Hi, this is Christopher Priest, writer of Marvel Knights, The World to Come, Superman Lost, and Vampirella. And you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. you Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Hello everyone and welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast. I am Chris Hacker, one of your co-hosts here and joining me is my BFF, Aaron Knowles. Hello. Welcome back everybody to the Oblivion Bar podcast.
This week on the show, we are joined by an absolute legend. Someone who has been in the industry for, and we say it in this conversation, right? It'll be 50 years in two years. uh He is a co-creator of the, he's one of the co-creators of the Milestone Universe. He is a co-creator of Quantum and Woody. He has impressive longstanding runs on Deathstroke and Conan the Barbarian and many, many others. Aaron, you look like you're about to say something. What you to say?
Like we'll sometimes throw legend around sort of maybe cavalier, especially if it's like someone who really like and admire in the industry. But Christopher Priest, who was on the show this week, he is a legend with a capital L in the comic book medium. He started off as an intern at Marvel, Marvel comics in 1978 and he took a brief break for like two years in the nineties, but has been in the comic industry this entire time since then.
And he has joined us today, Aaron, to talk about not only Marvel Knights, The World to Come, which is the reintroduction into the Marvel Knights universe over at Marvel, but also Superman Lost. We actually talk about Superman Lost a little bit more than I thought we were. No, no, no, no, no, no, ability for that. um, that's I, know, it was such a great conversation. Like I am, I did not really like fathom how excited I was to talk to him.
And so this was, whoo, man, this was, this was an experience. Like this is, this is one of those ones where it's like, we do this show because we love to talk to people. love to talk to creators. And it feels so genuine and it feels so natural when you get people that are just like, just like people. And then every once in a while you get these creators on that are just like, uh, I'm talking to whom, right?
You know, and it's just like, Oh my God, it's like, it's like, I w what comes to mind is that galactic shadow and the fantastic four trailer where it's just like, yeah, that's the guy, you know, Yeah. And you know, we've said many times here on the show that in the beginning of the oblivion bar, we first started talking to creators, Philip Kennedy Johnson, being the first creator we ever had on the show.
We have slowly, but definitely, you know, gotten to the point now where we just see these folks as talented nerds. try to have the most friendly down to earth conversation. And I think we have that here with Christopher Priest, ah who he, you know, we'll call him priest in the conversation. He prefers to be called priest. ah It's hard not to feel daunted by this conversation in preparation.
And I even say it when preparing to talk to Mr. Priest about his career, again, almost a 50 year long career in comics. Where do you start? know, like he's here to talk about Marvel Knights, but in reality, we could have had a hour long conversation about a lot of at least 10 topics within his career. know, I wanted there to be a definite sense realization on Black Panther because His Marvel Knights Black Panther run is one of my all time favorites.
There was a time, Aaron, leading up to the movie's release with Chadwick Boseman with Marvel Studios, where I went back and read a lot of the Jungle Action, a lot of the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby stuff from Fantastic Four, some of the Don McGregor stuff. And then eventually, I would say that Christopher Priest's run, I think, is the beginning of the modern day Black Panther. His first arc, the client, through Marvel Knights.
him and Mark Teixeira is what I think is sort of like modern Black Panther. And we talk about what is like his approach. There's a lot of humor in this book. If you read any Black Panther prior to Christopher Priest and Mark's run on that series, it is a serious political drama where it's a lot of like inner family turmoil. It's kind of a hard read in 2025, but when you finally get to that Marvel Knights Christopher Priest run, there's like a little bit of levity to it. Mm-hmm.
That is really refreshing. I feel like we should just get into the conversation because I feel like I feel like I'm having a hard time uh articulating how incredible it was to talk to him about his runs. I don't want to say his runs. Nick's that to talk to him about his career. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we didn't talk about it at all in this conversation, Aaron, but I know you're a big Deathstroke fan. I honestly believe that Christopher Priest has run on that on Deathstroke.
He started off, I think he was the first writer for the DC Rebirth back in like 2017. And he did, I want to say it was like 40, 50 issues, a long run. Like he was when, when DC Rebirth had like done its course and it was, it was literally, I highly recommend it. Uh, but when it had run its course and like, DC Rebirth, a lot of the titles were starting to sort of refurbish and new creative teams were jumping on these characters.
You still had Christopher Priest and Carlo, and I always say his name incorrectly, but it's the same artist on Superman Lost. Carlo Pagulian, I think it's how you say his name, but I could be incorrect. Pagulian. uh Those two, they got Isendure nominations for both Deathstroke and then eventually Superman Lost. I loved like respectful because again, we tend to focus hyper focus on one or the other, like the artist or the writer.
And in this case, like we had this really in depth conversation with him as the writer, but he was so humble about making sure that we throw some credit, throw the uh proper amount of credit and respect over to Carlos about everything that they've put into the creations as well. again, just all around an amazing individual. Absolutely. We're excited to bring this conversation you guys. Before we do that, quick shameless plug. Please go over to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod.
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have plenty of tiers. have one, two, five and $10 tiers. We also have a free tier that you can free things. you have seven day free trial. You check it out. I can't do a false satellite view. I don't have that vocal capacity. like down deep like for That's a baritone, right? uh Over there on Patreon, you can stop sidetracking me here. I'm trying to tell the people about Patreon. I love talking to my best friend. Over there, you can get access to our bonus episode each week.
call the grid grid grid grid. You're supposed to, So you're going to do the echo this time. I usually do the echo where it's basically just what you're kind of hearing right now. It's half an hour, extra half an hour of this. Generally we do more than an hour, right? Like usually an hour plus. Who can cap that that conversation? Dumb shit too. It's like all it's all types of stuff. It's you know, it's great. So yeah, don't forget the the transcripts.
Yes. What we prepare each interview again, this conversation we just had with Mr. Priest, you'll get access to see how we prepare for each interview, every show, uh, you get early access to these episodes. So if you're on the patron, you might be listening to this early right now. Tell them about all the free stuff. Oh, also it's not really free, but if you join the patron, you'll, you'll get care packages and you'll definitely make out on the amount that is sent to you.
Uh, it is kind of free cause you get it randomly and often. but I don't know why I'm still whispering. Back to my radio voice. You'll get random packages from us, stickers, comics, Blu-rays. We've sent off original art. Shout out to Brad Bell and his original Stan Sakai sketch. You never know what we're going to send. We also send things abroad. Shout out to Mac over in New Zealand. We've sent him some things.
So that Kiwi, that our favorite Kiwi, but yeah, so patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. If you enjoy the oblivion bar, your support would mean so much to us. So Without further ado, we've done enough preamble. Let's go ahead and get into this conversation with the one and only Christopher Priest. Are you a long time comic fan? Is your pull list longer than your grocery list? Or are you someone interested in learning about how comic books are made?
