Tales From Lands Unknown Vol. 1 & 2 - with Jon Hook
This week on Trade School, Jon Hook ventures into Mike Mignola’s Lands Unknown, a bizarre, folklore-soaked fantasy realm filled with corpses, gods, scholars, monsters, and plenty of things that probably should not be trusted. Jon walks through Bowling with Corpses and Yuri Tupka and the Gods and explains why this growing universe is such an exciting new playground for Mignola; and why now is the ideal time to start reading.
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⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Introduction
00:08 Meet Jon Hook
01:07 Introducing Lands Unknown
02:30 Bowling with Corpses
03:49 Why the Anthology Works
04:53 The Skinless Man
05:49 Yuri Tupka and the Gods
07:15 Yuri Tupka’s Epic Journey
08:32 The Gods of Lands Unknown
09:30 Ben Stenbeck’s Next Story
10:42 Building the Lands Unknown Collection
11:47 What Makes the Fantasy World Unique
12:42 Modern Mythos and Final Recommendation
13:43 Long Live the Legion Promo
Transcription
00:00
Welcome to Certain Point of View's Trade School, where each episode a different host talks about a comic book trade paperback that they loved and why they love it.
00:08
Hello, my name is Jon Hook. I am a podcaster. I do the Modern Mythos podcast along with my co host Seth Skorkowsky. And the Modern Mythos podcast is a podcast all about the Call of Cthulhu role playing game and other horror investigative role playing games. In addition to being a role player, I'm also a huge comic book nerd and that's what has brought me here today. I have recently discovered the certain POV Media family of podcasts. I was initially drawn in by the Long Live the Legion podcast and I'm a huge Superman fan. So I'm also listening now to Men of Steel, which of course has brought me and introduced me to trade school. And this is my first entry for trade school. A little bit of a cheat.
01:07
I'm going to talk about two books, but only because they are part of the same umbrella which is Mike Mignola's Lands Unknown. The Lands Unknown is a brand new fantasy series that both Mike Mignola and his co creator Ben Steinbeck are doing together. Mike currently has two submissions, two entries in the Lands Unknown, where Ben has. I guess I'll call it one, but. But Ben's entries are as actual monthly comic book magazines. So he did one story that was two issues long. Whereas Mike Mignola, Hellboy creator, he has published two standalone trade paperbacks. Although I guess it's not accurate to call them trade paperbacks. I guess it's more accurate to define them as graphic novels, original graphic novels. So let's go into those right now. So in the Lands Unknown series, Mike Mignola has published two books.
02:30
The first being Bowling with Corpses and Other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown. This is a hundred plus, I think it's 112 page hardcover graphic novel, full color, written and illustrated by Mike Mignola, published by Dark Horse Comics. Clearly Mike has a very long standing partnership due to Hellboy with Dark Horse. And this Lands Unknown is advertised as a new folklore inspired realm of fantasy stories. It's a fantasy realm, but it has bits of technology in it. Nothing major, but it's, you know, I think, well, they have clocks and things like that. So you know, probably what you might consider available in like the medieval times. I would think so. Anyways, Bowling with Corpses is fantastic. It is, it's funny, it's exciting, it's scary, you know, so it's got bits of horror, it's got everything in it.
03:49
I would suggest, even though it is really structured as anthology, I would suggest reading it from front to back, cover to cover. Because some of the latter stories do kind of reference back to some of the earlier stories. So it is kind of designed to be read straight on through. Even though it is a. A bunch of different short stories. And, and that's, you know, this Lands Unknown because it is a brand new unique fantasy realm. It's not an IP of any sort. It's perfectly suited for new people to jump in and get started in this realm. It's fantastic. It is so strange and so cool and so much fun. I'm really enjoying this. In fact, the entire available catalog. If you were to try and get caught up. I don't think it's that difficult.
04:53
It's the two trades or the two graphic novels that Mike Mignola has published and the two single comic magazines that Ben Steinbeck has published. Again, it's Lands Unknown, the Skinless Man. So that's, I mean that's it because that was just a two issue storyline and it has not been collected in any way yet. So Bowling with Corpses, that's the first book. It is really awesome. And I feel like this was initially, it was Mike just kind of. He had a bunch of ideas and he was trying to feel him out and wanted to just get all these ideas out into a single place. And so that's why Bowling with Corpses has nine short stories in it. But there is a little bit of a connecting through line that goes through them.
