Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:01):
Ed Rules. Welcome to another episode of Comex Recent reads. Tonight we talk about comics. We’ve recently read and I get to talk with a bit of a croaky voice, so I get to be very sexy apparently.

Shannon Browning (00:35):
Oh, go easy on a says, please

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (00:37):
Post vicinity. But yeah. Oh sweet. Nice. Thanks Shanny. So I guess remember to the video, if you’ve just come in, share the video with your friends and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already, that would be awesome. It helps us grow, it helps us make more of these videos, so that would be awesome. So now I’ll go around and I’ll just do it like a clock. So I’ll start with Shannon, what are you reading tonight? Talking about tonight? Sorry,

Shannon Browning (01:20):
Is it just me or is that theme song for this show sound like courage? The Cowardly Dog.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:25):
Oh my God, I’m not familiar with that.

Shannon Browning (01:28):
I dunno why that just popped in my head when I was listening to that. Anyway, we should stop talking about nostalgia. It’s making us all feel old. All right. A book I’ve picked today. As everybody knows, I love my mainstream stuff, so I am. Here we go. What did I just do? I don’t know.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:53):
You doing what you want?

Shannon Browning (01:54):
I’m still learning.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:57):
Oh, there you go. Is that what you’re after?

Shannon Browning (01:59):
There we go. That’s what I was trying to do. Alright. I picked a book called Batman, dark Age. Cool. Now there have been so many retellings of Batman’s origin in the comics in so many different variations and stuff. I mean that’s essentially all else World was for the longest time is just someone putting Batman in a different situation. What I like about this

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:23):
Next section,

Shannon Browning (02:24):
What’s that?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:25):
Are you jumping to the next section? We’re just going around and seeing what each person did first. Oh,

Shannon Browning (02:30):
I’m sorry. I thought you were going to get me to talk straight away, but this is what I’m

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:33):
Talking No, no, no. If we do that, you jump in my spot.

Shannon Browning (02:39):
Yeah, well that’s what I’ll be reading about.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:42):
Cool.

Shannon Browning (02:44):
That’s your fault for giving me an audience for a second there sis. Yeah, yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:48):
Sorry about that. I didn’t do it properly. That’s alright mate. So Justin, what will you be telling us about today? I have the dissolving classroom

Ryan Christopher (02:59):
By Jji Ito.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:02):
Oh, nice.

Ryan Christopher (03:04):
Nice little hardcover thing from Kacha.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:07):
Cool. And Ryan, I’m looking at the

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Nick

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:15):
May Comic.

Ed Kearsley (03:17):
Oh cool. The

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:18):
Pink flamenco. Awesome. It just arrived today so I’ll get to read it later. And yourself, ed,

Ed Kearsley (03:30):
I will be taking a look at Outlaw by Stu Thornton.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:35):
Yes, in a much better fashion than I did of Issue two and me, I am doing Super Humanity Volume one, the Super Australians

Ed Kearsley (03:51):
Noise.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (03:52):
So sorry, I need something to drink because just cause my mouth is dry as hell from this flu. I guess I’ll go first so you guys can all see how it’s not done. Zoe, we’ve got the Super Humanity Volume one Super Australians. As I said before, each story is done by different artists and different writers, so there’s quite a few people to list here. I will go into my little list on here. Okay, the writers in the issue with Christopher Sequeira, Paul Mason. Dr. Paul Mason, sorry. Amanda Backie. I hope that’s how it’s pronounced. Julie Derich, Kola Singh. Okay. And the artists were yarn? Oh God,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (04:55):
Dr.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (04:57):
I think that’s it. Adam Soff, Dr. Paul Mason was also an artist and a writer. Marcello Bayers. We’ll just go with that. Michael er and Wchu Chan. There’s a nice easy one. Okay, so this is basically an introduction of four of the 12 characters on the cover. We meet at first the Mass Soldier. Why am I having a problem saying the word soldier? Oh, sorry. He’s just called the Soldier. Sorry. I thought he was called the Mass Soldier. Then I had another read of it and it’s just the soldier. Then there’s this magical entity. It’s not really, you don’t really find out much about it except that these weird monsters thereafter and her name is,

(05:56)
Or just January and D Silent. I don’t know. Then in the next story we meet Sound strike. Who battles a nano creature and then liar bird who battles some, what would you say? A kind of like the boys, a hero who’s not really a hero and portrayed as a hero to the public, A bit like a reality star, but she actually goes around killing good guys and making it look like they were bad guys. And you also introduced to what looks like is going to be the main villain of the story, which is Dr. Epoch.

(06:47)
So yeah, different art, different writer of each story. It was a lot of fun. The soldiers does a bit of a flashback and you find that he’s, it flashes back to when Japan attacked Northern Territory, so he must be older than he seems. He doesn’t look that old in current day, so there must be something else going on there. Then in current days, I won’t ruin it. He’s battling not nice people. Like I said, I already said, yeah, she was the January, I don’t know, I’ve only seen the word, I haven’t heard anyone pronounce it. She was battling monsters and she saved some people. The monsters were going to eat and the sounds strike is the nano creature and live bird is the weird reality TV type personality person, but they were a lot of fun. The art was really good. The stories captured me enough that I want to read the next one. I’m getting the impression that the next one will just be introducing the next four. I could be wrong, I could be totally wrong, but that’s just 12 of them. Four issues in the story makes sort of sense that maybe the next two will be introducing the rest of them and the fourth one will be where they all come together, not together in any way at all in this. The only thing they have in any similarity, they’re all in Australia.

(08:24)
So I would say pick it up, read it. It’s available in the shop. So I am a little biassed, but it is still a good comic. It’s done by IP Comics, they’re the publisher and yeah, I’m looking forward to reading the other three.