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Dark regards number one hits shelves on May 14th. Whether you're into historical fiction about the escape from Alcatraz or into futuristic billionaire murdering power fantasies, or say you just really love Rick and Morty and Adventure Time, Oni Press has something for you. Discover more at onepress.com or visit your local comic shop today. And now, this week's special guest. Joining us today is the comic book legend who has been working in the comic book medium since 1978.
He has written character defining runs on Deathstroke, Quantum and Woody, Superman, Conan the Barbarian, and many, many others. More impressively, he also helped co-found Milestone Comics and was one of the central architects of the Dakotaverse.
Along with recent runs on Vampirella and the upcoming Sonya Reborn series on the way, he is also here to discuss Marvel Knights The World to Come, the long-awaited continuation of what many fans considered to be his finest work, his iconic Marvel Knights Black Panther run. It is our honor to welcome Priest onto the Oblivion Bar podcast. Thank you so much for being here, sir. We appreciate you.
And you know, honestly, I think when we first started setting up this conversation, and I talk about a little bit later on in our conversation, and one of the questions sort of centered around this idea, when looking at the scope of your career, which we are approaching 50 years on in the comics, it's hard to find a pillar to focus on because you've done so much.
ah Have you found that to be the case when talking to other people, other podcasts, other websites that like, they just don't know how to approach these conversations the way we've had trouble with? I don't know. think it all depends on what we're promoting at the time. So usually like, you know, the publisher will set these things up and like, okay, talk about this. Don't talk about anything else.
Yeah. Okay. Well, we're to kind of stick with that same sort of a through line because today, as I mentioned there in the intro, we're going to be talking about Marvel Knights, the world to come. You know, in 1998, you were part of that original crew that Joe Casada, Jimmy Pamiati put together for that Marvel Knights imprint. And now here in 2025, Marvel Knights looks to be making a big comeback with the six issue mini series. Again, the world to come. So it's very, very exciting.
And we were actually, we're talking today, you, myself and Aaron, we're all talking here. the day that first issue releases, the Wednesday, June 4th. So my first question for you is, how do you feel the reception has been for the return of Marvel Knights? I don't know. I've been dealing with auto mechanics and a toothache all day. So I really haven't been paying attention. I've just been really mad because I took my car in for service and they broke my glove box.
You know, and I took the car in for, for breaks. Why are you in my blood? So let's have that discussion. I really haven't noticed that, you know, I tend to not read reviews of my work. I tend not to look at sales figures. I tend not to get into any of that stuff. I do the publicity because the publisher makes me do it, but I'm not on social media. I'm just a schmuck living in the woods who is lucky enough to write comics for a living.
I don't really, I just tell my editors, look, just tell me when to stop. I don't wanna know, are we doing good? Oh, we sold a bunch of these. didn't sell a bunch of those or, oh, we're in trouble. Never tell me we're in trouble because, you know, what do you want? What do you want from me? We sent the Hulk to a disco because they were trying to get more people to read Black Panther. This is like issue 13 or 14 of the original run.
This is post Marvel nights, you know, and we did a lot of that stuff to, know, because we were just, you know, once we moved over from Marvel nights to the Marvel universe, the book came under a lot of pressure to increase sales.
And what I've learned uh over the years is that you got to dance with the ones that brung you, you know, and you have to appreciate the audience you have and not just constantly sell them out ah in order to commercialize it or to have the X-Men show up for no reason at all or whatever, you know, to increase sales. you know, basically I just tell editors, don't tell me about numbers.
You know, and I don't read the reviews because even if they're good reviews, then if I believe the good reviews, then I got to believe the bad reviews. You know, um, just let me do my job and just tell me when to stop. Well, I love Roach. I love. that approach. stay out of the glove box on my car. I love it. This Han Solo attitudes like never tell me the odds, you know. oh Yeah, because all it does is mess with my head when I'm trying to work here. Yeah. And it's not really your responsibility.
It's your job to create this. And then you just put it out in the world and it's almost like in a way no longer yours. It's kind of up to the reader to interpret it however they want, whatever your intentions were are almost sort of like a second fiddle to how the readership takes it, you know? And sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. So we're doing something with Red Sonja now, it's called Sonja Reborn. And that's a perfect example of what you're talking about.
When we started the Marvel Knights Panther, there was a lot of pushback from so-called Panther purists who were confusing Black Panther with Tarzan. They thought he was Tarzan. He's this primitive guy that lives in the jungle and he gives a bone through his nose, whatever the story. You know, and I had to remind people that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created this genius inventor and he had all these advanced toys and so forth and this vast wealth.
And he was the sovereign of this nation, of this independent nation. You know, and I had to bring all that back into focus. And there was a lot of pushback from people who had become acclimated to Tarzan. You know, he's wearing this leotard, he gets beat up, gets, you know, back up. No, we're not doing that anymore.
You know, so the red Sonia thing will be like a real culture shock as well, because it's just like, you know, why do you let priest, know, why do you leave him alone in the room with our characters? You know, I tend to be a little subversive, but I think that every now and then some subversion is good for, you know, for the system to wake up and to also invite a larger audience, maybe people who've never read Black Panther or who had no reason to read Red Sonia.
And it's like, well, you know, here, let's crack the door open for those folks. Give them a fighting chance to understand this world and these in the genre and what's going on here. And also let's have a little fun. mean, when was the last time you had fun with Ritz? So fingers crossed, fellas. Last time I had fun with Red Sonja was when she started in a movie with basically Conan, but it wasn't Conan.
was just Arnold Schwarzenegger with another name swinging a giant sword hanging out with Red Sonja. Yeah, I remember, you know, we're not doing that. No, we're not doing that.
love that approach because again, like, you know, we'll talk about it later when I, when I get to, you know, talk to you a little bit about Superman loss, but that's one thing that's really been impressive to me with comics, you know, and I know it's, it's, it feels like there's a select few creators in the comic industry that are given the freedom to really take a character and, and like, if not like completely reinvent them against to subvert the stereotypes or the current, you know,
Yeah, exactly. The expectations. you know, and I love that approach because we talk a lot about uh like Wonder Woman. Chris and I talk a lot about Wonder Woman. We haven't really, well, he's found Wonder Woman, uh like people who have created Wonder Woman and written her in a way that he enjoys. But for some people, it's not easy to find a specific way to enjoy Wonder Woman.
And then you get writers like yourself who want to, again, subvert the expectations and creates a character that we want to read about. that's, know, Black Panther has been like that for years now. thanks to what you've done with that character and kind of given him this new path forward. Well, I think the important thing to remember anytime you're reading a story that I wrote and it's, you know, and for anyone listening or watching this thing, you should write this down.
