Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

So this is big news now, of course there are there are struct structural obstacles VFX, not just by Marvel Disney, but all the other studios are usually farmed out not only to their in house crafts people, but to studios around the globe. This, you know, as one a bid for efficiency and also two to make it harder to unionize. So there's a long fight that remains ahead of these workers. But this is a development that I think many can and should support.

Workers Union. It's something that Comics is still thinking about. So I think this is great. I think that, as Chris Lee said Vulture, on the heels of more than a year's worth of damning disclosures around Marvel Studio, systematic overworking and underpayment of visual effects workers. This is to be expected, and I'm very happy that hot labor summer continues.

This is really wild that this came out on the same day that it was announced that the LA City workers would go on strike next Tuesday for a twenty four hours, which is going to be like the first strike since the eighties. So the strikes keep coming and they don't stop coming.

generated for Netflix. And of course, you know, Netflix is often talked about as the streamer that's best positioned for the current labor actions that are taking place. Right They have a lot of reality TV. They have like this vast of programming that comes from international that it's already banked.

That's like comes from other places around the world, including a heavy bliance on the on the stories that come out of South Korea, and so this would seem to put pressure on that and a welcome development as well.

resource to be exploited. I mean, the Squid Game thing was so shocking because it was an original idea created by Quanggong Kuk, and yet when he signed the deal to make it, Netflix took all of the IP in a move that is very similar to what we've seen in the comic book industry, but is a lot rarer in standard traditional publishing or Hollywood. But Netflix, obviously, like you so beautifully put it, Jason, saw this as a resource to be exploited in mind, rather than a space

to support creators. And the fact that Netflix is not getting back to the National Broadcasting Actors Union shows a lack of respect, in my opinion, for the work that is being done. But I would very much like to see some kind of labor organization happening in a way that could impact the way that Netflix is using this programming not only as a way to break the strike or not be affected by it, which is what they're doing, but also as a way to just let them know, like,

this content is made by people. It's not content creators. It's artists, it's right as it's actors, it's directors, it's storytellers, it's production designers, it's set dressers. It's all these people that is always getting left behind in this era of like content and content creators. So I just think any movement like this is very positive and I hope that Netflix makes the correct decision here, but let's be real, in this summer, none of these execs are making the

correct decision. So I'm not feeling hopeful that's great.

this with interest. Up next TM and TA Mutant Mayhem, we're stepping out of the airlock and into the beautiful, aromatic and juicy sewers of New York City for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem, which opened last weekend and is wonderful, delightful.

Goldberg writing, producing, and et cetera. But it's the track record at this point is really, really amazing, and it continues again with the wonderful Teenage Turtles Meet Mayhem that has their imprint on it with help, scriptwriting, help from Dan Hernandez and Benji Saman and director Jeff Row, but just really really fantastic, absolutely distills the what's kind of like magical about the DG E turnals for a new generation and see, yeah, listen, the animation style the action

is so unique. I wouldn't even know how to describe it. How would you describe it?

kind of stop motion vibe. I think one of the things that they did that was the coolest is obviously this is a post Spider Verse movie, as we call them, more Aura is influenced by Spider Verse, but I will say I think this is one of the first movies to come out of this wave of post Spider Use movies that it understands where its strengths are, so it doesn't try to ape Spider Verse by doing like twenty different types of animation, which is obviously the part and

parcel of what makes those movies so brilliant. Instead, they found one really unique animation style and stuck with it, and it feels so enjoyable and it feels raw, but it's entertaining. There's this very old school comics thing to it where all of the characters apart from April O'Neil, who I love played by the incredible Ioeta Berry, who we just love so much, but like, all of the

characters apart from April and the Turtles are grotesque. The human characters are grow test, the mutant characters are grow tesque. That's very old school, that's very silver age superhero comics. Like, yeah, these characters are monsters, they're scary, they're weird. But then I love that at the center you have this kind of pure core group of the obviously the four Turtles, and then you have April, who are just really cool.

