Full Transcript for Funny Book Forensics 451 Cerebro Brings Us U.S. 1

00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:11.000 Number three. 49 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:18.000 The rhyme of the Ancient Highwayman. And what we have, gosh, is a ridiculous, nice, Michael golden cover. 50 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:19.000 So beautiful. 51 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:28.000 And if you could just see this, like, if you can just imagine. We've got. Actually, we don't know who he is yet. We don't know. We're gonna hold off because we didn't read issues one or Two. 52 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:29.000 No. 53 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:34.000 And I can tell you with pretty confident. Cold. With confidence. We're probably not reading issues one and two. 54 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:38.000 Oh, we will, we will. Now that we read number three, let's go back and read number one. 55 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:43.000 You know how much of a completist I am, and I still don't know if that's necessarily happening after reading this issue. 56 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:44.000 It is. 57 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:52.000 What I can tell you is we've got some crazy Kirby Crackle going on all over this cover. I had no idea Michael golden did Kirby Crackle. 58 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:53.000 Me neither. 59 00:04:52.000 --> 00:05:22.000 I thought he only drew large breasts, so I really didn't even know he knew how to. You don't really. Kirby Crackle around that area of the anatomy in the drawing. So not what. You're a little bit crazy. And US1, usually US1 has this nice road sign looking feel to it. We've got like the outline of the interstate here, but we've got Kirby Crackle going on all behind it. It's pretty fantastic. And we've got a truck, and his truck has gone from blue and red to. Well, we don't. I guess we don't know because we haven't read the issue, but I have. So we've got a yellow. 60 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:24.000 I read the issue just like you told me. 61 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:30.000 It's like a yellow golden truck driving through Kirby Crackle. It's all pink. And then we've got this crazy, like, lightning guy. 62 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:31.000 Yeah, lightning guy. 63 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:45.000 He sort of looks like a lightning. I mean, if I was a Legion fan, and I am, he might look like one of the lightning beasts of Corbel. And if you don't know the lightning beast of Corbel, I am so sorry. Talk to me after this podcast and we will make sure you're square on that. 64 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:46.000 Get on it. 65 00:05:46.000 --> 00:06:15.000 So we're going to get into this rhyme of the ancient Highway Mariner. No, I already messed that up, highway man. I'm already trying to change it to the rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. You see where I'm going there? And maybe, maybe some of these things will play into this book. I mean, this book could be a copy of other stories, I don't know. Or maybe just the Highwayman, like, you know, on his horsey to ride on his horsey, sword and pistol by his side. I'm not going to try to be Johnny Cash right now because that's. That's a losing game for me. So. 66 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.000 And we're going to go there. You never know. You never know. 67 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:28.000 I will just also share out with our listeners because we do like to point this Out. This comic is, of course, pure. And was approved by the. Approved by Comics Code Authority. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with it, and it could never harm your children. 68 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:29.000 It's safe for them to. 69 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:45.000 And it's from. And it's from the 80s. And so I. Jill, just. Since we do have a live audience especially, I'm going to warn you, I'm going to guess that there's probably things that are offensive in this book. So literally, just be prepared for that, because this is a book written in 1983, and there is a character. 70 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:46.000 Well, we'll. 71 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:47.000 We'll get to those. 72 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.000 I'm going to say there is a highly likely. 73 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:54.000 Yes, Offensive. It's not highly likely offensive. It is straight up offensive. 74 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:55.000 Straight up offensive. 75 00:06:54.000 --> 00:07:03.000 But, hey, we're going to go with that. So we've got our first advertisement. We've got Scotty in a Cracker Jack story, and Scotty is playing baseball. 76 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:04.000 Hungry. 77 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:48.000 And unlike me playing baseball, I had a little league average of 0.087, and my dad was the coach, so I got to keep score, and I knew how to keep score. And they had a little chart in the back of the book that showed you your batting average. And it was awesome. And I was so excited. And my batting average was zero for a long time. And I just kept dreaming, like, and I would add up my number of at bats, and I kept seeing, like, on the chart, like, if you got one, what your average would be. And so I finally had a hit, and then my batting average was 0.8 7.0. Not 0.87. Sorry. 0.087. Let's be very clear. Less than one hit, less than 10 at bats. And I was very excited. And. But it's very clear, like, Scotty, if I had just gotten a hit, I would have got a whole box of Cracker Jack. And if you call it Cracker Jacks, I will punch you. 78 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:49.000 Cracker Jack. 79 00:07:49.000 --> 00:08:18.000 Okay, I don't want to get punched because there's a choice of arms. Look at his arms. Toy surprise inside. So. All right, well, we opened to the first page of Rime of the ancient mariner. Highway 1. Stan Lee presents. Now, the fact that. The fact that we're still one. Jim Shooter is the editor of Marvel comics at this time. And I don't even know if Stanley is working for a company at this point, but we've got Stanley Presents. And Stanley is so proud. We've got Stan Lee right up here at the front cover of the book because he's going to Present Us one. 80 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:19.000 Us. 81 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:32.000 Well, what I do know about Us One is I thought Us one was

