Episode 98 - Spawn 25 and King Spawn 33

[00:00:00] Speaker A: So, Spawn, whoever you are, whatever you are, if you can hear this, I'm with you, buddy, all the way. Good evening, and welcome to the Mal bulge. This is regarding Spawn, the world's best spawn podcast. I am your co host, John Fisher. [00:00:50] Speaker B: And I am your co host, David Williams. And Johnny. Johnny, I know we've said it a lot, but it is evermore, ever more applicable. There's so much spawn. [00:01:01] Speaker A: I know it's taking over my life. [00:01:04] Speaker B: I went to the shop a few weeks ago, and the boys were just like, all of this is Spawn. Did you want to get anything else? And I was like, I can't. [00:01:12] Speaker A: I can't. I can only get spawn. [00:01:14] Speaker B: So. But luckily, it's roped a couple of them in. At least one of them has been like, I read that spawn kills every other spawn. It's pretty good. So I really like that. It was great. There's so much just, like, jam packed in it. [00:01:30] Speaker A: I know. I gotta read it again. [00:01:31] Speaker B: There's that artist. Man, is maybe a little bit insane. Because he's like, this is kind of hoping that they. We might have a little bit of an appearance in there. Which would have been hilarious, but. Highest of hopes. Yeah, the spank on. But, yeah, here we are. We'll talk about that when we get there. [00:01:55] Speaker A: We'll talk about that when we get there. At a comic con, probably. [00:01:57] Speaker B: Maybe. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Or c, two, e, two. Not comic Con. C, two, e, two. [00:02:01] Speaker B: Cause San Diego to spoilers. San Diego Comic Con is going on as we record this. So there will probably be a lot of news that comes out. Between this record and the actual release. So if we don't cover something or say something. That gets answered by an announcement this weekend. Hey, that's just the way time works. [00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. When's the big panel? [00:02:26] Speaker B: I think there's a big one tomorrow. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:29] Speaker B: I think because I didn't look at the panel schedule. I looked at the who's going to be at the booth schedule, like, at the McFarland booth. And the big people are going to be there tomorrow. The appearance of Gail Simone. Which does that mean Gail Simone's gonna be the second female writer of respond title? [00:02:50] Speaker A: Hmm. Possibly. [00:02:52] Speaker B: That would be pretty dope secret. [00:02:53] Speaker A: We did get the announcement about the King spawn movie. [00:02:56] Speaker B: Oh, hell, yeah. Yeah. That came out, like, as we were. As we were talking about something else and being like, you know, I wonder what they're gonna do with the movie. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Then it came out. [00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So very excited. [00:03:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm. Hopefully it'll keep that King spawn vibe of those early issues. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. The gritty darkness, the grimdark. They're gonna send spawn to the Warhammer 40K universe. So it's grimdark. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Yeah. It's gonna be rated r, so that's possible. [00:03:32] Speaker B: That's good. That's good. Yeah. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Like, rated r rated rhino. [00:03:37] Speaker B: Man, I've, I both loved and hated having to call for the movie times on the phone, because invariably somebody started trying to talk to me when the movie times I wanted to hear were coming up. [00:03:48] Speaker A: Like, stop talking. I'm trying to hear this. You can't go back. Yeah, yeah. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Sometimes if it was at the beginning of the recording, you could just call again. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Because, you know, why wait when you can just call again? That's what happens to me when I'm trying to pay a bill and, like, I'm lost in the automated system sauce, and I'm like, I don't know how to get back. I'm just gonna call again. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I've done that. [00:04:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:12] Speaker A: Especially trying to talk to a pharmacist at a Walgreens. [00:04:15] Speaker B: Oh, boy. Oh, no. My mom was a pharmacist at an independent pharmacy my entire life, except for the few years she worked at a hospital, so. Independent pharmacy, or get the fuck out of here. Every time we have to fill something at a major chain pharmacy, it's just a headache. [00:04:31] Speaker A: But, yeah, that's true. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Independent pharmacies, y'all go find them. They're real good. [00:04:36] Speaker A: And you should also find some independent comics. [00:04:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, some independent comics at some independent comic book stores, because spawn started. [00:04:45] Speaker A: As kind of an indie comic, in a way. [00:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Like a, like a big budget indie comic. [00:04:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:51] Speaker B: I guess all of image was, image was the blumhouse of early nineties comics. [00:04:57] Speaker A: How perfect that they're doing the movie. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's synergy. I think they call that corporate synergy, Johnny. [00:05:03] Speaker A: Like I've said before, they got all that five nights at Freddy's money, so they're ready to spend it. [00:05:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I'm. I am ready to give them more of it. [00:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm, uh, you know, I'm excited for the swan movie. I think it'll be, hopefully, it'll be cool. [00:05:18] Speaker B: There's a, there's a good pedigree on the writing staff. [00:05:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:22] Speaker B: You know, they aren't going to be beholden to the, the pg 13 rating, so. And as we all know, barely anything is too disgusting to be, to be voted out of being r anymore, unless you're talking about sexual stuff. [00:05:40] Speaker A: And there's some levels of violence. That'll still get NC 17, but it has to be pretty extreme. I don't think Swan would be that violent. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm gonna say the sex and spawn exists in the exact same places that it does in Emily Dickinson. Between the lines. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Cause twelve year olds don't care about it. That's why. That's why. [00:06:04] Speaker A: But what they do care about is kicking ass and ripping teeth out with pliers and all that good violent stuff. [00:06:10] Speaker B: There is that in spades. This week, Johnny, because this week we. [00:06:15] Speaker A: Are talking about two issues from Spawns universe, as usual. And this week, we've got a classic and a modern one. We're doing. For our classic, we're doing original spawn number 25 all the way back from October 1994. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Ooh, that's a long way. [00:06:35] Speaker A: We'll be doing King swan 33 from April 2024. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Nice. April 20. [00:06:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. April 20, 420, baby. You better token up on this one. Might help him make sense. [00:06:52] Speaker B: I think that might be how it was written. [00:06:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:55] Speaker B: If I didn't know the Todd father was a teetotaler, I would have been like, the fuck is this guy on? [00:07:02] Speaker A: He's just on life, baby. [00:07:03] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a glaringly obvious the toddfather doesn't drink in a more recent issue of King Spawn, but we can cover that when we get there. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah. What does it do? [00:07:17] Speaker B: Oh, he's got a lackey that goes into a liquor store and he says, what's your strongest liquor? [00:07:23] Speaker A: What's your strongest liquor? [00:07:25] Speaker B: What's your strongest liquor? [00:07:30] Speaker A: That's pretty funny. Do you imagine going to liquor store and saying that? They're just being like, uh, look, I. [00:07:35] Speaker B: Would they serve you? I don't know if they'd sell you anything. [00:07:39] Speaker A: Here's the Everclear that. [00:07:41] Speaker B: The funny thing is, my introduction to Everclear wasn't as somebody drinking it because it was cheap, and we'll get you fucked up. But my dad bought it because he needed to clean our lawnmower engine and was like, this shit. Way cheaper than actual engine degreaser. And it does the exact same thing. [00:07:57] Speaker A: There you go. [00:07:58] Speaker B: It was like, whoa. That's what you. If you need to degrease your arteries and veins, Johnny, drink some Everclear, I guess. But if you. If. If you, uh. If you value your health, Johnny, you should instead ingest some spawn. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Yes, and I do value my health. And we will start with issue 25. And as we always do, we cover the covers. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [00:08:26] Speaker A: This is a Mark Silvestri cover. [00:08:29] Speaker B: And, uh, Marc Silvestre is very good at what he does, Johnny. He's very good at what he does. I. Every time I read something by Mark Silvestri, I fall in love with his art all over again and then just forget to follow up on it just because there's so much cyber force that I don't know where to start. [00:08:49] Speaker A: What's he known for? Cyber force, you said? [00:08:51] Speaker B: Yeah, because he was an X Men, an X Men artist. He did X Men and Wolverine books before he moved over to image. And then I. Cyber force was his big. His big one. Cyber force was like the less ridiculous version of Wildcats, if you can believe it. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a little bit familiar with them. [00:09:12] Speaker B: Had had the same makeup. There was. There was a big guy, there was a deadly lady, there was a short commander. [00:09:22] Speaker A: What's the difference? [00:09:24] Speaker B: Well, the cyber force were all. They were all techno meshed with flesh, Johnny, okay? I had cyber components, hence the cyber name. Yeah. And they were always, always were threatened by some global hacker with a computer virus. [00:09:43] Speaker A: It was going to hack their body, limbs. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very Johnny. Mnemnonic. Mnemonic, mnemonic. There we go. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Johnny Mnemonic, mnemonic. [00:09:53] Speaker B: That Mn combo is just hard to. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Johnny McDonald's. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Could you imagine if McDonald's had put out, like, commemorative cups for Johnny mnemonic? [00:10:06] Speaker A: They probably would have been sitting there for a while. [00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And then there would now be a resurgence in trying to get the. [00:10:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, they'd be trying to get those cups now. They'd be all over eBay, man. [00:10:19] Speaker B: I had one of the little frisbees that came on one of the Batman returns cups. [00:10:23] Speaker A: Oh, cool. [00:10:24] Speaker B: That I remember. [00:10:25] Speaker A: I remember this Jurassic park cups. They were cool. They had, like, illustrations from the movie. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Nice. [00:10:32] Speaker A: They were big old cups, too. [00:10:34] Speaker B: Nice. I had one. I had the stegosaurus watch from Burger King. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. For the lost world. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. I wish I had. I was disappointed in it at the time because I wanted the tyrannosaurus one that you opened its mouth, but stegosaurus, solid dinosaur. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty cool. I had a couple of those lost world watches. I had a Congo watch from the movie Congo. [00:11:00] Speaker B: It would have been. What would have been excellent is if the Congo watch were an actual analog watch instead of a digital watch. And the hand, like the hour hand, was a lopped off gorilla armor. [00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it'd be perfect. That movie's wild. [00:11:19] Speaker B: The second hand could just be a big laser gun. [00:11:23] Speaker A: It's got lasers and gorillas and ancient. [00:11:27] Speaker B: Mines and Bruce Campbell. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Bruce Campbell at the beginning gets his eyeball popped out. [00:11:32] Speaker B: Oh, man, that's, uh, that's wild. But you know what's even more wild, Johnny? [00:11:37] Speaker A: This cover. [00:11:38] Speaker B: This cover, I wouldn't say it's so much wild as. It's just good because it's classic. It's classic spawn doing classic spawn stuff. [00:11:46] Speaker A: Yep. It's spawn gargoyle and. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Mm hmm. With the bats and the lightning. [00:11:53] Speaker A: Lightning school. Yeah. It's by Mark Silvestri. Bat, I imagine, does the inks here and then Brian Haberlin. Is the colors nice? I'm assuming because it says Brian right there. But they don't give credits for the covers in these ones. [00:12:13] Speaker B: Why? And they don't give a credit for the COVID on this one for me at all, Johnny, because I got it digital. [00:12:18] Speaker A: Digital copy. Oh, no, I've got a floppy copy. [00:12:23] Speaker B: That means I have to, I have to deal with all the Vito Gravano of it. [00:12:27] Speaker A: The Vito Gravano? Yep. No Tony twists. Good cover. Pop it open. Image comics presents tremors written by Todd McFarlane, pencils by Mark Silvestri, inks by bat and Billy Tan, copy editor and letters Tom Wojczakowski. Color Brian Haberlin. No, Steve. Oh, is this because of the image crossover thing? [00:12:51] Speaker B: Is that why? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause we were. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Brian Haberland's doing it. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So I guess Brian Havreland and Mark Silvestri might have been just a pair of. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And they switched over. It's dedicated to the spirit of independence. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Woo. [00:13:07] Speaker A: What exactly is that? [00:13:09] Speaker B: That's a concept. I think it's a concept. Yeah. It's either a concept or a ship. Yeah. [00:13:15] Speaker A: I'm imagining it's just the concept. Probably because it's the image crossover. [00:13:20] Speaker B: I wonder if all of them were dedicated to that for this month. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So in case you didn't know or listen to last week, these are image crossover issue is what they're doing at this time. Which means all the different artists were kind of scrambled and doing different things. So that's why we have Mark Silvestri and Brian Haberlin on this one. [00:13:39] Speaker B: Because I wasn't sure if it was going to be the writer or the artist who changed. [00:13:44] Speaker A: Yes, we found out. [00:13:46] Speaker B: We know now. [00:13:47] Speaker A: And the artists change as much as things change. They stay the same because we open up with the pundits. [00:13:53] Speaker B: Yes, we do. They are, they're very similar pundits, but they're all a little. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, they are very, they are very similar. Like he has a very similar art style to Todd McFarlane or at least if he's, if he's aping it or. I don't know. [00:14:07] Speaker B: No, they, they have a, they're from, like, the same school of how they do things. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah. They're very similar. [00:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a, there's a little. A little more leanness to Mark Silvestri's compared to Todd McFarlane's. And he's got, he's got closer to Greg Capullo eyes than Todd's. And that's the, the best way I can describe the differences at this time. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. I can see that. But they're all talking about, all the pundits are talking about the stuff that went on the last four issues. The Terry drama, the. [00:14:39] Speaker B: The fracas, and queens, they should have called it. [00:14:43] Speaker A: I don't know what that means. [00:14:44] Speaker B: Frakis is just like a commotion. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Oh, it is. [00:14:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:49] Speaker A: A fracas. [00:14:49] Speaker B: A fracas. [00:14:52] Speaker A: That's the word of the day. Fracas. And so everyone's talking about how spawn revealed himself at the end of last issue, where he put the necroplasm on the alley wall and said, these alleys belong to spawn. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Bioluminescent graffiti. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Yes. Everyone's favorite kind of graffiti. [00:15:09] Speaker B: Hey, if I were driving down the highway in the middle of the night and saw some graffiti glowing from a wall, I would be like, hell, yeah. Favorite writer. [00:15:20] Speaker A: The E. Entertainment guy is just kind of complaining about how the mainstream media is covering this just for ratings. [00:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And he's like, listen to how ridiculous this is. And they call me my channel. Lowbrow infotainment. [00:15:35] Speaker A: He's not wrong. [00:15:36] Speaker B: He is not. He is nothing. And our old buddy, our old pal Brock, the shock fennel on Viacom six. So he's been booted to another cable provider. [00:15:46] Speaker A: Yep. [00:15:49] Speaker B: I like how they never run out of channels for him. [00:15:53] Speaker A: And he's a big spawn fan right now. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:57] Speaker A: He's really happy that spawn's there and kicking ass. And he said, God bless this spawn. [00:16:03] Speaker B: Either. Hell is frozen over. It's finally my turn to see some justice in this world. So he's a, how, how much he. [00:16:10] Speaker A: How far he falls for being such a spawn fan now, the more modern issues, he gives swan a lot of guff. [00:16:17] Speaker B: Oh, man, these are good pundits. [00:16:19] Speaker A: I like them. Like I said, they're similar to McFarlane's, so they're excellent. [00:16:22] Speaker B: It's also a good, because, obviously, the, the point of a crossover month like the one they had was to try to get readers from the other titles and on stuff. And this is a very good. A very good, quick way to get everybody in on it. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Get everyone caught up. [00:16:38] Speaker B: And then we go back to. We go back to the alley, Johnny, and we get some. Some very, very, very Todd McFarlane dialogue here. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Yes. I wonder who wrote this. Talking about baseball. And it's all the. It's all the denizens of rat alley sitting around a burning barrel talking baseball. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Talking baseball. Funny, funny story about baseball, Johnny. There's this guy on the Phillies, will castano, I think his name is. And every time he does something big, always almost 100% correlates to something crazy going on in the world. So, yeah, it's very weird. [00:17:28] Speaker A: What's an example? [00:17:30] Speaker B: Well, an example would be July 13. He hit a home run right at about the time something else was happening across the state. [00:17:39] Speaker A: Oh, when Trump got shot. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Trump got shot. Yeah. Similar things like that. So big news stories. Not all of them very good. Basically, something happens in the world every time this guy hits a double, hits a triple, hits a home run, does something good. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Did he hit a home run when Biden left the election? [00:17:59] Speaker B: He might have. I don't know. But then, I don't know. Let's see. We can google it later. Okay. I can't. My understanding, I haven't followed it closely enough after learning, but I've seen either. Actually, yes, or people are just making fun of him by now. But, yeah, anytime this guy does anything good, it's probably not good for anybody else. [00:18:28] Speaker A: That's funny. Yeah, well, this guy's doing something good for himself in the comic. He's gonna take a piss. [00:18:33] Speaker B: He's gonna make us the old bladder gladder. [00:18:35] Speaker A: Oh, my God, what a turner phrase. Todd. Gonna make the bladder gladder. [00:18:45] Speaker B: He pees more than a pregnant woman. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Leave this guy alone. He's just going to the bathroom. [00:18:54] Speaker B: Oh, boy. He burps, and he says, that feel good. [00:18:59] Speaker A: Someone comes up and grabs him. [00:19:00] Speaker B: Grabs him. He looks like Santa Claus in this angle with his rose. He does. [00:19:06] Speaker A: Hey, Grandpa, a moment of your time, please. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Mm hmm. There's this, like, old fashioned thug in a pork pie hat with a out the front switchblade. [00:19:18] Speaker A: And what's funny is, even though he just went to the bathroom, he relieves himself on the spot once he catches. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Well, no, he was. He was on his way to go to the bathroom. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Okay. I thought that that felt good was related to the bathroom. That was him burp. [00:19:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that was him burping. [00:19:33] Speaker A: I don't know which feels good for him, burping or peeing. You know, it's just. [00:19:36] Speaker B: Oh, definitely, definitely peeing. Although burping can help immensely. Sometimes it definitely feels better to pee. It makes your bladder gladder. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Johnny makes your bladder gladder. [00:19:48] Speaker B: So this guy is telling him, you know, get off our turf. Move 15 blocks south, right? Is that what it's 15 blocks south? [00:19:58] Speaker A: Something like that, yeah. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Which is just hilarious. It's very west side story now. Block by block. And as our unhomed man falls back from being punched in the face, he drops his bottle, and the bottle falls slowly and crashes on the ground. [00:20:19] Speaker A: No, not the strawberry ripple. [00:20:21] Speaker B: Not the strawberry ripple. And then the top of the next page, a broken glass we've cut. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Elsewhere is Terry Fitzgerald kind of just healing and reflecting on the hell he went through the last three issues or four issues. He got the shit kicked out of him for many issues in a row. [00:20:40] Speaker B: He's trying to bury himself in some work to try to just, you know, get through the day, but it's not working. [00:20:48] Speaker A: That's always bad when your work doesn't get your mind off your life. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:20:52] Speaker A: That's usually it does the trick for me. If I'm at work, most of my problems kind of take a back burner. [00:20:58] Speaker B: That's because if you set work up the right way, it's kind of something that you just kind of, like, lock into, and you're like, okay, here's the procedure. But exactly. Whoo, man. Work, Johnny. [00:21:12] Speaker A: It's work. [00:21:12] Speaker B: Nope, it's work. I don't. I don't love it, and I don't hate it. I would miss it if I didn't have it. [00:21:19] Speaker A: That's true. I like having a job. [00:21:22] Speaker B: It's not. It's not a bad. It's not a bad racket. [00:21:26] Speaker A: I would go crazy if I didn't have to work. [00:21:28] Speaker B: If I had to stay home all day, I don't know what I would do with myself, because I would. I would be like, I have no reason to leave the house, so I just wouldn't leave the house. [00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah. That's what I did during the pandemic. It was not good. [00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I had to work the whole time. I was an essential employee. [00:21:43] Speaker A: I mean, I was too, but it was just. I worked a lot less. [00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it was some fun times. And then I got furloughed, and I didn't know what the fuck to do with myself, so I developed a small alcohol problem. 2020 was fucked up, Johnny. Yeah, it was. Sometimes I remember just how messed up it was, and it's just like, jesus, worse than I remember. But. But so anyway, Terry, he's having a rough time. He's cleaning up this glass that he just dropped, and Wanda comes in, says, hey, look. Hey, good looking, you need some help? And Terry's like, ah, what are you doing in my office? And she says something I should have done a long time ago. She says, tell me. Tell me all of the things you do. [00:22:27] Speaker A: This reminds me of mission impossible three, where he's, a. He's, like, a traffic analyst, and everyone thinks he just analyzes traffic, but he's actually Ethan Hunt. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:38] Speaker A: So his wife never knows about his job. And here Wanda wants to find out about his job. [00:22:46] Speaker B: She's got some very high heels on. Look at those things. [00:22:49] Speaker A: I was listening to an NPR story on posture, and they said, you probably shouldn't ever wear high heels because it'll. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Mess up your posture at the very least. Like, the. The amount of weight that has to go on, that one small part of your foot to stand up. Not good for those joints. [00:23:07] Speaker A: No, that's. Can't be. [00:23:09] Speaker B: It's almost as if they were designed by somebody. Somebody. A, who didn't have to wear them, and B, whose opinions and thoughts didn't matter. And, see, I didn't give a shit about how they felt. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know the history of the high heel, but I can imagine. [00:23:31] Speaker B: I mean, it was definitely. It was definitely probably developed by a man for the male gaze. [00:23:37] Speaker A: Right? [00:23:39] Speaker B: Misogyny is rampant throughout history. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Even in clothing. [00:23:42] Speaker B: Even in clothes. Especially in clothing. Like, why. Why do you think every time you tell some, tell somebody that their dress is awesome and they're like, the best part is it has pockets. Women's. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Because there were no pockets. [00:23:57] Speaker B: Women ain't supposed to be carrying shit around, apparently. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Nope. [00:24:01] Speaker B: No. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Get a bag for that. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Here. Put pockets on. Everything they need to. We need to overcorrect and start selling dresses just with all pockets. With cargo pockets all over. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Rob Liefeld dress. [00:24:19] Speaker B: We'd make a killing, Johnny. A killing. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Just make an early image comics dress with all those pockets. So that guy that threatened our friend. Yeah, he's going back to his lair. [00:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Kicks his way through a boarded up window. He is a beefy, beefy, beefy man. Look at that. [00:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:41] Speaker B: Just yoked up walking through the alleys. His name is David Brewey, and he's a Vietnam vet. And his war isn't over, Johnny. His war isn't over. And he finds his boss, and he's like, boss, sit Rep. And his boss is there like, hmm. Yes, I'm fleabiacic. [00:25:03] Speaker A: I'm semi fleabiac. Yes. This is our. As the title suggested, this is our friend, the toy tremor. It's funny because, like, you could. There's two toy etic things in here that are from the toys that are pretty funny. [00:25:24] Speaker B: I can't wait till we get to the second one. [00:25:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You know what I'm talking about. [00:25:28] Speaker B: I know exactly what you're talking about. But. So we get. We don't get much of the backstory on trimmer. We don't even get Trimmer's name yet, but we don't get. No, we don't. [00:25:36] Speaker A: I just know that because of the toys and because I know he kind of. [00:25:40] Speaker B: He kind of says it later on, kinda. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:44] Speaker B: But. So. So we just know, basically, that he's angry and he's upset, and he's like, ah, I'm gonna get my revenge on that fat pig, gravino. So. So there's, like, turf wars within turf wars going on here, Johnny. It's nested turf wars. [00:26:07] Speaker A: There was a second that, when I forgot that tremor was in this, I thought maybe it was just a really weirdly drawn violator. And I was like, is this how Sylvester is drawing violator? But then I quickly realized it's not the violator. [00:26:18] Speaker B: He's not even a Hellman. [00:26:20] Speaker A: No, he's not. [00:26:21] Speaker B: We find out he's not even known as best foods west of the Rockies. [00:26:25] Speaker A: Just to make it more confusing, there are things that look like demons that are not from hell. [00:26:28] Speaker B: Yes. And then there are demons that look like they aren't demonstration, but are definitely demons. [00:26:35] Speaker A: But are definitely from hell. [00:26:36] Speaker B: But are definitely from hell. So David the lackey is just, like, running away while trimmer is demolishing the building that they're in. [00:26:46] Speaker A: Yes. He's throwing a tantrum. [00:26:49] Speaker B: He says nothing's gonna save Gravino. Not overt kill, not spawn, not God, none of them. Cause Gravino has something that trimmer needs. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Spawn does. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, spawn does. [00:27:06] Speaker A: He wants to be with our so called hero. [00:27:08] Speaker B: So called hero. That's right. So then we cut to the so called hero, Johnny. And he's brooding. He's brooding on his chair. [00:27:16] Speaker A: He's brooding on his alley chair. [00:27:19] Speaker B: Do they. Do the unhomed men make the throne in 19 and 20? [00:27:25] Speaker A: They must. [00:27:28] Speaker B: Cause we haven't covered the making of the throne yet. And I remember it being, like, a big reveal at the end of the issue, being like, we made something for you, Al. [00:27:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that must be it. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Must be. [00:27:41] Speaker A: We'll find out, but. [00:27:43] Speaker B: So, Al's, just brooding over what he's done. Everything he's tried to do is blown up in his face, etcetera, etcetera. He vows to refocus, to sort out this abominable excuse for a life. And the vow to refocus just means that he's going to become even more of a jerk than he has been, basically, because the same guy who got threatened by David comes to Aldouse, literally, hat in hand, and it's like, al, I need your help. And Al's like, I don't even want to hear it. [00:28:26] Speaker A: Do it. Solve your own problems. He yells at him, becoming lazy. Always turning for me when you need your help. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Who's they? [00:28:36] Speaker A: Like, what they need your help with, like, cyborgs and stuff, man. Come on. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't. They don't need your help, like, finding food or. I mean, I guess they do prevail upon him from time to time for some strawberry ripple. [00:28:50] Speaker A: That's true. [00:28:51] Speaker B: Most of their problems that he's helping them with are problems he has brought to their doorsteps. [00:28:56] Speaker A: Yes. [00:28:58] Speaker B: It just leaves him. He just leaves them in, like, the saddest, saddest way. [00:29:03] Speaker A: But al. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [00:29:07] Speaker A: And then we get the best page in the whole issue. [00:29:11] Speaker B: We cut to the moonlight diter where one Mary Jane Watson is working. [00:29:16] Speaker A: Right. But Sam's singing zippity doo dah, zippity day. Yeah, well, he's eating a damn sandwich. [00:29:24] Speaker B: Uh huh. And twitch is like, I don't understand why you're so happy all this bad shit just happened. [00:29:30] Speaker A: And I love twitch. Is so dainty with a napkin compared to Sam's nastiness. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Sam's just got crumbs flying everywhere. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:39] Speaker B: I I applaud Sam for sticking to the sandwich at a diner instead of going for a burger. [00:29:48] Speaker A: Yeah. He always sticks. He's a sandwich man. [00:29:50] Speaker B: He's a hoagie man through and through. [00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:53] Speaker B: Oh, man, look at how nineties. We got the short order cook in the back. Just smoking on the job. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah, you get the ash and the eggs. Makes it taste a little better. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a specific flavor that kids today will never know of. [00:30:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Come on, kids. [00:30:07] Speaker B: The smoking or non section, where you're all in the same building. [00:30:12] Speaker A: Right. It's so funny because, like, all restaurants just vaguely smelled like smoke forever. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah. It was only slightly worse than the smoking section. The only difference is the non smoking section didn't have ashtray. [00:30:24] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [00:30:27] Speaker A: I worked at a restaurant. We had to go through the smoking section to get to the regular section. So think about that. [00:30:37] Speaker B: Although occasionally. Occasionally we had to sit in the smoking section. Because it was like, the only thing that was open. And all of the other people waiting to eat were old people who were like, absolutely not. [00:30:48] Speaker A: So I remember when Wendy's had ashtrays. [00:30:52] Speaker B: Oh, man. Damn. I miss the fucking greenhouse room in the Wendy's. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. The little greenhouse room they'd always have. [00:31:04] Speaker B: It was very good, man. Wendy's is good food. I like, I love Wendy's. Wendy's is delicious. [00:31:09] Speaker A: I love. I love me a junior bacon cheeseburger. That shit's good. [00:31:13] Speaker B: It is good. It's real good, man. Maybe I should do Wendy's for lunch. We gotta get off this topic already. It's too early. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Too early to record. [00:31:24] Speaker B: But, um. So twitch is talking about the file that Spawn gave him and. Or Sam is talking about the file spawn gave him. Did I say twitch? Yeah. And Sam is just like, I'm excited to have something over the boss. [00:31:43] Speaker A: He's so pumped. [00:31:45] Speaker B: Sam is petty as fuck. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:31:49] Speaker B: And then so spawn. Spawn is off doing his refocusing on himself. He's, uh, he's taking some spawn time. And he ends up just investigating what the unhomed men were coming to him for anyway. So he didn't. He really didn't have to be such a jerk of it. [00:32:08] Speaker A: He did it in his own roundabout way. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah. This spawn, spawn cape and flying around and the church that Marc Silvester draws. Beautiful. Look at that. Look at that stained glass window. [00:32:21] Speaker A: The impossible cape just going. I like his. His close up on Spawn's face is different too. That's where you can really tell the. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Difference is like, yeah, there's like, there's, like, musculature under the mask instead of it being smooth, right? [00:32:33] Speaker A: Whereas Todd McFarland's usually just all smooth. [00:32:38] Speaker B: And then. And then, you know, Spawn finds tremor and I. Once again, as discussed on. Since it's out now, we can talk about it. As mentioned previously on our crossover with the Spawnography podcast on the Blood feud miniseries. Al Simmons is really, really into fucking arts and crafts. Especially with plyboard. [00:33:03] Speaker A: I know. [00:33:06] Speaker B: Apparently the alleys in New York City in the nineties were just filled with. With art supply. So spawn literally makes a car, a plyboard cut out of himself. And tricks trimmer into attacking it. [00:33:23] Speaker A: I love that he sat there and made that. [00:33:27] Speaker B: He definitely. He definitely didn't magic it into existence because he's still worrying about his precious. His precious. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. He sat there. He cut that thing out. [00:33:35] Speaker B: He painted it, he went to a maker space, and they were like, sir, you can't have that fucking flowing cape around all of this equipment. It's a health, it's a hazard. [00:33:45] Speaker A: Just leave me alone. [00:33:46] Speaker B: Spawn just glares at them, and they're like, hey, man. Hey, I'm just gonna go. [00:33:51] Speaker A: Go ahead and make your cardboard cut out of yourself. Whatever you want to do. I never had one of those, but I remember in comic shops, they always have, like, the standees of, like, the characters. [00:34:00] Speaker B: My cousin had a darth Vader cardboard cutout, and I thought it was the greatest thing on earth. [00:34:06] Speaker A: I know. I thought those were so cool. I never had one, but, like, it's just funny that I thought those were so cool. [00:34:10] Speaker B: I have a, I have a friend who I like to talk about the righteous gemstones with a lot. And for Christmas, I sent him, I wanted to send him the cardboard cutout of uncle baby Billy, but it was sold out. [00:34:25] Speaker A: Darn. [00:34:26] Speaker B: So I just had to send him an uncle baby Billy poster. [00:34:29] Speaker A: That's hilarious. It's funny. They make a cardboard cut out of that character. [00:34:34] Speaker B: He's like, he's like the only character you would actually want to have as a cardboard cut out. Everybody else's. He's gross, but he, he embodies his gross. [00:34:45] Speaker A: Yeah. I always wanted the Boba Fett one. [00:34:49] Speaker B: I would probably have been scared of one if I had one in my room. So it's probably best that I didn't. [00:34:54] Speaker A: You just wake up and think, Boba Fett's in your room. [00:34:57] Speaker B: At the time that I would have been interested in a cardboard cutout, I probably would have wanted the red Ranger. [00:35:05] Speaker A: There you go. He's got a big old red Ranger. [00:35:07] Speaker B: That would have been. Or the Green Ranger, depending on what year it was. Sure. Cause the red Ranger was my favorite until the Green Ranger came around and I was like, fuck all the other colors. Green Ranger supremacy. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Green ranger number one. [00:35:23] Speaker B: I do like how trimmer does have the nice long jaw too. [00:35:26] Speaker A: Yes, he does. Show yourself, you coward. [00:35:29] Speaker B: And then spawn kind of just comes up behind him. [00:35:34] Speaker A: Um, he's like, did you like my crafts? Well, guess what? I'm here now, dude. [00:35:40] Speaker B: Would you give me a sticker for it if you were my teacher? [00:35:43] Speaker A: It's just funny that you made that. Just a trick him for, like, 2 seconds and pop right up. [00:35:49] Speaker B: He would have done much better. Just, like, hiding around the corner. [00:35:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Saved a lot of time. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, you know, they're talking about, you know, al's like, why do you want me and Trimmer's like, I don't care about you or your people or, I don't care about your people or mine. It's you I want. He says, you've got information on veto. I needs it. [00:36:12] Speaker A: And then the first toy reference happens. [00:36:14] Speaker B: Yeah. The second bit of toy etic ness. But the first actual toy reference. Al picks up his favorite, his favorite weapon of choice. A two by four. [00:36:25] Speaker A: A two by four from the first action figure. Man, I swear to God, they keep having him do this just because of the action figures. This is like five times he's picked up a two x four. [00:36:32] Speaker B: Probably as somebody who has been to a place that sells wood in the past couple of years. Ain't no way people are just leaving two by fours laying around like this anymore, Johnny. That shit's expensive. [00:36:50] Speaker A: Just some good wood. [00:36:51] Speaker B: It's good wood. So they have a nice little fight. That's basically just Al choking trimmer with his chain. [00:36:59] Speaker A: He does the chain like he does the violator's neck in the movie. Yeah, but he doesn't, like, whir it and cut it off. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Sad. Now spawn uses his military skills to gain advantage. This is before, I think this is before the Todd father learned the name for specific maneuvers. So he just reverts to military skills. There should be no need to deplete his powers. And so Al's basically just like, stay away from me. Stay away from the alleys. [00:37:31] Speaker A: Next time, your head comes with me. [00:37:33] Speaker B: So then he would do a violator in the movie? [00:37:37] Speaker A: Yes, he would. [00:37:39] Speaker B: So then, then trimmer retaliates. And then we get a nice little description of how Al is Al. He jumped out of the way, but he was, he was hiding over a rotten bit of the floor. Then he covered with his cape. And then his trimmer came. He jumped. [00:37:53] Speaker A: The last spawns is full of tricks. This issue. He's just tricking people with wood. [00:38:00] Speaker B: He knows from wood. It's like he's the anti, he's the anti sonic screwdriver. He works real well on wood. [00:38:08] Speaker A: And this is the other toyetic thing where they show his action feature. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Uh huh. [00:38:13] Speaker A: They just show his straight up. He shows action feature of his fist pumping. Which is what the tremor action figure does. [00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, this is how we know that specifically that tremor isn't, isn't a fleabiac. Because instead of being a demon, he's a biomechanical. A biomechanical dude. He's, he's cybernetics, techno meshed with flesh, Johnny. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's what the action figure does. [00:38:39] Speaker B: I think it is, yeah. [00:38:40] Speaker A: And it's funny how it shows, like, click back in and everything, too. [00:38:42] Speaker B: Clack. [00:38:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, coming soon. The tremor toy. [00:38:48] Speaker B: They have just, like, a little Todd head that says, hot toy coming soon. [00:38:51] Speaker A: Right? [00:38:52] Speaker B: I would. I would actually. I would fucking love for. Whenever they. They decide to do toys off of issues that are currently coming out, they just have a little Todd fatherhead that just says, toy, coming soon. So that way I can be like, fuck, yeah, I'm gonna get that toy. [00:39:07] Speaker A: It just pops up. [00:39:08] Speaker B: It's great. And Suspon's like, well, if this is about. If this is about something that doesn't involve me, what the fuck's about the turf war? And trimmer says it's a diversion. Vito and his cartel are intrigued by you, Spawn. That kind of interest can get you killed. So he's not. [00:39:26] Speaker A: And he says, you called me a demon. I could only wish I was a demon. He's a guy. [00:39:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So Vito. Vito Gravino had hired him to basically be a hitman. And as part of his employment, he was like, I'm gonna give you some upgrades so you could be a real good hitman. And it turns him into this tremor. High tech butchery. This is a great page. This is a. This is a great little bit of backstory. Or, like, origin smashed into three panels, and it's. We understand exactly what's going on. It's great. [00:40:01] Speaker A: Yep. Really buff guy. Turned into a weird creature thing. [00:40:06] Speaker B: Yeah. From some wires and some. Some kirby crackle in the background there. That's all you need. [00:40:14] Speaker A: I love when he's escaping his imprisonment. They just show, like, the big moon is very, like, universal monsters. [00:40:20] Speaker B: I'm surprised they didn't have him go. [00:40:23] Speaker A: Yeah, he's about to howl at the moon, right? [00:40:26] Speaker B: Very wolf man. [00:40:27] Speaker A: And they find out that they killed his whole family. [00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And. Yeah. So Al's like, hold on a second. Hold on a second. Give me an hour. I'll be back. And then. And the tremors, like, how. When Al comes back, tremors like, how did you sneak up on me without making a sound? And it's like, not everybody just fucking causes a frock, a ruckus everywhere they go. [00:40:51] Speaker A: He should have put up another cardboard cutout just to trick him again and then come around the other way. [00:40:56] Speaker B: Just. He could have just taped the file to the cardboard cutout and, like, left it and been like, yoo hoo, tremor. And then walked away and left him. [00:41:06] Speaker A: You got tricked again. [00:41:09] Speaker B: And so this is the file that Spahn got from veto. Tony Twist, Gravino's accountant. Who? Rip that accountant guy. [00:41:22] Speaker A: Yes. [00:41:24] Speaker B: And then. And the trimmer's like, ha, thanks, spawn. I'll talk to you later. And just, like, bounds away. And then Al, just, like, is sitting there staring at him like, what is this? [00:41:38] Speaker A: What happened? Is this creature friend or foe or something in between the end? [00:41:43] Speaker B: As though the end tremor is not going to come back, right? [00:41:46] Speaker A: It just says the end. No. To be continued. None of that. [00:41:50] Speaker B: I mean, it's probably. It's probably for the best for a. For a crossover month to try to make it self contained. I don't. I don't know how self contained this actually is. I think if I just picked up this issue as a one off, I would be like, what the fuck is happening? [00:42:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of a transition from one storyline to the next. [00:42:08] Speaker B: Yeah, man, look at that. The beefiness of the forearm on spawn in this last page. [00:42:15] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that thing's thick. [00:42:16] Speaker B: It's so big. And then it goes to such a small, little wrist. [00:42:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:21] Speaker B: How do you. How do you. How do you get that muscle to do that? [00:42:25] Speaker A: He's using one of those little hand things. Those things you work out your hand with. Grip. [00:42:31] Speaker B: A grip. A grip. A grip trainer. That's. That's all I have. So any back matter, you'll have to. You'll have to. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Well, I got, like, 20 issues of it. 20 pages of it. [00:42:39] Speaker B: Here. [00:42:41] Speaker A: Strap in. [00:42:43] Speaker B: I am comfortable. [00:42:45] Speaker A: So then they have the official guide to reading spawn issues number 18 through 25, which is on this page. [00:42:50] Speaker B: Ooh, nice. [00:42:51] Speaker A: And here's how it says. It says, if you already have, you already have issues one through 19 plus issues 21 through 24. You just bought number 25. I hope you haven't read it yet, which is hilarious that this is at the end of the issue. Spawn 20 ships next week. Please buy it. Once you have issue 20, reread issues one to 25 in order. [00:43:14] Speaker B: Okay. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Believe it or not, it will all make sense. Thanks, Todd. [00:43:21] Speaker B: So what you're saying, johnny, is now we have to reread everything from one to 25 and cover it again on the podcast? [00:43:28] Speaker A: That's what Todd said. [00:43:29] Speaker B: Okay, but why does it say 18 to 20? Cause wasn't 18 the last of a three part arc? Because was. I wasn't 18 the last Grant Morrison. Why would they say 18 to 24 instead of 19? [00:43:44] Speaker A: They didn't. [00:43:45] Speaker B: Oh, I say 18. [00:43:46] Speaker A: Oh, okay, maybe I did. [00:43:48] Speaker B: I don't know. Whatever. Cut that. [00:43:53] Speaker A: Oh, it says guides reading spawn issues 18 to 25. I don't know. This is a mess. Yeah. [00:43:57] Speaker B: Wait, 18 is the last of the great wars. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. It's almost as though early image was a bit of a mess. Just. [00:44:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And then it says at the bottom of the page, all this happened because the next page, you turn it. It's like a mad magazine style sketch. It says, todd can't count. And it's Todd McFarlane writing. And he's just going, he can't count. [00:44:30] Speaker B: Who's just thinking, who drew it? Who drew it? [00:44:33] Speaker A: This is by Flint Henry's caricature of Todd. Okay, Flint Henry. So pretty funny. It's just Todd just, like, working. He's surrounded by action figures, just baseball bat, just a bunch of different stuff. [00:44:49] Speaker B: I love how much the Todd father, like, takes the piss out of his own self. Like he's comfortable enough with who he is, that he's like, oh, yeah, that's a legitimate gripe. We could make fun of that. Let's go ahead and do that. [00:45:06] Speaker A: Right? [00:45:07] Speaker B: It's pretty great. [00:45:09] Speaker A: No, it's a pretty good little sketch here. But then we get the blah, blah, blah from Terry Fitzgerald, the, like column. He basically talks a little bit about the issues being printed out of order that everyone's been complaining about. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Okay. Does it say anything about hockey? [00:45:27] Speaker A: Nothing about hockey. [00:45:28] Speaker B: Oh, sad. [00:45:30] Speaker A: Nothing about hockey. We get some ads for the spawn toys. We get an ad for Wizard 40, which is their big Halloween issue. And then we get the spawning grounds where we got our letters. A lot of these are just asking questions about canon. There's like two of them that are basically just asking questions about canon. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Okay. [00:45:57] Speaker A: I don't know. This is hard just to, like, describe this to you. I don't know. [00:46:03] Speaker B: I mean, I can. I can understand people having. Having issues with, like, what is. What is. What is the actual main storyline? What is canonical? [00:46:11] Speaker A: Cause, you know, someone asked about Spawn's nose. What's the beef with Spawn's nose? Half the time it's there, half the time it isn't. Does it run away? Hence is it a runny nose? And Todd says the situation with his nose is this part of his artistic license and part of is that his skin, even though I haven't specifically said it, is rotting away. Yeah, there you go. [00:46:37] Speaker B: That's good. That's good. [00:46:38] Speaker A: You get a marvel. No prize. [00:46:39] Speaker B: Nice. That's actually pretty. It's a pretty great explanation. That's a good. Better than having to be like, yeah, I drew it with the nose a couple of times, and then we decided it looked better without. [00:46:52] Speaker A: And then you got a guy, basically, there's a couple people that are praising him for, like, improving on his writing and improving on his art, which is cool to see some happy people. Yeah. One guy's wondering how there can be same characters with same names at different companies. Like, he's like, there's already a vindicator at Marvel. How do you have a character named Vindicator? And Todd's just like, yeah, you know, people don't really care that much. Like, you know, it all depends. [00:47:18] Speaker B: It really does depend. [00:47:19] Speaker A: He says that there are a lot of characters that actually share the same name, but by law, you need to have certain legal areas taken care of to be able to contest it in a court of law, since you must weigh in legal costs, time and effort, and aggravation. Some of the minor characters are minor names, for the most part, are not worth fighting for. So there you go. There's that. [00:47:37] Speaker B: Nice. It's good to know that even this early in his run, the toddfather is well acquainted with issues of law. [00:47:46] Speaker A: And then Amy writes in the last letter here, and she says that she basically is like a counter letter to that guy a few issues ago. Said, spawn's a bad role model. She says Spawn's a good role model. [00:47:57] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. [00:47:58] Speaker A: He was employed in the us government. He made a deal with the devil because of his love for Wanda. You cannot say for certain what happens after death. So this story could be very. Well, holds some truth. That's true. And she just doesn't understand what this person had against Spahn. I think she's a good role model. [00:48:15] Speaker B: Hell yeah. I love seeing people come to Spahn's defense. [00:48:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. It's nice. [00:48:20] Speaker B: It's fun. It's supposed to be fun, goddammit. [00:48:25] Speaker A: Then we get a very small image fan art page just for little pictures. You got the. You got one spawn. The other guys are some image people. I don't know who they are. And then we get an ad because of this image crossover, Spawn or Todd McFarlane, is doing cyber force number eight. So it says Todd can be found lurking about around the above noted title. [00:48:47] Speaker B: Nice. [00:48:47] Speaker A: If you want. If you're looking for Todd McFarlane, look for cyber force this month. [00:48:51] Speaker B: That's probably a really good issue. [00:48:53] Speaker A: Then we get an ad for the PitA and an ad for collectors. Expo 94 in San Diego. [00:48:58] Speaker B: Nice. The pit. A strangely pervasive poster amongst people in the nineties. Like, everybody had a brother who had a pit poster, but I don't think anybody ever actually read pit. [00:49:15] Speaker A: They just had the poster. [00:49:16] Speaker B: They just had that one poster. [00:49:18] Speaker A: But yeah, there's a collector's expo on December 19, 11th, 94 in San Diego. [00:49:24] Speaker B: I wonder if that was before or. [00:49:25] Speaker A: After, like, where Comic Con started. [00:49:28] Speaker B: Yeah, because I think San Diego Comic Con started in the seventies. It wasn't as big of a thing as it is now until like the late nineties, mid two thousands. [00:49:39] Speaker A: It started premiere in movies and stuff there. [00:49:41] Speaker B: But I think. I think the first one happened in like 77 or 78. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:45] Speaker B: And it was very small. [00:49:47] Speaker A: San Diego Comic Con made a lot of movies. Like, I know that Shaun of the Dead probably wouldn't have gotten a wide release if it wasn't as popular as it was at San Diego Comic Con. [00:49:57] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, sometimes those nerds, Johnny, they're a reliable source of information. [00:50:02] Speaker A: Then on the back, you got Todd's toys us tour 94. [00:50:07] Speaker B: Nice. I want the tour shirt from that. [00:50:10] Speaker A: And there's just a few dates where Todd's going to be at these different stores signing stuff. That's the issue. [00:50:16] Speaker B: That's the issue. [00:50:18] Speaker A: That's 25. $0.25. It's a quarter. [00:50:22] Speaker B: 25 is really live. [00:50:36] Speaker A: Alright, so next up we have King Spawn. [00:50:41] Speaker B: Issue 33, the 33rd one. [00:50:45] Speaker A: The 33rd. [00:50:46] Speaker B: It is. [00:50:47] Speaker A: And it is all told out of order. So let's start at the back of the issue. No, I'm kidding. [00:50:52] Speaker B: It is an attempt at some memento stuff. Yes. [00:50:58] Speaker A: I don't know if it's the most successful. [00:51:03] Speaker B: I do not think it is. I think. But we should. That's not where we start, Johnny. That is not where we start. [00:51:09] Speaker A: That's not where we start. We start with the covers. And I have the a cover. [00:51:14] Speaker B: I also have the a cover, which. [00:51:16] Speaker A: Is a beautiful puppeteer Lee cover. [00:51:19] Speaker B: It is fan fucking tastic. Spawn standing on a gargoyle in the rain. And like, uh, puppeteer Lee famously has like the one, the one isolated light source. And it's, it's like, it's a, it's a lightning strike is lighting him up. It's incredible. This, this cover is the best part of the issue, hands down. [00:51:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Puppeteer Lee, iconic. They always look like Renaissance paintings. [00:51:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. The puppeteer Lee originals are something that you would expect to walk into. You expect to like, walk into friggin Dracula's castle and just see spawn above on the wall. [00:52:02] Speaker A: Yeah, well, there's a bee cover as well, be covered by Paul Renaud. And it's like a kind of more cartoony spawn, but he's like up on a. Up on a cross, like he does. [00:52:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:18] Speaker A: Surrounded by flying demons. [00:52:20] Speaker B: It's got a whole bunch of demons in the background. [00:52:22] Speaker A: A whole bunch. [00:52:24] Speaker B: It's. It's a solid cover. It's. It would definitely. [00:52:28] Speaker A: It's a green color scheme. [00:52:29] Speaker B: Yeah. It would have been the choice of COVID for me that week if it hadn't have been for the puppeteer league. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, man. You were. You were hamstrung. [00:52:40] Speaker A: So we pop it open, and we got the credits. You want to take this one, David? [00:52:45] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. This is. We got the script flap, and this one is Todd McFarlane. So 30 years later, still. Right. 