And I wrote this in my lab Box review, but one of the things that I I really found quite profound about this movie is there's a picture I have of me when I was like three years old, wearing a nappy, holding like a Raphael Flush And I've loved the Turtles for that long. I love them when they were cartoons, I love them when they were playmates toys. I love the black and white comics, which when you discover them when you're old enough feel like a revelation

compared to what they became on the cartoons. I followed them throughout my life. I love Pi A Led and Kevin Eastman like those are like icons to me of comic book creation. I love the original Jim Henson Suit movies like I've lived through the Michael Bay era, like

I've seen so many stories with them. And to be here as like a thirty five year old and sitting in that theater and able to enjoy the movie and watch the movie and love the movie and feel like they're like my sweet, annoying cousins who I wanna protect. That is like an incredible feeling to grow up with characters and outgrow them still want to spend time with them. And this really does a great job of putting across the teenage aspect of the TMNT X ray vision will be Back.

did it wonderfully. You know, there's this wonderful moment where the turtles are just coming home after kind of like lingering on the edge of like this outdoor movie showing at Brooklyn Bridge Park and then come home and Dad is kind of like castigating them for like where have

you been? And it's this wonderful like so uh, Jackie Chan plays Splinter incredible way, incredible casting, and it creates this layer of like they really resonated, like as the as the child of immigrants of like to have like, uh, you know, like the immigrant parent who's like, don't what are you doing, Don't go out, don't do this, like

you know you're going to be influencing bad ways. And Splinter's version of that is humans want to kill you, they want to milk you, they want to trap you in a lab somewhere and do experiments on all of which is absolutely fair.

Like kids would bring for absolutely no reason other than to like flex in front of the other kids. Like kids would just like bring comics and toys.

I remember being knocked out by by the art. It must have been the first issue because I remember there being I remember the panel that really got me was like one when you couldn't really tell them apart it must I think.

and then it was definitely weird. So like I'm of that era where when the cartoon really started hitting, I was like, well, this is like so different than the

than the black and white version, but it's wonderful. How I think one of the great things about Mayhem is it really combines all of that stuff, like the cool martial arts everything, Yeah, the cool martial arts action of like the Eastman and laired a precolorized run and like the Cowabunga pizza fun of the teenage Bean Nugat is the nineties video game era, and it distills all of that and there's something that is really like truly something of its own. I had a great time.

almost certainly crang. You can do a we were right for two years when they announced it because the utrom But the Eutroms are an alien race that are in like the second issue of the Black and White comics, right, and then all your Mutant Mayhem characters, the actual mutants are Ray Phile aka Man Ray. You know Genghis from a First Love. Yeah, Oh my gosh, he was so good.

such a brilliant job making it accessible. You know, my nephew loved it. My ten year old nephew. Now he's going back and he's watching Rise than Ninja Towles, he's watching the old cartoons, He's watching all of it.

find these characters that we love. And I also love this is the first one where you actually have like, well, you know, the original Jim Henson Suit nineties late live action movie, some of the people who played them were teenagers who voiced them or were in the suits. But this is like kids. Miki who plays Donna Tello, he is a baby. When I see him in the interviews, they're like, oh, my sweet child. And you know, Shaman Brown Junior is my clanjo amazing, Nicholas Cantu the only

Leonardo I respect. I am a Leonardo Heyer. He is a snitch in this movie, but he learns his ways. And Brandy Noon as Rafael, who is my all time favorite. I'm a Rafael Stan That's my of the four humors of the Turtles, I am a Rafael And like I just I loved it so much. And you know what else that they understood that I think a lot of the modern Turtle stuff hasn't understood. And this comes back

to what you're saying in the comics. You couldn't tell them apart, right, because they didn't have the different color bandanas in the original comics, and then when they did, they had all red bandanas. It was all about personality, yea. And I think in the contemporary stuff, me and Nick talk about this a lot, like it became about how do they look different, what gadgets do they have? Like

you need to know the weapons. Now, that's all still true, and they actually do that in a really fun way here, But the personalities are so defined, like you couldn't watch every every kid is going to have a favorite.

but this is like so defining in my life. I always remember, like in the I I used to love all kinds of weird old movies, and like I loved like Carry Grant movies when I was a little kid, and I love PI movies. And I always remember Raphael in the movie wearing like the detective jacket and the hat, and that to me is just one of the coolest visuals. I literally have a reference to that in the new graphic novel. I'm writing him the thing RoboCop does it

when it first gets transformed. There's something about that, and I think that for me really cemented it. But I mean, then again, I literally have that picture. I'll try and find a link to put it in the show notes because it's really funny. I have that picture of me when I was like a baby and I had raft So I don't know, I guess it was just maybe it was because he was red, you know it well, But it's always throughout my life that's never changed. In

the new movie. I would say Donnie's probably my favorite character. I loved him, but I'm still a raft girl. Who's your title?