just a bad comic series because somebody thought it was a good idea to have trucks drive around in the Marvel Universe and then talk about the truck drivers. I don't even know if did we even find out to send you truck. 82 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:40.000 I mean, it's a truck that he has control. I mean, I think he technically has control over it with his robot brain, but I. The truck kind of controls itself. Kind of, sort of. 83 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:59.000 That's there. There are robot brains in this book. Yeah, Big brain. Robot man. Well, anyway, we get a front panel and we get a colorful semi speeds across the hellish alien highway as demonic spirits sear the air. So is it an alien highway or is like the highway to hell Highway? 84 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:00.000 Hell. 85 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:07.000 It's Denver. I can see that. So it is actually. And we get this nice. Actually, I think the art's pretty cool. 86 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:12.000 Oh, yeah. The I very, very delicious looking is delicious. 87 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:17.000 Well, we have this written. This is written by Marvel Stalker. 88 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:18.000 You got to read. 89 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:19.000 Read this. 90 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:20.000 Every single line of this. 91 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:21.000 This is. 92 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:24.000 Okay, because this is the rhyme of the ancient highway, man. 93 00:09:24.000 --> 00:10:21.000 You know, I think it's important. Okay. Written with tongue in cheek by Al Mingram. So Al was very proud of this one based on what he wrote right here in his own credit. We've got penciled with fine technique by Frank Springer, who we'll get to in a moment. Inked with hardly a leak by Mike Esposito. And Mike must have been really proud of this one, because I know with Mike Esposito's long and long track record as a fine inker at Marvel Comics, I'm sure This issue of US1 was his proudest achievement. We've got colored with a brush antique by Paul Becton. We've got edited by a man with a very large beak, Ralph Macchio. And not that Ralph Macchio. I just want to make sure the karate chimp, also a Ralph Macchio that was an editor at Marvel Comics Comics. So I just want everybody I confused by that for a while. I was like. I was like, is that cool? Yeah. When I was a kid, I thought, like, Roth Machu edits comics. The greatest thing ever. And then he goes on in the movies and. 94 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:22.000 Yeah, yeah. 95 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:27.000 Makes one illegal kick. He makes one illegal kick and ruins Johnny's entire life. 96 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:29.000 Yeah, I know, right? I mean, it's. 97 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:36.000 And it got supervised with an eye toward critique by Jim Sharpshooter. Youngest writer of comics ever, I think. 98 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:37.000 Yeah. 99 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:40.000 At like 13 years old. Thumbnailed his own books. 100 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:42.000 You can be that person. 101 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:49.000 And then he became the editor of Marvel Comics and everything was downhill from there. He should have just stuck with writing comics as a 13 year old and just never come back. 102 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:54.000 So I have to make a, make a note here without all of Dan's commentary. Every single line rhymed. 103 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:59.000 Okay, I'm not into rhyme around. It's a comic book falling off, but 104 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:03.000 it makes sense because it's the rhyming the ancient highwayman. 105 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:34.000 All right, well we get. We start out this book and we are automatically set into a dream sequence. Which is fantastic because we don't know what happened in the first two issues. So we're in a dream sequence and let's see, we've got. It's Archer. I'm going to mess up his name now. I still haven't seen a name yet. Well that's okay. We don't know his name because we haven't read the book. So there's a truck driver and he has blonde hair and a headband because it's the 80s and it's a red headband and it's amazing. Think the Supergirl headband, but way lamer cuz it's not on Supergirl. 106 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:35.000 Not on Supergirl. 107 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:50.000 And if you don't know the Supergirl headband from the 80s, you're missing out because it's fantastic and everybody needs to see it for good. So what we've got here is we've got a guy and a truck and a robot brain and a woman with a giant whip made of motorcycle parts. Yeah. 108 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.000 And she's on a really awesome motorcycle, I must add. 109 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:57.000 And we have no idea who this woman is. 110 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.000 She's just beating the crap out of him. 111 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:27.000 But what we do find out is our truck driver has a CB skull. So think about this. Just think if I actually had a real brain and this was translucent. And there was an amazing network of CB radio up here because we said one or two transistors. I don't even think that's that cool. Like if I had a CB in my head, I would never need cell phone batteries. I could just talk to everybody on the highway forever. We would just literally plug me into the cigarette lighter and I'd be ready to go. 112 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:34.000 Could we say you would go? Ham man, 113 00:12:34.000 --> 00:13:06.000 You got me. That's the first time I break on this one so far. And there will be many other times. So anyway, our, our, our, our hero, Hero. Hero awakens. And I want you to know this is the most muscular truck driver I have Ever seen in my life. We're talking like blonde haired Rambo here. Like, this is amazing. He's got, he's rippling like kind of. Yeah. Way too much hair. Arnold Schwarzenegger with the headman. I also want you to wear. He wears his headband to sleep. 114 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:14.000 Yeah. Because I mean everywhere. You never know. Oh, yeah, yeah. 115 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:21.000 That's Ryu for Street Fighter

from our audience. For those of you listening to this podcast and you're not here, we do have some audience commentary. So we'll try to fill it in for you. 116 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:22.000 Yeah, yeah. 117 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.000 And yeah. So, well, anyway, we've got it going 118 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:28.000 on and he's like Mario in the room with him. 119 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:39.000 And then we, then we're finding out. We're, we're, we're meeting some of our characters. Yeah, yeah, there's, we've got. He, he wakes up and he screams. Because that is really what it says. 120 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:43.000 Yeah. 121 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.000 Age. Okay. 122 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:53.000 Oh, it is Arnold's horse of Tinker. But. 123 00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:00.000 We, and we get a woman here who we don't know yet, but we're going to find out about very soon. She says, my gosh, Papa, that sounds like us. 124 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.000 Oh, that's his name. Okay, good. Okay. 125 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Yeah, got it. So his name is us. Oh, I think it's Ulysses. I think it's Ulysses. Yes. Well, we're going to find out. 126 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:09.000 We'll find out. 127 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:16.000 Sure. Because I did find the research I got to do in an hour and a half for this. I was spot on with this research. I want to tell you all this 128 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:19.000 is usually the course if you not, if you're not familiar with the podcast. 