Book Club: Bendis & the Patrons - Birds of Prey Vol. 1 by Kelly Thompson - Word Balloon Comics Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome back time again for Word Balloon the
Comic Conversation Show. John Centris here, I'm gentle because it's
been a hell of a weekend. Man. You know, I
was at Maine West High School here in suburban Chicago
and they had a wonderful one day comic con supporting
after school programs. I'm so glad that that happened, and
I was so happy, happy to contribute for that and

(00:21):
see my buddies like Mike Norton and Tim Seeley and
Philip Kennedy, Johnson, Art Balantis Are Scoot McMahon, Dave Schitt
among so many others, And yeah, it was just a
great time. God. I even bought a couple of things,
which is scary, but so that wipe me out. On
Saturday Sunday I did, and you hear the crack in

(00:41):
my voice. We finally did a new Bendess Word Balloon
book Club Brian Bendis's Discord, John Sentris's Word Balloon Patrons.
We all get together and we discuss a book and
this month we chose Birds of Prey Volume one. I
chose it any buddy from Venice's Discord and the owners

(01:02):
bring that up because Brian, and we're going through books
and maybe not because of X, maybe not because of why.
And I'm like, all right, and I'm finding like, hey,
Kelly Thowmson Birds of Breain, Yes, good idea. But you'll
hear Brian, it's like somebody in the Discord suggests that no,
I did, and maybe they did as well. Forgive me
on Discord, I don't know what you chose prior to
me teaming up the wer Balloon people with the Discord people.

(01:25):
But man, it was a great conversation. I met so
many other new people. And as I always say, and
you'll hear me say it here on the discussion, sometimes
you really do need to watch the video as well
as maybe listen to the audio. You're gonna get a
full dose of really interesting analysis. This incredible book and
incredible art team Kelly Townsend writing beautiful book. It's amazing

(01:47):
and there are layers of storytelling going on that are
supported of course by the art, but also by the
coloring of Jordi Belair and truly I in fact, let
me look up real fast the artist's name whose name
always escapes me. Leonardo Romero is your artist, and Jody
Blair is your colorist, and Kelly Thompson is your writer.

(02:09):
This wonderful first starc of Birds of Prey a caper
sort of because it's all about Dina Black Canary putting
a teening together to extract her adopted daughter Sin from Thermascarra.
The Amazons are holding her. Why, we don't know, but
it's kind of a caper in that all. Right, now

(02:30):
we have to assemble the crew for this extraction and
it's a fantastic team. And it's the first time that
kel was doing Birds of Prey and listen, I've loved
the other runs of Birds of Prey and really appreciated them,
but this is really fantastic, and really her entire run,
which is wrapping up, is just wonderful. And this threesome

(02:50):
that I guess started on Hawkey, I didn't realize that.
Brian points it out in the discussion. They're just incredible.
So wonderful discussion about Birds of Prey Volume one. It
is the Bendis Word Balloon Book Club on today's word Balloon.
Word Balloon is brought to you by Alex Ross Art
dot Com, the home for stunning realistic artwork of the

(03:11):
legendary painter Alex Ross. Check out limited edition prints, sketchbooks,
and exclusive pieces featuring the world's greatest heroes. Whether you're
a lifelong fan or a new collector, there's no better
place to see the artistry that's defined modern comics. Visit
Alex rossart dot com and bring the heroes home and

(03:32):
don't forget. If you're in the Chicago area, you could
see Alex Ross's exhibit Heroes and Villains at the dun
Museum in suburban Chicago. In Libertyville, Illinois, through February of
twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
And I'm trying to keep your fights.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
There we go, larrent Aaron, I've got my water ready too.
All right, here we go. Oh, somebody's waiting stand by, Elias,
let a Lass in before I start. We start rapping the.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
CE so you get to watch the the moment he
actually transforms.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Into Captain Broadcaster exactly. So God, I hope guys, all
of you, wherever, whatever towns or cities you're you're in
there radio is still okay because it sucks nationally and everywhere. Man,
they're they're eliminating jobs. Oh, I don't know if we
can afford to hire people anymore. Go fuck, podcast took
it over. Man, it's just well, I'm aware of that.