30 years later, we got art by the wonderful Javu Fernandez. I know I already said that the COVID was the best part of this. This issue, but the java Fernandez art is killer Ivan Nunez doing the color on those. Also killer lettering by Andworld design. We covered the covers. Creative director Todd McFarlane and editor in chief Thomas Healy. And previously in King Spawn. Spawn is tricked into believing that the man behind Granny Blakes disappearance is Krugerez. [00:53:26] Speaker A: Dun dun dun. [00:53:28] Speaker B: He fell for hook, line, and sinker. That was literally, they were like, this is what we hope he does. [00:53:34] Speaker A: We hope he thinks it's Kruger. [00:53:36] Speaker B: Now. He thinks it's Kruger. So I'm having to settle myself back into the timeline here. So this is before he frees Granny Blake? [00:53:48] Speaker A: Yes. [00:53:48] Speaker B: He's still looking for. [00:53:50] Speaker A: He's looking for Granny Blake. Granny Blake has been kidnapped, and he is looking for her. [00:53:56] Speaker B: And she's in, like, four different books right now. It's like, which Granny Blake? [00:54:00] Speaker A: I know. There's so many granny blanks. [00:54:02] Speaker B: I'm not complaining. There's not too much. It's just. It's just. It's confusing enough to find out where I am in spot. [00:54:10] Speaker A: Right. And then you get all this granny Blake thrown in there. [00:54:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Granny Blake is supposed to be my bellwether. She's supposed to help me through the storm. And now she's part of the storm. [00:54:20] Speaker A: And we begin with an ending. [00:54:22] Speaker B: Yeah, we begin at the end. The end is the beginning, Johnny. [00:54:26] Speaker A: The end is. The beginning is the end. [00:54:28] Speaker B: Uh huh. And we've got spawn doing the cool guy walking away from an explosion thing. And then we see him dropping. Dropping the tools of his trade. [00:54:43] Speaker A: He drops some pliers, and he drops. [00:54:45] Speaker B: A corkscrew, and then he jumps on a plane. [00:54:49] Speaker A: It's so funny that Spawn has take so many flights now because he doesn't have his powers. It just cracks me up. [00:54:53] Speaker B: Yeah. They don't mention it here. But this is Germany, so he's flying back from Germany. How does Al Simmons, as fucking spawn, like, he can't suck the. He can't suck the spikes back into him. How does he get that shit on a plane? [00:55:08] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:55:09] Speaker B: I mean, I guess he could check his luggage, but could you imagine fucking beat to shit Al Simmons with all his stitches and his bandages, just sitting there waiting for a bag at the carousel? [00:55:23] Speaker A: Yeah, he's just, like, having a beer before he gets on. That'd be hilarious. [00:55:26] Speaker B: Oh, man. We should probably not mention that too much, Johnny. Cause then the next thing you know, there'll be a king spawn of just Al Simmons waiting at the airport for his luggage. [00:55:34] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Drinking a beer, filing a claim for lost property. We turn the page, and we're minutes earlier, and it's. Or moments earlier, and it's the explosion that he was walking away from in that first panel, which, so we get. We get what's going here. It's being told out of. Out of proper sequence. But did we really need to go back for the. Couldn't we have gone back further first? [00:56:03] Speaker A: I feel like we could have. [00:56:05] Speaker B: Or, like, started with this and then done the second, the first page, and then done a flashback. [00:56:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:13] Speaker B: I mean, I can understand the way this is set out. It needed to be a two page, so this couldn't be the first page. [00:56:20] Speaker A: Yeah, but you could have done it differently. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Could have, but, so we got. We got a man with a bloody mouth counting down. Three, two, one. Then the explosion. Then the next page, 1 minute earlier. [00:56:32] Speaker A: Spawn's got that corkscrew, and he's stabbing a dude. [00:56:35] Speaker B: The fallen corkscrew comes in handy. He stabs the guy through the liver and then through the jaw with it. He berates a man who stopped counting. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Tells him to keep counting. [00:56:49] Speaker B: 1716. And then the next page, two minutes earlier, we got a little strobe effect fight. Al's fighting some guys in a. In a small room, and there's the. [00:57:03] Speaker A: Lights blinking in and out. [00:57:04] Speaker B: There's still some countdown going on. And then at the end of this page, he's confronted by the guy who he stabs with the corkscrew on the previous page. Six minutes earlier is what the next page is. [00:57:17] Speaker A: Now we're six minutes early. [00:57:19] Speaker B: Now we're six minutes. I got him to remove his shirt to humiliate him. [00:57:23] Speaker A: I was like, okay, Spawn. [00:57:26] Speaker B: He's gesturing at this guy on the floor with a pair of pliers. The guy says, I'll give you whatever you want. And Al says, I already knew that. [00:57:34] Speaker A: I want you to call your men and I want you to begin a countdown from 100. [00:57:39] Speaker B: He says, but before you do, where's misses Blake? And the guy, just like by the look on his face, Johnny, he knew he'd get his answer and he did. So this guy's just staring at him. And then while he stares at him, he hits a little red button. Tick tells the guy to start his countdown. Then he walks over to the light switch and turns off the light. [00:58:03] Speaker A: Then the guys he beats up earlier. [00:58:05] Speaker B: Come in are down at the end of the hallway. And then we're at ten minutes earlier. We got a man and his butler. The man is drinking some vino. [00:58:17] Speaker A: It's Kruger. [00:58:18] Speaker B: And then Al comes in and you know who I am? You're a vampire Fett. Your vampire pet, unfortunately didn't know who I was. So he does holds up ahead. He does like the presenting the head of John the Baptist, only it presents. [00:58:33] Speaker A: The head of the vampire lackey. [00:58:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And Kruger and the butler are both entirely unfazed. This butler might be cooler than, like cooler in composure than, oh, shit, what's his name? Why am I forgetting his name? The butler for Batman. [00:58:53] Speaker A: Alfred. [00:58:54] Speaker B: Alfred. Jesus Christ, this is getting bad, Joni. I can't remember anything. [00:59:00] Speaker A: Can't remember Alfred. [00:59:01] Speaker B: Alfred. I got Al and I was like, no, it can't be Al. It's got to be more than Al, but it can't be Albert. So like, al's just, Al's just standing there talking to Kruger and like, he's like, he's like putting his mask on and he's like, oh, hold on. Oh, it got stuck in my mouth. [00:59:17] Speaker A: I gotta get my spawn mask on before I kick your ass. [00:59:21] Speaker B: The butler just like drops the wine and the corkscrew off his little platter and pulls a gun out. So this is where the fallen corkscrew comes from. [00:59:30] Speaker A: It's a good butler. [00:59:31] Speaker B: Good butler. And then Al just socks him across the face with a, with a right. Right hook. Is that a right hook? I don't know what punches are. Punches, that's like a right hook. Yeah, yeah. I guess a jab would go like straight into the face. So I guess they are right hook. And then Al grabs Kruger by the, by the shirt and says, open your mouth wide. [00:59:53] Speaker A: I'm gonna rip out your fangs. [00:59:54] Speaker B: He's like, I'm not a vampire. And Al says, I know. [00:59:58] Speaker A: Oof. [01:00:00] Speaker B: And so then we get backyard back alley dentistry going on here. [01:00:06] Speaker A: Oof. I hate that. It hurts. [01:00:09] Speaker B: I don't know who hurt Javi Fernandez to the point where he had to show us the removal of teeth and such detail. But, Javi, please call us. [01:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah, with the little tendons and everything. Why did you have to do such. [01:00:26] Speaker B: A good job on it? [01:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:30] Speaker B: So that's why this man in previous pages with the bloody mouth has bloody mouth. [01:00:36] Speaker A: It's all coming together. [01:00:37] Speaker B: Next page is twelve minutes earlier. Al's talking about his arrogance. That happens. Al's pretty arrogant. And he's talking about how, you know, there are some people who are. Who aren't afraid and some people who are afraid, which kind of makes no sense until you're four more pages deep. So he's walking down a hallway, and a vampire falls from him. [01:01:00] Speaker A: Ah, it's the head he had earlier, only it's undead. [01:01:05] Speaker B: It's alive and undead. Undeadly alive. And then, you know, Al's like this. So this is why the front doors weren't locked. They knew nobody was stupid enough to come in here. Because there's a vampire. [01:01:16] Speaker A: There's a vampire. You don't need to lock your doors. You got a vampire. That's, like, the best security system. [01:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And so this vampire has Al down on the floor and tries to bite his neck, and then gets electrocuted in the mouth. [01:01:28] Speaker A: He gets zapped. [01:01:29] Speaker B: He gets zapped. And then Al removes his mask to reveal that he is wearing a collar. [01:01:36] Speaker A: That shocks you if you try to bite him. [01:01:38] Speaker B: A shock collar. Only that shocks not you, but someone else, which. Yes, well written. [01:01:47] Speaker A: If it's a real world device, the only thing it'd be used for is, like, if you have a high schooler, you don't want to be making out with people. [01:01:52] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Or. Or if you are raising dogs to. To fight and want there to be an unfair advantage for one of them, you can have it. So that way, one of them has a protective collar on their. Their neck. [01:02:05] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. [01:02:07] Speaker B: So Al Simmons borrowed this collar from Michael Vick. That guy should never. That guy should never be allowed to outlive that. Fuck him. [01:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:18] Speaker B: Come at me. So they're still. They're just fighting Al versus the vampire. And there's no. No resolution on this because we know. We know how it happens. So then we just. [01:02:29] Speaker A: We know he gets his head cut off. [01:02:30] Speaker B: We cut to 14 minutes earlier. [01:02:32] Speaker A: There we are, exact times. [01:02:35] Speaker B: A whole bunch of. A whole bunch of. It's a shootout, Johnny. It's a shootout. And Al mentions that the rocket launcher, of course, brought others the rocket launcher. At this point, it's like what the. What are you talking about? But Al. Al brains. This dude right here. Two in the chest, one in the head. Then he fights his way up a stairway. A stairwell. Fighting guys. [01:02:59] Speaker A: Very. The raid. [01:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Oh, the raid is so good. It's so short. It's a good thing. It's so short. It is very intense. [01:03:07] Speaker A: Isn't the second one like 4 hours long? [01:03:10] Speaker B: I haven't seen the second one, but, but, so Al's talking about how, you know, these guys. These guys suck it up close fighting because they expect people to run away so that they rely on their long distance weapons. But Al Sweet spot is up close and personal. If you're playing Al in multiplayer halo, he's the dude running around with the sword is what he's saying. [01:03:36] Speaker A: Yep. He's meleeing people. [01:03:39] Speaker B: They don't know what to do when someone isn't afraid of them. Cut to 15 minutes earlier, and he's making fun of. Making fun of these guys for listening to super loud music so they can't hear him sneak up. [01:03:51] Speaker A: Okay, Al. Way to be a grandpa. Yeah, with their loud music. [01:03:56] Speaker B: Oh, damn it. Did I miss. Oh, Johnny, I just realized I missed my, the thing I wanted to talk about. Did I? [01:04:06] Speaker A: What was it? We can go back. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Bomb device. [01:04:11] Speaker A: It says bomb device. [01:04:12] Speaker B: It says bomb device. Instead of saying a bomb or a device, it's a bomb device. Like an app game. Okay. [01:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a bomb device. [01:04:19] Speaker B: I don't know if that makes this more confusing that we're doing or not that I cut back to four pages earlier. [01:04:24] Speaker A: Now you cut back to earlier, even though this is cutting back to earlier. We're in a time paradox. [01:04:30] Speaker B: Oh, boy. Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, Johnny. But so Al sneaks up on these guys, listening to loud music, drinking and smoking and playing, playing cards, and just, man, he blows them away with the aforementioned rocket launcher. [01:04:47] Speaker A: Yeah, he just blows up the whole room, which is just hilarious. [01:04:50] Speaker B: Yeah. He says, these are the types I try not to waste much time on. They're simply not worth it. So just does the old boom, just blows him away. Then 17 minutes earlier, he is outside the building, and he is murking the guys who are protecting the door. Those that think they're invincible always get lazy, Johnny, until somebody wakes them up. So Al puts a boot into the door and says that he's trying to make as dramatic an interest as possible. Cause it will bring. It'll bring the. This is the milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard, Johnny. [01:05:29] Speaker A: Yep. [01:05:29] Speaker B: He's flushing, flushing everybody out so he can just pick him off at his leisure. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Do we get kind of a very matrix esque lobby fight? [01:05:40] Speaker B: Only, only the matrix doesn't have so much. Half a man's head disappearing. [01:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:47] Speaker B: Christ. [01:05:49] Speaker A: A little less bloody. [01:05:51] Speaker B: Javi Fernandez is not, not holding back on this issue at all. It is some brutal stuff. Then we cut back to a day earlier where Al's drinking in a bar with a very big man hands over a big stack of hundos, and the man says, here's what I got you for your money. Are you satisfied? And Al says, yes, I am. I also need a pair of pliers. [01:06:18] Speaker A: Hmm. I like your ass. This guy, like, the guy who split him weapons. Just go to the hardware store. [01:06:23] Speaker B: You could have done that on your way there. You could have just already had them. [01:06:27] Speaker A: But this already had some pliers, the. [01:06:28] Speaker B: Rocket launcher, and all the guns that he uses in the preceding following fight. [01:06:34] Speaker A: The preceding following fight. [01:06:37] Speaker B: The last page is two days earlier, and he's stomping around New York as. [01:06:44] Speaker A: He'S been doing the last. [01:06:45] Speaker B: He's been doing. Just, just wandering around. [01:06:47] Speaker A: Just wander around doing stuff. [01:06:49] Speaker B: Oh, boy. It's like, it's like, it's like the spawny boy photo shoot, only in real time. Spawn. [01:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:59] Speaker B: So everybody that Spawn has beat up and asked, who knows about Granny Blake? Everybody. Sid Kruger, everyone. Every single one of them. [01:07:06] Speaker A: Kruger, Kruger, Krugere. [01:07:08] Speaker B: And then he asks one of them where he lives, and he says, it's why I went to Berlin to finish this mess. And so he's taken off on a. [01:07:15] Speaker A: Plane, just doing a flight. He had, like a, I wonder if he bought a round trip how long he gave himself to kill all these people. [01:07:22] Speaker B: Well, so he's, he's, he's in, he's in Berlin at least two days, so. Cause he shows up and he buys the guns, and then he kills the people the next day. And then presumably at the end of that day, he flies out. So that's a pretty quick turnaround. [01:07:39] Speaker A: Maybe he got to go do some german tourism while he was there for. [01:07:42] Speaker B: A day, maybe get himself a pretzel. Yeah, that's the end of the issue. [01:07:47] Speaker A: The end is the beginning is the end. [01:07:49] Speaker B: Oh, man. That's very little time to goof around on that because it's very confusing. Sans goofing around. And even though we don't make it easy for the listener. Sorry about that. But no other way to do it besides just. Yeah, so this issue, this issue lasts, like, four minutes if you're reading it straight through. I wonder if that is like double the time, if it was in correct order, if it would take you like two minutes to get through. [01:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's a fast issue. It's just a bing bang, boom. [01:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Gussie. It's gussied up in a way that, you know, doesn't make the. It's an assault on a building. It's. Yeah, doesn't necessarily need to be. A whole issue's worth. It was. Yeah. You know, but we get the spawning Todd hat. [01:08:40] Speaker A: Todd had an idea and he did it. So there you go. [01:08:44] Speaker B: That's commendable. At least having an idea and doing it. [01:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:49] Speaker B: Spawning. [01:08:49] Speaker A: The spawning grounds. First one's from Bob from Buffalo, New York. You want to give a shout out to Jeremy Hahn and Ivan Nunes because they've been kicking ass on King spawn. [01:09:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Since along this cool picture of clown. Clown toy photography. Thomas Healy likes hearing from fellow New Yorkers, even though he is a New Yorker, even though he lives in Phoenix now. And, yeah, he's like, yeah, we should find a book for that guy to do a to do in the sponsor universe. It was real. It was real creepy and dirt and gritty. It was great. David. David S. Says that I saw you guys were releasing a whole bunch of books. I don't know, can handle it. And Thomas is like, hey, you don't have to buy all of them. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:32] Speaker B: But, yeah, so just a little overview of trying to make the spawns universe more encompassing of everybody who enjoys stories. [01:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you like Sci-Fi check out Rat City. Like superhero books, they could check out focus. They just give him a lot of options. [01:09:49] Speaker B: If you like. If you like. If you like stories, read Red City. If you like cool shit, read Red City. [01:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah. If you like comic books, read Rat City. [01:09:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Hands down. [01:09:58] Speaker A: If you're breathing, incredible. [01:10:01] Speaker B: If you're dead, have somebody lay a rat city over your eyes. Yes. So you can take it with you on the boat ride across the river Styx. [01:10:11] Speaker A: Be a good reading. [01:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Matt J. Is the last one. He says he's a loss for words, how amazing the series is. I'm going to assume he's referring to Kingspawn because he includes a couple of pictures of some king spawn issues he loves. And he also loves the scorched. And Thomas Healy is just like, yeah, glad you're digging it. This whole post 350 world's pretty crazy. [01:10:37] Speaker A: That's the swan lot. That's the spawning round. [01:10:39] Speaker B: Any more spawns universe, Johnny? [01:10:42] Speaker A: Always, always miss these ongoing titles. [01:10:46] Speaker B: The Jellicle Cats. [01:10:48] Speaker A: Yes, the Jellicle Cat swan. [01:10:51] Speaker B: Then we got the image classics ad. And then the dune part two is our toy ad at the end of. [01:10:59] Speaker A: This one, dune part two, which I still haven't seen. [01:11:03] Speaker B: It's good. [01:11:03] Speaker A: It's very good. [01:11:04] Speaker B: It's good. [01:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I need to watch them. [01:11:08] Speaker B: Well, if we all. We all have something we need to watch, Johnny, it's happens. You can't watch everything. [01:11:14] Speaker A: It's true. [01:11:16] Speaker B: It's impossible. So that's the end of the issue, Johnny, issue number 33, which means it's time to rate some puppies. [01:11:26] Speaker A: It's time to rate the puppies. [01:11:30] Speaker B: And Johnny, if you will allow me, I, our listeners and the attendees of our live show back at c two e two will remember that when we rated the puppies for spawn kills everyone, I presented a picture of some of the dogs who live in our house and asked them to rate one specific dog out of ten and was very upset when they rated my favorite dog, Mister Mayhew, a two out of ten. And it's just because I've mentioned him before. I feel I am now required to let you know that Mister Mayhew has recently passed as part of what Wanda and I do here. We have lost seven dogs since Christmas, which means that if I were to mention it about every dog, this podcast would be nothing but. But sadness. So I just wanted to let you guys know, Mister Mayhew, he was my favorite. If you rated him low, you were wrong and he was a good boy. And sometimes you just need some spawn to get over it. So this is a passion project I do here to get me over the sadness of helping dogs move through life at the best way they can, so. [01:12:55] Speaker A: Well, that's good. [01:12:56] Speaker B: Sorry to bring the tone down, but that's okay. Well, now we have some issues to rate, Johnny. [01:13:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. So rate the puppies. 25 was first up. We got the Mark Silvestri art with Todd McFarlane writing. I said she was okay. It wasn't my favorite. It just kind of seems like tremor shows up out of nowhere. It's like, oh shit, we're making a toy of this guy. We better throw him out there. Yeah, but you know, you get some fun, you get a Sam and twitch page, you get some rat alley folks running around. So it's some pretty classic spawn stuff. [01:13:32] Speaker B: You get some excellent cape work. [01:13:35] Speaker A: Excellent cape work. I really like the art. It's fun to have someone just a little different do it. I'm gonna give it three out of five gladder bladders. [01:13:45] Speaker B: Gladder. [01:13:46] Speaker A: Bladders make my bladder gladder. [01:13:49] Speaker B: I agree. So this is what they were trying to do with this issue. It's obvious. I don't know if it worked very well. It's not a bad issue. It's not a great issue. It's a very middle of the road issue. Yeah, that's fine. For 30 years of spawn over 350 issues. There's going to be some middle. There's going to be a lot of middle road there, Jeff. Yeah, I can't imagine that if I do 350 of anything, that more than, like, twelve of them will be worth anything. Right. [01:14:20] Speaker A: Well, that means we're gonna have twelve. [01:14:22] Speaker B: Good episodes in, like, they're gonna be great episodes. [01:14:25] Speaker A: Six years. [01:14:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. The art is amazing in this. Marc Silvesteri is great. This art is great. It's very fun to have. I know a lot of people get upset when they do something slightly different for the artists of a book that they're reading, but I very much enjoy seeing other creatives, like, what they think is important about a character you like visually. And so it's always just fun to see how they put that together. I love that Mark Silvestri decided that Al needed to have half of his mouth sewn shut, which isn't something that really carries on. It's usually just the shoelace down the face of. Down the middle of the face. But Mark Silvestri is like, his lips are. His lips are falling off. So we gotta sew those bitches up too. I'll give it. I'll give it three and a half art projects. It gets 75% of a sticker from me. [01:15:26] Speaker A: All right. All right. That is so funny that he made that. That wooden board for Trevor to attack just to immediately show up. [01:15:34] Speaker B: Oh, wait, didn't he also. Did he also do a cutout of himself in blood feud? Is it the same plywood? Is it the same one? Like, he just keeps. [01:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah, he just keeps it. [01:15:43] Speaker B: He keeps it behind one dumpster in the alley and just pulls it. [01:15:46] Speaker A: He's like, get my spawn. Get my spawn. Sandy. Our second issue was King Spawn 33, which is a tale told out of time. It's. I don't know. This issue just didn't do it for me, David. It was like, it's nothing of an issue, but then it's just told in a weird way to kind of make it seem more important. Yeah, but it's just really like he walks to a building and kills a bunch of dudes. [01:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. Yeah, we've. We've we've not been. We've maybe not been kind to