Ed Kearsley (08:41):
So what’s the tone of the book? Is it like fun or grim and gritty?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (08:46):
No, it’s more, it’s kind of like a superhero, but maybe a little bit more, for lack of a better word, grounded. It’s not so flashy and superheroes and all that sort of stuff. They’re like heroes, but they’re sort of like your Spider-Man. They’re sort of ground level. Even though the mystical one is all woo, she doesn’t do anything amazing. She’s just helping some people who were caught up near these demons or whatever they were. So yeah, that’s what I’d say is the best way to sum it up. And then I’ve got a question for me, Don, I talk at once.

Ryan Christopher (09:34):
Did you get that from mail order or was it at News Agist or something? Sis?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (09:38):
No, it was available at comic stores. It was with, I dunno if it was with Luna or with, what’s it called, the other one, diamond or both? All ages. Yeah, I’d say all the swearing there is swearing but it’s censored out so there’s no actual swearing. So I don’t know. It depends how a parent feels about that. Most kids are smart enough to know what that word under that censoring is. So I’ve always found that humorous that means something. I don’t know too many kids who dunno what the word is. I know I did when I was a kid, like okay, that’s easy. That’s just that word. I learned that when I was five if you know what, maybe older teen plus, I don’t know, it’s a mature story, but it’d be friendly for kids to read it. There’d be no harm done. They just might not be able to figure out what’s going on. References to certain war events and stuff like that.

Ryan Christopher (10:55):
I mean kids were reading Batman when the joker’s face had been stapled back onto his body, so

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (11:00):
Well that’s true. That’s true.

Ryan Christopher (11:04):
You never know. I always just say literacy is literacy. So you don’t know until you pick it up and you have a read. It’s either suitable or it isn’t. Like everyone’s different. Comics are a great place to expand literacy.

Ryan Christopher (11:22):
Hell yeah. Let’s

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (11:23):
See if I can find it. Let’s see if I can find it. No, I can’t find it. I’m great at this.

Ryan Christopher (11:29):
I guess the key would be for a parent to get it and read it and maybe they’ll be interested in it and then give it to the kids.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (11:36):
Yeah, well I mean there’s nothing really bad happens. There’s no violence. I mean the threatening to eat things, they don’t actually show any blood and gore or anything. It’s just sort of implied. I can’t find anywhere. But it’s at the shop now that comic shops have had it long enough. They probably would’ve sold out by now, so probably the only place to get it now in Australia would be the Comex shop, which is comex.net au. So there’s my little plug for myself.

Ed Kearsley (12:09):
Nice.

Ryan Christopher (12:10):
It’s a cool cover too.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:14):
All four of them are, to be honest.

Ryan Christopher (12:18):
It sort of reminds me, do you know

Ryan Christopher (12:19):
The cover, was it one of the artists from Inside did the cover to the book or

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:25):
Not really kept the one trip book? Yes. One of the artists yarn Sheen Hausen was the artist and going by what I’ve seen of the other covers, I would say it was him on all four.

Ryan Christopher (12:45):
It reminds me of those classic Justice League ones.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:48):
Sorry,

Ryan Christopher (12:49):
It reminds me of those classic Justice League ones with everybody looking down at the team. The Keith Giffin ones.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (12:55):
Yeah, true.

Shannon Browning (12:57):
Yeah, I’ve just brought their website up and having a look at the covers and there’s some great ones that look like they’re paying homage to Crisis on Infinite Earth.

Ryan Christopher (13:07):
Oh, cool.

Shannon Browning (13:09):
Great stuff. The artwork works really reminding me of Dave Gibbons from Watchman, slightly more cartoony than his stuff, but still very reminiscent of it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:24):
Well, meeting those four characters is maybe really want to find out about the rest of them. It was really interesting finding those two read about those four and I liked that they weren’t origin stories, they were just introducing you to them.

Ryan Christopher (13:39):
Well that sounds like a successful first issue then because half the battle is like, do I want to read issue too? And

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:47):
I do.

Ryan Christopher (13:50):
I’ve got a question for you, sis. Does it feel like this is all going to be, are these stories all threads that are going to come together with one story at the end? Do you think

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (13:59):
That’s the feeling I get, get the feeling that the first three issues will be introducing four at a time. That’s just my guess. I don’t know. I haven’t read them. And the fourth issue, which is the whole arc is where they deal with the villain, Dr. Epoch at the end.

Ryan Christopher (14:15):
Okay.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (14:16):
Because it’s not really clear what he’s doing if it’s meant to be clear. I didn’t get it. But yeah, it’s really sort of like what’s he doing and what have these people got to do with him.

Ryan Christopher (14:29):
I’m going to write that down because that sounds pretty cool

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (14:35):
And I’ll let Ed go through the comments. I believe there’s a lot of them.

Ed Kearsley (14:39):
Let’s have a look. I got hi guys from Absent. Absent-Minded. Good Day Legends. Hello Siz from Jeffrey.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (14:48):
You guys are legends and then there’s me. Thanks.

Ed Kearsley (14:54):
Got hi guys from Fourth Monkey. Hey

Ryan Christopher (14:56):
Stu.

Shannon Browning (14:57):
His legend is too small a word for you. He hasn’t come up with something better yet.

Ed Kearsley (15:02):
Got new show. We just watched someone as they sit and quietly read to themselves.

Ryan Christopher (15:07):
A SMR.

Ryan Christopher (15:12):
You have the micro real sensitive so you can hear those Crisp page turns.

Ed Kearsley (15:22):
I’ll

Shannon Browning (15:22):
Get into that when it’s my turn. Jeff,

Ed Kearsley (15:26):
I’ve never seen Ginger ETO in colour. I don’t think I have either.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (15:32):
Oh, okay.