(04:30):
But you know, we're all nickel and diming in most
of us in the podcast world compared to you know,
we just dined so and so. You know, Oh interesting,
Dave Davison's the college station picking up the slack. Very cool.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, I don't know, my buddy here, Joan, that's going
on to the independent stations have completely taken over.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah. Yeah, well, and like you said, podcasting too, it's like, no,
that's where the interesting shit's happening.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
It's just yeah, it's just it's just what's working.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yep, yeah, it's true. All right, let's see if anyone
else winning. Alex is waiting. Sorry, I just want to
get people in.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
I'm taking a break from the latest episode of blank Check,
which has been on a run of Comb Brothers Movies.
Is one of the most incredible runs of a podcast
I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
That's cool, that's cool.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
I can't recommend it higher.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I saw episode boom boom boom.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
I'm behind on streaming on everything, but I saw this.
I finally saw the Stiller and Mirror documentary.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Oh did you I haven't seen it.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
I'm saying thank you. I'll put that will say for
the plane. That's a perfect plane, really really great. And
I haven't seen yet. Anybody see the new sci Fi
on Apple? Uh not Rampart something like that?

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Laurnabus say it again, Mike Claus, Yes, plurabus, yes, yes, yes, I'm.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Everyone I know says it's the greatest thing they've ever seen.
I have not seen it yet. It's also waiting for it,
as you know what. I've had to watch for work.
I've been busy with other things. I did see the
John Candy documentary, which was quite something, and I literally
started crying one minute into it.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
I went, uh, oh for a ride.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
It just he immediately grabs you. It's really something's.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Bout now, and I'm God, damn it. It just makes me
angry and angry that Scorsese hasn't made released his se
TV film that he supposedly started to take.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Mistress. Scorsese was great too. It should have been ten
more episodes of it. It was incredible.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
I I I want to see that. Yeah said again.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Now.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
One mention of Hugo, it's movies.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
That happens. What are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 (06:38):
All right, let's get into the subject.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Hold on, we're gonna We're gonna count down. Let's see.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Although, yeah, you know what, I watched the Eddie Murphy doc.
I laughed. It's undeniably interesting and funny. Someone else should
have made the documentary, and I hope someone else does.
It's too much of him talking about how great he is,
and they're all interesting stories. Honestly, he said a few
things that someone else should have, so that's hilarious. It
was interesting. It was another one where they skipped a

(07:06):
bunch of movies.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
No mention of Holy Man maybeikes.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
All right, wait, I just want to make sure we're
still in gallery. We are on gallery very good cause,
only because I like it's being all like a giant,
you know, crazy thing. All right, here we go.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
I pulled up some stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
I'm going to share my screen too. I got some.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Cool cool I might leave all this in just because
it's good, just you know what's going on talk and everything.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, welcome.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
There is much a blank chech mode.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
They don't do an episode of blank che unless they
talk about the Red Hulk for ten minutes before, so
they just keep it all in.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
So that's hilarious. I didn't know that all the Jeff
Lope must be very happy that they talked that much
about their red health. Hey, everybody, welcome back. It's time
for the book club. This is what we do in
the book club. And actually this is a great endorsement
for what the book club is if you haven't already
joined either Bendis's Discord or the Word Balloon patrons, as

(08:00):
you get to hang out and we get to not
only talk about the book of the month, but we
also get to talk bs like we're doing so John
Centris here, Bennis here, and.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well this and this book club for those who know,
we've now done a few of these, and it's like
a partnership between your Patreon and our discord, which are
you know, communities with some overlap but also very different.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
And the next.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Couple of book clubs were pitched by the Discord. This
one Birds of Prey by Kelly Thompson, leon Uh Leonardo
how do you pronounce it again? Romero and and and company.
There's a lot of Enjody Blair h it was a
wonderful choice. I was thrilled about it. I had not

