Transmetropolitan Vol. 8: Dirge - with Alan Kistler
The Word From Tomorrow returns as Case and Keith are joined by Alan Kistler to discuss Transmetropolitan Vol. 8: Dirge.
For years, Spider Jerusalem has thrown himself into every fight, every story, and every self-destructive impulse imaginable. In Dirge, the bill starts to come due. As Spider receives a devastating diagnosis, the past begins catching up with him, forcing him to confront his own mortality even as the world around him continues to spiral.
Join us as we discuss one of the most important turning points in the series, where Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson remind us that even Spider Jerusalem can't outrun the consequences forever.
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Edited by Seth Decker
Scored by Bret Eagleston
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⏱️ YouTube Chapters
00:00 – Introductions & Welcome Alan Kistler
02:37 – Alan’s History with Transmetropolitan
11:50 – Recap of the Series So Far
13:50 – Opening Thoughts on “Dirge”
18:15 – The Sniper and the City Under Attack
25:46 – Spider Meets Detective Newton
37:17 – The Ruinstorm Arrives
46:08 – Disaster Strikes the City
50:23 – Spider Collapses
56:15 – Spider’s Coma and Diagnosis
01:00:01 – Infopollen and Neural Degradation
01:05:08 – Spider’s Deadline: One Year Left
01:06:20 – The Smiler’s Disaster Tour
01:09:10 – Rossini, Family, and Safe Harbor
01:12:23 – The Press Conference Showdown
01:20:11 – Why Does Everyone Know Spider Is Sick?
01:25:35 – Shannon and Spider Reflect on Four Years Together
01:33:31 – The Missing Evidence Problem
01:38:50 – Callahan’s Family Dies
01:44:05 – Final Thoughts on Volume 8
01:48:22 – Keith’s Theories for the Endgame
01:54:41 – Will Alan Finish the Reread?
01:58:22 – Alan’s Current Projects
02:02:58 – Patreon, Plugs, and Outro
Transcription
00:00
Keith
Foreign.
00:08
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Word From Tomorrow podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Keith Latinen.
00:15
Keith
Hello, everybody.
00:17
Case
Keith, how we doing today?
00:18
Keith
This is a heavy volume we're going to be talking about. It's. It's. Yeah. Spoiler alert. It's probably my favorite volume of the run.
00:27
Case
It's a good volume. I mean, I think I'm gonna save my thoughts on favorite story arcs until we get to the end of the series, but it is a very fun story. I've been waiting for you to get to this one.
00:39
Keith
I love it.
00:40
Case
It's great. And to have a conversation about transmetropolitan volume r8. We are joined by Alan Kistler.
00:48
Alan
Hello, people of Earth.
00:50
Case
Alan, it's great to get you on the show.
00:52
Alan
Oh, it's a pleasure. This was such an impactful series for me when I was young, and I've reread it at least half a dozen times. It's one of those things where sometimes I'll go back and I just want to read one passage or one issue of something and just, oh, yeah, there was that great short story. And then inevitably I'm like, I mean, as long as I'm here, I guess I could read the next 20 issues that follow. Keeps drawing me back in now. And also a sad way of how sadly we're. It was sort of remarking on certain things at the time. And sadly, those things have worked in a cycle, like a terrible George Lucas saga. We just keep rhyming tragedies.
01:35
Case
Yeah. Yeah. That was one of the reasons why we wanted to talk about the series, because it felt prescient and it felt relevant to our discussion, even though there are certainly. It's not a one to one comparison with the modern world.
01:48
Alan
No. But minus a few assumptions it makes about technology, you. You could tell someone this was written two years ago.
01:57
Keith
Yeah.
01:57
Alan
Or during. During a guy's first administration. And a lot of people would be like, oh, sure, that makes sense.
02:06
Keith
Yeah. It's uncomfortable. Yeah. And as we've said, you know, a couple times before, it's cyberpunk. You know what I mean? It's. It's a cyberpunk story. It's got a tone to it. And yeah, I definitely got the cyberpunk. Not the aesthetic of cyberpunk as much in this volume, but I got the tone in this volume. I'm like, yeah, this is a cyberpunk story. If you've played Cyberpunk 2077. You know, there's not a good ending. And that's interesting.
02:37
Case
Yeah. And we're starting to get some of those details about that as we dig into this story. But, Alan, for the listeners at home, who are you and what's your association.
02:46
Alan
With Transmetropolitan in general? I'm just a writer, an occasional director. I have for the past three and a half years, worked at Darkburn Creative as a creative producer and an art assistant art director. And basically that means that I spent the last three years directing, producing, helping with choreography, and sometimes scripting and plotting out trailers, preview trailers for video games such as LEGO Batman Legacy, the Dark Knight, Deadpool VR, Arkham Shadow, Star Wars, Jedi Survivor, Dragon Age, the Veil Guard, a few others. And part of that, why I have that job, is that I'm familiar with the lore of those worlds and that I have studied fan reactions and commercial reactions to things that have happened with those characters in those worlds over the years, which is something I did before I was at Darkburn.
03:49
Alan
I spent several years being a sort of entertainment journalist who moonlighted as a comic book and pop culture historian, focusing on US and UK science fiction and science fantasy stories. And yeah, like, ever since, like before you and I met in high school, like, I was always fascinated by the stories behind the stories and the clockwork of, well, when Captain America found this guy, this terrorist who then turned out to be a White House official, maybe the president, what was that reacting to? Oh, there was a thing called Vietnam and Watergate and the Korean War, like, all this stuff. I was always fascinated by what world events are influencing the stories and then also what the individual authors, writers, plotters, artists, editors were bringing in, either from a personal experience or just because they wanted to see the character in a new light.
04:44
Alan
You know, you, we all are familiar now, even if you don't read comics. Many people out there are familiar just from media that there are different interpretations of Batman, different interpretation of Superman. How his father, his adopted father dies, or whether he stays alive can like really influence what kind of symbolism you're giving to the character. And then of course, there's the wider stuff that's always interested me, like what it says about especially superhero characters, or in this case, a character who's questioning the system. I love those stories where they, the system is questioned.
05:18
Alan
And whether we're saying, you know, cops are great, but need help, or cops are part of a system that even if they have good intentions, is flawed and at times just full out corrupt and looking at the wrong People I'm always down with stories of social justice and truth seeking and not just being a marketing ploy.
05:39
Keith
Hell yeah.
05:40
Alan
So, yeah, transport. That started when I was in high school. And initially I was jumping onto it just because the art was so sharp. And I was always into that dystopia future cyberpunk kind of style of storytelling. I had enjoyed Marvel 2099, which also sadly, seems prescient in some ways now. And so Trans Metropolitan, initially, that was it. And then I just got really into this writing. I was only vaguely familiar with Hunter S. Thompson at the time, but through Trans Metropolitan, I then. Because you have conversations with other people at comic book shops and all about, like, what the story reminds you of or who it feels like. And Hunter S. Thompson came up. And then I wound up reading a bunch of Hunter S. Thompson and getting very into that gonzo journalism and that unapologetic personality, in his words.
06:33
Alan
But that the personality doesn't negate. There's a truth he's speaking to. And that struggle throughout this series that Spider has of. When I'm telling you the problems, I don't just want you to be angry. I'm telling you we have to do something. But also don't look to me to be the guy that does something. That sort of arc of I'm here to. I can do a lot of stuff, but I also want to inspire you that you can all do stuff is also. Was so appealing to me because of classic superhero tropes like Superman. That's the classic must there be a Superman thing. And like Spider Man. Like, when is responsibility just an insane obsession? Like, how much do you want to take on?
07:15
Alan
And how much do you need other people to realize they need to do a thing and they have the tools to do that. So I just loved it and I thought it was great at the time. I thought it was a great sort of callback to especially we'd come out of Reagan and Thatcher and Glasnost with the Soviet Union. There are parts of this that felt to me like Chernobyl and Stonewall riots and analogies and allegories, rather. And so I thought it was a great look back on that of like, yeah, we can't do that again. And now I look at it differently of like. And we sort of did some of these things again.
07:51
Keith
Cool, Cool.
07:53
Alan
Okay, cool. I guess we're here now. And I'm always just a sucker for clever dialogue and cleverly written threats. And Warren Ellis definitely has nothing else has a career between this and Planetary Holy Crap. Some of the. Some of the, like, one sentence, two sentence threats people make to people, like, are just amazing that the human mind thought of that.
08:18
Case
Yeah. I'm so glad that you're on, and I'm so glad we're talking about this series, because it is, without a doubt, a series that I would not have come to if we had not been friends in high school. Because he turned me on to Planetary, which is actually my first area where Warren Ellis was a writer that I processed, I was into as opposed to, like. Right. You know, he was writing a lot of stuff, and. And I certainly read books that he had worked on, like his. His Excalibur run, for example. I know I have every issue of that, but I didn't. I. I wasn't paying attention to him as a writer at the time. Planetary is one where I hopped on and I was like, oh, yeah, definitely. I really dig this book.
08:55
Case
And somewhere in that process, I don't know if we ever really talked about trans men in the. In the day, because I was really reading it my junior and senior year after you had graduated. But I definitely.
09:10
Alan
I definitely had those books around in my back in high school because I remember specifically, like, sitting in the auditorium or in theater, like, reading Transmit books along with my Planetary books and such. So I definitely would have had it around. So it might have come up in casual conversation or just like, me showing some of the artwork or stuff. Even if you didn't jump into it until later.
09:34
Case
Yeah, I don't really remember that specifically. Like, I remember, like, wizard magazine showing off a bunch of the Frank Whiteley covers, which are, like, the first couple issues of the series. And so that was, like, my first exposure to it from a design standpoint. Cause I was like, what the hell is this character? And I have distinct memories of introducing Mr. Lewis, my religion teacher from high school to it. Oh, yeah, yeah. And he was the one who actually turned me on Hunter S. Thompson, because I had no idea who Hunter S. Thompson was when I got into it. And he was like, oh, it's clearly based on this character.
10:08
Keith
Yeah, yeah.
10:10
Alan
I remember talking to Mr. Lewis also about comics, and we would have similar discussions where we would talk about this issue of Planetary where they were making sort of references to 80s vertigo characters, 90s vertigo characters, and like, 80s horror and mystic type characters. But then also there was dialogue that was clearly a dig at Margaret Thatcher and a dig at her administration. And. Yeah, I mean, that was always the great thing of. There's the popcorn comic books. That were just fun and great and like, yeah, why let's watch Mr. Fantastic discover that there's a hidden dimension inside a wooden door and then like a crazy man stick his hand in it and then they go into another adventure. Like, let's watch that.
10:57
Alan
But then let's also look at Planetary and Trans Metropolitan and really talk about, you know, what have we learned from politics and from the narratives we try to shape around politics.
11:09
Case
Yeah, and that's one of the great things about this series. It was eye opening to me about politics. And. And I think it's just, you know, like we said, it. It rhymes with a lot of the things in the modern era, but at the same time, it. If. If your eyes haven't been opened to is a really great way to introduce people to it all with the.
11:32
Keith
The.
11:32
Case
Under the pretense of here's a crazy cyberpunk fantasy.
11:36
Keith
Yeah. There's even a cover in this volume that's just like, hey, does this look familiar? Look at him. Like, we'll get to that. But yeah, I'm just like, oh, that's kind of happening right now. Great. Yeah. Yeah.
11:50
Case
All right. So, Keith, we have been going through this. Now we're seven volumes deep. We're on volume eight, where, for the listeners at home, where are our intrepid heroes?
12:04
Keith
Yes. So, quick recap for those who for some reason are listening to episode eight and none of the others. Spider Jerusalem is a journalist in the city in the distant future and is at the moment opposed to the president, who he unfortunately, partially helped get elected technically, and now is using his powers of journalism and wit and cartoonish violence to take the president down, accompanied by his filthy assistants who are the best characters in the book, Channon and Yelena. He. In the last volume we read, basically I termed it as they were at their lowest point because they lost their. They lost their network, they lost their voice, essentially.
12:52
Keith
And the last volume was half them getting a new voice and then half some of the most polarizing issues in this book series, which was really interesting to go over last week, but none of which I think would really apply to my recap at this point because they were really good, like, side stories that don't need to be the main story. But now we are taking up where Spider's back on his feet. He's not in his lofty penthouse or anything like that, but he is ready to take the fight back to the President. So.
13:23
Case
Yeah. Yeah. So the journalists are on the run and. And now we are. We've gotten the new status quo in the last volume is what we said and now we are ready to. To see them push back beyond just announcing that they were ready to push back.
13:41
Alan
Yeah.
13:42
Keith
And it's. It's a ride. When we get into it's a ride. This. That's one of the reasons I love this volume so much happens. So. Yeah.
13:50
Case
Yeah. So. So let's dig in. So we open with the. The dirge arc which is three issues. As we've noticed most of these six issue arcs in the OR collections. The volumes that they. That they collected it in on the DC app and in. In print typically issues but for the most part they're made up of chunks of three issues and either multiple two three issue arcs or three issues plus three one shots. And last is. Or last volume was the three in one and a bunch of one shot situation. This one opens with Durge the. The. The title arc of the series or of this particular volume, I should say. And we open with the continuation of our running theme of Yelena turning into.