Ed Kearsley (15:33):
Thinkers saw super humour and advertised at a comic conference. Are you back?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (15:39):
Yeah,

Ryan Christopher (15:40):
I think they did a few Aus Comic-Con as well, where they were set up with quite a large showing of artists and writers from the book there.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (15:49):
I first saw this at a Comic-Con as well. Now that you mentioned it. Supernova, I think

Ed Kearsley (15:57):
Benham was always threatening to eat Spidey Springs. That was ages ago, so

Shannon Browning (16:01):
No, that was all ages

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (16:03):
Implied violence. Yes.

Ryan Christopher (16:05):
I went and saw dead porn Warfarin and there were like 8-year-old kids in that theatre.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (16:10):
Yeah,

Ryan Christopher (16:11):
Yeah.

Ed Kearsley (16:13):
Someone seen saying Hello,

Ryan Christopher (16:16):
Hello.

Ed Kearsley (16:18):
Let seen What’s up, Nathan? It’s Get Your Discord talking to themselves. All right,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (16:30):
Let’s put their conversation up for all the, see now you mentioned that about the Wolverine and Deadpool movie with the 8-year-old kids. I saw parents with very young kids go to the South Park movie and I was like, oh my God, they’ve got no clue what this is about. And yeah, the first scene I’m like, holy crap. I think they now realise what they’re in for.

Ryan Christopher (17:05):
It’s a cartoon. Kids love cartoons. It’s going to be like guitar. It’s like Toy Story.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (17:14):
Cool. So I’ll pick on Shannon. He started getting into it, so let’s get you into it properly.

Shannon Browning (17:23):
Alrighty. You know what it’s like says you get me revved up and

Ryan Christopher (17:28):
Exactly.

Shannon Browning (17:28):
Okay, so as I was saying, and let’s just press all the buttons. There we go. So Batman Dark Age to answer Jeff’s question. Yes, the fifth issue only just came out last week, I think.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (17:45):
Cool.

Shannon Browning (17:47):
And as I was saying, this is, it’s retelling Batman’s not his origin, but it’s retelling his entire career, but it’s telling it from a different sort of viewpoint wherein it starts off when he was young and his parents were killed, but then he becomes an asshole rich teenager. He can do whatever he wants because he’s rich and he’s got Wayne Manor lawyers and that sort of thing. I’m sorry, Wayne Enterprises lawyers, so we can just get away with it all. Then it starts taking an interesting twist where the lawyers decide he’s not a kid anymore, we’re not going to bail him out. He get sent to jail, someone else takes over Wayne Enterprises and they want Bruce killed off. So they try to kill him off in jail, but he doesn that doesn’t happen. He gets sent to Vietnam where he gets put part of this elite group being trained by Rachel Goul, and that’s kind of where he does his training. Then he comes back to Gotham and starts his career as Batman. It’s also, it’s interesting storytelling technique where it starts off in the future. It starts off in 2036 and Bruce Wayne is in a retirement home. Everybody knows that he was Batman at some point and as part of his therapy, they’re getting him to write down his memoirs. So that’s essentially what the book is.

(19:28)
Cool. So it was written by Mark Russell. I’m not familiar with any of his other work, but the Art is by Michael Re, who created Mad Men. Mad Man, sorry, not Mad Men. Completely different concept and coloured by his wife, Laura Red. He’s got, I’ve always kind of liked his art style. It’s realistic and cartoony at the same time. It’s very unique. I’ve never seen anybody else with this similar sort of art style working in modern comics and he’s going all over. He’s taking reference from every single aspect of Batman ever. Like Dr. What’s her name? Meridian Chase was played by Nicole Kidman in the third Batman film with Val Kemma back in the day. She makes an appearance in this. You can see there in the cover. He is got the 1989 Batwing being used. This is book five. This is the one that just came out. The Justice League shows up, but they side characters, so he just goes and has a conversation, but that’s part of his history as well. So he mentions that they have a mention of the crisis on Infinite Earth, but that’s not like all the other superheroes go off to take care of that and leave Batman Behind. But he’s having this once again in the next existential crisis, does what I do in Gotham matter when these cosmic events could just wipe us all out in a few weeks.

(21:18)
It has his relationship with Catwoman, some of his villains show up and the last page of the last issue, it looks like we’re finally going to get the Joker, but the Joker’s got an interesting origin. I won’t spoil it too much. I’ve really been enjoying this one. It’s making the old new, again. It’s sort of feeling kind of fresh. All these stories and characters and moments that we’ve seen so many times and so many different versions of, I think that’s the reason I like else World’s story so much because you don’t get bogged down by continuity. You get to do something completely different. You don’t have to worry what’s come before you get to tell your own story in your own way and it makes it interesting and fresh again. So yeah, that’s pretty much my recent read.

Ryan Christopher (22:14):
Cool. I’ve got a horrible feeling that I’m going to be buying that. I love Michael RINs art. It’s sort of

Ryan Christopher (22:22):
His run on the Silver Surfer was

Shannon Browning (22:25):
Incredible.

Ryan Christopher (22:27):
I have not in this room, but the first statue, first comic related statue I ever bought was a, I think Dark Horse’s first cold cast porcelain statue, and it was a madman one. I’m totally into his art. I love it. It’s kind of like fifties comic art, but not, yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Browning (22:51):
It’s kind of like if fifties, fifties comic art evolved on a different path and didn’t turn into nineties or something like that. It just kept on going and got sharpened and refined.

Ryan Christopher (23:00):
It was like Jack Kirby never existed.

Shannon Browning (23:03):
Yeah, almost. And his wife, who does all the colouring for his art, she perfectly marries the colour to the art ironically, and its really enhances the look and makes everything just look fantastic. It’s got this sort of two dimensional animation sort of style to the colouring where his art is detailed but simple and her colouring is detailed but simple at the same time and it really goes well with it.

Ryan Christopher (23:47):
I

Shannon Browning (23:47):
Keep on looking at it on my separate screen here. That’s why

Ryan Christopher (23:51):
Her colouring always reminds me of Filmation cartoons.