(08:45):
read this one yet. This was fresh to me. Also,
I was very happy I don't know Kelly at all,
Like we've had a parade of people in here. I
have some relationship to you just because of comics being
a small world and Kelly Sue the comic being one
of my best friends. But in this instance, I'm a

(09:08):
big fan of Kelly's but I've literally never met her,
So my relationship with her begins and ends with I
was leaving Jessica Jones when I was leaving Marvel, and
they said, we're probably going to keep Jessica going, and
I said, oh, you should hire Kelly Thompson like that,
Like I just read a bunch of stuff by her,

(09:29):
and I mentioned Kelly, and I also kind of wanted
someone to take over Jessica I didn't know, like I
didn't have a history with like that. I can just
because I talked to other friends who had left books
and had bequeathed them to other creators and how sometimes
it's hard to like read them because just your relationship
with them. And I said, oh, if someone you don't know,

(09:49):
sometimes it's easier to enjoy the book. And so I said,
I would like I just as a fan, I was
like Kelly Thompson to write Jessica Jones, and she did,
and I was really really excited about it, and I
loved it. So that was literally the beginning and the
end of our relationship until last week when I wrote
to her and said, hey, we're doing this book club.

(10:10):
It was voted on to do Birds of Prey. She
was thrilled bits and sent us a copy of the
script to the first issue, which I had requested because
I had immediately saw some things that other people had
already mentioned on the discord going I would like to
see how that was scripted. I like, already you can

(10:31):
see a couple of magic tricks that aren't the normal
stuff that you go, all right, Who's I basically whose
idea was that or what inspired it to go that far?
So that was kind of very very cool.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I had the pleasure of interviewing her a few times
when she was doing Captain Marvel after Kelly sudiconic and
really sweet and of course, as Brian likely knows, you know,
people like Matt Rosenberg are friends of hers, and a
lot of the New York people are friends of hers.
And in fact, I was hanging out yesterday not to
name drop, with Philip Kennedy Johnson, who was in town

(11:06):
and he was telling me how great she is, and yeah,
she's terrific and a very sweet person and really brilliant
and beyond her mainstream work what we call mainstream, her
independent stuff is really great as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And of course she's killing it currently on Absolute wonder Woman,
and we we're likely to have a new talk. I

(11:27):
was going to follow up and send her the links
video and audio of this and then another thing. And
again forgive the plug for what we're doing here. But
if you're not part of either Brian's discord or my Patreon,
not only do you get to talk about this, but
like just like Brian said, when we do get access
to a script, we do it more because this really
is a great opportunity for writers to uh to get

(11:51):
some you know, good insight from Brian, and you know
when we when we do get a participating person like
killing and everything. So that's pretty cool. We have a
another writer joining us right now. Mark practically the play
the Chicago Playwright that he did plays on Bill Finger
and Bob Kane, Jack and Stan and also the ec

(12:12):
comics Seduction of the Innocent Time that not only featured
games but also Matt Baker who was contemporary during all
the scandals and everything, and yeah, so's he's a playwright
that's joining us and gleaning thoughts.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
This is Mark your name Mark here, Mark pract Hi, Mark.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Nice to meet you.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Nice to meet you. I would like to read everything
he just said, So whenever you want to slide those over,
I'll trade you easy peasy.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
I would be happy to send you copies.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
That's awesome. The only other history I have with Kelly
is when I was leaving Marvel, and you know that
was you know very much, many many emotions and different
feelings and thoughts. Should I leave? Why it's your dream job?
Why do you want to leave?

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Like all these things.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
One of the reasons I really decided it's time to
go was I realized that I part of my graduating
class was Matt ed and Kelly, which was Matt fraction
Ed Berson and Kelly superaconic. And then they all left
and there was another Matt Ed and Kelly. There were
literally another Matt Ed and Kelly and Matt Rosenberg, Edgerson

(13:22):
and Kelly Thompson, and I went, oh shit, there's a
whole nother generation of Matt Ed and Kelly's and I'm
still here, I should probably go like like it felt
like like like.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
An actual statement of its time to leave.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
So I was grateful for her because it was the
right choice, and I did, well, oh no, there's another Kelly.
I should probably for the next Ryan. If there's one coming,
I'm probably sitting in a seat. So that was that
was that. But anyway, I in my heart, Dave Library Kid,
where are you? I was this at your idea? Did

