manga. I can feel you on that. Uh, I was needing some inspiration for more for Marvel and extended my Marvel Col and extending my Marvel collection. So would love some reading recommendations.

[01:21:35] Badr: Keep up the awesome artwork. And then he writes in, uh, I, I think this language is called, um, Maori. Maori. Uh, he writes Hira Hira rah, which is Maori for farewell. Ps Sorry for stitching you up and making you read Maori. Well, I guess the fact that I already can't spell or pronounce English words. Yeah, I mean, you know, this kind of, it sounds like I'm trying to pronounce that, uh, English word, but let's see how it's properly said.

[01:22:01] Badr: I didn't know, uh, I'll be honest. Uh, Maori is a different, is a new language for me. You ever heard of that? Ed Uhuh. And that is a New Zealand, uh, language for anyone. Oh, New Zealand. Oh, New Zealand, okay. Yeah, because Matt Godwin's from New Zealand, he's Oh, the New Zealand guy. He's our signature and, and, uh, uh, token, he's our token.

[01:22:16] Badr: Oh, so that's international Aboriginal 

[01:22:17] Ed: language. Maori. Is that the aboriginal 

[01:22:20] Badr: language? Matt, go ahead. And, and so screw us on that. Or I'm sure we could Google it, but it's a lot funner when our listeners Ooh, here, here I got, I found a video. Wow. Wow. I'm not even 

[01:22:30] Ed: close. De de, 

[01:22:35] Badr: okay. You learn something new every day.

[01:22:37] Badr: All right. Yo, this is why we need more international. That's awesome. Listeners, right? School is on some like new words. So that was from Matt Godwin and his question. Is, uh, so he needs reading recommendations for Marvel. He's trying to step up his Marvel, uh, uh, reading game and he needs some recommendations.

[01:22:53] Badr: Ed, what, what are some titles and must read Marvel stuff that come to the top of the head? Oh, man, I, I gave it to you first, cuz I need time to think real quick. I forgot all about this word. Uh, 

[01:23:03] Ed: I would say, um, Daredevil born 

[01:23:06] Badr: again classic for sure. Okay. Um, let me, lemme see what I can think of. Okay. Uh, if you've never read Infinity Gauntlet, the original series, okay.

[01:23:15] Badr: I highly recommend that. Look into Jonathan Hickman's Marvel stuff you can't go wrong if you do his Avengers Run that leads into New Avengers and then Secret Wars or Fantastic Four. I think if you start with those two, maybe the Avengers one, cuz it leads into Secret Wars and there's a big payoff. Uh, I think you'll, I think you'll thank me.

[01:23:31] Badr: You'll be sending us an email saying thank you. Uh, marvels, uh, just Marvels, uh, written by, um, oh my God. Uh, Kurt Busk and artist Alex Ross, who actually does the interiors as well as the artwork. You know what, actually start with Marvels. All right? You wanna start with Marvels, cuz that's gonna give you like the context and the history of, of the Marvel universe in a, a more modern and, you know, um, like a, a, a self-contained story.

[01:23:56] Badr: Would you agree, ed? Like that's a good start. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I'd say Marvels by ki eg. And Alex Ross. And then if you want to get into the sci-fi, a little more heady and, and, you know, uh, uh, uh, very, uh, pros, heavy storytelling, go into the Avengers, Hickman Run, uh, spider-Man stuff. I mean, shit. We just dedicated a whole episode basically to Spider-Man.

[01:24:15] Badr: I would say, try to find any, um, like any of those collected books featuring John or me to seniors. Uh, spider-Man runs, you can't go wrong for the iconic stuff like Def Gwen, Stacy, or any of the Green Goblin stuff. 

[01:24:27] Ed: Probably that first couple trades of the, uh, miss Marvel, the 

[01:24:31] Badr: Gee Willow Wilson, uh, stuff, right?