129 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:49.000 I may do a little bit of research. Most of the time I get. He does and he lies. He's. He's so wrong. Well, anyway, we get a woman running in and she's wiping the head of the man and we get two more characters running in and she's like, oh, I couldn't just, I just couldn't bear the thought of you being hurt. So let's talk a little bit about Mr. Springer. So we had Frank Springer. So I didn't know a lot about Frank Springer. So I went and asked an expert, Bob hall, if you've never met Bob hall, comics legend in the comic book Hall. 130 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:50.000 Boom, right there. 131 00:14:50.000 --> 00:16:43.000 I had. Fantastic. Just walked in the door. Bob Hall. No, Bob hall in the comic news group. You have a true legend out there. So if you don't take the opportunity to walk by and say hi to Bob hall and introduce yourself like, please do. I go to Bob hall and I'm like we're looking up Frank Springer. We can, we can see that he drew some Nick Fury. Tell us about this man. And he said, oh, oh, it's Bob Hall. Then he went through like seven artists. He would compare Frank Springer through, which I'm not going to through go through on this podcast. But then he said Frank Springer was a great artist. What he should have been doing was the comics that strips in the newspaper and drew like Mary Worth. Do any. Does anybody know who Mary Worth is? Harry's like, oh my. So Mary Worth was like a soap opera comic. So basically it was a comic strip. And every, you

know, Monday through Friday you would get. Or Monday through Saturday you'd get a new episode of the soap opera. On the Sunday you get the color wrap up of the soap opera. And it usually they'd either do it monthly or weekly, but they'd end a storyline on Sunday. So you get those comic strips. These are totally. I'm going to show you, these totally look like soap opera comics. These look like love comics. Soap opera comics. And it's really interesting to see Frank Springer doing this right in this book where I kind of. Well, I'm not going to argue with Bob hall ever. One. And number two, it does very much look like comic strip art. But I do think it's appropriate for the book because this is in a book with superheroes. Theoretically, it's a. Well, I guess he's sort of a superhero. He's like a mechanical CB head superhero. So we're rolling around in this book. Well, and we've got the love story. And we're meeting, I guess, the parents. So we've got. At least we've met Big Papa. And we've got unnamed woman. And unnamed woman. Okay, Mary. So now we get us walking with Big Papa. And Big Papa wears a big red cap. This has shortstop on it. And I'm really not sure is he a baseball player or does shortstop. Sam for something else. 132 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:44.000 I think it stands for something. 133 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:46.000 Oh, I bet that's his diner. 134 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:47.000 Yeah. 135 00:16:46.000 --> 00:17:06.000 Okay, that's. That's gotta be Stop diner. So high road trekking, right? Everybody needs to go to a truck stop. And truck stop food is the best, right? I mean, literally is like if you ate truck stop food every day, you would totally be the Buffett truck driver in the world. This is clearly what we're getting. No, like, hey, well, I'm looking. I see the evidence right in front of me. 136 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:11.000 It's right there in US One. I mean, don't lie to me. Comic books. 137 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:31.000 Well, what we find out is we find out the tragic story of Jeff. No, us's brother. His big brother. What happened is Jeff and us were driving their trucks, and then they ran into the secret black truck, and the black truck drove by them. And the black truck was. Jeff says, good Lord. Flashback. 138 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:34.000 It's the highwayman. The highwayman. 139 00:17:34.000 --> 00:18:38.000 And the highwayman runs the truck off the road, and he goes tweeting off a cliff. And poor Jeff is dead off panel. And only us is left alive. And us says, and there was no trace of Jeff was ever found. I swore I wouldn't rest until I found the highwayman. And then a man in the back of the diner says, excuse me, young fella, because everybody that drives a truck has to have sort of a little Southern accent and say things like, excuse me, young fella. Because that's how people talk in the South. Or at truck stops. Or at truck stops. Yeah, I've seen. And now we get a nice conversation with this old timer, the old timer and the old timers telling the story of the highwayman. And we have a young truck driver. And he started out, which looks like clearly in the 1920s, when trucks had a single axle. So basically a truck used, apparently, according this picture, a truck was like a thing with some oil on top, and then it had one axle going down the whole thing, and that held the whole truck together. So I could see where he'd be traumatized. 140 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:55.000 It looks like one of those old truck banks you would get at Christmas time as a child that you would play with or not play with, because it might be worth a lot of money someday. So those old test trucks that my dad used to buy me, like, I would get one every year, and I have, like 20 of them. 141 00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:56.000 It's terrifying. 142 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:58.000 I know. Super terrifying. 143 00:18:58.000 --> 00:18:59.000 And they. And they're all still in your garage. 144 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:01.000 I know. They. Shut up. 145 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:19.000 So now, like, we. We find out that the highwayman, he just can't keep up with the young truck driver. So he wants to keep up. And what he does is he goes to a spirit. And he persisted in his church search to find youth. And eventually he found the help. He suck. And the demon says to him, because we have to have demons. 146 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:20.000 Yeah. 147 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:31.000 So this progressed very quickly, by the way. This guy wanted to be, like, a good truck driver. And now he's like, well, anyway, you seek youth and powerful. Whoa. Youth and power. Power. That's a weird. Like, it's. 148 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:34.000 There's a. I told you the writing. 149 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:40.000 You seek youth and power very well. Our master can grant you these Boons. 150 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:41.000 Bones, Spoons. 151 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:42.000 No, it says boons. 152 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:43.000 Okay, well, again, we had to. 153 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:44.000 We had to revisit the fact that 154 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.000 we have a letter writing a comic book. 155 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:49.000 That's true. 156 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:55.000 So, I mean, traditionally there was a letter. No, no. The person writing the comic book was a letterer. 157 00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:10.000 That's fair. And it's Michael Higgins. So I don't know Michael Higgins lettering history. And he must have been one of Marvel's best letters since I know nothing about his history and he got put on us one. So clearly we're looking at the high quality. I mean, they were going after John Costanza for this one. Right? 158 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:12.000 Like George Costanza loved not. 159 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:15.000 No, no, no, no. Okay, John. No. 160 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:16.000 Okay, okay. 161 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:26.000 No. Well, anyway, so what we find out was the price was his soul, because that is pronounced. And there's like little. It's not