(13:58):
you pick birds of prey? Or who picked birds or prey?
Anyone want to take credit for the for the initial thought,
because I was quite charmed by the choice being Kelly's
many many Kelly Thompson choices we could have picked for
the thing, including Absolute wonder Woman and The Call and
Black Cloak. So all right, it wasn't you decided to

(14:21):
put you on the spot. But but I found it
to be a great choice because it's not the first
thing I think a lot of people would think of
when they think, let's let's analyze this work and see
what we think.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
I could have sworn it was me because we went
through a couple of different people, and I thought it
showed up on the boarder and I was delighted and
it likely could have, because obviously it is such a
great run. But when we were going okay, I honestly
I'm like, how about Kelly Thompson Prey? And you're like yes,
I'm like, good.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
No.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Also, so maybe you guys already did it. I don't know,
maybe they didn't know.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
We have like so many crime books coming, you know.
We just did Hundred Bullets and The Criminal and we're
as soon to do the Richard Parker novels, which was
also another great choice. I just didn't want it to
be like a parade of ye great time comics, and
this is the perfect tonal and genre and antidote for

(15:18):
this stuff. So anyway, I am not against or negative
about the idea of Birds of Prey. I just hadn't
read a ton of Birds of Prey. I'd read some.
I kind of enjoyed the movie, but you can't. It's
one of those movies you can't help but see what
it could have been, you know what I mean. It's
not nothing wrong with it, it's just not the home

(15:39):
run it could have been. I know you feel differently.
Did you like it?

Speaker 5 (15:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (15:42):
I think no. I thought it was a misfire. I
really did and it was part of the DC slump
that I think is being corrected by Superman and what
James Gun is doing in general, both in animation and
on camera. I mean, I really have enjoyed the Peacemaker
a lot, and even the ending and where it ended
did not bother me. And I'm sorry. The one good

(16:04):
thing about superhero movies that I always fear is Okay,
here's the movie. Now, let's wait five years for the sequel.
And it's like, no, don't do that. I know Supergirl
is you know, this coming year, But it was great.
Here don't worry, Superman two twenty seven picking up the
plots of what's happening in Peacemaker. So yeah, you know,
I mean, but no, I was not a fan of
Birds of Prey.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Okay, I haven't seen it literally since I dropped on
HBO Max. I was judging things a little lighter back
when I was at DC. I might have a different
feeling about it now, but I remember walking out of
the Justice League premiere going, well, that was great, and
I was just very happy about my new deal of DZ.
I was completely wrong.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Rose colored Glasses. Back then.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
We were laughing so hard. You see the pictures of
us that night were like who We're like, no, that's
not we were just we were just happy things landed.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
And then we're from the generation in the seventies where
we would get you know, those superhero roasts that used
to be on DC Universe man Aulman as Weather Wizard.
You know, my my favorite Charlie Callis who I got
to meet and talk about being Sinestro and his big eyes.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Got bigger every word you just said, it's so you know, I.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Don't know shit exactly, and he's like, there's always one
of you in every city he goes, it's only one,
but there's always one of you, and I'm like, there
you go.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
So yes, I referenced it in Fortune and Glory because
back when we were kids, that was a rare thing
of superheroes and.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Other media that you could enjoy.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
And as garbage as it was, and it was even
by seventies trash levels, pretty trashy, it was, it was
a delight to have it.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
One and a half season superhero attempts post bat Or
during Batman sixty six was Captain Nice on NBC and
William Daniels, who was you know the either and forgive me,
I didn't watch Boys World because I'm old, but you
know he was the the profession.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Or from the first part, you're just.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Because I'm old, but also a nice yeah, but also
he you know, of course I'm saint elsewhere that's and
then kid of course from night Rider and I found
him on the internet. People are interested. I found the
episodes on the internet archive and it's not horrible because
it was Buck Henry. It was get smart Buck Henry
in that era, so you know, clever guy and obviously