right now and have the weapon that Donatello has. Plus he was like the more yeah, and like, so I can just beat don Tello right now if I just like unscrew the broomhead. And then he was he was the more like, he was very adept at technology. He was kind of like the sneakier one and the quieter one. Also, like everybody else was much louder than him, but when he did speak, it was like it seemed to have some weight to it. And then he beat He was the one I forget, which issue it is. I think

it's the first issue. He's the guy who beats Tredder like he beats Shredder at the end of the fight, and so I was like, Donatello, that's my guy. I liked I played him in the video game. He had the longer reach, like you could hit the guys from across the you know, further across the screen because it's this longer stick. And so Donald tell that's my guy. And I thought she was wonderful in the movie.

he I believe it is. It's Donna Tello who's wearing the JoJo's Bizarre adventurehoodie when they go into school. So there is like this is a movie full of pop culture references, but I actually found it quite charming and it didn't overwhelm me. I enjoyed. I enjoyed the kind of nods and the fact they're talking about endgame, Like sure, end games? Who in that universe? Like, I mean.

And obviously also you get the the moment with the Ferris Bueller's day off when they're like watching it and all they want to do is like go high school so they can take over a parade. I love it when you learn that something. I love the implication essentially that this is our world. Yeah, I think that's really powerful and I think it's magical for kids.

And you know, there are numerous examples of this, but I think that when you hear about the history of the teenager Ninja Turtles, you'll come to realize as I have, that the Turtles now and there fourth decade of pizza stained martial arts action existence are perhaps one of the most unique products of this dialogue between commerce and creativity.

Created in nineteen eighty three by comics fans Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the Turtles and the Best Tradition of fan created art were a barely veiled ode to some of the most popular comics tropes of their day. You've heard Rosie talk about this lots of times. From the X Men came the word mutants. Mutants were big, and therefore, let's do something with mutants. Eastman and Laird taught you know what else was big. Teenagers were big at this time.

The Teen Titans solo title had launched in nineteen eighty and The New Mutants, the offshoot of the X Men team. The teen team of young Mutants over at the Xavier's Academy just going into the field on their own, had launched contemporaneously, with Eastman and Laird starting to create these characters, Frank Miller's pioneering run on Daredevil was mined extensively. The Ninja villains The Hand became the Turtles antagonist The Foot.

Miller and artist Claus Jensen's gritty, blood drench martial arts tone was brought over basically intact in that early black and white run, and then, you know, for the kind of highbrow stuff, they turned to the Italian Renaissance with the artist Leonardo Donotelo Rafaela Micalandrew, who gave our heroes

their name. In nineteen eighty four, using a family loan and some cash from a tax return, He's been and Laird printed three thousand copies of Teenage mun Ninja Turtles number one under their own Mirage Comics banner, founded in their living room, and with a you know, a turtle shell and a prayer, they bought an ad in the Comics Buyer's Guy. Then really the bible of how to get comics and how to see what comics were out

there in the marketplace. And that's how Eastman and Laird entered the then kind of nascent direct market of comics publishing, by which local comic shops would kind of like cut out the middle distributors to buy direct from the publishers. In this case Mirage and Eastman and Laird. Teenager Ninja Turtles number one sold out, all three thousand issues gone. A six thousand issue reprint followed it sold out as well. From this, Eastman and Laird pocket at a tidy two

hundred dollars profit, not bad for you early eighties money. So, realizing that their little lark of a small business project was resonating, perhaps indicating a deeper vein of interest in these characters, Eastman and Laird went back to the literal drawing board and about a year later, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Number two went to print. Now this by the time, the characters were a grassroots sensation, and of course retailers seeing that thought, well, listen, you can't just send us

number two when number one is sold out. You also have to reprint number one, right, And so they did that and thus began a new run of Teenage Mit Ninja Turtles, and all the issues sold regularly into the five and occasionally six figures, which are just incredibly huge numbers for an indie, Like huge numbers for an indie, like if you're.

to kids. So their plan first was to see the marketplace with an animated television show that would run in various markets, you know, kind of a limited run television show that would kind of like build up the hunger amongst their targeted fan base for all things teenage muant