even Kirby Crackle. It's just like squiggly lines around it. 162 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:36.000 Wait a minute. Hold on a second. He's a trucker. He's. He makes a pact for the demon for his soul to be a better trucker. 163 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:42.000 To be the best trucker. No, it's not. Man Bear Pig. No, this is completely different. 164 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:44.000 This sounds a lot like Man Bear Pig. 165 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:53.000 No, it doesn't. Okay, well, Man Bear Pig, it's a trucking version of Spawn. That's a good call out. Trucker Spawn. Trucker Spawn. 166 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:54.000 Okay. 167 00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:06.000 Young Todd McFarlane was reading us, and in my brain he was like, what can I do that's better than a trucker? It sells his soul to a demon. I can do Spawn. 168 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:11.000 We find out the backstories. These 12 issues were his favorite comics. 169 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:31.000 You know, if we had just. So for those of you in the audience and our listeners that don't know, Todd McFarland owned the comic store in our hometown, Puyallup, Washington. And I have all sorts of early Spawn issues signed by Todd McFarlane. Because he would just come to the store and we're like. We're like, oh, we line your book. This is the greatest. I'm like, who is this guy? Oh, this guy's amazing. 170 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:34.000 He's, he's. He's. He's the new up and coming. 171 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:37.000 That's great. And his brother in law owned the store. So we just went there. 172 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:40.000 You guys like toys? He's going to start making toys. They're really cool. 173 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:47.000 And if I could go back in time and just ask Todd McFarlane. Todd did with Spawn inspired by us one. 174 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:51.000 And he'd be like, hey guys, let me tell you a little inside baseball action. 175 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:58.000 It was, you know, he'd say, hey, guys, I know I've let you come to the store for a while, but I don't think you're allowed back. 176 00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:03.000 He would be like, so you owe me five bucks. 177 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:15.000 Well, what we find out is the old timer comes back and he says, no man can beat him. None can escape his grasp. If you manage somehow to survive one encounter with him, consider yourself lucky, man. 178 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:16.000 Be pig. 179 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:21.000 And then he storms out of the door slam. 180 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:22.000 Exactly. 181 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:27.000 All our characters in the diner are going 182 00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:29.000 to. Because they don't know what to do. 183 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.000 By the way, that visual I just did was very good for audio. 184 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:35.000 It was so good because, like, he. I mean, he walks out, everybody is 185 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:45.000 stunned, and I kind of look like my dog pointing out a squirrel. So it was good. All right, so, well, we better move through the story because we're gonna be here, like, seven hours. 186 00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:46.000 Look at that. 187 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:58.000 Oh, wait, the shortstop is the truck stop. I knew it. Okay, I got this. I'm reading through this story, Al. I got you. I got your back. I'm covering up this good. I mean, this. And I'm not covering up anything. This phenomenal writing. I don't have to run anything. 188 00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:00.000 The art is fantastic. I love it. 189 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:23.000 So we. The art is fantastic, actually. So we get, hey, wait a minute. And us runs out after, and he's gone. The old man's gone without a trace. There's no truck where to be seen. In fact, it is just like, classic. You are going to see. We've got classic Old Empty Road. I think you'll probably have run that paint. That little print. That little panel has probably been in, like, 75 Marvel comics. 190 00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:29.000 It's been reused so many times, it's almost like a trauma film with Sergeant Bukaki or Sergeant Kabuki. 191 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:34.000 I'm sorry, I missed what. What are you on? 192 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:37.000 Totally different. 193 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:43.000 You are trying to get me to have to edit this podcast. Like, this is a live to cave show, and you drop that. 194 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:45.000 It's a delicious food dish. 195 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:47.000 Don't look it up. 196 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:49.000 It's a noodle dish. Don't look it up. 197 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:51.000 Okay. No, it's not. 198 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:59.000 Yeah, it's a. It's. Yeah, it's a ramen dish. Yeah, other people turn into other things. Whatever. 199 00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:10.000 Okay. Yeah, it's a ramen dish. So. All right, so now we get. And we meet our cast because we're going to be introduced to a new character, and I'm very excited. 200 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.000 New character. 201 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:20.000 We get some characters. They stop in the Short Stop store. Short Stop, Truck stop, Short Stop Truck Stop. Short Stop. Truck Stop. And we get. 202 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:22.000 It's so fun to. We meet. 203 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:36.000 We meet Taran o' Connell at your service. And the man who spoke the words of wisdom is Retread. My name is Retread. Just Retread. I'm not going to say what. Greg read this as the first time I'm dyslexic. 204 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:39.000 Okay. That's how I got the wrong name on the. 205 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:43.000 It's also an 80s book, so we just assumed it was really terrible. 206 00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:48.000 And I had to reread this thing a couple of times and I asked three other people at the table to reread it with me. 207 00:24:48.000 --> 00:25:20.000 But it gets worse. Are you ready? We find out Retread is introduced to some other characters. We meet Ed Wheeler, Wide Load Annie Us Archer. And the hired help who introduces herself as Mary McGrill.