(18:18):
kind of perfect for the guy who shouldn't be a
superhero and everything. But I did post on my YouTube
feed the trailer for Captain Nice and it's got Jack
Kirby Yard in it. Like the trailer, Oh does it
really Yes, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
I'll send you only well all of this.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Of course, none of this has anything.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
To do with nothing about Bertain, but it is a
fine look into the psyche of John. But so I
really enjoyed this a lot, but my first like, I
really liked it. Also, the one person on the creative
team I have a history with is Jordi Belair, who've
done quite a few things with including Legion and Superheroes,

(18:56):
which was a monumental task for them on the book,
and so I watched someone at the height of their
powers just knock it out of the park. And I
see a lot of the same bold choices being done here,
which I really really admire. But other than that, what
really took me was two things. Number One, I kind

(19:19):
of like wrap my head around what I like about
Kelly's work, and that it is, in a sense to
me like the best parts of Warren Ellis's work of
the day. But Warren else is a garbage monster. And
now we have Kelly doing it instead, and that's good.
And I don't mean that she's imitating him. But there's a.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Economical dialogue style.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
There's a everyone says pretty much the three perfect words
they need to say instead of what would be in
the hands of me and other people twenty words. But
they're all in character. They're like a three word sentence
that it both pushes character forward, describes character where they are,

(20:04):
and moves the thing along in a beautiful way. Warren
was exceptional at that few were Kelly is. It's it's
it's I'm guessing and looking at the script that we
were sent and it's it's available for anyone who wants
to take a look at it. It looks like it's

(20:25):
a lot of work to get it down to that,
and I admire it a great deal. It's also that
ability to reference continuity almost in every panel, but never
getting bogged down to it, never making it feel like
it's something that's standing in the way of you enjoying
what you're reading. Right, and particularly when you do a
team like this, of which I do have a history with,

(20:46):
when everyone's coming to the book with a different agenda
and a different worldview and a different point of view
on what the team can be, it's very easy to
get circular in the conversation between the characters, but in
this one, they just leaned into we all know each other,
we all know what's going on, and we'll figure it
out as we're going is a great way to do it,

(21:09):
and I just admired it so much. Then I was
struck with about issue three. I didn't know the history
of the of the creative team. So by issue three
I was like, this is super advanced collaboration. There are
some choices being made here that are hard to pull
off for anybody, and they are doing it with grace

(21:33):
and style, and that kind of air of a collaboration
that goes, oh, wait, this isn't your first book. So
I went back and I looked at Hawkeye that they
did together, which they did a year on Hawkeye together,
and also Jordie, Yes, Jordie's part of it. Jordie's for
sure at the end of it, because I did clock that.

(21:54):
But they come into Hawkeye very much tipping their hat
to Matt and David Aja, but without repeating him, which
is the magic thing to do. Like there's like little
sound effect references to Aja, but not like stylistic references
and other than oh, this audience can handle us trying

(22:15):
new shit because of David and Matt did it, you know?
So they that was pretty cool. I have some samples
of it here. But watching them like quickly grow from
issue to issue on Hawkey to the point where whether
they were done with Hawkey, oh yeah, they are ready
for this like this, this is this is the table set.

(22:35):
I've had this with a couple of creative partnerships in
my life, Like this is kind of what it felt
like for me when I was with Alex on Sam
and Twitch and then we switched to Daredevil. We worked
out a lot of stuff on Samwa Twitch, so we
got to hit the ground running on Daredevil and it
absolutely felt and not comparing the two, but just that
feeling of, oh, you guys got you guys worked off

(22:57):
the hard stuff and now we can just sit back
and enjoy the next level. And that's what I that's
what I took from this was how, boy, how a
pearing can really bring out the best in each other.
And I really saw that just this magical just the
way everything's rendered and the way everything's written is perfectly
in messed with each other and I and then not

(23:20):
to take anything away from any of the other artists
on this book, and I did read ahead and look
at the other artists and some of them are some
of my favorites, but it's really her and Leonardo that
are the the ACE team, like it really is, like
like everything was cool, but boy, it was everything super
special and it just have to me because we just