14:34
Keith
Spider, which I've been dreading for a while. Dreading and loving like because like I love her but also she's better than Swayer. So. Yeah.
14:44
Case
Yeah. So Elena wakes up in a disgusting hotel room with it appears to be men's socks next to her face. So like, you know, there's an ongoing question of is the one fling that we saw just. Just a one time thing or has that continued?
15:00
Keith
I assume they're so broke they have to sleep next to each other. That's my thought.
15:03
Case
Oh for sure.
15:05
Keith
I hope it's not like a sex. I don't think Chann would put up with that.
15:09
Case
No, she probably wouldn't.
15:10
Keith
She tease the fuck out of her.
15:12
Case
But we know that Yelena is woefully addicted to cigarettes even though she only started smoking because Spider told her she had to as. As his assistant. She wakes up, smokes a cigarette, goes out and looks out at the city, says Morning City. And we see a spider tattoo on her butt.
15:29
Keith
You marked her.
15:30
Case
And then we cut across the city and we see a couple like cityscape shots. We note that Cambodia is on fire because well, Dr. X threatens Earth is what it says there.
15:41
Keith
I like that. Dr. X threatens Earth. It's just like we're gonna go past that, right?
15:45
Case
It's just like here's just a little aside. As we've noticed in the series, there's a lot of details that will get dropped about the outside world that they don't spend any time on. You Know, like the Australian Civil War. We had one panel and then we move on. Yeah.
16:00
Keith
It makes it a living world that we don't have to see every aspect of. We know that as Dungeon Masters.
16:05
Case
Right.
16:06
Keith
Like you throw a plot hook in there that is designed to go nowhere and then that's what the party goes after.
16:11
Alan
Of course.
16:11
Keith
But yeah, like, yeah, it makes it a living world, a bigger world. So. Yeah.
16:15
Case
Yeah.
16:16
Alan
And it's also, to me, it's a nice reminder. No problem. Like I was gonna say, like, to me, it's a nice reminder of also, just like I said, there's a wider world. Like, the city is not the world. The city is the city. Whatever is passing for the US Right now is the us but there are other things happening. And so, you know, when things are threatening Spider, it's not always about the world. He's, he's not like necessarily saving the planet from Dr. Doom. It's. His life might be at stake, his city might be at stake, and that's still okay because we care about them. It's, it's like with. I wish more superhero movies remembered that where, you know, Dread, I thought, did a great job of just. The main thing here is Dread might die anderson might die. It's not.
17:04
Alan
The city might be destroyed. The city's gonna be fine. The city's gonna do what it does. But I like Dredd anderson and they might die and it doesn't always have to be like a huge world shattering event.
17:16
Keith
Yeah. One of the things I point out specifically in the last volume is I think the city's the only thing Spider loves. Like really loves. And that's the love of his life, basically. And so that's why I point out, like, he always looks out over the city when he writes. Or, you know, like the President coming after him comes after the city. You know what I mean? Like, and so he knows how to get to Spider. And so. Yeah, no, that just kind of reinforces it. Like, there's the other world, the rest of the world. Things are happening out there. We're focused on the city because that's what Spider's focused on.
17:49
Case
He loves it even though he hates it here.
17:50
Keith
Oh, yeah. 100%.
17:52
Case
Yeah. It's real enemies to lovers situation.
17:55
Keith
It's a very creative thing. Or by creative, I mean being a creative. Right, Like.
18:02
Alan
Oh, yeah.
18:03
Keith
Sometimes, like the thing that inspires you the most is the thing you just hate. Yeah.
18:08
Case
Complacency is such A trap, like comfort can just completely strip you of the energy to do anything. Yeah.
18:15
Alan
And any. Any writer has conflicted feelings about home. Look at any. Any. Also, particularly in just my experience, like the. The Irish writers.
18:27
Keith
I was gonna say James Joyce was the first one that popped in my head.
18:29
Alan
Yeah, absolutely. Like New York writers, certain South American writers. I'm. I'm half Peruvian, and I know that, like, being. Being Peruvian, having a mother who immigrated from Peru, there is this mix of pride of all these things happened and we're still here. And, like, genocides happened even more recently, like in the 90s and we're still here. And also, like. And there have been, like, seven coups in the past 10 years. And, yeah, like, there's a lot of, like, other crap. And, like, it's a very conflicted feeling that. That doesn't feel also, like. Like the anger you have towards the city, the home, doesn't feel like it negates the love. It's just like, I'm angry because I love you, because I know you could better.
19:16
Case
Yeah, totally. And what we are seeing here is that this home that angers Spider so much, but that he also loves, is immediately threatened by a gunman who we see Morning city, same as Atlanta, and then activates a blur suit, which we've established in the last arc quite a bit, and then he just starts sniping people. And this. This was a lot like, Derek Robertson is a great artist and great at showing the. The grotesquery of the world, especially when people are gunned down in. In senseless violence. Sets up just a grim scene, and the. The sniper says, it's going to be a lovely day.
20:00
Keith
Using the fixed point of view for this montage was really well done to show how, like, a scene like that can fall apart. You know, I really enjoy. I don't want to say I enjoyed that. I will say that I was staring at each and every one of these and be like, do I know that person? Oh, God, do I know that? Because this dude's. Or someone has been basically taking out people that we know. Not necessarily the best people, but people that we know, you know? And so I'm looking at this like, oh, fuck. So I saw Blonde here. I'm like, Shannon. No, no, it's not her. Okay. It's good. So, yeah, or. Pink hair. I'm colorblind. But yeah. So I. I'll tell you, I was worried about Royce in the scene is what I'll be clear about.
20:36
Keith
I. I was like, it's going to be him.
20:37
Case
Well, you're not the only one worried about Royce throughout the events here. So, yeah, so we cut to Spider. He is reeling from something. We. He. He's been having difficulties up until this point that we haven't really gone into, but, like, he's been having nosebleeds. He's been having flashback or not flashbacks. He's been having, like, blackouts and is just not doing as well as he had been at the start of the series. And so the assistants say that they're going downstairs and he says he'll meet them in a minute. And he catches a bit of news. So he catches that there is a flu epidemic breaking out in the police department, which is going to matter a bit later. And then he catches news about the sniper. And so he.
21:26
Case
He grabs his gear and runs downstairs to the assistants to insist that they need to get to the scene of this. And they hail a cab. And then we cut over to the sniper and a. Some kind. It's some kind of police helicopter rolls in to try to deal with it and fails miserably. This guy is extremely well armed and is able to shoot down a police helicopter with little difficulty. And we get a lot of big explosive violence while that occurs. And Spider is watching all this on the news and they notes that this is weird. One, one helicopter is not enough. Like, where's the backup on this whole thing? Realizing that something's weird, he insists that the cab driver pull over, who says, please don't. Please don't kill me and eat me. I couldn't bear to be killed and eaten again.
22:16
Case
Just one of those Warren Ellis kind of lies. Right there.
22:19
Keith
It's great because this volume specifically has very little of that compared to a lot of the volumes. Like, there's not a lot of the wacky in this one. Shit's serious now. And so it was nice to throw it in right at the beginning, get a little laugh, you know, and then move on.
22:34
Case
So, yeah, it's definitely a tonal shift from where were, say, in volume two, which is just Bugs Bunny.
22:41
Keith
Yeah, yeah, basically, yeah. Running away from angry dog. That's literally a Looney Tunes thing, right?
22:46
Case
Like in this headless fake, son.
22:50
Keith
Stupid. We've come so far.
22:52
Case
Well, so they pull over and it turns out that they're at Dante street, which is where the riot occurred, that they barely escaped with their lives from. They. They phone Royce to make sure that he's okay and also confirm that he has information or has access to information so that they can get some stuff off of him while they. While they're operating. And they try to figure out if this is blue flu, which is to say if it is the police calling in sick as opposed to going on strike. And that'll get sort of explained as this goes. But meanwhile, Shannon looks up and notes that she really doesn't look or like the look of that sky, which we had already had Yelena say the same thing.
23:29
Keith
We.
23:29
Case
We get repeated shots of characters just looking up at this like extremely dark sky that is coming in on them.
23:36
Keith
And yeah, it was a whirlwind first issue that goes by quick and it's just a lot going on again, a lot of serious plot progression and a.
23:44
Case
Lot of big action beats, which the series doesn't normally do. Like, we have multi page. Like the fight with the helicopter is like three pages and that's way more action than we normally see in the series.
23:53
Alan
Yeah, it's such a different atmosphere right off the bat because of that. And you have in that first 10 pages, minimal dialogue. Like you have silent pages, silent in terms of just we're not being fed anything and a couple of pages that have dialogue. It's only a sentence in the entire page of like, Morning City. Morning City. It's going to be a lovely day. And that's it. And that's such a shift in the tone. Like that immediately makes you feel like a storm's coming. As opposed to even just the last story arcs where it was almost illustrated novels, there was so much prose happening to give you context and emotional conclusions about different people's stories and the lives intersecting the city and then like ending with indications about Spider and a lot of stuff like this is this. This whole dirge three part arc.
24:53
Alan
It's fascinating to me how much it suddenly shuts up and providing the atmosphere, but also inviting us that it's our minds that are being asked to provide the screams and the. The sound of what's happening and the stillness of what's happening.
25:11
Keith
Yeah, definitely. And yeah, we don't get that trademark Spider wit at all. Like, because he. Yeah, I think he senses this is some real shit. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, and it's. It is. It is sobering as an audience to be like, oh, like it's immediate signature. Like there's some shit's going down. You know what I mean? Like, so, yeah, really interesting issue. I liked it quite a bit watching Elena not just at the beginning, but throughout the issue becoming more like Spider. Like the way she looks up at the sky. It's just this Spider, like grimace, you know, like the way he's disgusted by everything he sees around him. It's exact same face.
25:46
Case
Yeah. Well, then the next issue opens with her saying, I hate it here. And we get a little bit of a back and forth with Spider, who is like, where have I heard that before? Side note, Alan, this is a question we've asked all of our guests. What is Spider's voice in your head?
26:00
Alan
You know, it's shifted at times. At one point it was Patrick Stewart, right? Because like when I heard about, you know, that delightful comparison that Patrick Stewart also liked the characters like, oh, well, what a. What a fascinating thing that would be. Over time, I think it very much shifted to be just more of a. Not Hunter S. Thompson. It's never been Hunter S. Thompson's voice to me, even though he is so clearly in the vein of Hunter S. Thompson. There was, I don't know, it was just. There was a distinction to me where I couldn't ever hear Hunter's voice in there. I could hear more of a like Michael Keaton voice. And just that sort of like especially in. There's a movie called the Paper with Michael Keaton and Marisa Tomei and Randy Quaid and Glenn Close. It's a brilliant movie.
26:58
Alan
It's one of my favorite movies. And it has to do with like a day in the life of a newspaper. Like more of a not New York Times and more of a New York Daily News type paper in New York when a couple of black teenagers just got arrested because basically they were in the wrong place the wrong time. And you follow these guys and it's one of those things where like Michael Keaton's character is so interesting and he's constantly got this conflict of is this a job or is this a calling and do I want to take a job at a New York Times type place where I get to cover the world or am I is being a New Yorker is like loving my city. Mean, I stay with the smaller paper because, yeah, I'm not going to make as much money.
27:41
Alan
The hours are worse, like, but I have. I know I can look at this perspective and bring this perspective to light. And also just there's this frustration at times of knowing even if he feels all this stuff, it is a business. And there are some great moments in that. And just his whole portrayal in that. I'll often hear that Michael Keaton voice of telling Randy Quinn, like, what are you doing to me? You talk to the guy, you don't talk to the commissioner. You talk to the cops. You talk to the little guy. What are we doing here? Or telling some other guy who's telling him you're giving him a chance to cover the world. I don't live in the fucking world. I live in New York fucking city. So go fuck yourself.
28:24
Alan
It's that kind of like, attitude that I just for me, like, very vibed. Vibe very heavily with Spider.
28:32
Keith
Yeah. Voice wise. I always say that because again, I'm reading for the first time and I immediately read that besides Patrick Stewart, they wanted Tim Roth to blame. So it's Tim Roth.
28:43
Alan
In my head, I could. Oh, I could easily see Tim Roth.
28:47
Keith
Yeah.
28:47
Alan
Like, especially like after seeing him. Things like lie to me. Yeah, Yeah, I. Yeah, I think that would be a great casting choice.
28:57
Keith
Yeah.
28:57
Alan
I always, I always hear like a bit of a grizzle in his voice. Both from. Oh, you know who. Also I sometimes heard him as, actually, as Mark Marin.
29:08
Keith
Oh, okay.
29:09
Alan
Yeah. Comedian Mark Marin.
29:11
Keith
I 100 see that. Yeah.
29:13
Alan
Who I've gotten to see live several times living in la. It's one of the benefits, frankly. I met him one time very briefly. Such a great guy. But yeah, it's again, because to me, like Michael Keaton's character from the paper, when Marc Maron has done his podcast or has been real with you, there is both that romantic hope of we can get out of this. Right. But also that, like, grizzled fear from too many cigarettes in the past and damage we do or don't know about in the past that's like broken him down a little bit of like, I don't know if we can get out of this. And that. And that just informs that to me.