[01:24:33] Badr: The one that, yeah. Oh my God, everything's starting to come back to me. I, I actually, I should just look at my freaking, uh, uh, shelf all around me. Okay, here's some more for you Mac. All right. And for, I guess anyone that's like, I wanna get into some new Marvel stuff. Here you go. Okay. Also add, uh, the 2000, it's a 2006 crossover event, um, called Annihilation that deals with all the space characters.

[01:24:52] Badr: It was written by Keith Giffin, wrote the original Annihilation series, but then there was Annihilation Conquest that was done by, um, uh, Dan Abnet and Andy Lanning. Um, I might get those two names mixed up, but you can't go wrong with that Annihilation run, especially like if you have no basis or, uh, uh, you know, knowledge of like the Marvel space characters like Nova Silver Surf Drax, and all that.

[01:25:16] Badr: Great story. Eric. I'm also gonna recommend Planet Hulk by Greg Pack. And, uh, the, the right artist escapes me at the moment, but that was like one of the first. Um, current comic series I collected. So we can't go wrong with planet Hulk. Ed, you want to add some more? Yeah, I want to 

[01:25:32] add, 

[01:25:32] Ed: um, David Walker, Sanford Green's run on Power Man and Iron Fist came out 2016.

[01:25:38] Ed: That's a fun. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. It's hard cuz it's gonna depend on, I'd have to know more of what he's into, you know, cuz our stuff is went from street level to cosmic. That's a good point. Power man. Iron fist too. Infinity Golet. That's a wide berth, but yeah, depending on the kind of, yeah, just like I said, if you wanna write back for sure, like Yeah, please send us like some of your favorites and then we can give you a better.

[01:26:05] Ed: Says, kinda maybe 

[01:26:05] Badr: narrow it down somewhere. Yeah. He says that he, his, his main bread and butter was DC so he's trying to get into, uh, Marvel. So I guess Mac, tell us what are some of your favorite DC comics? Yeah. And then I guess if you're looking for any particular vibe and Yeah. Yeah. If you want modern stuff or more Yeah.

[01:26:20] Badr: That help stuff. But I think based on what we've given you so far, I think that's a good start. You can't go wrong with Marvels or any of the Hickman Marvel stuff. Annihilation is like a classic, um, planet Hulk. Uh, it's one of the titles that Ed mentioned. Yeah, I think those are good stuff. Oh, immortal Hulk too.

[01:26:36] Badr: Oh yeah, that's the current one that's like phenomenal. Just wrapped up. Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:26:39] Ed: Good stuff. Lots of good. That's plenty, plenty out there. 

[01:26:42] Badr: All right. So those are our emails. Big shout outs to Chris Jenks and Mack Godwin for the emails. While you brainstorm a good question for us to answer, we're gonna go ahead and slide into our final segment and tell you about the best entertainment options, comics and non comics that we've been enjoying since the last time we talked.

[01:26:58] Badr: It's time for Champion season.

[01:27:05] Badr: It's time. It's time. 

[01:27:06] Ian Chalgren: Champion, 

[01:27:07] Badr: champion,

[01:27:11] Badr: champion, champion Champions. Champion season is the part of the show where we highlight everything else that has consumed our free time, which includes movies, TV series, books, video games, and any other entertainment options that we'd personally recommend to friends just like you. Uh, ed, how about you Do us the honors kick us off.

[01:27:31] Badr: What? You got a champion? I got 

[01:27:32] Ed: a few. Um, I'll do a music one first. And this was a very pleasant surprise. I was not expecting. This has just dropped a couple days ago. Um, juvenile did a tiny desk concert, which is. Dude. Incredible 

[01:27:54] Badr: Dude. I swear to God this was on my list as well. Really? And I was, there was a part of me that was like, I don't know, is, is our listeners are, are they on that?