Ninja Turtles. But of course, before they did that, you know, some of the stuff, some of the things in the black and white original run needed to change from day one, Eastman said in an interview with The Comics Journal from nineteen ninety eight, the first meetings at Playmates, they wanted changes. The early issues had violence, but not graphic violence. He continues, Playmates said, our specific audience is four to eight year olds,

so you can do the math on that, right. A lot of stuff needed to change, a lot of the violence needed to be toned down. Some of the language, which was never really that explicit in the original run, but like did kind of, like I guess, kind of dip a toe into explicit language. Some of that needed to be dialed down. And of course the Turtles had by this time already transitioned to color, as Rosie mentioned, all

red bandanas. But as we start to enter the animated space, certainly things are going to need to change more significantly. And here is where the Playmates marketing team really made their imprint and really let their influence be felt. And this is where that conversation between art and commerce really becomes a very even sided conversation. So the Playmates marketing team are the reason that we have differently colored masks for the Turtles, for instance, in order to tell them apart.

They are the horse of any number of catchphrases iconic catchphrases from the teenage m Ninja Turtles animated series, including Turtle Power and of course the legendary Cowabunga. Now the latter Cowabungo was the focus of a five million dollar lawsuit by Buffalo Bob Smith, the host of the Howdy Do Do Show, which ran from nineteen forty seven to nineteen sixty. Buffalo Bob claimed that, hey, the Turtles stole Cowabungo, which we used on the Howdy Doty program back in

the back in the forties. Sure, and how dare you?

the Eutromsey's kind of brain looking aliens. But even that, when I was like kind of revisiting it, it is such a unique space in this cultural idea of like commerce. And also this is why Turtles became so popular. It was already a comic shop, but like, this is how kids found out about it, this is how it became

a global phenomenon. And this is how many many years later Peter Laird would sell the Ninja Turtles to Nickelodeon familiar that not enough money, not enough money, and he didn't not get enough money.

with the creative team. Kevin Eastman said in nineteen ninety eight with the Comics Journal quote, it probably affected Pete more than it did me. He was really upset about it, and even today he's very much of a purist as far as the Turtles go. But it was something we both agreed to. We'd have long, long talks and ultimately

say we can live with this. You know, all this stuff was done in nineteen eighty six, in the early part of nineteen eighty seven, while developing the toys and the cartoons, even and through that whole period, we never really believed that it was going to happen. And of course it did happen, and they became very, very rich, and here we are now. Rosie mentioned it in two thousand. Eastman sold his steak in the Turtles to laird, who you know, in Eastman's telling was kind of the more

passionate and originalist of the purest. Yes. Now, the laird then turned around and sold the rights to Viacom, and of course, you know, you can follow the kind of corporate restructuring and machinations that follow here. But through Viacom, the property eventually landed at Nickelodeon, which is how Teenage mun Ninja Turtles Mute Mayhem comes to us today.

that level. I'm talking. I'm saying five hundred mil. I'm saying, I think you kill minimum the amount of money that Nickelodeon has made off these off the live action movies that they've done since then, Off this movie, like it was not enough. But I love I love that Peter did it in a pure way. And now you know, Kevin is doing the last row, in which was a huge success for IDW and that was based on an idea him and Peter had. There was a great documentary

made about the Ninja Turtles. I believe it's called Turtle Power, The Definitive History of the Teenage Man and Ninja Tals. It's now on Paramount.

led on to where we are now. So yeah, also, Jason, I want to hear about that the reasons that you think they resonated, because you have some great thoughts here about like anthromorphic kind of storytelling.

are part of this tradition and of anthropomorphism in human creativity. Anthropomorphism, which is the technique of kind of combining animals or objects with human characteristics, is of course a staple of popular culture, you know, like point at any Disney movie, right, And in particular this is a feature of content that is aimed at kids throughout history, like literally going back into the far reaches of prehistory, even the low inments figuring the so called lion Men of Holsteinstadl is an

ivory sculpture of a person with a lion's head, and it's the earliest example of anthropomorphism and is dated anywhere from thirty five thousand to forty one thousand years old. And when you really think about, like what an incredible example of like cognitive flexibility. This is we see an animal, we imagine ourselves as that animal in order to understand

what it's doing. This is really something that is unique to people archaeologist Stephen Mithin, in a really wonderfully caddy response to critics in a December nineteen ninety six issue of the Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, noted that quote anthropomorphic thinking does appear to be an effective means for

predicting animal behavior. In other words, his idea was that, you know, Stone Age hunters, in order to figure out the migrations of say, herds of Ibex or something like that, would wonder if I was an Ibex, what would I do? What would I do? Where would I go? Where would I sleep? And through this process eventually found success in

hunting Ibex. In that same journal, myth And theorized the reason for children's interest in anthwerpomorphisms throughout history is perhaps because quote from birth, they are surrounded by material artifacts that are intentionally designed to cause cognitive fluity. We don't we kind of like overlook this about the way we were raised as kids and the way we interact with kids.