29:57
Case
Yeah. The thing that we keep coming back to is because of the quirks of Ellis's writing, there is this element of a British person pretending to be American in there that, like that. That one keeps coming back to me in my head where something like one that we. We mentioned a few episodes back that I, I've been like, circling back around to. In my head, is Ewan McGregor doing an American accent?
30:25
Alan
Okay.
30:26
Keith
Yeah.
30:27
Case
Okay, interesting.
30:28
Keith
I was thinking of. Oh, God, the movie where he's a drug addict.
30:33
Alan
Train spotting.
30:34
Keith
Yeah, I was thinking of train spotting. I was like, yeah, like, he's got that, like jittery like that, like,.
30:40
Alan
I mean, yeah, you know, I would, I would do it half. Just to watch some people be disturbed by it is. I would have. I would have David Tennant.
30:50
Keith
Oh, my God.
30:52
Alan
Shave his head and do the American voice. He did for the Jessica Jones, not Francesca Jones, although that was good. But like he also had a slightly different voice he did in. I think it was called Grace Point. It was the American version of the British crime drama he was in. Right. Right after Doctor who.
31:13
Keith
I remember that.
31:15
Alan
And it was not great. It's actually, it's a fascinating look at like, how different directors and editors can take the same script.
31:22
Keith
Yeah.
31:23
Alan
And it just doesn't work as well. But I think. Yeah, I think David Tennant would be fun to like have that. But you're. You're absolutely right, Cates. Like there is. They're constantly little reminders of. This is not an American from Chicago or New York talking about certain things. This is a British person talking about almost a symbolic city that America has come to mean in like pop culture. And I think that sometimes when I'm reading older stories with Judge Dredd of like, this is not an American Western put in the cyberpunk world. This is a British person's reaction to American Westerns both loving and satirizing it, as he puts it, in this weird post apocalyptic cyberpunk world.
32:07
Case
Yeah, I just wanted to ask you that question because we've asked every guest about that.
32:12
Alan
Michael Keaton and Mark Marin.
32:13
Case
Yeah, those are new ones. No one else has said those yet, so I like it. But speaking of Spider's voice, he reaches out to K to find out what's going on. So she's one of the two running the Hole, their. Their new feed site. And because the Hole is a pirate. I mean it's like a pirate radio kind of analog, like using. Using web terminology. But like the conception of how things worked just wasn't quite there yet. And like. But she's a good hacker. Is. Is the ultimate point on this one.
32:45
Alan
She's a.
32:46
Case
She's able to find out information about things.
32:48
Alan
It's like a good Drudge Report to put in the 90s context. Just like, oh, this isn't like one of. This is not the CNN website, but it's like this other website that like, is like a little engine that could just seems to like find interesting facts.
33:03
Case
Yeah. And so Spider asks if she's able to. Or actually doesn't ask, who just knows that she's able to find a police officer who is probably not homesick at the moment. And he says he wants to find Detective Newton, the woman who they tangled with during the Dante street riots. And the fact that they're at Dante street means that they're actually close to her. Precinct. And so they confirm that she's there. And he calls her initially and then gets her to agree to meet outside. We cut back to the sniper who is still just blowing people's brains out. Just do it. Just doing horrible violence on the street. And it starts to rain. And Newton meets up with Spider and the assistants and confirms that it is blue flu. That the. That from. From on high, possibly even the mayor's office. They.
33:58
Case
It was suggested that the police officers stay home because they don't need to get caught in the line of fire. Clearly indicating that the sniper is working with the government of some kind in this whole situation.
34:15
Keith
In the middle of this, the shooter's still killing people too.
34:17
Case
Yes.
34:17
Keith
Including this. Really just this page. This is devastating page where it's just like a slow mo. This guy just looking up at a bullet and going straight through his face. I was like, holy. Like it was crazy.
34:30
Case
Yeah. I mean, again, just Derek Robertson is doing a great job in terms of. Of conveying the. The horror of this kind of violence, which is great because again, we've also talked about how sometimes it's just like Bugs Bunny levels of violence. So, like, contains multitudes. Newton explains that she is. Is a cop and so she's not going to. To call in sick for a situation like this. And Spider is incredulous at this. Like, we get a really nice, like, beat panel there when she. When she responds that it. That it's because she's a cop. Spyder starts talking out things, at which point he notes that all the newspapers and all the TV stations are based in the print district, which is where the sniper is located, and that everyone has been cleared out of there.
35:19
Case
And at which point they all kind of start to process that there's no eyes in the city because Newton has confirmed that there are too many cops out. Out of work right now to be monitoring the various camera feeds that are going. And with all the journalists evacuated from their. Their base of operations, no one is watching anything. So they start wondering, like, what is not being covered right now? Like, what. What is not available? And the rain starts getting heavier.
35:51
Alan
Yeah.
35:52
Keith
Not ominous at all. Yeah, I. I think. Did they change up the detective's design a bit? She's a little more Amanda Waller.
36:01
Case
I think I'd have to compare, but not in a way that struck me. Yeah, it's not like Yelena's dad, who has different facial hair every time he comes on screen.
36:11
Keith
Yeah, exactly. I want to ask you this, right? We get this shot of the clouds, right? Is that A thing.
36:21
Alan
That specific cloud there.
36:22
Keith
Yeah.
36:23
Case
The weird like, circle in the middle that. Yeah, I took that as just cloud texture.
36:29
Keith
Yeah.
36:29
Alan
But.
36:32
Case
I don't think it's a thing. They do exist in a world where they have weather control. They've mentioned. I don't think it's.
36:41
Alan
You don't think it's like a fake cloud that's a weather machine.
36:43
Case
Right. I feel like we would have more attention to it if it was because,.
36:48
Keith
You know the ending of the book. So it might have come up later. So that's why I asked.
36:52
Case
I don't know that it's not a real storm. Like, I don't know if.
36:56
Keith
Yeah.
36:56
Case
That it's outside of the realm of possibility that this was manmade situation that the president has inflicted on them. I don't think that there's any evidence that specific cloud is the. Is the thing is, I guess where I'm going. I do like that we see people getting off the street and we see the kids from the last volume.
37:17
Keith
Yeah. I. I do like seeing them temporarily. Hope they're okay.
37:24
Alan
I mean, the. The idea of the blue flu being weaponized by the system is really interesting.
37:30
Keith
Yeah.
37:31
Alan
Because blue flu, like the term really originated in 69 in Massachusetts where just there was a lot of complaints about increasingly unforgiving hours, no sick time. Certain times like to be kept late but not paid. Over time, they, like the cops tried to organize a union and they weren't recognized as having a union. And finally they called out. 65% Of the workforce called out. So it was. It was 1500 out of 2,300 police called in sick. And, you know, the. The governor spoke against it and called in the National Guard. And Ronald Reagan, being California governor at the time, said there is no right to strike against public safety. And reports came out there was all this increasing violence and crime. Later historians pointed out, like that actually seems to be fairly exaggerated. But it became like, known as the blue flu.
38:33
Alan
And over time like that became a term of when. When police don't see any other way to. Because in some states also they're not allowed to strike. Like, if they don't see any other recourse, then you. You all call in sick. Or enough of. You call in sick to just send a message to the city itself. It sometimes worked against them there. There's been the Kansas City Preventative Patrol experiment in the 70s and other experiments have indicated that it doesn't affect the city. It actually sometimes proves that you don't need as many police in A city. What a shock. Yeah. And so there's been significant evidence on that side as well. It happened again in New York not too long ago where they had similar evidence there. So it's that kind of thing.
39:23
Alan
But to hear that it's the government indicating you should have a blue flu day is another great, to me, like, symbol of this is something that whether it's a good idea or not, originated from a workforce saying, the government isn't listening to us. We have to do something to make them listen. And here the Smiler and his crew are once again corrupting something of the people for their own means and using it as a way to actually do. To herd certain people where they need them to be and like to make a certain place not be looked at the right time.
40:10
Case
So we see the downpour is getting worse. We see a lot of water starting to like, wash in. And when we cut to a bar, they say, still with the fucking reruns. There's no weather reports going on.
40:22
Keith
Ominous.
40:23
Alan
Which, which by the way is again one of those things that dates this, this series. To me, people complain there are no reruns. It's. It's like. Yeah, because none of us foresaw streaming of like, what that would happen. Like you imagine right now. Like, like anyone complaining about a lack of reruns. Like the people. One, it's not. It's not. Doesn't mean the same thing. Two, people watch reruns all the effing time. Like, that's all streaming is half the time is people want to rewatch those five episodes of the Office again while they're like serving drinks at a bar. Like a friend of mine, every time she's on her bar shift, Supernatural seasons one through four is going to be playing on the television you're going to deal with.
41:09
Alan
Doesn't matter if you were here last week and saw that episode, like we're going to happen. It's a cute one of those things to me. One of those anachronisms of this series.
41:18
Case
Oh, for sure. Also, like the democratization of media in the form of news. Like, if this was going on, if my like weather app wasn't working on my phone, which again is not. Is very different from a weather report on a news broadcast. I would be turning to Twitter, I would be turning to Blue Sky, I would be turning to Facebook. Like social media covers so much of this. Like the, just the nature of media is so different and traps this work as a 20th century work of speculative fiction as opposed to a 21st century one. So they start to come together on the idea that, okay, so no one's in the print district. This is bad. And there's probably something going on. Like, we need to tell the story. Like, we. We need to run.
42:05
Case
And this is another spot where it's just like, again, the anachronisms of the technology where it's like, we need to run a special edition of the whole. Where it's just like, don't. No, it's just a column that you're just posting. Like, it's a. It's a website. Like, you don't. You don't have like a morning news edition and evening news.
42:21
Keith
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because it is like, the emphasis is like, we're the only ones here. We're the ones who can tell this story. That's where the emphasis is. Which the story gets twisted later to re. To like, recontextualize what's going on.
42:35
Case
So Spider tells Newton that he. This is deep background. He's not going to reveal who it is, but it is a source that they can use to reveal that it is blue flu. And that's what's going on. They get into a cab that they hail by way of Shannon flashing her boobs, which, you know, it's a quota. You got to have at least like one boob shot per volume.
42:53
Keith
Didn't she have barcode? She did, yes. Right.
42:57
Alan
But she was working then. She was working.
43:00
Keith
I thought she had them later too, though. Like, I was kind of confused.
43:03
Alan
I mean, I sort of saw them as just as pasties.
43:06
Keith
That makes a lot more sense.
43:07
Case
Yeah, I, I think the only time we saw them on her was in that first volume because. But then there's this, the TV movie based on their life where they call out specifically that she has barcodes on her boobs.
43:18
Keith
Ye. I remember that.
43:20
Case
Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, honestly, I could see like, strippers with QR codes. So, like, that makes sense.
43:26
Keith
I mean. Yeah, that's interesting, but. No, of course. I mean, I wasn't unhappy with the idea.
43:34
Alan
It's like, Shannon, think of your dignity.
43:37
Keith
Also, they talk. Overall, they talk about our boobs a lot in this volume.
43:41
Alan
I noticed that too. There is a weird, like, which to me sometimes, like, I'm of different minds about it. Sometimes just like. Yeah, sometimes, like, friends talk about that with each other and sometimes it does feel like a guy saying, like, I bet this is what women talk about.
43:54
Keith
Yeah. Because it's Yelena the entire time doing it.
43:57
Alan
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
44:00
Case
I mean, I. Yeah, I agree with you.
44:02
Alan
It's not a big deal to me.
44:03
Case
Yeah, I agree with you. It's one of those things where I'm like, is it in character for Yelena? Yelena. Does it consistently enough where I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess so. Like. So, yeah, I don't know. But. But then they get the word while they're in the cab, get off the street. Get off the street now. And we just see a wide shot of the city with just these giant lightning bolts coming down.
44:26
Keith
Yeah. And it's horrifying. Like it's. It's just like you see it coming. You know what I mean? Like, it's ominous. Again, I keep using ominous, but that's what I keep thinking.
44:37
Alan
And that's the thing, like the pacing of the story and the pacing of silent panels and silent pages has been building this up, which is, I mean, to. To build up the sense of atmosphere that an oncoming storm has and one that could be a disaster. To build that up using two dimensional artwork with no sound effects, with no ambient music to provide the reader is really remarkable. Like, I. I have to hand it to both. The script writing, I'm sure was sharp, but also just in the hands of a lesser artist, I don't think would have been as effective. I can think of a few artists, I won't name them, who would have not delivered the punch of this oncoming storm. And a sense of alarm, also of isolation. There's an increasing. We've gotten 40 issues of the city. The city, the city.
45:36
Alan
Like the noise, the levels of humanity on top of humanity. And the crowds, and the crowds. And these issues keep building up. An isolation of the quiet. There's no one here. Not enough people are here. What's going on? Our government overlords seem to be absent. You know, no one's minding the cameras. Like, it's a very interesting mixture of elements that we've gotten used to in this world suddenly being pushed aside.