If you're reading a priest story, just understand I am lying to you. You know, so chapter one, chapter two, there's a lot of lying going on here. Don't fall for it. We're having this conversation now with a, not the publisher, but with a uh rights holder. um for a property that we're not ready to talk about yet. you know, potato man, let's say. Okay, so the rights holder potato man.
The publisher and I, we're on the same page, but the rights holder, I'm scaring the hell out of the rights holder because we're doing, you know, X, Y, and Z, and we're getting these notes back from them. And they're like, you know, it's like from the studio, right? And they're going, you know, well, this is, you know, cliche or, know, what if you, you know, gave the guy a banana instead of an orange, whatever the story. So I get these notes back from these people.
And I'm trying to communicate to them through the publisher that you got to tell these people that I approach story in a very oblique manner, where I will lead you to think that we are doing like Superman lost. People assumed that that was about Superman being lost, that, he just got back from Warworld and now here he's out in space again. And now it's going to be like Gillian's Island where he's just out there wandering through space and so forth. And that's not what the series is about.
because he's home on page five. He's already back. Okay. And the series is about this person who has had this traumatic experience, you know, and despite the fact that he has these vast powers, he's still, he's not, he's not super God. He's Superman. He's still a person who has had this, you know, this, experience and, now nothing in his life fits anymore. You know, and Clark Kent goes back to work and he doesn't remember what he used to do there.
And, and, and Jimmy and Perry, they're all ghosts. to him because he's been missing for so long. And the story is about how Lois gets her guy back. That's what the story is about. But on the face of it, the expectation is that it's going to be just sort of business as usual. Aaron, I don't know about you, I get tired of reading the same story over and over again. Absolutely. So I'm a big fan of uh Tom King, uh who will turn stuff on its head.
and we'll take a character like Mr. Miracle that we haven't thought about really seriously in how long and just completely blow your mind and Adam Strange and completely blow your mind. And I kind of resent the fact that I have to go behind this guy and I go, okay, well, Tom's already been here. He's already dated this girl. And I'm like, well, what can I bring to the table because Tom's already been here. So it's very irritating, very irritating.
David proposed is a, as another writer who does another, you know, creator who does that very well because he's been doing that, you know, with a lot of characters, but I cannot wait to talk to more about Ben Law.
I was saying we need to table the Superman lost talk because I I definitely want to get more into it We do have Superman the movie coming up next month And I think this would be like a really interesting topical conversation sure dealing with your book You know Superman lost but I want to briefly just let I'm gonna backtrack a little bit to Marvel nights I want to just sort of stick on this for a quick moment here because this first
issue again as we said You know it came out this last just today actually this last week and I want to go over the synopsis and I have a question for you here, so The synopsis, the King of Wakanda is dead, leaving unguarded the world's most advanced technology, most precious metal and a cryptic vault of secret dark, excuse me, dark secrets while triggering global conflicts among the Marvel heroes, villains and mutants with the child gone.
The future of Marvel 616 universe will be determined by a tribal challenge for Wakanda's throne and the mysterious Victor will change Wakanda, the Marvel universe forever. Now, priest, you've written 60 issues of Black Panthers that include the The annual from why you laughing you're laughing right now. Why are you laughing? No, because it's like, feel like it's an indictment. oh Mr. Priest, is it true that you've written 60 issues of The Rector Roast at the Harrell's Club?
you're the pride of your department. Yes, I wrote 60 issues of Black Panther plus, you know, think a 10 page or something for this. Yeah, I've been around the block. uh That's right. So, you know, I've heard you mentioned that this story has been written for a while. The world to come has been sort of in the works for a bit. How soon after finishing your Black Panther on in 2003, did you have this sort of new installment in the Marvel Knights universe? When did it pop into your head?
no. OK, no, it never popped. This is a Joe Cassata pop. ah There was a movie. You may have heard of it. was a movie. Ryan Foodler put out this movie, Black Panther. I was consulted for the film and I became aware of the film. uh And I said, well, I called up Marvel and I talked to the editor there, the Black Panther, Will Moss. ah And I said, look, there's this movie coming out.
You know, I would really like to have a little Black Panther something, just a little just a little taste of Black Panther. You know, give me a little 10 pager or something. You know, I'd like to have something in print with my name on it when the movie comes out. You know, and Will was gracious enough to offer me a slot on a Black Panther annual. We worked that story out and that was great. But, know, at some point, you know, focus, I heard about this.
You know, we may have been talking about whatever Joe and I are actually friends. We've been friends for a long time. That's when Joe made it. made me aware of uh plans that were in the works to celebrate uh Marvel Knight's 20th anniversary or whatever it was at the time. um So there was a big roadmap to uh this event that they were doing. um So that's how that, that the germ of that idea had it. And then we started talking about the Panther plot as it began to develop.
And then a lot of that was just, was just, you know, was really just Joe just going, you know, and I was like, Joe, I just wanted to do a little thing, just a little thing. And he's turned it to this incredible waste of time, hundreds of pages, and you know, and there's going to be all these explosions and it's all, you know, it's world of evil. And, know, so it's really, you know, thanks to him and having this much larger than life vision and then dragging me by the.
You Well, when you were talking about the anniversary and sort of bringing back the Marvel Knights imprint in some form or another, are we talking about the the Donny Cates? Was it like a mini series that was out a couple of years ago where you had all the different heroes pop in together again? I don't know if you remember that from a couple of years ago. I want to say it was like 2017 maybe. I have no knowledge. I'm sorry. I must've missed that.
It was a mini and I think it was like relatively successful, but I was just curious because it would have been perfect. I really wish that something like this and again, this is great. I'm not This was like 2017, 2018, something like that. over the years since they canceled Black Panther when I was on it, Black Panther was always struggling for sales when I was on it. And then at some point Marvel said, we have a great idea.
Let's get rid of T'Challa and let's recast this Black Panther as Vin Diesel. So we had this other guy, Casper Cole. uh And it was kind an interesting little experiment, you know, ah and I liked that character and I wouldn't mind seeing that character again, but uh that was Marvel saying like this is what we want to do. ah And if you don't want to do it, we'll get somebody else to do it. You you understand we'll get someone else to do it.
And, you know, I was like, well, there goes the rent money. So yeah, I'll do it. So that's how I ended up doing Casper Cole. um And then, you know, uh at the conclusion of that, they were like, well, the numbers still aren't going up. This was just us still chasing. numbers instead of accepting the fact that this is what our audience was at the time. So it really wasn't until Reginald Hudlin took over and they relaunched the book with John Romita Jr. and Reginald Hudlin.