05:49
And you could almost see and feel Mike exploring his imagination in this book. As he got to the second graphic novel, it's like his ideas were beginning to crystallize and now he really knew what story he wanted to tell. So the second graphic novel is officially titled Yuri Tupka and the Gods. These are some really strange names. Yuri Tupka and the Gods. These are tales from Lands Unknown. Now this book, Yuri Tupka and the Gods, this is a single full length story. Again, it is a hardcover book. It is, I don't know, about a hundred some odd pages. Full color, written and illustrated by Mike Mignola. It is also published by Dark Horse Comics. Oh, and I should have mentioned both of these hardcovers are a $25 US cover price Canadian is $34. Wow, that seems unfair. So Yuri Tupka and the Gods.
07:15
This was a fantastic story. It is very much. It feels like almost like an epic poem. The adventures that Yuri Tupka, who is this guy and it's funny enough, I have seen interviews the way that this character, this scholar, Yuri Tupka, is illustrated, the way he's designed. And he looks. He looks very much like Mike Mignola himself. He said that he designed this character to look like himself. So he feels like he's the one who's going on this adventure. And it is a very interesting, long, epic adventure for this guy, this scholar. And we know that it's not over because they have already announced there will be a sequel. The third book that Mike Mignola is doing in the Lands Unknown. It's going to be titled Yuri Tupka and the Devils. So the exact opposite of this one here.
08:32
And throughout this epic poem, this epic story, it's almost like the Odyssey, if you will. Yuri is meeting and having different meetings with a variety of different gods. This Lands Unknown is a. You know, it has a pantheon of gods. And this scholar who's on the run, Yuri Tuka, he meets several of these gods. So I can only imagine that when the next book comes out, it'll be a similar tale where he's probably still on the run and will be meeting several devils. So that should be a lot of fun. I can't wait for this one to come out. And again, as I said, Mike Mignola is partnering with Ben Steinbeck, who's doing other Lands Unknown stories in comic book format.
09:30
And while he doesn't have anything officially announced from Dark Horse comics, I did reach out to Ben Ste on Facebook only because I just absolutely loved what he did in the story the Skinless Man. It was amazing. And I reached out to him and I was like, this was great. Will there be more? And he said, yes. He said that Dark Horse will be making the announcement either at the end of the year, so December or January. So either in December or January, they'll be solicitations for Ben Steinbeck's Stenbeck's. Sorry, not Stein Stenbeck's next installment, his next contribution to the Lands Unknown series. I assume that those will still be in a comic book format. So hopefully, eventually, once he gets enough stuff published, they'll collect Ben's things, Ben's books into a trade, and then hopefully they'll be hardcover like Mike's.
10:42
And so all of these Lands Unknown books can be on your shelf as hardcover books. It's a little odd for me right now because I've got the two Mignola hardcovers on a bookshelf, and then I have the two Stedbeck comic Issues bag boarded in a box. And so you know the collection is. Is divided, right? Some on a shelf and some in a box. It's really weird, but you know, it is worth it. This is such a cool, unique fantasy realm. I think if you enjoyed like jumping into the Wayback Machine, if you enjoyed the David Bowie movie Labyrinth, this fantasy realm feels like it's got a little bit of Labyrinth in also feels like it's got a little bit of legend, the Tom Cruise and Tim Curry movie, a little bit of legend in it.
11:47
So there's just some cool fantasy stuff in this lands unknown and I think it would be really interesting for anybody who's interested in that kind of stuff. It is not a straigh Tolkien or Dungeons and Dragons style fantasy. It's a little more odd than that. And that's what I think is so cool about it and I think it's cool that it's still so early. It shouldn't be difficult for people to get into it. If you want to try it out. I think the hardest part is that these are probably sold out at your local comic shop, so you might be looking at online stuff. I was late to the game so everything I have I had to collect online and have it shipped to me.
12:42
But now that I have them, I've been able to update my pull list and just kind of let my local comic shop guy know so that when future all future lands unknown material come out that it. It needs to be on my pull list and so I won't be missing anything in the future. I think that's it. So my name is John Hook. If you are into the Call of Cthulhu role playing game or any other horror investigative type of role playing game, I encourage you to check out my podcast. It is Modern Mythos. You can find it@modern mythos.libson.com all of our episodes are available for free and you can give it a listen. We would really appreciate it. It's a lot of fun. Until next time, thank you all so much and happy reading.
13:43
The Legion of Superheroes is back. It's taken a while, but DC's oldest super team is back.
13:48
Everything's different, but everything's the same. Does that make sense?
13:51
Kinda.
13:52
The Legion book is designed for new readers and I guarantee that when they see what Josh Williamson, Hayden Sherman and the crew have designed, they'll want to know more.
14:01
That's right. And if you want to know more about the Legion, its members history and stories, the Long Live the Legion podcast.
14:08
Is for you Every episode we break down the characters, the stories, and the different versions of the team.
14:13
So whether this is your first time.
14:14
Reading the Legion or you've been reading.
14:16
Them for a while, check out the Long Live the Legion podcast wherever quality podcasts are served.
14:21
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