46:08
Case
Yeah, yeah. And it certainly would be in the scene. Extremely loud, between the gunshots and then now these, like this huge storm. Like we're seeing all this lightning, you know that there's like tons of thunder that. That's going on. And the storm itself is going to drown out any city noise or any yells. So it makes me think of the scene in Road to Perdition when. When Paul Newman's character, well, meets his fate. And it's an entirely silent scene. Except. But it's, like, bathed in rain. And you know, that part of it is that, like. Yeah, there's probably really loud noises, but you can't get a fix on it because there's this, like, combination of muffling and cacophony going on because of the storm you're in. So the next issue picks up with.
46:54
Case
We see a giant ass wave that's carrying a boat into the city. And we see windows shattering as the storm goes on. People getting sliced up by birds, broken glass as they're trying to get out of the storm. Car windows and windshields breaking and. And getting flooded away. People falling off bridges because of the. Of the winds. It's really bad. We start to see blood on the streets. And yeah, it's just like page after page of just.
47:24
Alan
Of just.
47:25
Case
Just wreckage.
47:27
Alan
It's. It's eight pages before we get any sound or dialogue. Yeah. Provided to us. It's just eight pages of Impact,.
47:37
Keith
Which.
47:37
Alan
Is great because, like, we had that slow burn not only, like, atmospherically in the first two issues of this story arc, but, like, they keep showing Spiders cigarettes slowly burning down as he's figuring things out, and. And now bam. And just eight pages of, like, impact, Impact, Impact.
47:59
Keith
It's interesting because we get a lot of violence in this book, and a lot of it's cartoonish. We've talked about that. There's a lot of sudden violence, too, but this is a montage of violence. We haven't gotten something like this yet. So it really kind of sinks in, like, this is a big deal. This is a turning point. It immediately, again, as someone who hasn't read the story before, it immediately made me think, oh, this is a big fucking deal.
48:24
Case
And so after the eight pages of just destruction, we get our first line, which is Yelena saying, I wouldn't send a dog out on a day like this. And Spider immediately responding, I would, because Spider hates dogs.
48:36
Keith
Continuing the tradition of Spider hating dogs. Also, the detective was eating dog when she was at her desk, so that's two dog references, but yeah. Why does Hornells hate dogs?
48:49
Case
Spider recounts that this is similar to the storms that he used to see back in the day. He says the big storms would have died out a good five years before you were born. Near superstorms, the technical term back then. The media called them ruinstorms. This isn't even a near. Near superstorm. Ruins could strip your skin off. And they. They figure that this bar probably has a back room that they can use to work, so they. He sends Yelena and Shannon to go talk. Sweet talk the bartender. Meanwhile, Spider is looking out the window reflecting that. Who, who would have thought he'd see one of these again? And right when that happens, there is. It looks like an explosion across the street, but. Or maybe a car blows up because we get a tire flying through the window.
49:38
Alan
But.
49:38
Case
But the window bursts and Spider is knocked back with bri. Broken glass like ripping through him. We get a big scar running up his head right through the spider tattoo. And, and for the rest of the book he'll have that spider tattoo will be bisected.
49:54
Keith
Yeah, that's. That was very, I mean, interesting. Symbolic. Little on the nose, but very symbolic. Yeah.
50:01
Case
And the assistants see Spider fall and they rush to him and. Because despite the fact that they hate his guts, they still love him. Just as we said, there's so much about that. Spider tries to get to his feet, and he says I'm okay, before his eyes roll back and he passes out. And they're able to get him into the back room. They put him on a pool table to try to work him over. And Shannon notes that he's more out of it than he should be for what just happened. Yelena brings a first aid kit, but she doesn't know about first aid. So Shannon, who is the better prepared for these kind of things, person in the group is going to deal with Spider street wise. Yeah. Yeah. And meanwhile, Yelena resolves to write the column that Spider can't.
50:56
Keith
Which is the moment. Right? That's the moment she steps in like. Yeah. And she's becoming Spider for all intents purposes.
51:04
Case
Yeah. She breaks up this folding keyboard which has a holographic display. It's so funny like this. Like they have so many keyboards that are the computer in this. And it's the exact opposite of how things went. Like, not that there aren't things like it at CES this year. There was like this concept computer that people were showing off that was entirely built into the keyboard. And of course that's a callback to the Commodore 64. But it's just so funny because it's like, yeah, we'll have holograms, but we'll still need a keyboard instead of. Yeah, we'll have computers that are all in the screen now and not need the keyboard. But yeah. She starts writing the column and as she's working, Shannon is feeding her cigarettes and we see them settle into it while Spider tries to recover.
51:52
Case
And we see more shots of devastation and then we Cut to the President. So his. His advisor, and this is an interesting spot because she's. I can't tell if she's in a dress or a night or like. Or like a robe from. From the art here. He is definitely in a robe, and we know that he. He around, so I wouldn't put it past him to be banging his advisor. Can't really tell for sure, but either way, he's smoking a cigar and is being briefed on the presence of the Ruinstorm that has shown up. They. They call it a Ruinstorm. Spider dismissed it as being not quite as powerful, but it's. It's really hard to say because we don't have any, like, frame of reference in terms of the actual scale.
52:35
Alan
They.
52:35
Case
They say Ruinstorm from here on out. So we can just call it a Ruinstorm. And they note that it's pretty catastrophic with the print district down and with the cops off the street. No one was there to, like, direct people away. And so the city has become a giant disaster zone. And the Smiler just takes out a cigar and says, what wonderful timing.
52:52
Keith
Yeah, I think. I think one of the reasons I thought, hey, this is planned, is because of how Spider was like, this hasn't happened since five years before you were born. And I'm like, that's an insane amount of time, like, you know what I mean, for it not to happen. I'm like, it's got to be planned. But then it doesn't seem like the President. I don't know. He's a scumbag. Who knows?
53:16
Alan
Like, to me, there was an interesting thing when I was rereading this. I didn't see it originally, but when I reread this, it pops up to me. And maybe it's coincidence, but it felt to me like foreshadowing of things. In the first chapter when it ends and Shannon looks up and says, yeah, Christ, look at the sky. On the side of the frame, there is a billboard that's saying, you know, channel Zero. Make them listen.
53:46
Keith
Yeah.
53:47
Alan
And it does feel like that's when you come back to the President at the end, smiling about doing the job of like. Yeah, like, he's like. Like it's both a blackout because of what he's trying to do, but it's also a way of, like, getting a message to certain people, including Spider.
54:05
Case
Yeah.
54:05
Alan
Of what's going to happen. And it's. Which is. Which is, you know, an awful thing to just, you know, use a.
54:13
Keith
Both. Both the.
54:14
Alan
The action itself, but also how much collateral damage is done As a part of it. It's like using a bazooka on a fly.
54:22
Keith
Yeah.
54:23
Alan
It's insane.
54:25
Keith
Yeah, totally.
54:26
Case
Yeah. Keith, I don't disagree that it is very possible that this is.
54:31
Keith
No, I mean, yeah, I'm just explaining my thought process.
54:33
Case
Yeah. But the only question I have is if it was they took advantage of it or if they engineered it, like. Because either way, it's exactly what the President wants.
54:47
Alan
This is essentially what we might call the hurricane heist scenario, wherein there's a terrible movie called Hurricane Heist where people plan a bank robbery, and then part of the plan is that they're waiting for the right hurricane to happen so that they can take advantage of it and make sure that everyone else is gone, but they don't die. It's a delightfully bad movie that if you have a couple of drinks and good sarcastic friends, I would recommend you going to it. But it's always that insane thing of, like, you waited for the hurricane. It's like, that's. That's what you did. But, yeah, this could be that.
55:22
Alan
This could easily be that there was a storm coming, and rather than take certain precautions or use their weather crap, whatever it does, to, like, mitigate it or lessen it, he just let it happen and then took advantage of the situation to do other terrible things.
55:39
Keith
Yeah, exactly. I think it's actually more interesting to not tell us. You know what I mean? To hint at it. Yeah, tell us, because it's like, do I need to know for this guy to be more despicable? No. I already hate him. He's already the worst person on the planet.
55:53
Alan
That's the thing with, like, every. Every tyrant and fascist we've taken down. There are still unanswered questions. There's still things like, was this a means of opportunity or were you planning this from three years ago? Like, you know, there's always that, and you're never going to get a satisfactory answer because people don't just leave diaries explaining all their motivations and thought processes.
56:15
Case
All right. Yeah. So moving on to the next issue. This picks up directly after the events, and it is opening from Spider's perspective inside his comatose body. And he sort of talks out the situation. He decides that he's in hell because he doesn't have cigarettes. And that makes that a pretty defining thing. But after being kind of bummed about. Bummed out about the whole situation, particularly the lack of nicotine, he starts going through the details and tries to recall how he got into this position. And we get a shot of him being blasted through the window. And he notes that I've been hit harder than that before. I've had people from Scotland thrown at me, for Christ's sakes.
57:05
Keith
Yeah, that's great. I love that. Another, like Ellis, like, we just keep getting dicks against the Irish and the Scots and the Welsh. Yeah, yeah.
57:15
Case
But. But then he also recalls the. The nosebleeds and so forth. And we get a shot from the previous volume, and then he sort of works it out that he's not dead, that he's in some kind of coma. And while he's sort of working this all out, he actually starts getting, like, little bits of lines from. From the outside world where hears someone saying, is it anything to do with his drug use? Could that have exacerbated it? And then he wakes up with the line. Drugs are good for me.
57:39
Keith
Yeah. Just the line of the first line here is. It's degenerative. Yep. It's just really well done. That's a really good moment. Like, I was like, oh, considering we talked a lot about this in the last volume and I had some theories, and let me just say I was spot on with one of them. Yeah. But yeah.
57:59
Case
Yeah. So he wakes up and he is being treated by a doctor. And they're in this, like, really huge, nice room. And Shannon and Elena are there. The doctor is not a fan of spiders and notes that it's her Hippocratic oath that prevents her from cutting the answer into his forebrain on whether or not she's a fan of his. And Yelena reveals that they are at her parents house.
58:29
Keith
Yeah. And all the hardness has gone from her face. She's not spider at this moment, which I thought was really good. Like, she's just soft. She's just worried about him, you know?
58:38
Case
So the doctor breaks it down, and Spider insists on the assistants being there so that they can hear the whole thing, which I. I think is make. Makes perfect sense. It feels like that they're already appraised of the situation, so it doesn't seem to really matter that much. And immediately after this issue, everyone is pretty much aware of what his diagnosis is. So Spider has some kind of degenerative brain disease that is due to being exposed to infopolin.
59:09
Keith
Mm. So one of my theories was with all the crazy he was doing, he. I thought it would be the cloning himself to go to California thing. I thought that might be it or something, but, yeah, I thought it might be that, or he just has the disease. You know what I mean? Like, so it's interesting. I'm really happy I predicted that.
59:27
Case
So, yeah, see, meanwhile, I thought that I had played the hand too hard because I was keeping track of how many times he was exposed to info pollen.
59:34
Keith
Oh, I didn't even clock that.
59:36
Case
Like, so I was afraid I'd blown it for you.
59:39
Keith
Oh, no. I didn't think of the infopolin. I really thought, well, he got his body cloned and like, I was like, he does all the drugs in the world. Like.
59:47
Case
Yeah.
59:48
Keith
And again, this is. This is literally a tale out of 20. Cyberpunk, 2077, you know what I mean? Like, it's. It's. At best, you're in pain the rest of your life. You know what I mean? Like, that's. That's cyberpunk.
01:00:01
Case
So she says that in 2% of the cases, like, what. What he's experienced so far will be the worst of the symptoms and that they've. They're able to deal with it. She's. She's already dealt with the blood pressure issues that were causing the nosebleeds and the blackouts. But in the other 98%, it is going to be just continual cognition loss. He's going to lose the ability to speak, he's going to lose the ability to write. And for Spider, that is consigning him to death.
01:00:28
Keith
Yeah. What's the point? Right.
01:00:30
Alan
At that point for him, he starts with such vulnerability in this scene. Once he's back to the real world like that, I mean, we have just one page, one splash page of him in the bed in that big room. And it's always interesting, you know, when certain artists do splash pages. Like, that's you. You've only got so many pages in a comic book. You've only got so much real estate.
01:00:52
Keith
Right.
01:00:52
Alan
So why throw away a page? And. And it works perfectly here because the point is, like one. It's. It's making you all pause and consider the whole picture to consider each character's facial expressions and their place in the room and da, da. But also, like, you're. You're immediately coming back. Like, Spider is so small.
01:01:14
Keith
Yeah. You pull back, Right?
01:01:15
Alan
Yeah, yeah.
01:01:17
Keith
And it's also a very clinical room. It. It's not a hospital, but evokes a hospital.
01:01:22
Alan
Yeah, I. I mean, immediately to. To my mind, it feels like, you know, hospice.
01:01:29
Keith
Yeah.
01:01:29
Alan
It feels like the last stop where it's about, you know, there's a Spartan quality to it. So this is for a medical reason, but also we want you to be comfortable we want you to feel safe and soft. And I just think it's, again, Derek Robertson, Dynamite storytelling in that silent moment.