And then Reggie not only wrote it brilliantly, but he went out and sold it. I mean, in ways that I could not, because I didn't have access to those types of venues, we could go on the Steve Harvey show, we could go on these other venues and just talked it up everywhere. Reginald was the was he the CEO of BET at the time or what was his involvement with BET? don't remember exactly when he took over. He became the president of BNT. I think the timeframes intersected. I'm not exactly sure.
have to look those dates up. the point is that it became a commercial success. It was already a critical success when we were doing it, but it became a commercial success once Reggie came in and sort of cleared out the cobwebs and streamlined them and stuff. And then he went forward and promoted it. you know, kind of how all that took over.
So over the years, I've been approached several times by Marvel to kind of come back to the character or do something else with the character or whatever like that. And I really felt very strongly that uh I had had my shot with Black Panther. I enjoyed my time with Black Panther. uh But at some point, I had catapulted Black Panther into outer space. And ah I remember seeing that book in print and I saw like Black Panther in space. And I said to myself, okay, you officially jumped the shark.
You officially run out of ideas and it's time for Black Panther to belong to regeneration. ah know, Joe getting me to suit up for this was no small task. And I was like, well, I'm happy to sort of look over your shoulder and advise you, let you write it. And he was like, no, no, I really want your participation. I really want you in here. Blah, blah. And it was a lot of back and forth and a lot of fuss and back and forth.
You know, but at some point we stumbled onto a story that I thought I could tell or that I could help him tell that we could tell together, however you want to phrase it, that was unique, that was adding to the legend that wasn't just me making or me or Joe making a money grab that this is actually a quality piece of work that's worth reading and so forth. that's how I kind of ended up saying, finally saying, yeah, okay, I'll do it.
But yeah, was, know, I've seen writers, I will not name any of them, none of named Tom King, but I've seen writers who have made their mark with a character left, come back to that character and stumbled. And it's painful to watch. And I was like, I didn't want to come back to Black Panther, like do Black Panther Monthly, for example, and then have people go, it's not as it was back then. I'm just, ah. Yeah. So that's basically the backstory.
Sure. Well, I'd like to ask a little bit about Katima or Katama. Katama. Katama. Without giving away any, like, know, ton of spoilers. uh Ta-Nehisi Ross, Ta-Nehisi Coates. cut yeah Yes. So without giving away, you're good. You're good. We want the details. We want all the details. Um, I just want to try and avoid spoilers as best we can. Cause we want, know, obviously, yeah. Uh, we entered this story seeing that there's a definite rift between the old King T'Challa and his son.
You know, there's mention of both storm and Monica Lynn in this issue, whom we know, you know, T'Challa has children with. Does this potentially set us up for a fight for the crown? Wow, I'm going to embarrass myself now. Are you saying that Tashaala had a child with Storm? He said, well, so con, canonically, he's had a couple of children with storm. There's a Shuri Shuri, but it's like, it's not spelled the same way as Shuri.
It's S H apostrophe R I you have a Chimera you have Azura Azari, who I think we kind of see. We actually see in the MCU who's actually named T'Challa as well. But they didn't call him that. And there's T'Wari as well. That's the ones that I know of. So he's got like a whole little like... Yeah, okay. Not in Marvel Knights, not in our universe. No, has the child that he is apparently having to dispute in when we meet him in this issue.
uh yeah, we have wandered off from that continuity because I'm dumb and wasn't aware of it. No, no continuity is a, I've always said that like people who stick too strictly to continuity, they're handicapping themselves on a good story. know, Canon should be like a tool. It shouldn't be a law. Right. So I love the fact that you did that. I was just curious because I know that, you know, I wasn't Reggie that actually introduced a lot of the children. I don't, I actually don't know. know.
It had to be him. Well, no, because I just philosophically, as I see the character, I would not have done that. Sure. I have a real problem with, you know, these heroic characters or comic book characters, you know, um having not necessarily having children, but it's just. uh You know, I think once you start moving too far away from the lore of what what what makes this character. great or whatever.
um It's kind of like when you start pandering to the audience where you're, uh instead of bringing in new readers, you're following the old readers out of middle school into high school and out of high school into college and out of college into adult life. And we're writing stories that reflect that. uh And I guess there's really nothing wrong with that except now nobody's recruiting the eight year olds anymore. Where are their stories? What's going to draw them into it?
Because an eight year old, doesn't want to read about, you know, a married potato man who has children, you know? So uh I would probably wouldn't have gone that way. uh it's not to criticize Reggie, but Reggie came over and, uh you know, his version, his volume of Black Panther was a complete jumpstart. So my character showed up in there, but they were very different. had different timelines, sort of like that. So uh this thing, the world to come connects to our Black Panther.
It really connects to Black Panther number 12, which is where we left off with Marvel Knight. So 13 through 60, whatever the MCU, Black Panther that, know, some of that is referenced in here, but that's Sal Valudo, you know, Bob Alman, myself, that's a whole different crew. That's that's Tom Breivart, Black Panther. Joe Cassata, Black Panther is what we're talking about. you know, we're connecting to that earlier series.
I don't want my superheroes running around just zoosing it up, you know, I want to be careful what I say because I run my mouth too much and I get in trouble and then I get the phone call. It's some vice president and they're pissed at me because we're trying to sell comic books here. We don't appreciate you. So I just want to be careful. uh around the block, you've seen a lot of things. So it's hard not to like have a like a pretty decently strong opinion about some of this stuff.
What being around the block is that, you you've been around the block. So the people who are trying to make this work now, the generation that has that responsibility, you know, they're trying to keep the lights on at these places, you know. And then you have uh our retailers, our frontline of defense. are people, these are not big corporate entities. These are mom and pop. These are small business owners. They have high rents, low margins.
You know, and a lot of pressure to like, oh, well, you you need to you need to order 100, you know, duck man to get the foil variant, you know, one copy of the foil there. It is a lot of this this this math where every month our retailers are sitting there with the catalogs and it's like a racing form and they're trying to decide what to bet what to bet the mortgage on this month. You know, and I have a lot of empathy for that. These are these are the real superheroes. But I want to be careful.
I want to get up here and go, yeah, don't buy a duck boy this month. It really sucks. You I really don't appreciate that. You know, he got married. I don't want to read a married duck boy. We're huge proponents and big, big believers in the brick and mortar comic shop. Like we believe that those, those need to exist. You know, it's fun to have community online.
think that that's got its own certain level of importance, but there's honestly nothing like going to your local comic book shop on Wednesday and you know, picking up the latest issue of the world to come that I have right here. I went to my local comic book shop and people were excited about it, which is why I wanted to ask you that question earlier about sort of what your thoughts were on the reception.