Shannon Browning (23:55):
Yes,

Ryan Christopher (23:56):
Like the Justice League and the Super Friends cartoons and that sort of thing. It kind of feels flat, but on a different layer than the backgrounds and stuff like that.

Shannon Browning (24:05):
Very much so. Yeah. All the characters and everything always really pop. You see sometimes in certain comics when they’re coloured, everything just is sort of flat. Everything blends into each other, but this stuff, it always really stands out. It directs the eye beautifully. You always know exactly who you should be looking at. Yeah, I’ve just been really enjoying this series. I mean, I don’t think it’s monthly. I think it’s a little bit more than monthly, but as I said, they’re up to issue five and it’s been a great read so far.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (24:44):
Yeah, I’m a sucker for what ifs and else world, so I’d probably want to jump on that as well.

Ryan Christopher (24:52):
And I’ve spoken to a lot of artists the past couple of years and so many books now over coloured, I think. Yes. So it’s great to see, obviously they work together because she understands what he wants out of his art. So she’s an excellent colorist, but also excellent for him specifically. And there’s so many other great pencil Inca combinations and pencil Inca colour combinations where they just fit like a glove where they don’t oversaturate things. They don’t go crazy with technique when it’s not really required. Yeah,

Shannon Browning (25:44):
I think the worst version of that I ever saw was on Frank Miller’s, the Dark Knight Strikes Again, it looked like, I think his wife was the colorist once again on that, but it looked like she got a copy of Photoshop for Christmas and just

Ryan Christopher (26:00):
Went nuts. Or even just the remastered killing joke where Brian Bolin did the colours to the remaster and they replaced John Higgins colours and it completely stripped all the personality out of the book.

Shannon Browning (26:26):
I never saw the Recolored version, but I do remember reading articles and seeing people very pissed off about that

Ryan Christopher (26:33):
Even when they did the animated adaptation. I feel like even just the animated film would’ve been so much better if they’d used the colour palette from the original printing of the graphic novel would’ve at least had some personality in there.

Shannon Browning (26:51):
I don’t know how they screwed that up so badly. I mean, yeah, the whole scene where Batman and Bat Girl are shagging on the rooftop, and that wasn’t really necessary, but the whole story, the comic book is all there, but it doesn’t work. It’s flat and meaningless and lifeless and just, yeah, it just baffles me how they got that so wrong

Ryan Christopher (27:16):
When I think DC animation has had a pretty mixed bag of hits and misses when it comes to their adaptations. You’ve got your all time classics like that many animated series, but then you’ve got some terrible, terrible adaptations as well where you just wonder who was this for?

Shannon Browning (27:39):
I think some of it is Bruce Jim

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (27:42):
To do more comments, just saying

Shannon Browning (27:45):
No worries. Yeah, please interrupt us.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (27:47):
Oh no, I’m noticing there’s a backlog, that’s all. Do you want me to do ’em or you? I’ve

Ed Kearsley (27:54):
Got, it’s someone saying, I was reading Savage Sword of Conan at around nine or 10, the black and white magazines, not the comics. People were visibly getting cut down all the time in it.

Ryan Christopher (28:05):
Oh, that art was amazing.

Ed Kearsley (28:08):
That was one of my favourite in

Ryan Christopher (28:09):
The day. And Ernie Chan awesome.

Ed Kearsley (28:12):
Been watching the Conan TV show from the nineties. I remember that.

Ryan Christopher (28:18):
The animated cartoon of

Ed Kearsley (28:23):
Maybe there was the live action one too. Oh, there

Ryan Christopher (28:25):
Was.

Ed Kearsley (28:26):
Yeah. Ralph Moler was the played Conan.

Shannon Browning (28:30):
I do not remember that at all.

Ed Kearsley (28:32):
You got Sean and Craig have his whole zombie run. That’d be,

Ryan Christopher (28:39):
Yeah. Zombie is so good.

Ed Kearsley (28:45):
Pardon me.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (28:49):
Colour. That’s the spirit. Nathan,

Ed Kearsley (28:55):
I miss the White Knight Batman series.

Shannon Browning (28:58):
Oh, there’s more of that coming. But yeah, the White Knight Series has been brilliant. If you’ve never read a Batman comic before, read White Knight. It’s fantastic.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (29:09):
Oh, okay.

Ed Kearsley (29:11):
Cut that book that cut you out and it was the live action one.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (29:16):
Okay,

Ed Kearsley (29:17):
There we go.

Shannon Browning (29:18):
I had no memory of a live action Ency. When was that? That was in the nineties.

Ed Kearsley (29:22):
Yeah. Is it? I think the early nineties. It was on,

Shannon Browning (29:26):
Someone’s going to be Googling later

Ed Kearsley (29:28):
On channel, late at night,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (29:32):
Early nineties. That’s why I don’t know it. I was drunk for most of the early nineties.

Ryan Christopher (29:36):
Was it like that same time period as Hercules and Xena and the Sword and

Ed Kearsley (29:43):
Sausage? That’s what I was about to say. I think it is the same time or just before maybe 93, 94. I think it’s on YouTube. If you want. Don’t blame me for the cheese.

Ryan Christopher (29:58):
Cheese.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (30:00):
Cool. Well we’ll jump onto Justin’s book now.

Ryan Christopher (30:04):
Woohoo.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (30:05):
Tell us all about it, my friend.

Ryan Christopher (30:07):
No worries. So this is Dissolving classroom. I got sort of a little bit disenfranchised by Western Comics fairly recently and was working at a place that had a lot of weeds working there and they kept shoving manga into my hands. And realistically, the only mango I’d ever read before that was Akira when I think it was Dark Horse produced, those big toilet paper, big sort of Dave Sim, CEUs sized ones, and apparently everybody else on the planet I got suckered into is, there’s seven stories in here. I think five of them are the dissolving classroom stories, and then there’s two sort of bonus anthology ones.