[01:28:03] Badr: Are they on that? Like that. I'm glad that you brought it up because I'm gonna go ahead and coach champion this with you. It is, 

[01:28:09] Ed: like I said, it's, I love that series. I think there's some good ones. Hip hop with live instruments is very, very, yeah. It's hard to beat. He had, when, when you're bringing out like people from the Louis Louisiana Philharmonic to do back that ass up at the end, it's pretty awesome.

[01:28:29] Ed: It's special moment they, it's funny cuz I did read the little blurb, like when they describe it, when they first asked them to do it, it's like, what the fuck is this? No. 

[01:28:36] Badr: Get outta here. Well, from my understanding, it was a user on Twitter was like, Hey juvenile, you should like juvenile. Or it was tagging one or the other.

[01:28:43] Badr: Like, Hey, you should do, uh, tiny Desk. And Jovie was like, what the fuck is a tiny this? Hell no. And I think, uh, enough people like re-shared it and, and you know, there was like a little campaign quote unquote going on to get 'em on. So this was kind of cool that you got to see its inception in a, like, how, you know, it's just awesome.

[01:29:00] Badr: Like the time that we live in where a one tweet could just, you know, result in something iconic as this. Right. 

[01:29:07] Ed: And it's, I think it's the only one that has had an encore. Um, yeah. 

[01:29:12] Badr: Yeah, because they do it and it's funny. Strike that us up twice with more 

[01:29:16] Ed: energy. You're like, more e And they actually go into the crowd, which I don't think I've seen 

[01:29:20] Badr: before.

[01:29:20] Badr: We gotta see Peggy from finance, like backing that thing up. I was like, whoa. 

[01:29:25] Ed: And it's so funny cuz the credits start rolling and then you hear one more time. He's like, you wanna do this one more time? He's got like eight, at least eight, eight up to 10 musicians on there. 

[01:29:36] Badr: And it's, and he's bringing in like, like you said, like, you know, the strings.

[01:29:40] Badr: Yeah. He's bringing in like other, uh, uh, Grammy award-winning, uh, uh, musicians. It, yeah. It's awesome. 

[01:29:45] Ed: Yeah. Uh, trombone Shorty comes in the last couple of tracks. It's, it's an incredible performance. I, I feel like juvie 

[01:29:52] Badr: told him if I'm gonna do this. Yeah. 

[01:29:55] Ed: I'm sure that's part 

[01:29:55] Badr: of the deal. I'm not censoring shit.

[01:29:56] Badr: No, because I, I won't, like normally I feel like the artists, especially rap artists, tend to pick the more radio friendly choices. He didn't but juvie did all of it. Like, you know, the radio stuff that we all know and love, like some, some deep, some BSides and did not censor shit. No. 

[01:30:13] Ed: And it's like, and it's not too long.

[01:30:15] Ed: It's maybe under 30 minutes. It's probably 20, 30 minutes the sink. It is such a good. Very fun performance, high energy. Especially in that setting. Cuz I've watched a handful of 'em. The hip hop ones always stand out to me. I think this one and the Big Daddy Kane one was, oh, now ones probably my favorite.

[01:30:32] Ed: Cuz you get a lot more, you, you seem to get a lot more back and forth with the, with the, uh, with the crowd in those. And, uh, yeah. It's, it's, it's fun. It was like, I watched it twice. It was awesome. I was like, this is great. 

[01:30:45] Badr: You know what was not, you know what was not on my podcast Bingo card this year was teaming up with you to champion, uh, a juvenile tiny dust.

[01:30:53] Badr: That's awesome. I will recommend though, ed, if you've never seen the Anderson Pock one. It is, yes. That's a good one. Oh, that, okay. So you're up on these. Yeah. Charlie, uh, there's a, there's a Charlie Wilson one that happened earlier this year that is also phenomenal as well. 

[01:31:07] Ed: Yeah. That one's on the list. I haven't seen 'em, but yeah, that Anderson P one was great.