Yes, the same Mary that rusty US Archer US side as he was. Yeah. So okay, that's. That's Wide Load Annie. That's that. I mean the completely like that's a name that would roll now. 208 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:29.000 I. Yeah, I think a lot of the. A lot of the names would have to be changed. A lot of. And then situations like to protect Al Milgram. Changes in the book would definitely. 209 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:43.000 Well, we're gonna skip ahead just a tiny bit here because we've got some nice dialogue like any Mary Worth comic. We've got to sit down and we have a nice diner conversation when we learn about Retread. And then Retread tells him the whole story of the Old Timer. 210 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:45.000 Old Timer whole story gives him the download. 211 00:25:45.000 --> 00:26:19.000 And we're finding out this Old Timer might not be such a great guy, so might be a bad dude. It could happen. So now Retread goes out with us and they get in the giant US1 truck. And now remember how it's yellow on the COVID when we saw this. I know you can't see that on the back, but do you see this beautiful blue, red, white and blue truck? Is this not the greatest truck of America ever? I mean, if I was going to have an American truck in 1983, this. Is that true? You. I think that Ronald Reagan personally rode and endorsed this truck. And Nancy Reagan made this part of the anti drug campaign. 212 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:24.000 I mean, just say no to trucking. 213 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:44.000 Well, as our intrepid heroes. I mean our intrepid truck drivers move down the street. Retread is chatting it up, or actually he's thinking. And we find out that Retreads reverie because I don't know how they choose the words in this book, but they don't want me to be able to read it because I don't know if you can say Retreads Reverie three times fast. 214 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:45.000 Well, he's retread. 215 00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:46.000 Yeah, that's true. 216 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:52.000 And I would imagine he would say stuff. Double. Double back. Because it's a retread. 217 00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:00.000 Yeah. I just think if you were a truck driver, too, Retread is probably not the right name. Like, I just that. I mean, that's not the tires you want. 218 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:06.000 No, you don't. You want, like, new, fresh tires or, like, you know, you don't want retreads or double slicks, because that's just bad. 219 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:09.000 Well, maybe that's why he's in the passenger seat. 220 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:10.000 He's not a good driver. 221 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:21.000 Well, anyway, as us is going down the road, he's suddenly surrounded by three other trucks, and people are firing guns at the truck. You're in real trouble right now. And thank God we are interrupted by a Bubble Yum. 222 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:27.000 And so it's like when you're watching a bad video on YouTube and it. You're like, oh, nobody got hurt. 223 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:29.000

And I love bubble Yum. And that's the grape flavor. 224 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:30.000 Yeah, that's. 225 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:33.000 And the grape flavor always lasted longer than the strawberry flavor. 226 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:35.000 It pretty much did. 227 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.000 Did you know it was owned by Nabisco? I'm shocked. Who also brought us those drug issues? 228 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:41.000 Oh, yeah, those drug issues. 229 00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:42.000 Let's not talk about that, because I'm 230 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:44.000 gonna see Dark Time in the podcast. 231 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:45.000 If there's a Dark time in the 232 00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:47.000 podcast, go back and listen to them, because they're hilarious. 233 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:58.000 I don't know. I was pretty angry. Well, anyway, we get a giant drug fight. Drug fight? No, truck fight. 234 00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:03.000 That could. Yeah, comes later where they open up the trucks and they find all the drugs. 235 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:14.000 But what we do get is US One is, like, trying to figure out what's going on. He opens up his radar scope, and his brain communicates with a radar scope, and they find a blimp in the sky. 236 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:17.000 What? A blip? 237 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:39.000 Yeah. And he, like the blimp, I guess, is firing down on them and is letting the other trucks know where they're going. So instead of getting her, like a radar plane, they had a blimp. But what you didn't know is just like Batman's utility belt, the US one truck has many things it can use to take care of itself. And in this case, he releases smoke screen. And a smoke screen comes up over everything, and it prevents the blip from tracking them. 238 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:45.000 It's like he's driving kit from Knight Rider, but in a big truck. But Knight Rider also had a big truck. Oh, my gosh. 239 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:46.000 And then we. 240 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:47.000 In a big truck. 241 00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:48.000 And then we flipped the page and. 242 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:50.000 And, oh, hey, I want to get big like Atlas. 243 00:28:50.000 --> 00:29:00.000 I know you were wanting more of the story, but Atlas is huge, and you could be a slam dunker, too. And more importantly, you subscribe to Wolverine comics and other comics for only 42 cents a copy. 244 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.000 The copy man, we could have got us worth of 42 cents. 245 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:36.000 Well, this was tough because, well, it does say offer expires May 31, 1983, so you should be very careful there. But what I will say is this comic was 60 cents, and this had just come up from 50 cents. And if you just went from 50 to 60 cents and you got us one, I mean, think of the quality. Like Marvel expands their line just for you so they can go to 60 cent comics and they could give you this fine book. Wild. All right, so what we now get back to is a whole situation where us one finds an encampment of bad guy truckers. And all those bad guy truckers have a smuggling ring. 246 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:38.000 All the bad guys. 247 00:29:38.000 --> 00:30:29.000 And they're just chatting. But because this is like a comic from the 80s, we can't really say that they're smuggling drugs, that they're bad guys. We did see some guns, sort of, but it looked like the Pew Pew gunfighter from like, maybe like, GI Joe. Laser shots, please. And definitely nobody's dying, because, remember, we had the comics code authority on this, which means we can't say that police are bad. We can't say that there are drugs. We can't say that they're smuggling. No, we can't really say there's anybody bad. And you can't, by the way of the comics code. You can't disparage professions. So if these folks are truck drivers, then you can't actually say that they're smugglers because they're truck drivers, and that's bad. And that's a profession. So we can't say that truck drivers are bad people. You can't sit in the truck drivers. No, see, truck drivers are professions. You can't do that because we have to make sure that everything's okay. 248 00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:30.000 In the 80s. 249 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:36.000 We had to protect people. Well, if you wanted the code stamp, I mean, you could go without the code stamp, but then nobody would distribute your comic book. 250 00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:38.000 So then you would have to do, 251 00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:40.000 like, Robert Chromebooks kind of terrible. 252 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:43.000 Well, that's a whole other bag. 253 00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:53.000 We get our. Our Heroes have driven the truck, though, up on a rock, and they're looking down. But then retread, because he's really clumsy, he slips and he falls down the 254 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:57.000 entire hill and crashes in while firing a pistol. 255 00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:03.000 Well, he's. Well, they're firing pistols at him. Oh, he's holding one, too. 256 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:07.000 Yeah, he's holding one, too. But we find out it's not a real gun. It's a flare gun. 257 00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:19.000 But this distraction is fine, because US one, which strangely looks like Optimus prime, drives down the hill as fast as he can. And there we go. Us one captures an old man. Well, he grabs the old man. 258 00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:20.000 Grabs the old man. He's trying to help. 259 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:21.000 He thought the old man was captured 260 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:23.000 by the guys because those guys are whooping. 261 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:25.000 I'm spoiling the end. I said he thought. 262 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:28.000 Well, he's whooping. The old man is getting whooped on by everybody. 263 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:29.000 I'm so sorry. I spoiled that. 264 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:31.000 You didn't spoil the old. You didn't spoil anything. 265 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:32.000 Stop. 266 00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:57.000 The old man is captured. He's.