(31:03)
The stories are about a brother and sister and the brother is addicted to apologising. Yes, you heard that correctly. He’s addicted to apologising and the reason he’s addicted to apologising is because he made a deal with the devil and when he apologises to people, their brains melt out of their faces and the devil likes that. Where this sort of triggers with the sister is, is that the sister accidentally tasted the brains of somebody once and became hooked on that. So over the course of five stories, this brother and sister team, she does something awful. He apologises on her behalf. And so it goes, the stories are kind of linked.

(31:59)
They’ve got connective tissue through them as well. They’re not just like five stories about their adventures and it’s beautifully drawn. eto. I think his first comic was Toey. There we go. And Toey, he draws people beautifully. He’s got this stunning, stunning pen when it comes to drawing people. And if I remember correctly, going off my sad old brain to was actually published in a girl’s Halloween comic and it was marketed as being a girl’s comic and he’s sort of gone from there. Dissolving classroom is a tribute to another manga card named K umes who did something called the Drifting Classroom, I think it’s called. I’m sure I’ve got that on my screen here somewhere. The Drifting Classroom, which is about a school yard that goes to hell and just travels through the river sticks. But the art in this is stunning. As beautiful as the people are, the horror is just as horrible.

(33:16)
So here is, it’s really the juxtaposition of how beautiful the people and just the general design of it are compared to the gory scenes when they happen are crazy. It’s like, remember the first time you saw from Dust Till Dawn and you’re watching a cool crime movie, and then halfway through it turned into a vampire movie. There’s that feeling on almost every single page of anything by eto. The reason that I chose this one tonight is that this is the first time it came out, I think 12 or 18 months ago. It’s never been published in hardcover before. Most of ito’s stuff is in hardcover. This only ever had a soft cover release. And then somewhere along the lines, somebody went, why isn’t that in hardcover? And so thankfully, we now have a beautiful hardcover release of it. It is crazy and it is worth every penny of it.

(34:16)
I think I’ve got it from Kings for maybe 30 bucks worth every penny a really good read. And I’ve gone from being a filthy casual when it comes to manga to having one whole shelf here. That’s just manga. That’s all I’ve, I’ve turned a leaf. And I think one of the things that came out of it was that I was, so if you’re frustrated with Western comics, because every time you buy a new art team takes over Batman and they retell the origin story or Spider-Man, and they retell the origin story or they change the Batmobile. At least with Manga, it tends to be the same artist and writer doing it the whole time. And so when he chooses to finish that story, it’s just finished, it’s done. And you don’t hear that in the West very often because they’re more sort of character driven than story driven. So yeah, that’s my pick, dissolve in classroom, get on it or don’t, but because it’s really good. Cool.

Shannon Browning (35:18):
I often wondered what the Japanese creators are doing in the shower when these ideas pop into their heads.

Ryan Christopher (35:25):
Well, do you know, it’s funny, it’s all, I’ve got everything that Ito has published in the West to date in hardcover except for one thing, which I think is called Jji, Ito’s Cat Diary. And it’s a fictional story about him and his wife and their pet cats and how their pet cats have taken over the house. So I’ve got 30 volumes of the most terrifying horror. And then this casual little, and it’s same sort of beautiful art, but it’s cats frolicking and doing naughty stuff. And it’s like, what? Wow. What? Yeah. You never saw Dan DeCarlo really doing a superhero comic or something in creepy or eerie or whatever. And it’s that thing

Shannon Browning (36:14):
Sounds like Barker’s Disney Princess

Ryan Christopher (36:19):
Frozen would’ve been so much better.

(36:25)
But yeah, I think this is a good entry into Ito’s work if you’ve never read it before because it’s only fairly thin volume and there’s just five stories before you get, like Toea is like a phone book and a lot of the other ones that don’t really have continuing stories, they’re anthologies, but this one, it’s an anthology, but with five of the stories with the same characters in it. And it’s a bit of a reflection into what society’s turned into as well through the eyes of these two main characters. There’s a little bit of beauty culture and all the rest of it’s sort of throwing a bit of a mirror up to sort of that sort of stuff and saying, take a good hard look at yourself. But yeah, it’s cool.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (37:16):
Cool.

Shannon Browning (37:17):
Nice.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (37:18):
Thanks Justin. And for the younger viewers, a phone book is a really thick book, just putting that out there.

Ryan Christopher (37:27):
Imagine five iPhones together. Yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (37:30):
Yeah. Imagine if

Shannon Browning (37:34):
You took your friends list on Facebook and printed it all out

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (37:40):
One page per name. Okay, take it away, ed comments. I believe there’s more. We’ve been quite popular tonight.

Ed Kearsley (37:51):
We’ve got the sister’s tongue. The

Ryan Christopher (37:53):
Sister’s tongue. Yes. The sister licks a lot of brains.

Ed Kearsley (37:59):
It’s got that old school fifties horror manga style that Edo actually used to be a dentist.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (38:06):
That’s

Ryan Christopher (38:07):
It. Yeah. So he was a dental assistant in the early eighties and he couldn’t split his time between drawing comics or being a dentist. So he was like, I’m sick of looking down in the mouth. I’m going to go and do this instead. And yeah, has done that ever. He won. So the guy whose comic that this was based on, who was Kasu Zu, he actually won a manga award that’s in his name I think twice. And so that sort of was one of the reasons why he quit being a dental assistant.

Shannon Browning (38:42):
I got to admit, it frustrates me so much that there’s all these amazing artists and creators out there that once upon a time were just like, oh, I was doing this other thing and I was bored, so I thought I’d make a comic and they’re just masterful at it.