And from my view, what I could see from my local comic book shop, was when I popped in, the very first issue that I saw was the world to come. And they don't do that for just, you know, uh issue seven of Spider Gwen or whatever, not to, not to just, you know, dissuade anybody from reading Spider Gwen, but like people were excited about this. Yeah, Spider Gwen is great.
So, you know, and something you sort of mentioned earlier, and I want to sort of build off this a little bit, you know, something I really loved about your Black Panther Ron is that you kind of confirm this thought that I've had about the character since becoming a fan. And it's that He's not a superhero, right? He is, but he plays the role of superhero for diplomatic reasons.
But at the end of the day, he's a Monarch of, know, the wealthiest or one of the most, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And those relationships that he has with the Avengers and some of the American heroes are important to maintain. And I think also John Hickman does a pretty good job with this in his Avengers run showing T'Challa as a Monarch first, right? But my question for you is, This book is not advertised. The World to Come is not advertised as a Black Panther book.
It is advertised as a Marvel Knights book. Does that mean that we're gonna get some more MK focused characters showing up in this series, the six issue series? No comment. got in trouble. I got in trouble. In the article, we were talking, I had an interview, we started wandering off, as I tend to do, and we started wandering off into other things. And I mentioned this inhuman series that I did with Phil Noto that I really loved.
Teenagers, and they come to New York and they run into Spider-Man, back in the 60s, know, 60s Spider-Man. And I said something about Lockjaw. And I was like, you know, we'll just wait till he pops up here in the world to come, you know, and now, you know, ring, you know. What are you doing? You're killing us. uh Major spoiler lockjaw. I didn't say what lockjaw was doing, know, but may just you know, may just be just boiler so He's a teleporting dog.
He's going to pop in every once in while, you know? Well, there you go. know, but let's just say, you know, there's a reason they did not uh title the book Black Panther. uh Joe, uh there's a part of this that Joe and I are, you know, uh co-writing uh that uh focuses on Black Panther, that Black Panther is the vehicle for a lot of the storytelling that's going on. uh But there will be lots of uh surprises. store that I really shouldn't even talk about. I mean, the first issue just came out.
So it's hard to talk about future endeavors, but I just found it interesting. ain't seen nothing yet. Joe has completely lost his mind. He's like, Oh, and now the spaceship. Oh no, spaceship, ruined it. Trust me. Cool stuff happening in this book. I know I'm personally excited because Chris as well, because he obviously he's, you know, he is a huge fan of the original. But like one thing that I wanted to bring up and because this is a huge topic for me segue, huge segue.
Yes. I have a little bit of trouble approaching this because this was such a big thing. Chris, you can ask him Superman lost. I have to ask about that because Superman lost is actually the first Superman book. that I've actually ever really enjoyed reading and read the entire, like the full story all the way through. Like I was addicted to this book and If I can just interject really quickly.
uh know, Priest, when he was talking earlier about Wonder Woman, how there are certain people who just can't attach to certain characters because of the storylines. mean, I know I love the George Perez stuff and the Jeff John stuff, but I get why people don't, you know, they haven't found their Wonder Woman story. This was Aaron with Superman. Obviously, we know there's a lot of Superman stories out there that are great, but he couldn't find a way to latch onto the character.
And when he came to me and said that he really loved Superman Lost, it was almost imperative that we had to talk to you about it. while you were on here today. I'm sorry. I don't mean to. uh been asking for this conversation for a long time because of, because of Superman loss, but I appreciate you. helped me kind of articulate that Chris.
And the reason I kind of wanted to write out was like, I'm a huge advocate of mental health, you know, and you know, since reading it, Superman lost, I've been become a huge fan of that. And up until now, again, like I hadn't really read anything that really resonated with me and the way that you portrayed like, you know, the man of steel soups himself in some of his darkest moments curled up in the fetal position with Lois telling him, You know, just breathe, Clark, just breathe.
You know, as somebody who suffers from chronic PTSD from some dark stuff while I served overseas, it really spoke to me and it really helped me find a Superman that I had never thought existed. Like this was my Superman. And so for me, I've been wanting to ask, like, how did you figure out how to write him in that state?
Like so accurately struggling, like in a world full of people, but being a Superman, like isolated, you know, and in his own head and his own emotions, like, how did you do that? Because again, as somebody who suffers from PTSD, like I felt every moment of that. And I just found it so amazing. So I needed to ask you about that. I don't know what to say, but thank you for that. Well, first of all, I called Mike Carlin.
Mike Carlin was the editor of Superman, maybe one of the legendary all-time great editors of uh Well, this book came about by accident, but just real briefly, I was working on another project with a group editor named Jamie Rich, who's no longer with us.
ah And I was we were talking about a Justice League project and I got I was getting off the phone with Jamie and And we were hanging up and I before you go by the way I got this idea you may want to give to your Superman because he was editing Superman I want to give this idea to you.
So here's a freebie for your Superman I have this, know my one Superman idea and I just you know laid out this this this idea to him You know, and he said well that sounds like something you ought to write, you know, why don't you write it? And I said well it never occurred to me to write it. I said, why? Because DC's never allowed me to write Superman before. I write in a very subversive way. Superman is like their marquee mainstream character.
There's a lot of stuff that uh I wouldn't say I'm ineligible to write, but that I am not a natural fit to write because ah I would assume in some editors' heads, they're like, well, he's going to Tom King this up. you know, or whatever the story is. ah At any rate, um Jamie got the thing greenlit before he he moved on, you know. So thank God for Jamie. I never would have got a chance to write. you know, no, no, no. It was terrifying when I have to write this thing.
So, you know, I called up my carlin. You know, I've known my carlin 35 years, 40 years, however long it's been, you know. So I call my carlin, my carlin. There's there's probably no breathing person around who is a better uh expert on the character. So he talked me through a lot of it. um But I would tell you just in my perspective, there is this theory that there is no Bruce Wayne, that it's just Batman and Bruce Wayne is like his day job or the face he puts on.
know, I think for Superman, it's the exact opposite. I think there is no Superman. There is Clark. He is Clark when he's run around in a costume, he's Clark in a cape, but he's the same guy, you know? And what makes him Superman is not his powers. That was the whole subtext of the series that because he moves around from different areas of space, his power has changed based on those circumstances. What color is the sun? What's the level of gravity? What are these scientific variables?
But the one thing that remains consistent is his strength of character is, you know? So I asked Carla and I said, well, look, let me ask you something. How far can I bend this guy without breaking him? Because I'm going to take him down pretty far and challenge his dignity. And a lot of fans are not going to like their hero curled up in a ball on the floor, you know, um or the fact that Lobo's dolphins run off somewhere with uh his original red and blue costume.