About how confusing when you really think about it. You know, you give a kid a doll that is a tiger, right, that is the picture of a tiger, or the picture of a teenage ninja turtle right, and it's not a turtle, but you expect them to understand that it is not what it is, but it's something else. Right, This is like we are intentionally confusing kids so that their minds

become more fluid. And I think, what this what this all brings me to is I think for me, the reason that the that the turtles resonate and what I think was so wonderful for me about this movie was the way the turtles uh kind of activate empathy, particularly

for kids. Right, Like, you're a kid, You're concerned. It's hard now as an adult to kind of like reach back and get into contact with what a day to day like wilderness, going to school was as a kid, and it's like everything feels like life or death, and it's like do people like me? And if they don't like me or make fun of me, everything's going to fall apart, and like you're living minutes to minute and day to day. And one of the cool things about

the Turtles is it empowers kids empathy. Right, you see yourself as these special martial arts turtles who are also outcasts, and what do they want? They just want to be

like every other kid, every other normal kid. But of course they can't be because they're turtles, but because they are anthropomorphic turtles, it allows kids to interact with their empathy in a way that protects them from kind of like the more occasionally troubling aspects of empathy, which is the questions that arise from uh, you know uh your own relationship with the with your other classmates, or let's say,

you know bullying. Uh, where does one stand in a power dynamic between a bully and and the and the target of the bully? How or how am I being a bully to someone else? All of these kind of questions, how do how does? How does empathy work if someone looks different than me or believes something different than me? Right? All of these questions are really complex and can can get really naughty and make you question a lot of things about the way you were brought up in your experiences.

But when you have answeromorphic turtles, all of a sudden, all of that stuff becomes much easier to play with and much more relatable and much easier to grab a hold of. Right, the outsider noess, the need to bel long, the desire to be special but also to be like everybody else. All that the turtles give to us by the fact that they are turtles with the personalities of people. Yeah, what do you think do you think the turtles resonate?

an outcast, but I can do something good. And what I love is then you know, you go from reading the Turtles or watching the Turtles on TV, and then you see the X Men, and that becomes more obviously about the human struggles, but you still have that same analogous storytelling that comes from from science fiction traditions, that comes from the idea of using stories for the power that they can impart. So I mean, I cannot top what you said because I absolutely love that theory and

I think you're so right. But I think one of the coolest things and the reason that they've resonated for so long is these are almost a starter set of characters and a starter set of tropes and a starter set of stories that will inevitably lead to other art forms and other comic book storytelling. And I think that's really cool. And I think the fact that both of us watched it when we were kids in here now talking about this stuff every week is great proof of that.

Like two people from two different sides of the world, and the Turtles was still one of those first things that got us into this space where we found these stories about characters that we wanted to know more about, that we wanted to care about, and that taught us lessons as we went into our life. I think it's lovely.

I love listening. I've always found so much enjoyment being a fly on the wall listening to two experts discuss something, the more specific the bell, Like I have two friends who build elevators for a living. Even though the nuances of their discussions are well over my head, I find it fascinating. That's how I often feel when listening to certain parts of X ray vision. So my question for the two of you, what specific topic would you enjoy just silently listening to as a fly on the wall.

This is such an epic question.

my sphere of knowledge. I watch a lot of NHK, which is like the national Japanese broadcast channel, and they have incredible episodes of a show called Trails to Oishi where it's basically just like, how do you pickle a radish Like I love stuff like that, Like I want to know the exact way to ferment the perfect piece of soybean, Like I do love that kind of stuff. But if I was to be a fly on the wall,

I would be like flying back into comics history. I just want to be a fly on the wall, Like listening to Jack Kirby coming into the Marvel office when he finds like Stanley crying because they're going to shut down the office and he's like, don't worry, kid, I got this, Or like I want to be in the room where Todd and Jimley and Rob Leifeld and all the crew are like talking about founding Image, Like I think for me it would be getting to hear and

experience like these unbelievable historical moments that you sort of can't really even conceive because in the moment, nobody knew they would be important. That to me would if I was truly a fly on the wall, those would be the things I'd want to revisit, some of those incredible conversations and historical moments that no one kind of knew would become that at the time.