Ryan Christopher (38:59):
One of my favourite up and comers at the moment is Danny Earls, who’s working on Incredible Hulk with Nick Klein and he’s become a professional comic book artist after having a career as a professional soccer player.

Ryan Christopher (39:18):
Oh wow.

Ryan Christopher (39:20):
Different

Ryan Christopher (39:23):
Siz knows this about me, but I actually quit my job on Friday to do the same thing

Ryan Christopher (39:28):
To become professional soccer player. Impressive.

Ryan Christopher (39:30):
Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. Over fifties. Yeah. That’s what people want. That’s where the money is

Shannon Browning (39:37):
Quitting your job to become a professional comic creator.

Ryan Christopher (39:42):
Yep.

Shannon Browning (39:43):
Dude, much respect.

Ryan Christopher (39:45):
Yeah, we moved to the country because it’s a lot cheaper here and it was like I’ve been given an opportunity to back myself for the first time in my life, so I’m doing it.

Shannon Browning (39:55):
No, that’s insane. I wish you all the best. That’s

Ryan Christopher (39:59):
Huge. Thank you. Yeah, I’ve got my Wacom right here in front of me with a drawing up on it right now.

Shannon Browning (40:08):
No, I am very, very impressed. I always admire the hell out of anybody or just take that chance on themselves and just go for broke,

Ryan Christopher (40:18):
Man, I’m scared to death.

Shannon Browning (40:20):
Oh, of course you are.

Ryan Christopher (40:23):
Don’t think you

Shannon Browning (40:25):
Scared, you’d be stupid. But this

Ryan Christopher (40:27):
Decision wasn’t made lightly, but thankfully my wife has some faith in me, so she was willing to let me do it.

Shannon Browning (40:34):
No, that is absolutely amazing. And I really, really wish you all the best. Thank you. Yeah, that’s incredible. Thank

Ryan Christopher (40:43):
You

Shannon Browning (40:43):
For that. Yeah. Literally putting your money where your mouth is.

Ryan Christopher (40:47):
Yeah.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (40:49):
Anyone else, ed?

Ed Kearsley (40:51):
Yeah, we got the comics manga store. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying about mango’s. Refreshing to have consistency behind the creation always drove me crazy when the talent behind the book left. Yeah,

Ryan Christopher (41:08):
Exactly. Yeah, it’s one of the frustrating things about Manga is though, is that if the creator passes away before he finishes the story, you’re screwed. That’s it.

Ed Kearsley (41:22):
And then we’ve got a grs. Good luck j.

Ryan Christopher (41:28):
Thank you. Nice.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (41:30):
We’re going around the circle here. So we’ve got Ryan, tell us about your book that you read recently.

Ryan Christopher (41:37):
Alright, so I backed the most recent verus Kickstarter through Comex. And one of the lovely extras that I was able to pick up was Nick Mays, the Pink Flamenco. Oh hell yeah. Beware the Flagrant Foul. This is Self-published by Nick’s full court press, and absolutely love the idea of sort of a half man, half Flamingo being dumped into sort of one of the most action trope laden comics that you’ve read in a long time. So it’s sort of that old chestnut of this little town where there’s this sort of criminal enclave that’s sort of making things difficult for the people in town, and they’ve got their criminal enterprise that’s powering ahead and all of a sudden off the bus jumps the pink flamenco and he ends up getting caught up in the drama of this little town and trying to take down the bad guys and help local law enforcement. So if you love eighties and nineties action films, if you watched, if you love Rambo, if you love John Claude Van Dam movies like Hard Target, then this is absolutely in your ballpark. The dialogue is like it’s snappy and it’s silly, and the plot is it’s action, but it’s bananas at the same time.

(43:49)
What the criminal cartel is doing and why they’re doing it is absurdly stupid. But I was totally in from the beginning. The artwork is amazing. I’m a huge fan of Nick’s style, so it’s very cartoony. It’s almost got a cartoon network sort of feel to it. It gives me Venture Brothers and Johnny Quest sort of vibes. So it’s a whole lot of fun. But there he is there. That’s our sort of half man, half flamingo hero, and he even manages to sneak in a love scene between the lady heroine and the pink flamenco. So if you’ve ever had on your bucket list, what does a half man half flamingo look like at the height of orgasm? Then you’ll get to see that in this book.

Ryan Christopher (45:09):
Oh, where’s my bucket

Ryan Christopher (45:09):
List? I think that’s on

Shannon Browning (45:14):
My list of shit I never actually wanted in my head,

Ryan Christopher (45:21):
But it’s got some super cool action vibes going on.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (45:28):
That’s

Ryan Christopher (45:28):
Cool. Just totally in love with the book. For some reason it looks like the sheriff is Sam Elliot, but I’m kind of in love with that. Everything’s the way that you want it to be. The hero’s heroic. He got the bad guy in his cronies. You just have to look at them and you’re like, they’re the villains of this story. These are the bad guys. And yeah, I wish I knew where you can pick this up. Is it in the Comex store?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:07):
I’ve got stock here, so it will be soon.

Ryan Christopher (46:09):
Will be, yeah. It’s going up in the Comex shop, so make sure you pick it up. It’s super fun and it’s definitely worth it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:21):
I’ll just point out, because you said it’s a Comex comic. It’s actually, oh God, psycho janitor.

Ryan Christopher (46:31):
Oh, psycho janitor.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:32):
Yeah. Just sp. Oh yes

Ryan Christopher (46:35):
It is. Put that out there. Yes. So

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (46:39):
There’s no confusion.

Ryan Christopher (46:40):
So I have a question. Is the flamenco the only anthropomorphic being in this?

Ryan Christopher (46:47):
Yes, he is.

Ryan Christopher (46:49):
And is his bird head referenced at all?

Ryan Christopher (46:54):
No. No one brings up the fact that he’s a flamingo at any point.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:00):
Oh, that’s totally normal.