He's getting captured. Us one, he comes in and he starts whooping on all those guys. And the funniest part, I find is, like, you know, we got. We got retread sliding down the hill. Us one is sitting there, and he's like, karate. Like retreads, karate kicking people. Us one is sitting there, and he's got a metal head, right? And some dude goes to hit him, and it's like. And then he's like, oh, wait a second. 267 00:31:57.000 --> 00:31:58.000 There's another one called Clung. 268 00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:10.000 Clung. And then he's like, I'm just headbutt these dudes. He's like. And he hits them all with. In the face with his head. I know that's a lot. What? 269 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:11.000 Well, he doesn't want to damage that. 270 00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:13.000 Yeah, but. But he has to. 271 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:34.000 Well, anyway, we get a giant fight, and eventually they get piled up on, but us one calls the truck with his brain head, and the truck comes flying at everybody, and everybody scatters because they don't want to be run over by Optimus. I mean, I'm getting copyrighted. So now we know what inspired the Transformers. It was so good to find this out tonight. 272 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:37.000 There's one. 273 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:40.000 The origin for everything. Us one is clear. The origin for everything. 274 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:41.000 Yeah. Yeah. 275 00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:44.000 Well, despite this fight, this. 276 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.000 Oh, these bullpen bulletins are great. 277 00:32:46.000 --> 00:33:07.000 Oh, yeah. I would like to point out, though, we get a bullpen bulletin from Jim Shooter, not Stanley. And the other thing is, this book isn't old enough to have a letter column. If it was old enough to have a letter column, because we're only in issue three and your letter column's probably not going to show up till issue four, and that's probably going to cover issue one. I would have loved to read the reviews of issue one to see what the fans were saying about this crazy 278 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:19.000 stuff are you doing. And, but apparently, like some of the notes though, and what we talk about in previous. In previous issue or previous episodes is 279 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:20.000 that a lot of, A lot of 280 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:28.000 stuff that's going on in comics history at this time or right before is there's a lot of shakeups going on in the industry. In the industry. Kind of like what we have going on. 281 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:42.000 And if you want to know what was going on right now we've got the Thing number one, which is the issue where Thing breaks off from the Fantastic Four and you eventually get she Hulk in the Fantastic Four. So actually there was a historically cool thing happening, just not this comic. 282 00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:50.000 Well, I was, I was talking more about the changes in edit and the editorial staff at Marvel that was coming over from other comic book companies or 283 00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:55.000 the Marvel people that were all leaving to go to D.C. because they love Jim Shooter. 284 00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.000 So. So that's what's in the bulletin. Bulletin is that he's saying, hey, our 285 00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:00.000 products are still great. 286 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:06.000 Don't worry, we're going to still put out good books. We're just changing some staff right now. So you're going to see some new 287 00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:12.000 names like, like Larry Hannah, your favorite. Well, yeah. Well. 288 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:13.000 Which was great. I love. 289 00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:27.000 That was probably great. Well, and we get an ad for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, there he is. Oh, wait, this stuff. Well, isn't it funny that the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was in the book about demon Trekkers? 290 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:28.000 So. 291 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:34.000 Because you all know those people that played D and D in 1983 were probably murdering people in parks. Here he is. 292 00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:35.000 Okay. 293 00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:37.000 Side note, that's what the news said when I was little. 294 00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:51.000 Well, and that's what. And that's what the Tom Hanks movie all about. DND was about is if you go into a cave with your friends, you're gonna have a bad time playing DND real life. And you might kill a friend thinking they're a goblin. 295 00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:12.000 Well, I can't wait. We're to the last page and this wrap up is fantastic because you're not going to believe this. We get a freaking Scooby Doo wrap up. Yeah. So literally the old man, they grab him and they pull his mask off and he's nothing. 296 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:17.000 He's nothing. He Was never there because this is 297 00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:31.000 how Miriam's best work. How much involvement do you think the Ralph Macchio the editor had in this was. Was, Was Ralph Macchio just like going back to him and saying, yeah, can you rewrite page 19? Because we wanted a Scooby Doo ending. 298 00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:36.000 Just fix it. Make the Scooby Doo ending. And right, like wrap it up. So we, later on we had an. 299 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:45.000 We had an ending where Johnny Cash and the highwaymen show up and they start singing songs. And that was going to happen, but instead we got a Scooby Doo ending 300 00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:53.000 demonstration. Well, that's what happens when you sell your soul to a demon. Well, that's the best. 301 00:35:53.000 --> 00:36:01.000 Well, what we find out by the end of this book is that us has won a mask and a shirt because he pulled them off. And he gets to end the show with it. 302 00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:04.000 He gets to wear it. I mean, like the comic suit that everybody. 303 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:05.000 Wait, oh, that's another that. 304 00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:10.000 I mean, 305 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:11.000 this is the end. 306 00:36:11.000 -->