01:01:51
Case
Yeah. I mean, there's so much language being conveyed by facial expressions throughout this whole thing. The assistants looking on with. With concern for Spider. Spider's reaction when he. When he actually gets the full diagnosis and he processes it. When he, like, looks down and then up and. And that's when he decides that he's going to try to take some kind of action and have control over the things that he has control of and says that he needs to write his column. But then it's revealed to him that he's been out for four days and that story needed to be told then. And he's upset about this at first until Yelena reveals that she wrote the story.
01:02:31
Keith
And probably the sweetest moment of him in this entire series. I loved it. Like, I was like, he's gonna yell at her. Like, I was like, oh, God. But, yeah, and it's really great. And it also shows, like, she's slowly becoming him. And I think this shows he knows it and he trusts her.
01:02:49
Alan
It's also.
01:02:50
Keith
Yeah, good.
01:02:51
Alan
Like. Like, to me, it's also. We want to underline at times that despite his claims of godhood and. And other things like that he's. He's putting on a performance for his amusement. He's actually not quite as arrogant as he likes. He is arrogant, but he's not as arrogant in certain ways as he likes to pull off. And, like, writing the column is less about. It's my column. And because he actually doesn't want a certain degree of fame. He wasn't. Doesn't want a certain type of fame. It's more important that the column got out than whether he's the one who actually did it, because. And again, that does go to the trust in Yelena and Shannon that. That he knows that they know his methods and they know what he wanted to focus on and would have wanted to focus on. So, yeah, it's.
01:03:48
Alan
To me, it's both about, like, I want this done for the good of the city. And it's not my pride about, could I have written this better or could I have written this sharper? Is this going to be, like, informative? But one of my lesser columns that people point out later, I don't give a fuck about that. We got this out here.
01:04:06
Keith
Not only that, but, like, he doesn't even ask to read it. He just trusts what she wrote. Like, that's really interesting. I was like, you know, he's like, oh, good. Someone I trust did this. You know what I mean? And it goes back to, like, the last volume when he's hinting at. I think at the end of one of the issues, he says, am I going to be around long enough to tell? Basically, finish this. And again, I'm not reading ahead. So I think, like, he's securing his legacy with these two. You know what I mean? Like, and she's stepping into that role, and he's thankful for it. So. Yeah, because again, like you said, the city's always going to be there, right? The people. These individual people might not always be there.
01:04:48
Keith
But, you know, if Spider leaves, maybe there's someone to take a spot, or maybe not. Maybe they could finish their work and they ride off into the sunset. Who knows? It's cyberpunk. Probably not. Stop smiling. Nice to see you, Case.
01:05:04
Case
It's just fun. It's just fun knowing how this goes.
01:05:08
Keith
Yeah.
01:05:09
Case
So Yelena did the work of the assistant. She wrote the story for Spider. Meanwhile, Shannon did the work of the bodyguard. She's moved all of their effects to. To Mr. Rossini's house and says that they are secure. And meanwhile pulls out a new pair of Spider's glasses and. And gives it to him. And it's just a. It's another very touching moment between them. And it shows. Like, Shannon's always been the one to. To keep track of things, like. Like the fact that his camera needs to have the images offloaded to a computer. Like, she. She's always done that kind of work, which is different from the kind of work that Yelena has done. And it's nice that they. Each of these are different ways that they relate with Spider. And then she starts to kind of break down about Spider having this diagnosis, and.
01:06:01
Case
And he tries to cheer her up a little bit, and he tries to put a positive spin. He's like, we've got work to be done. And. And Yelena is really excited about this whole thing. Meanwhile, Shannon's like, spider, what are you going to do? You might not be able to write a year from now or anything. And he responds with, so we've got a deadline. We can do deadlines.
01:06:20
Keith
Journalists to the end, right? Like, get the work done.
01:06:23
Case
So the next issue picks up with the Smiler in the city, and we get sort of a breakdown of what has happened since the ruinstorm, since we didn't actually see the fallout of it all. This is now us seeing just, like, the. The degree of damage that's going on there. And noting that the Smiler is in town to oversee the reconstruction or whatever you would call it. The.
01:06:48
Keith
The response, I will point out. This is the COVID I was talking about where the Smiler wants his face on the dollar bill. I'm like, that sounds familiar. Like, that sounds like an egotistical thing. You would stick your name on something for no reason whatsoever. No comparisons in modern culture. No.
01:07:05
Case
None whatsoever. No. And then Spider, as he's, like, watching tv, and we get this great shot of him in this giant, plush, comfy chair smoking a cigarette and stroking his cat, who's also smoking a cigarette, and Spider with mismatched.
01:07:22
Keith
Slippers.
01:07:23
Case
I love that he gets interrupted by Yelena's father, who comes in and. Yeah, so like I mentioned, he has different facial hair every time we fucking see him. It's so wild.
01:07:33
Keith
The shaved head with the tiny braid in the back is a choice, and I love it, right?
01:07:38
Case
But I like Yelena's dad a lot. He is really fucking cool. Like. Like, Shannon sized him upright. He's like. He's pretty dope.
01:07:46
Keith
He probably doesn't know Spider stuff with you later.
01:07:48
Case
Probably not. Probably not.
01:07:52
Alan
But.
01:07:52
Case
But it is fun where he has this. This very understanding nature about his daughter, where it's like, she's a great person, except she was an awkward bitch. I love it. It's like, yeah, she's got a good heart, but sadly, it pumps poison instead of blood.
01:08:08
Keith
It's kind of interesting. This is one of the few times where we see Spider talk to somebody that either, A, he's not, like, friends with, like, Royce, or B, isn't a subject of a story and just has a conversation. You don't have that very often. Like, and it's a really respectful conversation. Even though this guy does, you know, a job that Spider probably looks down on because of what he does. You know what I mean? Like, and so I think it's really interesting to see him, like, you know, probably because he's enjoying his hospitality, you know, like, specifically, like, his retort is literally just like, what do you want to talk about, basically? You know what I mean? Like, he's not just like you. You know, he doesn't go on his, like, capitalist rant or something like, yeah, well.
01:08:54
Case
And I think. I think there's some design similarities between Mr. Zini and Spider, and part of that is the shaved head right there. But the fact that they also have glasses and the fact that he just feels like the generation prior's, like, political person, and now Spider is this generation's political person, kind of thing which could speak to some sort of Oedipal thing going on or electro complex, I should say.
01:09:23
Keith
Better not dig into that.
01:09:26
Alan
It's also again, Warren Ellis has his habit of providing us interesting protagonists and slightly noble characters who love wearing white suits with white vests and white shoes.
01:09:40
Case
Also true.
01:09:41
Keith
Oh, we forgot to point this out, that his glasses were destroyed and Shannon made a new that's a bet. Oh, I didn't hear that. Sorry. I was totally waiting for you to say that. Damn it, I didn't hear you because I was going to say. Remember I told you that they sold the glasses as a pro or as like a thing? You can buy a copy of a pair of them in the box for $360 right now on ebay. I was kind of like, man, if I was more wealthy, I would totally get that. And rocket on the last episode.
01:10:09
Case
Yeah. Don't you think? I haven't looked.
01:10:13
Keith
There's got to be something on Etsy.
01:10:15
Case
Also true. There is.
01:10:19
Keith
Nice.
01:10:20
Case
So Yelena's dad asks Spider to make this house the base of operations. Now he says that like, look, I don't care what kind of heat you draw on me. I would rather you guys be well equipped and so I can keep tabs on my daughter because I don't want her to fucking die in this whole situation. But I believe in what you're doing. So I want to at the very least do what I can to help.
01:10:41
Keith
Yeah. Not be in a like flea bitten hotel sharing a bed with two other people and not eating. You know what I mean? Like, he's like, just come home like shit.
01:10:52
Case
So Spider says that he's going to do a bit of monstering on the President. And we've of course established monstering in that one shot issue where you harass the senator who is linked to the pornography situation. So just in case you're wondering what monstering is, it's. It's harassing people in the worst of ways that a gonzo journalist can do.
01:11:11
Keith
Yeah, just fucking with you.
01:11:13
Case
But Spider's not well. He trips and they note that the medication is something that he's getting used to. And when Yelena's dad urges him to rest, he says he doesn't have any time to rest. Which, you know, fair. Then we cut to just such a fucking cynical scene. The president is in the disaster zone and there's this little girl who says that her house went away. And he's like, I'm gonna fix it. And then they zoom in on a barcode on the back of her neck because she's a plant.
01:11:42
Keith
This is the most the boys this book becomes.
01:11:45
Case
It's a victim bot.
01:11:47
Keith
Like, yeah, this is some homelander, you know what I mean? Like, look. Like, look. Oh, isn't he great? You know, like he's taking care of this little girl. And I'm like, it's so clearly staged, you know what I mean?
01:11:59
Case
And Yelena says that it makes her so mad she wants to buy a gun. And Shannon's like, you got a gun? One. I'm. I'm talking plural.
01:12:05
Alan
I wish.
01:12:06
Case
Miniguns floating around me controlled by murder.
01:12:08
Alan
Thoughts.
01:12:09
Keith
I like that. I know a guy. You know a million guys. I'm like, damn. There's some great banter in this page. Once again, another reference to her boobs literally being able to concuss men. Which I thought was great.
01:12:23
Case
And Spider has taken the opportunity of his. Of his illness to further harass his assistance. He says that Elaine has to carry him because he is sickly and weak.
01:12:33
Keith
The line for I am weak and sickly is amazing. I'm gonna say it again at some point. I already know it. Anytime I'm gonna be sick in bed. And Amanda's like, can you get me soup for I am sick and weakly? Yeah, 100%.
01:12:47
Case
We cut to a press conference with the Smiler and we get a big splash page with no dialogue of just all the different have lined up. Yeah. So like this press corps being like conditioned just to laugh at the Smilers jokes and everything makes me think of current political situations where the.
01:13:06
Alan
Where, where.
01:13:08
Keith
Where only certain organizations are allowed in press conferences.
01:13:12
Case
Yeah, exactly.
01:13:13
Alan
After they compliment the leader.
01:13:15
Keith
Yes. After they pay tribute.
01:13:19
Case
So they team up with a softball question about Vita Sveran and he gets to call in some sympathy points for that. Meanwhile, Spider and crew are in the cab on their way. And so they're listening to this press conference and they arrive and security at first is not going to let them in because they're not accredited journalists anymore. And this is actually like, I think a slightly weird play by the Smiler just because like Spider has done horrible things to him before at these kind of things. But Smiler says it's okay. You got to let the little people in.
01:13:53
Keith
Yeah, exactly.
01:13:53
Alan
But I mean that's. Isn't that. And we see that constantly right now. Again, there is such an arrogance. And it's not like there's. There are people in power who could probably be doing more, but they're both so bad at Hiding things. And also, like, they just. It's such an ego thing of. I, I want to. I want to look like the nice guy. I want to look like the bigger person. I want to look like the. Even though I know you're probably going to call out on me like they're journalists who technically could have been told not to be on Air Force One anymore. And they still. Come on. They'll still ask real questions. He'll call them stupid and it's just like, it's weird of like. But you still let them on and everything. It's like. But he's. He. He keeps hoping, like.
01:14:47
Alan
But this time, this next time it'll be right and I'll look like the better person. Like, I feel like there actually is a childishness in certain people in power that they never let go of because it's still. And you see that all the time with just certain. The schemes they do, whether they're putting their names on buildings that they had nothing to do with or something. It's like, it's ego. And it's like, well, maybe if I do this, dad will finally like me and think I'm cool. Elon Musk, every time he's at a frickin interview is so desperate to be the funny guy. He so desperately wants you to think he's funny and witty. It fails every time. And he's never had the thing to be like, well, I've not been funny and this has not been my crowd.
01:15:30
Alan
I should not make another try for a joke right now. He's gonna do it again. So, like, it's. The Smiler does seem more intelligent than some of our real life people, unfortunately, which is part of why he's a good villain. But I'm also, I'm fine with like fascists and government, you know, corruption and stuff. Like, there's part of the arrogance you need to get there. And to pursue that agenda also means that there is a childish arrogance that is a flaw in you. And just like, yeah, I'm gonna let Spider into the room because I feel reasonably safe right now.
01:16:05
Keith
Yeah.
01:16:05
Case
And then Spider does a weird thing for what we get in the next issue, which is he throws a bunch of discs out to all the journalists with depositions from people indicating that Alan Schacht is related to the killing of Eda Siverne.
01:16:18
Keith
Yeah. Which I was like, holy shit, this is a game changer. And then it's kind of like, is it. When we get to the end of this. And now I'm kind of like, I'm confused how this works.
01:16:26
Case
Right.
01:16:27
Keith
Did the discs just give you access to the information somewhere else? I know it's like a weird reference, but like Scout comics sold these like credit card looking things and you could scan them and read a comic book, which was really cool. I love those. But is it like that and then if it goes down there, you can't get it?
01:16:44
Alan
I, I sort of took it and I agree it's weird. Like I sort of took it as. It's, it's specifically just the evidence he's talking about there and then corroborating evidence is elsewhere on servers and stuff like that. Which is.
01:17:01
Case
Which again, I agree with that being the headcanon, but I still have a question that we will get to when we get to.