Ryan Christopher (47:03):
That’s so good. Nobody wants

Shannon Browning (47:06):
To be that rude person who mentions it.

Ryan Christopher (47:08):
Yeah, he just ran out of money.

Shannon Browning (47:11):
Is he fat or is he pregnant?

Ryan Christopher (47:19):
No one mentions it. He’s quite mouthy, which I like. Yeah, it’s fun. Very stupid and fun.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:33):
Have you read anything else by Mr. Nick? May

Ryan Christopher (47:37):
I have? It’s just a Oh, you’ve got it handy. Nice. I’ve got it handy.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:45):
Hey, that’s not handy. You had to get up.

Ryan Christopher (47:47):
Whoa.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:48):
Lied to me.

Ryan Christopher (47:50):
I get up for no one. I’ve also got harmonica.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:55):
Oh, cool. Yes.

Ryan Christopher (47:57):
Minty frisk. I

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (47:58):
Got somewhere around here.

Ryan Christopher (48:01):
He’s like a private investigator. See, I don’t have hive of the albino grab and I need it. Cool. Yeah, minty frisk. Old school, Dick Tracy style Detective,

Ed Kearsley (48:18):
Do

Ryan Christopher (48:18):
It again. That’s also worth picking up. It’s only a little one, but it’s got some great gags in there. My favourite one is how the judge’s name keeps changing in every panel. If you read it, you’ll see the names and you’ll realise why it’s so funny. Cool. Unless you’re under the age of 35, then you probably won’t get any of the references. Cool.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:49):
Ed, have we got any comments

Ed Kearsley (48:52):
We have. That’s so exciting, Jo. I hope it goes well.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (48:58):
Oh yeah.

Ed Kearsley (48:59):
And congrats man. You can now enjoy your life. I’ve blissful terror.

Ryan Christopher (49:04):
Oh, I’ve been living with that for years. That’s all good.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (49:10):
Now this is a part of the show where I forget about Ed and I’ll just continue the show. No, ed, tell us about your book.

Ryan Christopher (49:19):
Alright,

Ed Kearsley (49:21):
I’ve Got Outlaw by Stu Thornton. It’s his new book.

(49:30)
This is a book that he said he’d been wanting to make since the eighties. And you can really tell that he’s a fan of that sort of era of stuff like the, say the Bronze Age of Superhero comics. It has a really great old school feel. It’s actually really refreshing to read something new that feels like the comics that I read when I was a kid. The story is about, it starts off with a special forces team called the A 100 and there’s a great splash page. It said The splash page goes through onto the credits page.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (50:23):
Oh, cool.

Ed Kearsley (50:24):
And the artwork’s really cool too. And so they’re on a mission to stop some terrorist guys. And then it turns out that that was just a cover for something else that was going on. And there’s a bunch of political kind of intrigue or not political, industrial, industrial espionage kind of feel to it. And there’s the guy that outlaw guy comes into it and he’s on the run. He escapes with the Super Armour and it turns from this industrial espionage, the special forces groups that turns into kind of a chase story. It’s really well set up for the first issue. It’s a really fun first issue, and there’s some really great design stuff in it. I really like how he’s got the, it’s not a double page spread, but see how the thing carries through. It’s really good at tying the pages together. He’s got another kind of thing there. I’d say it’s a great first issue. There’s a, oh, I’ve got to show you another one that’s such a great drawing of the thing blowing up the Luna Park.

Ryan Christopher (52:07):
That’s great.

Ed Kearsley (52:11):
And there’s the fellow that escapes with the armour and now he’s getting chased by the A one hundreds. And it’s cool because it sets up the A 100 guys are the good guys. And then the task, we’re chasing down the outlaw guy. So it’s like, are they the good guys? Is the outlaw guy. There’s the main guy, is he the bad guy that’s really well set up for their upcoming issues. And I’ve got number two and I’m looking forward to read it. So I would highly recommend getting this if you’re looking for that for a fix of some eighties, early nineties style superhero action.

Shannon Browning (52:59):
Nice.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (53:00):
Oh yeah. And Stu, if you’re watching, does that make up for my crap review? A couple of shows ago? Come on, tell me. It makes up for it. Ed knows what it’s all about. Ed will fix it. No, I was just

Shannon Browning (53:24):
Saying, I’ve been seeing that character pop up on the socials a bit, and I’ve been really intrigued by it because it’s a really nicely designed character. It’s detailed but simple at the same time.

Ed Kearsley (53:39):
And if you see on the, he hasn’t got the armour on his other leg because when he escaped with the armour suit, he didn’t get the whole thing.

Shannon Browning (53:48):
Oh, nice touch.

Ed Kearsley (53:50):
So I’m wondering if that will come into it where the special forces chasing him will have armour as well, and it’s got the design of the bucket head, which is like a mix between Ironman and Ned Kelly and the cool trench coat, and that leads into the outlaw motif of the whole thing.

Shannon Browning (54:14):
Yeah,

Ed Kearsley (54:17):
I really does feel like someone who’s had this story in their heart for a long time is now finally getting to express it. And it’s paced really well too. If I was doing something like that and I had all these ideas that I wanted to get out, try and cram them all into the one thing, but he’s really past it out well. So it’s a really good job, A good comment.

Ryan Christopher (54:46):
I dig some of the little slice of life stuff in there that he’s got in there as well. The main character being desperate for something to eat. And I think you can only get a meat pie from a seven 11 or something like that. It’s like classic Australian problems

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (55:09):
There. So many good books getting made locally right now. There is. I’m having a lot of fun collecting them now. I’ve just got to find the time to have fun reading them. Okay, so this is part of the show where I talk about if you want to be on the show, there’s a link, sorry, ed. Yeah, there’s this link com X show slash interest. Go there, fill out the form, let us know what shows you’re interested on being on. And I will get in contact with you and we’ll see what we can do about getting you on one of these shows, especially this one, because all you have to do is be a comic fan and have read something that you liked and want to talk about and we will get you on this show. Yeah.