00:36:14.000 You are 100% correct. 307 00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:26.000 In fact, George Lucas read this comic in 1983, went back in time and was inspired to write the Obi Wan character for Star Wars. Because US one is the inspiration for all other things. 308 00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:27.000 Lives in the desert. 309 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:38.000 Well, the good news is at the end of the story, retread comes back, he says, finally got the flames out from when he slid down the hill and to see his butt was on fire. 310 00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:42.000 No, he set himself on fire with a flare gun. 311 00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:44.000 Wow. I thought it was from sliding down the hill when his butt was. 312 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:49.000 No, no, he fired the flare gun, set himself on fire. You go there. 313 00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:52.000 I think it could be either way. I mean, there's room for interpretation here. 314 00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:54.000 I think he said himself. 315 00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:22.000 Well, anyway, us one says at the end, he says about the story the old man told us about the highwayman selling his soul to the devil and becoming immortal for a price. I can't help but wonder how much of that story was true. Oh, the end. And we get a nice ad for Epic's Coyote written by Steve Englehart, which was probably a lot better than this book and probably nobody bought. 316 00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:26.000 And also a follow up ad for the network game Tron. 317 00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:33.000 Well, he focused in on Tron and I focused on. Sell as many greeting cards as you can so you can have Epic prizes from the Olympic sales club. 318 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:37.000 Never worked for me because I didn't know enough people in the neighborhood. 319 00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:40.000 Well, as we start to wrap this one up, we've got an ad for the Kool Aid man. 320 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:43.000 Oh yeah, 321 00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:46.000 somebody played who played the Kool Aid Man. Game. 322 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:47.000 You. 323 00:37:47.000 --> 00:38:06.000 I did, yeah. It was on the Atari. I have it, so. Well, I got the Atari, so I was. Maybe. I hate to admit this to an audience. Like, we were so poor. I didn't get an Atari until the Nintendo came out and I had to buy it from a friend for 15. And then I got whatever games with it. So if I got a free game, I was pretty excited. 324 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:07.000 Free games. 325 00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:10.000 Like, I wore out some joust because somebody gave it to me for free. 326 00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:12.000 House is a solid game still. Joust. 327 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.000 It's a solid game still. So is qbird. Some big fan games. 328 00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:18.000 Pac man ported over to the Atari, not so great. 329 00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:22.000 But Kool Aid Man, I'm going to tell you, not one of the greatest games in history. 330 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:23.000 Even better. 331 00:38:23.000 --> 00:39:00.000 Good premise. Good premise. A whole game where you break through, like, barriers. I mean, that's a pretty basic Atari gaming right there. But what this is also advertising is Marvel Comics the Adventures of Kool Aid Man. And let me tell you, as we've told our listeners, if you brought us a copy of US1, we'd review it. If you bring me a copy of the Adventures of Kool Aid Man, I will definitely review the Adventures of Kool Aid Man. I will even do research on the authors and the writers and figure out why in the world they ever decided to do Adventures of Kool Aid man. My guess is a paycheck. Okay, so just so you know, we're at ocon. We're in Nebraska. Well, we're not in Nebraska, but we're basically in Nebraska. 332 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:01.000 It's a good. 333 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:01.000 We're like. 334 00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:02.000 It's literally. 335 00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:04.000 We're like, in Nebraska north, known as Iowa. 336 00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:06.000 We're like, what? 337 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:08.000 But. And there's a Kool Aid man museum. 338 00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:09.000 Koolaid Man. 339 00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:10.000 And we need to go there. 340 00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:13.000 I'm just gonna bust through the walls there. Oh, yeah. 341 00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:15.000 And Kool Aid style. 342 00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:16.000 Wait, yeah. 343 00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:18.000 Kool Aid style. I don't think he said that. 344 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:28.000 Well, the bigger question is, is the Kool Aid man the. The. The glass or the. The. Or is it the. The drink? I don't want to. 345 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:30.000 I think it's disturbing. Like the koolaid. 346 00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:33.000 If you take. If you take one away. Do you still have the Kool Aid Man? 347 00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:54.000 Well, no, because it's like the Wonder Twins, which was always disturbing. Like. Like, he made himself into, like, ice cubes, and Gleek would bring a pitcher, and then they drank the Kool Aid out of the ice that Zan was in. That's gross. They were, like, drinking Zan and that's what the Kool Aid man is like. That's why he's so happy. You are what you eat. Well, we should wrap this up. 348 00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:55.000 We should. 349 00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:56.000 We should. We gotta wrap this thing up. 350 00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:09.000 We do have to wrap it up, but we do. You. You buried the lead as to why US1 was made in the first place, because we talked a lot about advertising in this episode. We talked a lot about the advertisements in the book, and we talked about the Kool Aid man game and the advertising in the. 351 00:40:09.000 --> 00:41:07.000 All right, so Tyco Slot Cars thought it would be a great idea to take something they made in 1979 as a toy and have Marvel Comics make it into a comic in 1983. Except there's no reference to the slot cars or anything in the actual book, Just a magical truck. So basically, like, if it was four years later and you, I guess you were lucky