01:17:07
Alan
Okay, cool. Like I'm just taking it as again, like a slight, a misunderstanding of like what CD burning was a new thing at the time when this issue came out and we all had to deal with the fact of like I deal with if I was ripping some audiobooks or something like, oh, but this audio, this thing is like, you know, 80 minutes and the CD will only let me burn 70 minutes onto it. Like, so I guess I got divided into like. I think there's a limitation of the expectations, which is weird to me because you also are in this world where I mean, it's a little bit like Star wars, like in the classic trilogy. Like you have this world where people were able to imagine we made ships that have their own gravity and travel beyond light speed.
01:17:53
Alan
But no one in the 70s and Star wars considered email. Like you had to physically carry the plans to R2. Had to physically carry the plans to. Right. Obi Wan and stuff like that. And, and so I sort of just see it again as like a similar thing here. Like we're not thinking of just how much a data disk in this world of other advanced technology could probably hold.
01:18:15
Case
Yeah, I'm sure that the information on this disc is just like a sampling of the stuff that he's been collecting. That these are party favors for the other journalists that lead the whole situation here because he's coming to do a big show of things and he's says in this issue that he's not. That he's sparring right now, but he's not.
01:18:36
Keith
This isn't the kill shot.
01:18:37
Case
Yeah, exactly. It's just weird what we'll get to in the next issue. Meanwhile, they also turn on the blur suits for the people who are in the audience, which are all Secret Service people.
01:18:48
Keith
That was great. Yeah. As a power ass move and I loved it.
01:18:52
Case
Yeah. You landed with a Commodore 64 and everyone's freaked out about this. The one thing I wish is that we had a better wide shot before the Blur suits are activated so we could see the difference.
01:19:04
Keith
Yeah, that would have been good, actually.
01:19:08
Case
But as it is, Spider sort of gives a bunch of his theories about what's going on. It's really fun seeing Shannon like light a cigarette as he's so weak and sickly.
01:19:21
Keith
I am weakly and sick. Yeah, no, I think that was really cool. And I really love the shot of the rest of the crowd now looking around this crowd that was just like uproariously laughing at everything the President says. They're like, I don't like this now. I love that Spider can just destroy a situation like that. So good.
01:19:41
Case
Yeah. But the smiler, like fires back. He even curses at him. And when his handlers are like, live mic, he's like, it doesn't fucking matter. Which is true. Presidents, when they, I swear, gain popularity, as we have seen, even with current ones. So they, they go back and forth about it and this is the spot. Okay, so everyone fucking knows about Spider's diagnosis. And I, I don't know how that story got out.
01:20:11
Alan
I agree.
01:20:13
Keith
Yeah, it is strange. If it's on a database anywhere, I guess they'd have access to it. Also, the doctor is not a fan of his, so.
01:20:23
Alan
But I, I don't feel like just the way they had her vibe. I don't see her as just immediately. Yeah, I could see more that Callahan had someone hack into once they found out Spider was alive or like had been there, whatever. Like hack into some medical record to see something. But then I don't know where that medical. If she made backup medical records elsewhere as a doctor would be want to do. Okay. But then I would expect more of a reaction from Spider regarding the. The idea that he knows this news.
01:20:57
Case
Right. And there is not that big of a time jump. So I just feel like this. There we're missing a little bit of a story. Like half an issue's worth of just like that information kind of getting out and Spider responding to the fact that people now know that he's sick, that it's just a weird part there. Like once this issue establishes that everyone knows it's fine. It's just weird that everyone knows and there isn't more attention Drawn to that part.
01:21:27
Keith
Yeah, exactly. Because that would be a big revelation. It's a big figure.
01:21:31
Case
Yeah. Because it's not even just that, like, oh, he has a degenerative brain disease. It's, like, specifically from eye pollen. Like, it's just a lot of information that. That.
01:21:40
Keith
The.
01:21:41
Case
That's the Smiler just, like, spouts out and the mayor spouts off, you know, like, that. Everyone seems to be aware of it. But anyway, so they. They trade some barbs, and basically Spider threatens him and says, the next time I see you will be the last time I see you. And the Smiler goes, on Your latter point, Mr. Druism, I agree completely. And that's where we kind of conclude the issue, which. What is that look that Spider's giving?
01:22:08
Keith
I don't know. The fact that there's just this white background for, like, half of these pages. I'm kind of. And he. The fact. He's, like, delusional. I'm like, is this happening or is this in his head? You know what I mean? Like, like, did he go out there and basically say, I'm taking you down, and then run through everything in his own head? I was like, that could have happened for all I know. But, yeah, that's a weird face. It's almost as weird as the face of the smiley face down the corner. So, yeah.
01:22:33
Alan
I mean, he. He has a great point where he brings up on the page before, like, you give the impression of being in control, but yourself have been losing your mind ever since. Certain decisions. And again, that's something that we do see in certain arrogant political leaders. I mean, how long after a joke was made did we hear about, like, actually, my hands are really big, and it was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. Or like, you know, like, but. But, you know, that guy got the Peace prize. I should have the Peace Prize. That. That's still being talked about. What are you. What do you do? It's. It's this crazy thing. So I dug that stuff. But. But, yeah, it's an interesting confrontation because it's also, like, you're obviously. He wants to keep some level of deniability. The Smiler.
01:23:25
Alan
And he wants to keep some level of a public record of, like, well, everything else is conjecture. But if you just look at, like, this, like, I was actually a very cool guy, and I was actually like, da, da. But you also have shown us, like, he's willing to have CIA, a Secret Service, in a crowd of journalists with blur suits just in case. So it's it seems weird to me to threaten him quite like this in this fashion. And yeah, the last panel, like, is he. Is Spider trying to grin like a maniac, like, come and get me. Is he actually in pain all of a sudden and thinking, oh shit, I might not get out of this? Yeah, I don't know. It is, it is an odd ending. The, the press conference in general is an odd thing to me.
01:24:14
Keith
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I will point out before we move on to the next issue though, this is something me and Case have kind of been keeping an eye on. Now I know cover dates aren't publication dates, but by cover date 911 happens between these two issues.
01:24:33
Alan
Yeah, it is. It is. Not yet.
01:24:35
Keith
Yeah, but so we're like, again, I don't know the exact publishing date because it's hard to find publishing dates.
01:24:41
Alan
It would be for the way that this was done at the time and DC was in Marvel had been pretty consistent since the 80s.
01:24:48
Keith
About three months.
01:24:49
Alan
Like it's going to be three months. So this was, I think I actually saw that confirmed one time in a publication. Like this is like June or July.
01:24:58
Keith
Okay. Yeah, but just because were kind of keeping an eye on that. You know, were talking about pre 911 and post 9 11.
01:25:03
Alan
Right.
01:25:04
Keith
It's coming up and it's very interesting. It's kind of curious how shortly after this the book series ended. Like it seemed planned, but I'm not, sorry to say anything, but that's just interesting to me.
01:25:15
Case
So, yeah, we'll be tracking for when we can feel the vibe shift. But like there's also the knock on effect which is how long it takes between like to write and put out the work beyond just the publishing part. But thank you for keeping track of that one, Keith.
01:25:33
Keith
Yeah.
01:25:35
Case
So the next issue picks up with Spider at the Rossini compound and just kind of walking around nature and taking it in. And Shannon comes out and they talk for a little bit and so it's a nice interaction. Spider, you know, equates the degenerative disease to be like dying because it's all the things that bring purpose to his life going away. And it, we get some nice moments with Shannon just sitting with him and they sort of reflect on the last four years.
01:26:09
Keith
And one thing we talked about, you specifically bring up is the time frame has always been like, how long has she been with him? Like, especially when Yelena joined, you're like, it's been two weeks. We get confirmation she's been with him for four years.
01:26:22
Case
Right.
01:26:23
Keith
So that's super interesting. That means the Smiler has got to be like two years into his term.
01:26:30
Case
I think that matches up. They're. They're very good about. They call it year one, year two, year three, year four.
01:26:37
Keith
Yeah, I saw the COVID for the next one. It says year five, so I was like, okay.
01:26:41
Case
So. So they've been pretty consistent on that front. It was just like the. The timeline for the events of the assistance. But. But I think the broad timeline is. Is supposed to be fairly one to one. It's just like how much happens between issues is. Is different from at various points in the series.
01:26:56
Keith
Yeah, yeah, just. It's just really interesting like, to keep track of that because, like four years, man. And so a good chunk of that was after, you know, they got booted from the word. So they were probably on the streets longer than I would imagine. Like I was imagining like a week, you know what I mean? But like, obviously it's longer than that, so.
01:27:14
Case
Right. Yeah. They've been living at various hotels. They talk about and having stretches where they couldn't go out and get food or things like that.
01:27:22
Keith
Yeah.
01:27:22
Case
So Spider goes inside and notes that he is feeling old and cold and wearing out. And so he has the maker produce like a full set of clothes. So he covers him up with a turtleneck and with a jacket and Yelena comes in and this is a different kind of interaction. Like I said, her relationship with Spider is different than Shannon's relationship with Spider. And I like that we sort of like flesh out how each of them respond to their mentor failing the way that he is.
01:27:55
Alan
Yeah.
01:27:56
Keith
Obviously saying a bit about the relationship. Yelena, again, not having that hard edge that we've been seeing. You know, like, she's maybe. That's maybe part of it. She's home. You know what I mean? She's not on the streets. She's not living this life she was living. Now she's back home. She's comfortable. But she brought this hard life back with her and probably doesn't know how to really react to that.
01:28:18
Alan
There's also, like, parts of this here because it's still the tail end of the 90s and also because I. I equate some of the what happened in Dirge with events like Stonewall in terms of like a manipulation of police presence and such like this. This also feels like I saw so many scenes of. Of this kind of conversation in so much media in the 90s, and a lot of the. The queer community saw this because of Like AIDS was still such a major factor plaguing things. And like there had been some advances. We were starting to get to a point where people could start living with AIDS and living with hiv. But just his sentence of you know, I feel cold. We just saw outside like we saw everyone's dressed like it doesn't look like necessarily that cold especially if they're inside right now.
01:29:18
Alan
But like I feel cold is like such a thing of like my body is doing. It's not doing something for me anymore. Things are whether it's cancer, whether it's AIDS related illness, whether it's any number of things. And, and but I think it also like I said, like I, I equate some of this story with the Stonewall Inn because like just not to give a huge history lesson but I mean that was such a, a safe haven to a degree for the queer community back in New York and Greenwich Village. And it was mafia run and they didn't have a liquor license so they just paid the cops on a regular basis. And they. It was the only at the time gay bar in New York where men were allowed to dance together. And it sort of existed within the ecosystem where it.
01:30:15
Alan
There was lots of feeling against gay people. But you also had writers like William S. Burroughs or Allen Ginsberg like living in the village and talking about like this is just a community, let them live. And. But then two New York mayors, Robert Wagner and who wanted a family image of New York before the 1964 World's Fair. And then Mayor John Lindsay actually pulled back some police action against the gay community but then doubled down on his re election campaign. And eventually that led to the Stonewall in riots and attacks. The, the raid where the Mafia and the owners of the bar like and the people who ran the bar, the management were always alerted when there was going to be a raid. Like the police had to do raids because they, there was a.
01:31:06
Alan
One that was their deal but and two, they needed to be seen to be doing something for people who were saying like but what about gay bars? And so they would do these raids but they did them on weeknights and they did them earlier in the evening. So that's not your later night crowd when it's going to be more crowded. They would only take liquor out off like the bar itself. They wouldn't go into the cabinets underneath where the extra liquor was stored. And that way the bar could continue operation after they left and so there were these deals of like, we gotta do this, but also we're giving you some leeway and we're only going to arrest, like, certain people or like an overt drag queen or something like. Which is not great still. I'm not defending any of that.
01:31:50
Alan
But there was an ecosystem that they had. And then what happened on that night that the Stonewall raid happened was that they didn't alert the Mafia. They didn't alert the people running the bar. They also didn't tell it was cops from other precincts. It was not the cops from the Local 6 precinct, which is local to Stonewall. And that brings to mind me, our cop that Spider talks to, who is aware that there's been pressure on a blue flu, but she herself, despite being part of the system, is not aware of what it's trying to do or that her community is in danger right now. Like, she's also kept in the dark. The 6 precinct was kept in the dark. And. And they also attacked, like on a weekend. They attacked on a Friday night, late into the night. There were 200 people there.
01:32:44
Alan
So, like, that one night they arranged all these things of, like, this one night is going to be an example. This one night we're going to do this. And we're not going to let cops who might know friends there. We're not going to tell them and we're not going to tell these other people. And it just, it. There's a kind of like, mimicry here that as we get more details about what was the real reason behind the blue flu and the superstorm and everything like that I find interesting. And to me, like I said, like, that just coupled nicely with Spider being someone who was aware. I, despite being essentially a young man, I imagine he's in his 40s. Like, I now have a clock ticking and. And I can't stop it. And all I can do is be comfortable. So we.