current king spawn in our own personal chats. [01:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Just like the Todd McFarlane King Spawn's not doing it for me. [01:16:31] Speaker B: It's spinning its wheels. It's taking one or two issues worth of story and spreading it out as far as possible. There's obviously something that they're waiting to happen in one of their books, so that way they can spin this story off on it. But, oh, it's then just like, I would much rather have a king spawn every other month if it avoided this. Yeah, it's. I agree with you entirely, Johnny. [01:17:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And, like, Javi Fernandez, the arts great. Really gory. It's incredible. [01:17:10] Speaker B: It's incredible art. [01:17:12] Speaker A: The only thing that's, like, sad about is you don't get, like, a really big, like, grandiose, two page spread that Javi Fernandez does sometimes. And see, that's what I'm talking about. Old king Spawn used to seem so epic and mythical and important, and now he's just bumming around the streets of New York. [01:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, he doesn't. He doesn't have his powers, sure, but that doesn't mean. That doesn't mean that you can't keep it with that grandiose ness. How many grandiose Batman stories are there? And that. Yeah, that fucker ain't got no powers. That's. That's literally his whole point. [01:17:46] Speaker A: Right? [01:17:47] Speaker B: It's. [01:17:49] Speaker A: And, like, the telling out of order. It's just. Yeah, first time you read it, it's, like, confusing at best. And then, yeah, once it's clear, it's just like, oh, okay. Like, there's a couple funny jokes, like, where he talks about the rocket launcher. He mentions something that you don't know. [01:18:03] Speaker B: What it is, but, like, I lost so much time the first time I read this, being like, what the fuck is he talking about? A rocket launcher? [01:18:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:18:09] Speaker B: And it's. It could be executed much better. This is. This is not the. This is not the execution you want for this particular kind of technique. [01:18:20] Speaker A: No, no. I'm gonna give it two pliers out of five. [01:18:30] Speaker B: I'm gonna give it two separate ratings, because the Javi Fernandez art, it's giving me. It's giving me four fucking losing my teeth nightmares. [01:18:44] Speaker A: Okay. [01:18:45] Speaker B: Because it's. It's great. But then, as a whole, it's definitely just two bomb devices. [01:18:54] Speaker A: Two bomb devices. Gotta use your bomb device. [01:18:56] Speaker B: Gotta use your bomb device. It's just. I. It can't. It can't be understated how excellent the art is. And it also can't be overstated how just meh. It is. [01:19:11] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, I agree. You know, I just hope they get another writer on King Spawn soon, because, I mean, like, think about how much he's firing all cylinders on Sam and twitch. [01:19:24] Speaker B: Uh huh. Yeah. [01:19:25] Speaker A: Gunslingers, great. But it's just like King spawns, the one that kind of has fallen by the wayside. [01:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's definitely like an app. [01:19:31] Speaker A: It feels like an afterthought wherever. Where, like, two years ago, it felt like the flagship won. [01:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely, I don't want to be, I don't want to be too unduly mean, but no criticism where it is deserved. This book is going nowhere quickly, and that is not. It doesn't do the book any favors. [01:19:53] Speaker A: So hopefully they get to whatever they're spinning their wheels for and we can get some more swan action. Yeah, there it is. There's the puppies rated. [01:20:00] Speaker B: There they are. More like puppies B rated. [01:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah, we be rated. I hate being mean, but you gotta gotta be truth. You gotta be true sometimes. [01:20:09] Speaker B: We love this shit. [01:20:11] Speaker A: We're not even being mean. We're just, you know, this is our. [01:20:14] Speaker B: This is our opinion. If you have a different opinion on. On the rating of these issues, you should probably just send us what you think about him in an email. Evergardingspawnpodmail.com. [01:20:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. You should. [01:20:28] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what else you should do while you're on the Internet, Johnny? [01:20:34] Speaker A: Follow some of our great friends on Instagram. [01:20:37] Speaker B: Hell yes, you do. We're not gonna be rate them. We're never gonna be rate them ever. [01:20:40] Speaker A: No, we're gonna rate them. We're gonna rate them. And we're gonna rate them. Five out of five. Cause we got some great friends on Instagram. [01:20:46] Speaker B: Yes, we do. This week we got a. I mentioned, I mentioned. We've mentioned a lot about toys, this issue. Toys specifically, like the toy eticness of Spawn 25, the toy photography, and the spawning grounds. The fact that I'd like little Todd father to say there's a toy coming. And that kind of fits with what we got going on here, because our shout out this week is the Abyss collectibles. Who does? [01:21:19] Speaker A: The abyss Walker. [01:21:20] Speaker B: The abyss walker. Damn it. [01:21:23] Speaker A: He walks the abyss. He's not the abyss. [01:21:25] Speaker B: He is walking the abyss. He walks the abyss. The abyssal walker. The Abyss Walker collectibles. He does beautiful toy photography. Almost exclusively spawn toys. I actually am scrolling down. Oh, there's some evil dead two and some Michael Myers. Johnny. Right up our alleys. [01:21:44] Speaker A: He's got the classic Billy Kincaid with the ice cream scoop stuck in him. [01:21:50] Speaker B: Hell, yeah, he does. He's got a. Oh, he's got a cygor and Al Simmons fighting each other. [01:21:56] Speaker A: No, he's got some great spawn stuff. These are really good. [01:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very good. The curse. This is a great collection, and his photography is choice. It's very good. [01:22:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. [01:22:09] Speaker B: It's very good. [01:22:09] Speaker A: He's got a badass spawn shelf. He shows on one of them. Pretty cool. [01:22:16] Speaker B: While you're. While you're over there. Oh, he's got pinhead. Nice. While you're over there, you should probably visit us too. We've got some pictures of toys, Johnny, on our instagram regarding spun pod. [01:22:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. [01:22:28] Speaker B: Some of our toys. Nowhere near as beautifully photography as these. But that's because, you know, we don't. We're not using actual cameras. We're just using our phones. [01:22:39] Speaker A: Good for phone photography, but, yeah, give us a follow. And also, like we said earlier, if you want to hit us up, tell us we're wrong about our rating of King Spawn. [01:22:49] Speaker B: Hit us up. [01:22:49] Speaker A: Regarding spawnpodmail.com. and that's my question this week, is, do you agree? Did you like this out of order issue? Is it something that you didn't like? Because it is just such a different format? But just let us know what you thought of Kingswan 33. [01:23:05] Speaker B: I'll tell you what I thought about it, Johnny. [01:23:08] Speaker A: We know what you thought about it. [01:23:10] Speaker B: Please rewind, like, five minutes and just listen to it again while you're out on the Internet. Google Lonnie Bones. Lonnie with a Y. Lonnie bones music on Spotify, Apple Music. Lonnie Bones does our music and his non, regarding spawn music, it's also very good. [01:23:30] Speaker A: So check it out. [01:23:31] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what else we should check out, Johnny? [01:23:36] Speaker A: More spawn. [01:23:37] Speaker B: More spawn. Check out some more spawn. Which means we need to find something to read and then come back and talk about it later. What should we. What should we look into, Johnny? [01:23:46] Speaker A: Well, I was thinking maybe we'd read something with somebody else. [01:23:49] Speaker B: Oh, really? You're like one of those guest situations. [01:23:53] Speaker A: Yeah, a guest situation. [01:23:54] Speaker B: All right, all right. Well, what were you thinking? [01:23:57] Speaker A: You know, just a little person named Erica Schultz. [01:24:00] Speaker B: Wha. [01:24:01] Speaker A: That's right. Next week, we'll be doing rat city number three with special guest writer of rat city number three, Erika Scholz. [01:24:10] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. You forgot also letterer and letterer. We'll be sure to ask her about her process of choosing a typeface. It'll be riveting. Absolutely riveting. For me, at least. I don't know about. For the listeners. [01:24:24] Speaker A: No, I would love to hear about it. Yeah. We're going to be having. Can't believe it, but we got Erica Schultz to be a guest listener of the pod. Erica Schultz. She's has. She's definitely listened because she's answered questions that we had in episodes. [01:24:37] Speaker B: She has corrected us on our lack of knowledge. On X Men, we misnamed somebody, like, four times. She was like, no, this is the Shadowhawk. Yeah. [01:24:49] Speaker A: Oh, she also. Yeah. She also sent another message about the second episode of Recover Rat City. It said, rhys is Welsh. [01:24:55] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Excellent. [01:24:59] Speaker A: So we know she's at least listed to two episodes. That's great. [01:25:02] Speaker B: Excellent. Hopefully, she'll listen to at least a third. [01:25:04] Speaker A: Yes, we'll feature yourself. [01:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So. So read rat city number three and come on back and listen to us. Talk to the. The creator of Rhett city number three, one of the creators of Rhett City number three, Erica Schultz. It's gonna be a good time. [01:25:18] Speaker A: Should be a great time. Yeah. I can't wait. While you're out there on the Internet, please make sure to rate, review, and subscribe. [01:25:23] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. [01:25:23] Speaker A: Wherever you get podcasts, and we would very much appreciate it. [01:25:28] Speaker B: Yes. We would love for you to tell your friends, your family, your coworkers, anybody who's willing to listen to you. If they're willing to spawn down their. [01:25:37] Speaker A: Throats and then shove us down their throats. [01:25:39] Speaker B: If they're willing to listen to you, more than likely, they're willing to listen to us. So if you need. If you need to give them a hook, be like. They talk about Star wars almost more than they talk about spawn. [01:25:49] Speaker A: So not true. [01:25:52] Speaker B: No. I do like some Star wars, though. [01:25:56] Speaker A: We know. We do. [01:25:57] Speaker B: We know. [01:25:57] Speaker A: We do. [01:25:57] Speaker B: We do. We do. And that's Johnny, you know, it's been a very good time. I love talking to you about Spawn, but I hear the deli sandwich call in, so I think it's about the time where I wish you, may the scorch be with you. [01:26:18] Speaker A: And also with you, David. [01:26:20] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. [01:26:21] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. [01:26:22] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. Awesome. I gotta. I gotta go find a diner that still has. Lets the short order cooks smoke while they're making my sandwich. So I get that nice little. Nice little hint of barbecue smokiness. [01:26:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And in honor of 33, they can make the sandwich backwards. [01:26:40] Speaker B: Well, but then do I eat it backwards? Do I eat it the right way? Which way do I eat it? [01:26:46] Speaker A: That's the real question. [01:26:48] Speaker B: Fast. [01:26:53] Speaker A: Always the right answer.