[01:31:10] Ed: They're, that's such a fun idea. And it's, it's like a nice little mini intimate Yeah. Concert. So you get. Some of the energy of a live show and a very seemingly awkward setting to have a set up, a band like, but yeah, juvenile one, that's, that was probably one of the funnest ones I've seen for sure. Um, next to our comic related back to comics, um, the first one is, um, I d w just came out with this Rocketeer one shot, um, in May and with a story with Adam Hughes.

[01:31:45] Ed: Adam Hughes actually doing a story in this, which was based on a, a script that was never done from the screenwriters from the 1991 movie. Um, Dan, uh, Dan Bison and, uh, Paul de Mayo, I believe. And so, but you get, you get a good story, a good amount, maybe a 10 plus page story from Adam Hughes. There's a story with like an Amelia Earhart Italian story, so very cool character.

[01:32:13] Ed: I love the Rocketeer. Jay Lee does a nice four page story. Never thought Jay Lee in the Rocketeer in the same sentence, but I definitely wanna see more of that. Yeah, just came out. Should be still available. Um, but Dave Steven's Rocketeer, like one of my all time favorite kind of pulp characters.

[01:32:31] Ed: Definitely check that out. The, uh, next one I'm excited about because Darkhorse will be reprinting all of, uh, Richard Corbin, the late Richard Corbin's library. So they started with their, uh, they started with Murky World, which was a mini series that started in, uh, the Darkhorse presents and then finished in the, uh, the Heavy Metal magazine.

[01:32:54] Ed: So this was his last work. So basically it started in 2011 and then he worked on it from 2017 to 2021. If you like Richard Corbin, like I said, these are nice hardcore covers by Dark Horse. They're, I'm not sure exactly what, from the library they're gonna reprint. This was probably the most accessible for them to do, but very nice dust cover, very nice layout.

[01:33:22] Ed: Um, like I said, we just had a great book designer, very nice design with this book as well. Um, fear Richard Corbin fan. Like I said, his stuff is gonna be coming out, uh, over the next few years. Hardcore or uh, uh, dark Horse is doing a, uh, hardcover republishing of all his work. So I am super excited. But that's all I 

[01:33:43] Badr: have for today.

[01:33:44] Badr: Good picks, man. Good. I mean, nothing was gonna top the, uh, tiny Desk Juvenile, but these are, are, are, you know, noteworthy picks right here. This Jay Lee, uh, story. Nice. I think I know what we're gonna use all of our Patreon money for. And that's to get Jay Lee to draw more Rocketeer. This is awesome. It's beautiful.

[01:34:00] Badr: Yeah. And it's like, damn, like before. That's it. The rest of it. Yeah. Gimme another page. That's good stuff. Good picks head. All right, I'm gonna keep mine. Uh, um, alright. I got a Spider-Man one since we've been talking about Spider-Man, this entire episode. The first, uh, pick of mine is an, is an old documentary that's available on YouTube.

[01:34:17] Badr: I kind of forgot about it until, uh, drew sent it my way, but it is called Symbio Spider-Man. The Saga of the Black costume. I think this was the documentary that came out, um, uh, around the same time as Spider-Man three. I don't know if it was part of the DVD or just was put out around the same time, but from 2007, it's, it's exactly what you think it is.

[01:34:36] Badr: It's, it tells the story of the black suit, uh, the black costume, uh, for Spider-Man. So they interview people like Tom DeFalco, Ron Friends, and a bunch of other, uh, writers and people that were working in comics, specifically Marvel at the time that like made the suit and put it out. And you learn so much about like, Know it's origin, it's reception at the time, which was not very positive.

[01:34:59] Badr: So, uh, before Amazing Spider-Man 2 52, which is the first, uh, I guess, appearance of the black suit in, in, in the, uh, the series. It leaked to the fans, I think in a preview or something like that. And they got a bunch of hate mail. Like, what the hell? Like, why would you ruin perfection? Spider-Man Suit is great.