01:33:31
Case
We get one more like, kind of warm scene with him sitting outside with. With a cat and saying that the cat's going to be taken care of, which is just kind of. Just a nice moment with cats. And. And then Spider gets alerted that. That there's a story on the news. And this is the thing that is really weird or rather really antiquated in terms of. Of how it views stuff.
01:33:54
Keith
Yeah.
01:33:54
Case
Which is that it turns out that all of the. The print district and basically all. All journalism in general had their files on servers in the print district. And so that when this storm happened and the sniper and everything and the print District was evacuated. A team went in there and wiped out everything, which includes all the evidence that Spider had amassed. And. And I'm just like, what the fuck? Like, first of all, just like basic rule of backups, motherfucker. Backups seems to be a huge thing. And the idea of like cloud computing and so forth just is nowhere near the realm here. Just like I said, this is 20th century speculative fiction, not 21st century speculative fiction. It just cannot conceive of the way the technology would work.
01:34:45
Case
And it needs it to exist this way to be the speed bump that it is. So it's reliant on these older things, at least for the purpose, like, at least to be the MacGuffin.
01:34:58
Alan
Oh yeah. And we didn't have an idea about the cloud yet in like, if you, if you also take like how long it would have been scripted beforehand and that it usually took. Takes any comic book artists on the average like three to four months to like illustrate it. Get the edited spack. Get the lettering in da da. Like, again, the cloud wasn't on our perspective. I totally agree though. Even back then, it's like people, you had multiple floppy disks of important documents and the idea that there wasn't a back. I give a slight conceit that at least in my mind, it's not just Spider's evidence, but the evidence that corroborates. He didn't make up his evidence because they do talk about like, it shows staff positions, it shows like staff whereabouts.
01:35:43
Alan
It shows like data trails of who entered what files when and who might have edited or not edited. I'm like, that is a lot of like, good corroborating data to show that you didn't just sit at a computer and make up the witness statements you have or anything like that. Like, that's. But again, yeah, like, why isn't there a backup server in whatever the city's equivalent of New Jersey is. Like, why isn't there, like, why isn't there some like, server farm on a mountain? So it's. And it also, like, I think even in 2000, 2001, even if you've written this in 1998, I would think a better solution if you want to go this route is that they introduced a virus through that server and then it affected the other servers in like the news network or something. The fact that you had. It's.
01:36:37
Alan
It seems like a physical heist is. It feels dated even for the time. Very oddly.
01:36:43
Keith
I mean, in this world we have, people are turned into clouds People become clouds. Like, and then they found a way.
01:36:50
Case
There is cloud computing in this world. It just means something very different.
01:36:54
Alan
They found ways to have clouds have sex. Like, they figured that out. They sat down.
01:36:59
Case
They figured that out first. Yeah.
01:37:01
Alan
They're like, we will solve this issue before we do anything else cloud related.
01:37:09
Keith
Yeah. I was gonna say it gives them.
01:37:14
Alan
We want to remind the audience that Case is a father to make dad jokes.
01:37:20
Keith
It's. It's another meaning, too. I'm on the cloud. That was my joke. And yeah, I love that. It's Robert McX. Just keep bringing this guy back.
01:37:30
Case
Yeah.
01:37:30
Keith
And how he's like a true neutral party. Like, he doesn't have a side except journalism. You know what I mean? Like, and I love. Yeah. So, like, he's one of the.
01:37:39
Case
He's.
01:37:40
Keith
Except for Spider and his team. Is he the best journalist in the story? Like, you know what I mean?
01:37:45
Case
Like, yeah, without a doubt.
01:37:47
Keith
That's really interesting.
01:37:48
Case
Now he's also one of the few that we actually see consistently.
01:37:51
Keith
There's.
01:37:51
Case
There's other reporters, but, like, what was the guy that, like, that Spider, like, kicked the shit out of when he, like, came up and was like, how does it feel to be an opinion columnist and not a real journalist like me?
01:38:01
Keith
Oh, all the citizen journalism.
01:38:04
Case
Yeah.
01:38:04
Keith
Which is my two least favorite words in the English language, by the way. But we won't get into that today.
01:38:09
Case
But Spider says, I mean it. No more shots, no more playing. No more whittling away at the fucker. We build the entire case and we shove it through his fucking heart in one go. Which just sort of speaks to how weird the previous issue is.
01:38:22
Keith
Yeah. Because it's like he kind of laid out his plan and then it's kind of like, we're not going to do that shit anymore. I'm like, you just did it.
01:38:30
Case
And also, this picks up, like, this issue basically works fine. Picking up from the. From if you took out the previous issue completely, like, this issue would pick up just fine. Makes that. That previous one feel like a weird bottle issue that already has some weird continuity stuff just by virtue of the timeline and things and everybody knowing and all that stuff.
01:38:50
Keith
Yeah.
01:38:51
Case
But then we get some other news and they do a big old splash page of a car accident and they reveal that president or President Callahan's wife and children have died in this car accident.
01:39:03
Keith
It's a heartbreaking shot.
01:39:05
Case
Yeah.
01:39:05
Keith
Like, I don't think we ever physically see her.
01:39:08
Case
No.
01:39:09
Keith
Like, they keep referring to her. And, you know, obviously Spider went To see her.
01:39:13
Case
Oh, wait, no, wait, hang on. Was. There was an interview where. Where he says that at least she. I wish that he had the good sense to lie to me or something to that effect.
01:39:22
Alan
Yeah, there's a video.
01:39:24
Keith
That's right.
01:39:24
Case
There's a video interview with her.
01:39:26
Alan
Yeah. Yeah. But we're never. We're never like, sort of in scene with her. We're never present with her, so we never, like, she.
01:39:32
Keith
Like.
01:39:32
Alan
Because it's a video interview. And the nature of that, like, it does come off as evidence, as opposed to, like, we're. We don't have like, Spider's monologue as he enters the room and sees her and stuff like that. Like, so, yeah, there is a disconnect from her still.
01:39:46
Case
Or maybe that interview pops up later. I forget. Exactly. There's.
01:39:50
Keith
I remember now. It happened already.
01:39:52
Case
Okay. Yeah.
01:39:54
Alan
But.
01:39:55
Case
But anyway, so we see Spider is actually kind of devastated by this. Like, he. He was ready to bounce back at just the. That the evidence is lost and like, okay, we'll. We'll rebuild our case. But. But this is one where he. He knows that she's dead in part.
01:40:12
Alan
Because of him, which isn't the first.
01:40:14
Keith
Time we've talked about that.
01:40:16
Case
Right.
01:40:16
Keith
Like. Like just the last volume when. When Yelena asked, how many people have you killed? We were discussing, like, is he counting Vita? You know what I mean? Like, because there's like. He's like, they're all in self defense except one. Right. And I'm like, is. Is he counting Vita? Because it's like his actions caused her death. And he takes. I mean, he's obviously taking this on. You know what I mean? It's taken on his shoulders. It's really interesting.
01:40:43
Alan
Yeah. So we.
01:40:47
Case
We discuss how the. The Smiler probably had her killed because he needs an approval rating, and this gives him sympathy. And it's the same exact playbook as Vita.
01:40:59
Keith
Yeah. Which is sloppy. Like, if you're. If you're going to be a mastermind, pulling the same heist twice is kind of stupid. But I honestly think the Smiler at this point is so drunk in his own power, he doesn't think he could be caught. And if he is caught, he can talk his way out of it, not to reflect on certain current events. So. Yeah.
01:41:21
Case
Yeah.
01:41:22
Keith
Yeah.
01:41:22
Case
Which.
01:41:22
Alan
Which again is. It's that. It's that insane arrogance we see where it's like, we. There's so many things like, you could have made this. Not a thing. You could have done this. You could have done this. Like, you could have Just shut up and just like, oh, he was a bad. You know, this other country had a bad person in charge and we did this for the good of people. Like just like five other people say that and then they ask you, like, so we're there like, yeah, I want oil. And just like, it's this arrogance of like, well, I'm in charge. Like, you can't, therefore it can't be that bad. And like you, I'm here for a reason. I'm, I'm CEO of America. So, you know.
01:41:59
Alan
Yeah, it's, I mean, this and the last issue, it feels to me like maybe there was too much of a push for. We got to wrap things up now. And I don't know what the other solution would have been. Would we have wanted an extra six issue storyline of the Smiler, like doing something else first before he takes this drastic step? Would we have wanted Spider to be in hiding for a month or two and not have that press conference? Like, I, I don't know. It's, it's a very odd thing for a series that's taken its time with a lot of other things. But on the other hand, like there is a breakneck speed that happens with some of the events because, I mean, it's like his relationship with Shannon, like just a person, then assistant.
01:42:52
Alan
Then she's pissed at him and she's gone and then later she's back. Like all. When you're reading it in a row, as opposed to having a month in between, each chapter can feel very sudden and wild. So I don't know.
01:43:06
Case
Yeah, yeah, it's hard. I think that the previous issue is just an issue I just don't like very much. I think it's just a little sloppy. But that's fine. From the standpoint of writing a monthly book like this and then realizing, oh, I went too far in one issue and I'm going to pull it back a little bit in the next one isn't the end of the world. It's just we're really observing it because we're reading the series in such a condensed timeline. Yeah, yeah, I do want to call out that. When they show close ups of the car accident, we see footprints in the oil, mud, gasoline, something that is mixed with blood.
01:43:42
Case
And I think the clear implication is that there was a person who either walked into the situation and made sure everyone was dead or was there and walked away from the situation after causing the accident.
01:43:54
Keith
Maybe in one of those suits. Yes, I like in the Back seat. Shot her in the back of the head.
01:44:00
Case
Right?
01:44:00
Keith
Like something like that. Yeah.
01:44:05
Case
But we cut to Spider upside down and this is a really like dramatic shot here saying I'm going to make the grinning bastards suffer.
01:44:14
Keith
This feels like an iconic shot, like one of those ones that there's probably posters of, you know what I mean? That kind of thing. So yeah, really, it's my favorite volume so far, definitely. Especially the first three issues. It's just such a dramatic, well told thing. It didn't have too much of the haha because we're past that point. You know what I mean? We're in the shit now. And then just the reveal of what's going on with him. I think it was a really well balanced volume between the six pages. Except for again you said that one that felt a little off, but it wasn't like a, it wasn't detrimental. It just felt supplemental. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't need this like that's kind of thing. But other than that, I mean I really liked this one. It's great.
01:45:02
Alan
Yeah. And just that it's great when you can trust the audience to be okay with. We're, we're gonna hold off on like boob jokes for a while and just like, or even like biting colorful commentary on satire just to like really get into, okay, what are some consequences of what's happened before, what are the stakes? And let's now have it. We now have for the first time really a ticking clock. Like well, the second time, because the first time was the election, but now it's a ticking clock that's on a personal level for one of our characters. And it's good to just trust that it's okay to be in that serious mode for a while, that you've built up a good relationship with each other and this serves the story.
01:45:56
Alan
Whereas a lot of frankly storytellers these days and filmmakers and it's not always their fault. It's also just as often the studio execs who are afraid that people will get to down or something. And so you're asked to like after each tragedy, please do a quick zinger, just remind people like, but we're here to have fun folks or something like the Marvel films have been criticized for that more in the past few years of like and certain, like some of their TV stuff, the streaming stuff, like terrible things will happen and then the characters who are literally living it and might have just lost a friend might Give a zinger, because you need to end the scene with a zinger. And I just love that this story isn't doing that. We will get to the dick jokes again.
01:46:44
Alan
We will get to something hilarious and biting. But right now, we just want to remind you. Oh, there are things happening in these characters lives that they wouldn't be able to laugh at. And there are stakes that have to be real or else this isn't a drama with great comedy. This is just a sitcom. And I think that's great.
01:47:10
Case
So, yeah, this is a volume where shit gets real and the stakes are really cleanly laid out. We have that ticking clock that we said, Spider has one year left to go. And we know that Smiler is not above murder in any way, shape, or form and is cleaning house on a lot of things. And we see just the amount of devastation that can happen at the Smiler's hand and what he's willing to do to a people that are just collateral damage.
01:47:44
Keith
Yeah.
01:47:46
Case
So if the previous volume was us sort of setting the new status quo now that Spider's on the run and we need to sort of feel out this world now. Now this is the, like, okay, we are in the final act, motherfuckers phase of this.
01:48:01
Keith
Yeah. Like, there's a ticking time bomb in Spider. Things have escalated. It's a big swing. You know, you got to take a big swing at this point. That's where we're at. So, yeah, it's. It's built really well. The second half of this series has built incredibly well, I will say. Like. Yeah.
01:48:22
Case
So let's check in on how we're doing with Mr. Letton. And who hasn't read the series before? Any theories going on? Any speculation you want to do?
01:48:33
Keith
I am worried that we're going to lose at least one character that we know. I'm terrified for Yelena's dad. I will just say that he seems like a good guy. He's literally taking Spider into his home. That's the kind of twist that would harden Yelena for good and make her a Spider, if that makes sense. I don't know what to think about Royce. He just didn't appear this entire thing just on the phone. So I don't know. I don't. I. I think we're going to get the classic cyberpunk, as good of a happy ending as you could possibly get in this situation kind of thing. You know what I mean? Like, it's not all going to be okay. Like, but, I mean, it'll better, I guess. Is the best way to put it. But specific theories. I have a hundred, so I can't.