And it becomes traumatic to him because that's all he has left. You know, but Aaron, if you imagine yourself and I hope that this has never happened to you, but you imagine yourself, you know, out there in space somewhere, you know, and the guiding principle is, you know, and you know, the fans, you know, we can all fight about this.
But so far as I'm concerned, and I asked Mike Carlin, who I think is the definite expert, you know, and I asked a couple of other people far as I'm concerned, Superman cannot fly faster than light on his own. He needs a green lantern or a spaceship or something. And now he can go at warp speed and just cross the galaxy, whatever. But all by himself, you know, he can fly very fast, a lot faster than our spaceships fly.
And he can go zooming towards a planet or a moon or something and use the slingshot to accelerate and boom, go across the gap. You know, so he could do a lot of that sort of stuff. But the fact is, it takes him a long time to get from point A to point B. you know, without that. And then also if he's in an unfamiliar star system, you know, you don't navigate space by sight. You don't go, there's Pluto. You know, let me hit it that way. You know, you listen. There's space has noise.
There's quasars. There's different, different vibrations, radioactive activities, solar storms. You know, it is all of these clues to let you know where you are in space. And if you're in unfamiliar space and you can't fly fast and speed of light. So now. you know, the situation where it's taking him, he's been flying through space for seven months and he still hasn't left the solar system that he was trapped in. And then the dolphin steal his suit.
you know, and so we bring him down to his breaking point, you know, and I asked Mike, you know, is this, am I going to be able to get away with that? So uh the editor who was the main editor on the book was Brittany Holzer. And Thank God for Brittany, who worked with me on Deathstroke. We have a long history together. She was able to kind of fend off the wolves, because Superman is a very important character to Discovery Plus, people way above even Jim Lee, who could put a kibosh on us.
So thank God she was able to kind of hold that door and let us tell this deeply personal story. Um, and, you know, but that's basically how I, Aaron, how I queued into it. I just see him. He's just a man. He's just Clark, but he's an exceptional person of virtue and character. Um, and, uh, and, and the trauma that he experienced and the fact that he had escaped this dying world in order to save it and then couldn't find it again, couldn't find his way back there.
So he's now he's got this enormous guilt that's crashing on top of everything else. You know, so yeah, it was like that. But basically, you know, he's a tough character to write. then with as with every character I'm sitting there going, what can I say about this character or what can I do with this character that hasn't been done before? Damn that time. Yeah. You know, and to speak of what you were saying about like, we don't often see our heroes in their time of struggle.
He tried to do that with Heroes in Crisis. I think, while some people may not like that book. know, I guess I was doing that was doing Heroes in Crisis. No, that Heroes of Crisis received this mixed reception. So I was kind of terrified that people would come after me with torches for what I was doing with Superman. Sure. Yeah. I want the other thing that, know, you talked about it. This is not just a Superman Clark Kent story.
Like the one thing again, I had to have to say, like, uh, I give you a round of applause and I, know, all the kudos in the world for, the entire story, because it's not just how well Superman is written. It's Lois Lane and even Lex Luthor and, and, and what she, what she goes through to bring him back to the world.
It's like, just, Again, like you kind of captured a lot of like what I've, what I've, and I'm sure many other veterans and many other people who have, you know, like PTSD, who have people around them that love them and would go to the ends of the earth to, to, to bring them back to some sort of normalcy. So I just, I, again, like this is if anything from this conversation, I just want to say thank you for letting me ask you and for explaining that to me.
Cause it really, honestly, truly means a lot to me what you created there. I appreciate that. And it was just like, you know, my one shot at playing with the toys. And, um you know, I don't know that that's a tone that DC wants to take with those characters. uh You know, and I don't know what my eligibility is to oh work on those characters. But uh with Lois, I always saw her as being a very strong character. So now we have to prove it.
And then I had to walk her right up to the line of being unlikable. because she's giving Superman the tough love thing. And then when she runs out of ideas and she tries this, she tries that, and she goes to this person, she goes to Bruce, and then she goes to Diana. And she tries everything she can think of. When she runs out of ideas, she has no other choice but she turns to Lex Luthor of all people. And Lex Luthor is like, what took you so long? I knew you were coming, what took you so long?
And with Lex, I was borrowing from Gene Hackman's performance, the late Gene Hackman. wonderful actor, but not from Gene's Lex Luthor, which I found kind of cartoonish. uh I was writing a character called Avery Tolar, and Avery Tolar was a character played by Gene Hackman in the Tom Cruise film. And if you go back and watch clips of that film and see clips of Hackman in it, you will recognize my Lex Luthor. That, in my opinion, that charming and yet unbelievably evil snake.
To me, every time I see Lex, and again, no offense to writers who make way more money than I do. I mean, no one any harm. It's just my personal take on the character. Every time I see Lex Luthor put on a suit of armor and start punching Superman, I think, okay, you guys have completely lost who the character is. The entire point of Lex Luthor is that Here is this ball-headed, out-of-shape guy who's giving the world's most powerful being heartburn all the time. It's not about a physical thing.
It's about him being incredibly frickin' evil. And we even played with the whole idea of like, Superman finds out that Lex has done some unscrupulous thing and he's pissed off he's gonna go after Lex. And Lois is going. No, no, no, I'll take care of Lex. No, no, he's not messing with my wife. I'm going to, you know, and Lois just goes, what are you going to do? You're to go over there, you you break down the wall. He has the big robot. You fight the big robot.
She basically says it's the same old shit we've been reading for 80 years. Clark, go in the kitchen and fix the toaster. We need the toaster fixed. I'll take care of Lex, you know. And I also thought that I had the privilege and the honor of doing what I hope is, and you guys can correct me if you know. better. uh I believe that was the first time we saw uh Superman and Lois have a knockdown drag out fight. You know, and there was some objection to that.
There was some, you notes, you know, oh, well, you know, they don't fight. I'm like, have you ever been in a relationship? Get out of your mom's basement. Have you never been in a relationship? If you've ever been in relationship with a man, woman, giraffe, frog? If you've ever been in a relationship, you have been in a fight. You understand? And this is the thing that just kind of irritated me.
And I'm like, just having them have this incredible, like, know, as soon as like, are not going to be these people. I am not going to know. And having them just go at it like that and just have her be the boss and order him into the kitchen. One last thing about this. I'm sorry. I'm glad I'm here. But there's one thing that I just want to call out as my artist. uh Carlo Pagulian and there was some other guest artists because Carlo's dad became ill and he was taking care of his dad.