enough to find those US1 toys, then you could go back in time as a kid and be inspired to. But I don't see anything in this comic that tells me to go look for US one toys, which is really off the mark, because within a. I think within a year and a half, I think it was 85, we'll get star Comics line in Marvel Comics, and we'll get all sorts of things like the Care Bears and things like that in comics. So instead of doing something like this, Marvel just goes ahead and embraces it and runs the Star line and just says, well, we're just going to be an advertising line for toys. So it. This is, I guess, the first attempt, but not the best, because you. You. I. I don't say the Care Bears comics are good, but at least they were written for kids, and at least they had, you know, met their mission of advertising the thing. 352 00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:09.000 No. 353 00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:22.000 Learned from that when he made Secret wars to sell. Okay. The question was, do we think Jim Shooter learned from that to use Secret wars to make Marvel toys? No. Jim Schroeder learns from no one because he's Jim Shooter and he knows everything. 354 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:26.000 That's true. He doesn't need to learn from people because he's so smart. 355 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:42.000 Like, someday I'm going to go get Jim Shooter's autograph. He's like I heard you quoted as saying, I never learned from anybody because I know everything, and I'm going to Mr. Shooter. That's true. That's why I want your autograph. 356 00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:44.000 Oh. 357 00:41:44.000 --> 00:42:56.000 I actually am a little bit jealous of that, because I would be going and getting my Adventure comics, Legion stuff signed by Jim Shooter. So I'm a Bit jealous of that. I did see that Jim Shooter was out and around, so I am sort of anxious to get his podcast. But I feel like my conversation as a Legion fan with Paul Levitz is going to go very different than it does with Jim Shooter, so. Yeah, but, you know, admittedly without. I don't want to just keep picking on Jim Shooter because his run at Marvel as the editor wasn't great. He tried, but I will give him some credit. He tried the. It was the new, I said in the last episode, but that new line, whatever comics. And he tried to do some new superheroes like Star Brand and did try to get some things out there. He did do a few things. So at least Jim Shooter tried to do some things. I will say that. And you know, you got to give props to somebody who is 14 year old, 13 years old when they write their first comic book and they actually sent it into a publisher with full. There we go, DP7 with full thumbnails. So if you don't know Jim Shooter's history before he became an editor, pretty fantastic that he could do all the thumbnails and everything as a comic book, you know, writer and then have, you know, famous people like, you know, the most famous Superman artist ever drawing over Jim Shooter. So that's, you know, when, when Swan draws over you. That's pretty amazing. 358 00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:08.000 So the fact that he was, he was draw. He was, he was doing all that while he was going to, to high school, going to, bouncing around, going to junior high. Yeah, junior high, high school, college. 359 00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:11.000 But then, no, then he went to college, he left the industry and he came back. 360 00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:13.000 But, you know, that's what you have to do sometimes. 361 00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:15.000 And then he went to D.C. and then he went to Marvel to be 362 00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:17.000 the editor because that's a pretty good 363 00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:37.000 career because he had a business degree, so now he can be an editor. And as if you, if you were. And for those of you in the workforce, as we all know, if you have a business degree, that makes you qualified to be in charge automatically. So just notice yourselves. If you want to be in charge, get a business degree, then that makes you in charge, even if you don't know what you're talking about. So that's the perfect way to do this. 364 00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:38.000 That's how you do it. 365 00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:43.000 So we're going to go ahead and wrap this puppy up. Greg, do you have anything to plug on this podcast? 366 00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:53.000 Well, as always, Junior Bridge of the Apocalypse is a book that I write with Michael Tanner. And if, if you're here at the ocon, you can come find us at our table. But if you're not. 367 00:43:53.000 --> 00:44:05.000 Well, they're not going to be at the ocon. Well, they are here at the. The people listening to this next Wednesday are not going to hear this. They're not going to know where the ocon. That's why we advertise the OCON on every other podcast before this one. 368 00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:06.000 So I. 369 00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:13.000 You were doing good at the plugs, but then you plug something that we're already doing that people won't be able to do after they hear this. 370 00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:16.000 I know, exactly. 371 00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:19.000 Yeah, we can. We can come to the next year's open. 372 00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:20.000 Yeah. And then find us here. 373 00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:31.000 So look in the future. So when you're listening to this, like a year from now, because you're listening to our podcast and you. And you're re listening to it every week because it's so amazing. You can come back to Okon the next year. 374 00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:32.000 Yeah, exactly. 375 00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:33.000 You have anything else to plug? 376 00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:35.000 Well, Starlight issue 6 is. 377 00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:38.000 Starlight issue 6 will be on Kickstarter. 378 00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:44.000 We don't have a date exactly yet. So you got to come to our Facebook page, our Instagram, or you go 379 00:44:44.000 --> 00:45:15.000 to Overcast Comics and you could buy the first five. Oh, my gosh. And you know, read the series and then get involved in it. And by the way, really, I'm not just saying this because Greg's my friend. Issue five, we reviewed it last episode and I read it and couldn't go to sleep for an hour because I was thinking so much after reading the issue. And for those of you that listened to the last podcast now, so this won't be a spoiler if you catch the reference, you'll get it. When we signed in to do the podcast, I logged in as Annie Wilkes just to let Greg know how I thought about him reading that book. 380 00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:16.000 I was scared as hell. 381 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:49.000 We thank you. Well, we want to also, like we always do, plug, plug the store, the Retro Emporium in Kent, Washington. If you are stopping by, visit Ann, and you'll often see Greg there too, and relive your childhood. So thanks so much for listening to this one. I hope you had fun with it. And if I know I can't find it, you have to find the book because this isn't available anywhere to actually read electronically. And I just can't imagine why Marvel hasn't prioritized putting this fine book up electronically so people can find it to read it. 382 00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:50.000 So. 383 00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:58.000 So there will be no link to this book in the podcast notes. I'm sorry. And that's it. Bye, Greg. Say goodbye. 384 00:45:58.000 --> 00:45:59.000 Bye. 385 00:45:58.000 --> 00:45:59.000 Bye. Bye, Greg. Say goodbye, Greg. 386 00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000 I'm trying to. 387 00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:01.000 Do you. 388 00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:11.000 Do you know where the button is? Yeah.