01:49:22
Keith
I can't run them down. I don't think that spider is going to be one of the 2%. That's what I'll say. I don't think this story has that tone where he miraculously recovers. It just doesn't feel like it.
01:49:35
Alan
So you don't think someone could tell him, like, but look, this. This guy Khan has super blood. And if we just put it in you despite not checking your blood type, it'll be okay. And then you can just go run and be awesome.
01:49:52
Keith
We're just gonna pivot to Star Trek for the last 10 minutes.
01:49:57
Alan
That's always.
01:49:58
Case
That.
01:49:58
Alan
I always find that fun with, like, these types of stories of, like, deciding what is our level of science fiction.
01:50:03
Keith
People can become.
01:50:04
Alan
People can become clouds, but we can't automatically fix degenerative diseases or brain diseases. And I like that. I honestly, I really like that because it's. There has to be, again, some state of. There has to be some stakes. It makes more sense to me if, like, you can copy a working brain and figure out something that's emulating that, then. Well, if the hardware is damaged, we can't copy damaged hardware. Like, it's been damaged. The thing is there, and we don't really know how A and B fit together.
01:50:39
Keith
It's a corrupted file.
01:50:41
Alan
Yeah, it's already a corrupted file.
01:50:42
Case
Yeah.
01:50:43
Keith
Yeah.
01:50:43
Alan
This, this. It isn't like, oh, like, something's happening. Like, will, there are preventative measures we can take. Like, no, this happened. Yeah, this happened to you. It's been happening for a while. And, and this is the deal.
01:50:57
Keith
I've heard in the newsroom way too often on the show because it's my favorite show and it's about journalism. But, like, when they had the. The guy on from. From the environmental agency and it was played by Toby from the Office, I remember the line, like, he's like, will says, how do we fix this? He goes, turn the car off 20 years ago. And that's kind of what this feels like, is like, how do you fix it? You don't do this, like, to begin with, like, it's done. It's over with. So, yeah.
01:51:27
Alan
And that, folks, is why Keith is calling for revolution. We just have to take down the government now. The system's done. We can't fix it anymore.
01:51:36
Keith
You know what? We're going down by time this comes out. Who knows? We might be in a Mad Max wasteland by the time this Shit comes out.
01:51:46
Alan
Remember the 80s when we really did believe we could build a city on rock and roll? Oh, the 80s,.
01:51:55
Case
Yeah. Oh, man. I keep thinking about the, this phrasing about Putin's Russia, where it's like you just keep checking in and being like, you can't. Like, if only we had done something then. And it keeps shifting. It's like, oh, I could have done something then. And then five years later. Oh, five years ago, I could have done something then. Yeah.
01:52:18
Alan
If only we hadn't decided that cable is not TV and therefore doesn't need all the same rules as tv. And so you can't just call yourself a news network because at some point you talk about the news, if only. Or if, hell, like, even beyond that, if only we had done more like what Britain did, where like, okay, we have TV and people will have shows and will use commercials to pay for that airtime, but news publicly funded.
01:52:47
Keith
Yep.
01:52:48
Alan
Don't worry about advertising publicly funded. We, we deserve news if only.
01:52:53
Keith
If you shouldn't be motivated by ratings.
01:52:55
Alan
If, if America had a BBC equivalent. Wow. Just, just. Yeah, because, yeah, there's. And that's. And that's the thing that I think is part of the frustration that we all relate to with Spider. Despite there are these anachronisms and like, why don't they have the cloud? Why don't they have extra backups? Why don't. Like, like, why would anyone be bothered about reruns? Apparently human beings love reruns. There is the timeless frustration of I have influence, but not as much as I think could change the world. So I need other people to listen. What if other people don't listen? What if the system is just the system? Even if I put someone slightly better in office or convince people that the Beast is better than the Smiler, but he's still the Beast. And that frustration of, like, do we actually get to move the needle?
01:53:50
Alan
Is this really the best of all possible worlds? Did we screw ourselves too much in the past? That frustration is so universal. Even if we have a great social revolution in the next 10 years and we figure out a lot of things, Even if, like 40 years, 50 years from now we have something that looks like it could one day become the Star Trek version of tomorrow, like, there's going to be things that just make us frustrated and think, did we, Are we just stuck here because we didn't do enough 50 years ago? Or even on a personal level, like, am I just stuck here because I didn't Take that job. After college, I took this job, or I had to. I thought that I had to do this. And. And it's. It's.
01:54:34
Alan
On one hand, it sucks that's the universal frustration, but it is a human frustration. I think that's one of the things that keeps this book alive. Yeah.
01:54:41
Case
Yeah, man. It's a wild arc and it's a wild series.
01:54:48
Alan
It's heavy, man.
01:54:49
Case
Yeah. So, Alan, we asked this of all of our guests. Now that you've done the reread to be on the show, are you going to finish up the series?
01:54:57
Alan
Oh, I already did. Yeah.
01:54:58
Case
Yeah.
01:55:00
Alan
Again, because, like, it's just. You get into it and you get into this vibe and it's like, yeah, man, I gotta. I gotta take this train to the station now. I gotta get back into it. And it is still a satisfying ending to me, which is. Which is all I'll say, obviously, for. For those who need to. Need to find it for themselves. And again, it's just. It's such a. What a. What a winning duo of artistic storytelling. Just. Just two people who figured out how each other works and delivered this great collaboration together. Like, just. It's. It's.
01:55:39
Alan
I can't imagine there are other series and other comics where I sometimes think, like, I wonder if, like, if this guy had drawn it or that person had drawn it, like, that might have been better, or that action scene might have been cooler to me, to my personal preference. I can't imagine anyone else doing Trans Metropolitan than Derek Robertson. Just dynamite every damn page.
01:56:04
Keith
It's like Saga. It's like no one but Brian Cave on and Fiona Steeples can make saga.
01:56:09
Alan
Yeah, like that. That. That is the story. Like, it's. It's the same thing. Like, at that point, like, the artist really is like, for television equivalent. The cast and the lighting director. It's just like, even. Even if you know, even if you, like certain other people, like. But this is the person who had to be there. Like, it had to be Ted Danson on Cheers. It had to be. Even if other people could have played same alone, like, but it wouldn't have been Ted Danson. Yeah, got it. It's got to be Ted.
01:56:38
Keith
Funny you mentioned that. I'll throw in one quick thing about saga. Fiona Staples is listed first. Like, if you ever look at an issue of Saga, she's above Brian K. Vaughn.
01:56:49
Alan
That's a very good point.
01:56:50
Keith
Point.
01:56:50
Alan
Yeah, it's a very good point.
01:56:52
Keith
I've always loved that.
01:56:53
Alan
Yeah.
01:56:54
Keith
As someone who reads credits of 40 credits of comics every single week. That's the only one I ever see that on. So. Yeah, yeah. But anyways, that's off topic.
01:57:03
Case
No, but it's part of the point which is that the art is so important to this all. And you know, we've called out like Rodney Ramos is the anchor who gets a huge amount of credit in.
01:57:14
Alan
Oh, tremendous.
01:57:15
Keith
Yeah, yeah.
01:57:17
Case
And just this is just a truly great creator owned work.
01:57:22
Keith
Yeah. And we didn't shout out the JG Jones's covers.
01:57:25
Alan
Oh, that's true.
01:57:26
Case
Yeah, we did.
01:57:26
Keith
Which are so good.
01:57:27
Case
Oh, and John Kasnake,.
01:57:30
Keith
The insane guest stars. Yeah. And he's in our metaphor that he gets four covers is just obscene.
01:57:39
Case
Yeah, great covers. Yeah, we do normally shout those out as we go and we omitted that in this.
01:57:45
Keith
I mean were drawn into the story.
01:57:46
Alan
Yeah, well, and, and that's absolutely true because again, like Derek Robertson, like I've other work that he's drawn that's been handled by some different anchors. Like I do think some of that wouldn't have served Transit Metropolitan. I think some of those other anchors would have given it the wrong atmosphere or the wrong vibe or would have Derek. Derek does such detail oriented work, but if you have certain types of inkers, that almost gets overwhelming. It's almost too much detail or it gets too dark and almost a little, it almost muddies the page. So yeah, shout out to the whole team here. Like it's an amazing collaboration.
01:58:22
Case
It really is.
01:58:23
Keith
Yeah.
01:58:25
Case
But on that note, Alan, thank you for coming on and collaborating with us on the show.
01:58:30
Keith
Sure.
01:58:32
Case
It's always awesome having you on. It's great chatting with you. As, as we have noted, we've been friends since high school, so it's great catching up. And, and yeah, where can people find you and follow you? What have you got going on?
01:58:47
Alan
You know, I don't have too much going on now, but I will say as I'm delving back into fiction, I've. I've got a short story coming out in a couple of months this spring. I don't know the exact date, but it'll be this spring of 2026. It's in a book anthology called the Villains Club, which is going to be published by Divine Feminine Publishing. They have another great book out written by a dear friend of mine, Dr. Janina Scarlett, called Through Bullets and Thunderstorms and is a historical fiction about a Ukrainian's experience during the Holocaust, inspired in part by her own family history and other things. It's A great book.
01:59:42
Alan
But yeah, Divine Feminine Publishing is publishing this anthology called the Villains Club which is all family friendly like pg 13 ish stories that are each usually tongue in cheek, telling a story from a villain's perspective and, or about a villain's experience or you know, just some sympathetic or satirical look at villains of science fiction, fantasy, comic book genres. Original characters who are analogs to things that you all know and love. So yeah, I have a short story there with a character who is suspiciously similar to Lex Luthor and their deal and certain frustrations that hopefully we relate to. So yeah, Villains Club, you can check out Divine Feminine Publishing website to see updates for that or follow them on the social things like Instagram and all. And beyond that.
02:00:48
Alan
I'm just collaborating on a couple other little projects, a couple other short stories I'm putting out there. I'm collaborating on a movie stuff script which event we'll see if it ever sees the light of day. But it's just fun putting it out there, talking to some people about it and yeah, that's sort of the majority of things right now.
02:01:10
Case
We should also shout out that you are my editor for. For two of the video series that I do. One is the Superman analog video series and then the other is the. The clips that we put out for another pass in Men of Steel.
02:01:21
Keith
Oh, that's awesome.
02:01:23
Alan
Yeah, yeah. Which always bring great insights into movie storytelling and comics and the many ripple effects of a character like Superman has inspiring other characters to be either similar to him or very different to him in a response.
02:01:43
Case
Yeah, so just want to shout you out on that one because appreciate the work you do.
02:01:48
Alan
Sure.
02:01:52
Case
Sorry Keith, you looked like you were going to say something.
02:01:54
Keith
Oh no, no.
02:01:58
Case
Yeah. So again, thank you for coming on, Alan. Keith, where can people find you and follow you?
02:02:03
Keith
Yes, I am the host of certain PV comic book show. We have Issues, which is a weekly comic book review show where I try to review every single comic that comes out and bust my bank in the process. I recently had to catch up on five weeks of comics and the number almost approached four digits. So that was ridiculous. But make sure to check that out. The best place to find it is at. We have issues on Bluesky. So we have issues Bsky Social. You can find my account at Keith Hasississues Bsky Social, that's my personal account. Hopefully I'll start using it more. I keep saying that I haven't, but also make sure to check out the Instagram because I'm Starting to pivot to Instagram because that's where all the comic creators are and I hate it.
02:02:47
Keith
But on there we have issues pod because someone took my name. The only other place really to find me that you would find me on a regular basis would be our Discord, which I think Case is going to about to tell you about.
02:02:58
Case
Yeah, the Discord is a great place to come interact with us. So the Discord can be found at our website, certainpov.com or in the link in the show notes. It's a great server. Lots of fun, nerdy conversations going on, but not so much that you can't keep track of the conversations that you were having, which is a problem on some servers I've been on. So it's a good place with a chill vibe. Really appreciate that. If you don't want to use the Discord to contact me, you can reach out to me on most social media platforms at Case Aiken, with the exception of Instagram, where I'm holding on four dear life to my AIM screen name from high school, which is Quetzalcoatl5.
02:03:37
Case
Because as you can guess based on the fact that I was obsessed with Trans Metropolitan in high school, I was pretty pretentious back then. So check that out. You can also support this show if you go to patreon.com certainpowmedia you can support everything that we are doing. And on that note, we have some people to thank who so I'm going to thank all the people who joined at the executive producer level, and that is Micah McCaw, Carter Hallett, Sean Muir, Lee Greger, Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiero, Casey and Nancy Akin, Adam Sampter and Keith Lettinen, that's me. If you want to be an awesome person and support this and all the other things that we're doing here on the YouTube channel for certain POV media or just as part of the certain POV network, go to Patreon and check it out.
02:04:31
Case
But even if you don't have money to support, sign up at the free tier. I put out essays every week about various nerd topics. A lot of D and D stuff, but just nerd topics in general. So that's a great place to go. And those are available at the free tier. But otherwise, yeah, you should check out certainpov.com where there's tons of great shows like we have issues. Circle back here for the next episode. And until then, this has been the Word from tomorrow. Have a great week.