And God bless Carlo for just being a hero to turn in the work that he could turn in. But anyway, the very first issue, this is one scene where Bruce Wayne shows up at the apartment to tell Lois Lane that Superman has been lost, that he's lost in space somewhere. And they've been searching for him and they can't find him. So he's come to give her the bad news. So she opens the door. Bruce is standing there. looks past Lois and sees Superman standing in the living room.
And I said to Carl, I said, look, you're going to have to sell this moment. You've got to sell it. We've got to see it in Bruce's eyes that he's shocked to see Superman there. Otherwise, I'm going to have to put one of those lame captions. And then I opened the door and I saw him standing in his, you know, and I don't want to do that to me. That's just, you know, that first person narrative stuff is just, you know, I didn't want to do that. You know, so said, Carl, you got to nail it.
And my God, he nailed it. You go back and look at that picture where she opens the door and you see Bruce standing there and you see that look in his eyes that says it all where he's going, holy crap, he's here. And I went, this is how brilliant Carlo was, or is, I'm sorry. Excuse me, he's not gone. He's a wonderful artist. he just completely, okay, I'm done with the ranting, sorry.
I have to agree because absolutely throughout the story, again, yeah, there are absolute like the scenes, you know, your, your words, your writing, the scenes and the art is again, it has to portray that emotion, which it did perfectly.
And I, also just to comment on what you said about the knockout, knockdown, drag out fight between Lois and Clark, you know, that's, that's the thing about like a traumatic experience when you come back, especially again, and I don't mean to keep harping on like, using service members, got to talk about what I know.
you know, when somebody comes back from a traumatic event, they are not the same person, you know, and the family has to get used to that and the dynamic changes and things will not be the status quo. So regardless of what battle, you know, Clark is fighting, what story Lois is covering, you know, there's gotta be somebody who's, who's making the decisions. It's gotta be somebody who's, who's pointing the gun. There's gotta be somebody who's writing the stories.
And I think that you depicted that very well because it just, it's, know, somebody's got to do the job. And if it's not going to be Clark, it's got to be Lois. And if it's not going to be Lois, then she has to go out and find somebody to do it. So I think, again, just, I know we got to continue the conversation on and, but it's it's, it's all well done, like so very well done. Well, thank you, and I appreciate that.
And I think, you know, what I was also trying to depict was how hard it is for people to accept the fact that you are a different person. You know, because later on we meet up with Supergirl and Supergirl, she's even harder than Lois. She was like, hey, man, just wake up, you know. uh And uh the other brilliant thing about Carlos, you see Lois and then you see Wonder Woman, I think in the same issue. And then later you see Supergirl. And guess what? They're three completely unique women.
A lot of times artists, I used to tease the late Mark Bright, my friend Mark Bright said, you know, can only draw one woman. One woman and you put different hair. Betty and Veronica is the same woman, know, that kind of thing. Gwen Stacy and Barry Jane Parker, know, same world. You know, but no, just, you know, starkly, you know, so Lois and Wonder Woman, both brunettes, you know, tall legged brunettes, completely different women.
you know, and then Supergirl, a whole different vibe with Supergirl. it was fun. I'm really grateful for DC to do it. It's one of, you know, I'm very proud of that.
uh I hope it's not my last work with DC, but if it is, I get to go out on a high and just be very Well, uh I have to admit this to you, we're nearing the end of our conversation and I think it's important to admit this here at the end that we've had the great fortune of talking to a ton of amazing creators here on the podcast, but preparing for this conversation, and again, I sort of alluded to it earlier in the talk, that it was sort of
refreshingly hard to find this pillar because again, your career is so lofty and just again, so decorated. We generally, and I'm not trying to butter you up. I know we've spent the last 20 minutes buttering you up about Superman lost and now this, but like, you know, we generally like to summarize these couple, a couple of key highlights in someone's career. And that's just impossible with you and your, again, almost 50 year career. So I want to somehow turn this ass kissing into a question.
You know, if you could go back and talk to that bright-eyed Marvel intern that you once were, what piece, what's one piece of advice that you would give that young priest? Wow, is that a tough one. I don't know. I think I would try to be more patient. uh I don't know, fellas. It was uh very tough. was extremely tough. It wasn't just a black thing, but I was brought into the business by Jim Shooter. uh And Jim Shooter was like the new boss, the new sheriff in town.
And there was a lot of resentment towards Shooter because Shooter wanted to change a lot of stuff. Shooter wanted to make books better and have them come out on time, which was too diametrically opposed. You could do one or the other, but Jim wanted both. And so that made him kind of a maniac. And there was a lot of friction in there. And I was seen as Jim's, you know, as Jim's guys, as the kid that, you know, that he brought in.
so there was, you know, so we would do stuff like Spider-Man versus Wolverine, which was a huge hit. And I was never offered work after that. Anybody else that would have given them keys to the place. So it's been a struggle. And I try not to be bitter about it. I'm just like, that's just how the chips fell. I don't think it's necessarily racial. At least at Marvel, I think it was just more of a matter of like, I'm Jim's protege, and I'm a little shooter, and we're going to show you.
We're going to punish you because we're mad at him. whatever the story was, but uh it's just been a journey. So I don't know exactly what I would tell him. I'm just grateful that I've been able to sort of exist below the radar and to have a career as long as I have. There's a lot of people from my generation who not working. So it's just a real blessing to do that.
And for the work to be recognized, particularly Carlo and I being recognized uh by the Eisner people for uh Deathstroke and then again for Superman. We'll see what happens from here. Hopefully I still have a few laps around the park left in me, but we'll see. I'll tell you, I firmly believe that you do. Again, you sort of just mentioned it, but like the longevity of a comic creator is it's not always the longer you've been in, the more work you get.
Sometimes you eventually just sort of fall off the radar and you've done a great job of continuing to work at a high level and your career is decorated as we've said. you know, I'll just sort of finish the conversation by saying what a pleasure it's been having you here on the show, Priest. you know, talking about Black Panther and Marvel Knights and Superman, all the things, you know, this has all been such a such an honor to have you here.
And we mentioned it earlier, but the first issue of The World to Come is already out by the time at the time of this recording, the first issue is already out and the second issue comes out on July 9th. Aaron, did you have something before we close out? I actually had one more question because I recently found out that you were from Queens. yeah, he's a New York boy. I forgot to mention that earlier. Yes. And I wanted to know if you had any recommendations like food wise. Aaron's in Brooklyn.
I guess you should say that. I haven't lived in New York in like 30 years. I'm sorry. In St. Albans, Queens on Farmers Boulevard and Murdoch Avenue, uh there is a uh hole in the wall fish joint. And it's a place that normally you wouldn't want to be caught dead in. But you go by there and you see like this line of people waiting to get in. And anytime you see a line of people waiting to get into some like dead in shack. Okay, there's something good going on.