(56:08)
And the other thing, of course, now that we’re halfway through the show and there’s more people watching, remember to share and subscribe there. I’m trying to do my little video that I do very badly. So subscribe to the channel. It helps us, it helps us grow, helps us get into the algorithms that more of our shows get out to people and all that jazz. I love saying algorithm, such a cool word. So I guess this is the part of the show where we let the guests plug themselves, and I’ve forgotten to put up the timer, so we’re just going to have to, I’ll just use my watch and I’ll make a loud noise when you’ve gone over time.

(56:59)
Start with me. I’ll just say, all I want to promote is the shop. So that’s comex.net au. The shop is in the main menu, so it doesn’t matter about that slash store. You could just go to comex net au and the shop is in the main menu. And also a friend of Comex, not Comex, but a friend of Comex has a Kickstarter at the moment, I believe he’s not the only one, but this is the only one I can remember. Slay him.com. That’ll take you to the Kickstarter. It’s a short link or redirect or whatever you want to call it. Vanity Link. Yeah, go check it out. He’s got some amazing art and there’s dragons who isn’t a sucker for dragons. Seriously, who wants to go next? Anyone going to volunteer? Let’s get mine. No, ed. Yeah. Okay, go Ryan.

Ryan Christopher (58:00):
So I’m from Corner Box Comic Art, which is the business that I founded and put together, which deals with assisting some Australian artists with comic art sales and comic signings and things like that. Also doing absentee signing packages for Australian comic conventions. So I’ll take your comics, get ’em signed by your favourite creators and send ’em safely back to you. Other than that, I’m going to be on Chinwag with Lee Chalker tomorrow night at seven 30. So you’re going to learn a whole lot more about me, coinbox, comic art, art collecting everything and everything comics related that is involved in my life. So yeah, check it out. It’s going to be on YouTube seven 30 tomorrow.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (58:51):
Looking forward to it on this channel. So no one else wants to promote themselves.

Ryan Christopher (59:01):
Okay, I will.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (59:03):
Oh, good stuff, Justin.

Ryan Christopher (59:04):
So I guess I’ve got to get used to this if I’m going to be doing this professionally, right? My Instagram’s Jo Ru illustrates, there’s not much of my more modern art on there. There’s bits and pieces of sketches that I’ve been attempting of late to get my head together, but I also show a lot of my comic collection on there. I’m currently working on two comics. One is called Vol, VALK, which is a superhero comic about a vol Keri that’s been kicked out of heaven, I guess. And the other one is called Daisy, which is Australian murder mystery that takes place in a small town. That’s it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (59:52):
That’s it? Yep. I can just sit now. Killed by flowers. Sorry. There’s going to be bad Justin.

Ryan Christopher (01:00:03):
Thanks mate. Champion.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:00:08):
So no from you, ed?

Ed Kearsley (01:00:12):
Yeah, I’m good. Sure. Get the last comments in.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:00:14):
Yeah, get the last comments in.

Ed Kearsley (01:00:17):
Got Ss. Has the best reviews. Hi guys. Did I miss anything? Outlaws on my list. That’s good.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:00:28):
Yeah. Yeah. So it should be, it’s awesome book, no matter how badly I review it.

Ed Kearsley (01:00:33):
Meet up for ses review.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:00:39):
Hey,

Shannon Browning (01:00:39):
How she’s, you can sleep tonight.

Ed Kearsley (01:00:42):
There’s a catch. You have to get around to read something. Go Justin.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:00:48):
Yeah, hell yeah.

Ed Kearsley (01:00:52):
Best tomorrow. Thanks. Great reviews. I could read all those titles and it goes till midnight.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:01:04):
Ah, tomorrow’s show. Yep.

Ed Kearsley (01:01:06):
Couldn’t find flame on the comic site. It’s not up yet. I think

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:01:11):
It’s not up just yet, but only just arrived this afternoon, so I haven’t had a chance to put it in the shop yet. Yeah, COMEX, I had, yeah, do the shop ad. I love this video.

Voice Over (01:01:31):
Are you feeling a little down, tired of reading the same old books again and again looking for something different? Why not? Head over to the comic shop now and pick yourself up some freshly inked. Inspiration.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (01:02:01):
Speaking of comic shop, oh,

(01:02:06)
There’s also another one that’s just arrived by Stu again and it’s called Poo Heads. This one’s for the kids. I’m assuming there’s probably some humour in there if I know Stu, that will satisfy the non kids. It just arrived today as well, but it’s already in the shop. I got the information early, so yeah, check that out as well. And again, if you’re interested in being on these shows, please fill out that form, let us know so that it’s Comex show slash interest. You can just go to Comex show and it’s in the menu. Pretty obvious in the menu. There’s only three items, one’s interest, one’s home, one’s hard, pretty basic.

(01:03:01)
Yeah, let us know which shows you want to be on because not just this one, if you want to draw and drink drinking’s optional, but drawing is not. And you’ve got, if you haven’t been on, let’s make a comic book already. That’d be a good run as well because it’s a different artist for every panel. So we’ve got to find new people. And there’s this show. And then of course there’s Chinwag tomorrow night and the Oz Comic Show is on every fortnight. Unless our guest bows on us, it goes to Mexico. Go figure. That’s what happened last week. So yeah, thank you everyone. Thank you to all you guys for telling us about the books that you’ve read recently. Thank you to the audience. Thank you for your comments being very full of comments tonight. This has been awesome. And yeah, thanks for watching to anyone who’s watching it right now and to anyone who’s watching it in the future. And I think this is where I’ll do Ed and just go goodbye. Have a good night everyone. Like share.