[01:35:15] Badr: What is this? And they, and, and that is why it didn't last so long, cuz as soon as they got the hate mail, they were like, oh shit, let's go ahead and bring it back. Let's figure out a story. But they needed to wait until Secret War is eight. So that way they could explain how he got it and then, you know, it was like, kind of backtrack.

[01:35:30] Badr: Alien goo guys. Yeah. So, well in between that apparently like then the, the mood kind of shifted and people were like kind of big fans of it and they were already in the process of like writing a story to get rid of it. So yeah, if you're interested in like behind the scenes stuff like that, um, like a snapshot into, uh, Marvel comics and pop culture at the time.

[01:35:48] Badr: Uh, this documentary, like I said, is on YouTube is 30 minutes, but it's fascinating and I guarantee you'll, you'll learn at least one new thing about the Black Suit Spider-Man. My other champion though is the Dungeons and Dragon Honor Among Thieves movie. Um, I rented it to, uh, I was gonna try to catch it in theaters, but I missed it.

[01:36:08] Badr: But Amazon Prime has it available to rent for like three, four bucks. Oh, rented it. Loved it. You don't have to know shit about Dungeons and Dragon. This is essentially just a fantasy, heist comedy movie. I think if you're into Dungeons and Dragons, there's probably plenty of Easter eggs that you could be like, oh shit, they mentioned this from the game, and you know this from the lore.

[01:36:27] Badr: But just as a casual fan, it's a fun movie. It's got a lot of heart. It is really well written. Like the jokes are well thought out. They don't feel too cheap. I mean, granted, you know, there's a a few moments where it's like a little corny, but overall well-written plot, great character interactions, like yeah, I had a, it's just really inviting.

[01:36:44] Badr: Just a great cast of characters to you. Long story short, check out Dungeons and Dragon on Among Thieves. It's only like three or four bucks to run on Amazon Prime, but I guarantee you it, it is well worth your time. Those are my champions. And that is the end of a very long recording today, but a very fun recording man.

[01:37:03] Badr: It was awesome to meet Ian and be inspired in that regard. Like I said, in uh, earlier, I'm gonna have links to those two books that he put out, the Uncanny Covers book and the Rahm Art book. Ed, it was an honor to, we have the talk about John or me, EDA Senior with you. Yeah, it was fun. It was a pleasure doing, uh, uh, artist spotlights.

[01:37:19] Badr: It's got me thinking. We gotta, we've been stalling our feet on a new artist spotlight episode. We just gotta do one. All right. I, I miss doing them. Besides that, that's our show for today, right? I can't stall any longer. The outro music is starting to play. That means, uh, it's time to wrap this up. If you enjoyed this episode, the only thing I ask is that you help us spread the word, share this episode with a friend or someone you know that loves comics as much as we do.

[01:37:43] Badr: And if you're feeling extra generous, go ahead and leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It won't cost you nothing, but it really does mean a lot to us, especially to promote the show and, and, you know, encourage new listeners to check it out. Uh, let's see, what else? Some more housekeeping items.

[01:37:59] Badr: Um, oh, me and Cesar, we will be doing a, another live stream flipping through the, this month's previous catalog. Uh, next Wednesday. So the Wednesday after this episode drops July 12th. That is a Wednesday evening. We're gonna be doing another live stream. I'm gonna be sharing the link on our Patreon, and I'll also share the link to that on our Instagram.

[01:38:18] Badr: So if you wanna hang out with me and Cesar, or we record a fun episode, be on the lookout for that. And if you are local to Jax for all of our local homies, uh, we are teaming up with Ryan over at GAM to throw a Marvel trivia night on the evening of Sunday, July 16th. That'll be at Tepe, uh, over there in San Marco.

[01:38:39] Badr: I'll have more information and a link to that in the show notes. But come on out for a Marvel themed, uh, meetup and, and a hangout, so you got a live stream to look forward to an an in-person event if you want. And of course, another great podcast drop in next week. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, go read your comic books, continue to make mine and your short box, and I'll talk to you next week.

[01:39:02] Badr: Peace.