And my nephew Evan, said the place is still there. So I'll recommend I don't know the name of it, but it's a little hole in the wall, you know, fish store. And it's unbelievably good fish, you know, and we used to go there all the time. find it and when I do I will I will message you about it. You go to Farr Boulevard and at Murdoch Avenue and just look, just follow the spell or just follow the line. You use your line now.
I was saying, I feel like if you're following the smell of fish in New York City, you're probably going to be going in a lot of different directions. Are you going to any conventions this year in 2025? Yeah. doing a bunch. I'm doing Denver. That's coming up. And then I'm doing New Orleans. And then there's like a bunch of other stuff. But I have to look at on my list. My agent just leaves me around by my nose. Every now and then he reminds me I have to go to the airport.
Somebody just hands you a ticket and says, get on the. ah Joe, Joe, actually the whole uh world to come team, Richard and Joe and myself, we will be making a joint appearance and doing, you know, group signings there. And there's some other stuff coming up and I'm sorry, I probably should write this stuff down. I have it. People ask me. Well, we hope to see you at one of the future ones here.
And before we let you go, is there anything you want to quickly plug or sort of highlight before we get you out of here? Well, get Vampirella because we just had a new volume launch. think issue two is out now, one and two there. then Sonya Reborn is coming up from Dynamite. And that's just going to be a love it or hate it moment. I'd love to get your reaction on that at some point.
And then beyond that, there's a whole bunch of stuff coming out that I can't talk about because I talked about it in this other interview. It's a print interview that's online now. and I got into so much trouble. Why don't you tell them? Why don't you tell them? You know, so apparently they don't want me to even tell people that I have a relationship with this company. So we're just going to shut the hell up.
Well, I'll tell you what, we're to get you on again in the future at some point and we'll figure out what Mr. Potato Man, think was one of them. Potato Man, absolutely. I'm excited about Duckman and his kids. Yeah, in the next year or so you're going to be sick of me. This is going to be a bunch of stuff. I don't think that's going to happen. Personally, personally don't think it's going to happen. All right, we appreciate you.
Hopefully we see you again here on the show at some point in the future. Good deal. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Alrighty. There's that conversation with Christopher Priest again, priest. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Oblivion Bar podcast. Truly an honor. Definitely a milestone in the Oblivion Bar. Way too much. I was a fangirl. We were both gushing quite a bit there at the end. We came in really professional in the beginning. Really cool. cool. Really casual.
Cool as other side of the pillow. And then we got about halfway in, we started talking about Superman Lost. And how can you not gush? mean, again, Christopher Pree in the industry for over 50 years and the guy is still so humble, so easy to talk to, you without naming any names, Aaron. And we always have great conversation with creators and they're always, always such a pleasure to talk to you. Every once in a while we get a creator who is just a little full of themselves, right?
Like they start to see their worth in the medium and sort of let it get to their head a little bit. And that's cool, because they are cool and they're important. But like, if someone like Christopher Priest can still be humble with all that he's accomplished in the medium, I think that everyone can take a little bit from that. I think it's a little bit of attributes to the struggle that some people go through more than others. Oh, I mean, absolutely.
He was the very first Marvel first African-American Marvel editor ever at Marvel Comics. You obviously went off and co-created the Milestone universe. He co-created a lot of I wouldn't say a lot of it, but a lot of the more important parts of the Valiant universe in the 90s. Obviously the Black Panther and we talked about a lot in this conversation. He has done so much that again, we could not talk about everything. So Christopher Priest will be back on the show at some point for whatever.
Honestly, it doesn't even have to be for a project that he's working on. I would just love to. get him on a mic on this show again. I love the little tidbit that you had there about Superman Lost. I know you said that we went a little bit of a side quest there and that it was a little long. I don't agree. I think that I really liked that addition to the conversation because my plan was to just mostly talk about Marvel Knights.
And I think that's important because the world to come at the time of this recording, at the time of release of this conversation is already out. But Superman Lost, I think, and you love it more than I do, so I know you agree with this, was criminally overlooked. Even with an Eisner knob, which is crazy. I think, you know what I'm thinking, Chris?
I think that, no, it didn't happen this year, but I was gonna say maybe we should create something uh during our end of year awards that is like the underappreciated award. know, like something that, yeah, I mean, that would be kind of a cool thing, I think, because I would like to take time to talk about things that we agree that are criminally underrated. And if that's during my errands arcade or... during Chris's corner or just, just another segment.
Maybe we have just a segment that's just underrated stories or something, you know? Uh, I think that, like he, he is, he is too talented to have any of his stories go underappreciated and, and, and that's, it's a, it's a tragedy that some of them have. So I'm glad that we were able to discuss it with him. Absolutely. And Aaron, I wanted to go back a little bit to our last call awards. I want to say that Superman lost one, one of our awards. Did it not? I think you.
I vaguely remember if it wasn't, if it didn't win, definitely was nominated for one of our favorite books of the year. But anyway, yeah. So Christopher Priest being here on the show, what an honor, what a pleasure. I know Chris has probably not listened to this, but if he is, thank you so much for being here and we just appreciate it. So Aaron, think that'll do it for this conversation. Excited what we have coming up. We are still on the road to episode 200 of the Oblivion Bar podcast.
That'll be coming up in, I want to say it's late July or maybe early August. I don't know what the timing is on that exactly, but Per usual, we're sticking to our normal script here. Nothing planned yet. We don't know what we're doing yet. Aaron, you know, if I had my choice, I would love to get together. I'd love to be together for that 200th, because we were together for the 100th, you know? So if we could somehow figure out a way to be together for the 200th, that'd be cool.
I mean, you're always in my heart, but yeah, I think we should, do like, have a lock of your hair. and my wallet. I miss your smell. I your musk. I miss your laugh. but yeah, no, I think that that's something that we should, uh, we should start talking about. Start playing. All right. Well, that'll do it for this episode here. Aaron, go ahead and take us out here. Take us out of this episode. That'll do it. That'll do it big.
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And last but not least do not. forget to tip your bartenders 20 % or more. I've been watching a lot of love on the spectrum and they even talk about doing that in love on the spectrum. Tip your goddamn bartenders, tip your hosts, your servers. They deserve it. Absolutely. I know tipping culture has gotten a little out of hand, but that's still rewarded. The people that are doing good work out there. So that'll do it for this episode of the oblivion bar podcast.
Thank you to Christopher priest, Aaron. Thank you. And thank you to the listener. No, no, thank you. No, no, no. Hey, okay. I appreciate it. You more. All right. Thank you all so much. We appreciate it. We'll see you next week for the oblivion bar podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to episode one. uh Please leave that in. Please, I'm begging I have no idea what number it is.