Uh and so like I've I just threw on the twenty twenty two ABBA documentary and just like had that going in the background. It's like very interesting to me to listen to these creative people, to couples, you know, two married couples who got into music because they were just they would just like hang out and sing together, talk about how they created really some of the most

like perfect earworm pop songs. It's so weird that call on Like when when when I hear the term like white culture, I think ABBA in the best way, like it's pop music all yeah, like pop music. Water is a great example that calls on like this, like deep like European musical tradition with the big like a classical almost Shastakovich sounding like piano chor and the like wonderful,

like almost folky melodies, like it's great stuff. I love doing that, or like another thing that I had here is just a conversation with David Milch, the TV writer who created Deadwood and wrote for Hill Street Blues and created NYPD Blue. Just him talking about, you know, his creative process. Anybody talking about like their their creative process. Yeah, with another person who is like steeped in the particular history of whatever space that that creative person applies their

trade in is. I'll listen to that. I'll listen to that conversation ten times out of ten. It doesn't even have to be anything that I particularly know how to do. It could be like woodworking or something, and I just find that, oh yeah, I really enjoy it.

But that was one of the most mind blowing, like fly on the Wall experiences, because you're there as press and that was a very lax set, so I just got to spend I have so many unbelievable memories of just like a guy who was creating like a non toxic gel for setting himself on fire, and he just talked to him about it for like thirty minutes and kept just setting himself on fire, and he was like a viking. And it was also twelve women on the

set visit, which you never get, which was incredible. The guy who was doing all the wirework stunts, he just came onto the coach where we were chilling outside and gave like a whole speech on all these different ways that they were using wireworks. We had the guy who

was making the fake vomit. It was one of the set visits that I've been on that had the most amount of specific knowledge based the dresser, the person whose job it was to go to like the charity shops and buy old vintage stuff that would look like it fit into a vampire's house in New Jersey. That was a really mind blowing time because it was like getting to be a fly on the wall and hear the

ins and outs of how things got made. And it also this was probably six years ago now or something, but it kind of blew my mind and opened my mind to just how many different jobs there are in filmmaking and how much I wished as a kid i'd have known that your job could be like dressing the set, or your job could be like somebody you're just some cool guy in overalls and you're like hammering together like

a shelf that goes on the set. Like that's like a dream, you don't And then that was very profound to me. And that was definitely the time that I've felt most like, I know that that guy's just going around setting himself on fire talking about that gel to anyone who's on the set because he's a genius and like. So that was definitely the most fly on the wall experience, and honestly, it was amazing. I think about that all the time, So I think I would like to be

a fly on the wall more. Actually, Chris, that was such a good question, wonderful question. I love it. If you have theories, passions or quick questions you want to share, hit us up at extra at Crooked dot com. Instructions are in the show notes.

happy it went up. It's six thousand words. It has interviews with Tom McFarland, Louise Simonson, Jim Lee on the record talking about Image, Bob Layton, who really was an unbelievable source and gave some unbelievable numbers about Valiant. Is probably the piece I'm proudest of. I want to turn it into a book or a TV show or something because there's just such a great story to be told there.

But for now you can read it on IGN, and I'm super proud of it, Kevin van Hook from Valiant also giving some great insight and because it's ended up coming out this year. There's also a great little chat with Ryan Skinner from Polp Fiction, which is my local comic shop in Long Beach about how there was actually like a mini boom and bust during COVID, which we knew, you know, as collectors, kind of there was this speculation boom, but it hasn't quite turned into a bust, but it's deflating.

So just if you like the ins and outs, if you like business, if you like numbers, if you like Louise Simonson saying that they the only reason they did Death of Superman was because they were pissed off at DC and they just decided to kill him, you're gonna love it because that's exactly what happened.

a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rumin and executive produced by me Jason Concepcio, and our editing and sound design is by Facilis Fotopoulos. Video production by Delon Villanueva and Rachel Gayeski. Social media by Awa o'clatti and Caroline Duncan. Thank you to Brian Basquez for a few See you next time. Whether you're a diehard comics fan or just getting into them, you're gonna love Comic Sans. Comic Sans is a podcast about

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