(23:41):
mentioned them like a bit of Darwin in it but
not but not And then no one's rippen anything off.
Just that line weight, just that just that strength of
line that just like, oh, I you know, these people
are standing there like Barta.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
Is drawing like yeah, I'm they had a rock you know.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
It's just it's just, you know, I always, I always
get worried when I'm comparing people to other people, because
I don't mean it an insult, but just when you
look at other people's work and see the good parts
and bad parts. And I just saw like the good
parts of when Warren was kicking ass, and the good

(24:17):
parts of like Darwin, and it just looked like we're
looking at that being elevated here.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Well above and beyond the story and also just the
basics of and forgive me, I'm blinking right now again,
say say his name again, the artist.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Leonardo Ra Right, yeah, so you see it right, you
can see and yeah, we could see it Leonardo to me,
and I felt the same way that, not to disrespect
Leonardo's origin, originality and individualism, but Jimi Hernandez, if you
take away Jordie's colors and it's black and white, it
to me is love and rockets Vina like, yeah, this

(24:53):
would do with that, This would have that too.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, And it's but also, and you know, I am terrible.
It took me a while being a sports writer to
get comfortable enough with word balloon to like have artists
on and talk about art because mostly it would just
be Chris Farley it's good, you know, and not really
have anything interesting to say. But Jordie's accents, the flashback

(25:16):
moments are great choices, and she again, the three of
them together, it is epic. And even in this first
arc when we have the one fill in in issue five,
it's borging, by the way, absolutely, but it does it
is kind of a sore thumb compared to the rest
of the hand. And I don't mean that in a

(25:37):
negative way. It's just that I just got so used
to the team presenting themselves with this one unique vision.
And that's literally my first conversation with Kelly about this
series was just like everybody's killing it, and I mean,
you know, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
So I went, I just I pulled up some of
these earlier pages from Hawkeye. This is the work pre
Birds of Prey, and you could see them luxuriating in
the freedom that was offered to them to do Hawkeye,
and you can also see the beginnings of some of
the pieces that are going to land hard and Birds
of Prey uh to me and the best possible. I mean,

(26:15):
some of this stuff is just really monstrously good and
just like shoving so much into it yet it's all clear.
But you can see for at least from my point
of view, like Birds of Praise, the tighter more just
just just to have it together, like.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
So much of David's structure and everything.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, yeah, like but you compare like this to this,
it's basically the same thing. Yeah like, look like look
at the difference also right away, Look look what Jordie's
doing exactly. Jordie is just swinging for the fences and
trying new stuff everywhere, everywhere they can. It's just very
very impressive. And also just like, yeah it was it

(27:02):
was this to this both excellent, both using kind of
the same tools and techniques, but everything's more refined. It's
just very very impressive to me.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
And I think not afraid to break from panels like
that image you're just showing right now and everything and
you know, as opposed to you know, the usual conformity
of individual boxes and things panels.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Also this this, this is a hawk eye. But this
is such a good idea. This is such a good
idea from a storytelling point of view.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yep. Well, it seems like they're versions.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Of it in other books, but this is one of
the best. Like, not only is it like getting all
the information across that like a lot of information across,
but you're also seeing it from the point of view
of the character, like this is how they see the world,
you know, kind of like that thirty Rock episode you
find out that kind of sees everyone ins muppets. It's
just there's something really exciting about seeing seeing something like that.

(28:03):
I'm sorry, I wrong, the wrong thing I loaded anyway.
So but looking at these, particularly the double page spreads,
where there is a confidence that had been built over
the over the course of the collaboration that like I'm
going to tell you everything I need to go, and
then I'm gonna let you go nuts, and then I'm
going to come in and make it all sing. But

(28:23):
like just getting the f out of the way of
a of a decent I keep hitting that.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Sorry, that is our friend.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
This is I. I just posted this on the discord.
This is our friend. Griffin and Ethan just wrote the
zombie the Marvel Zombies, and I thought, it's goblin time.
Is maybe the best line of dialogue I've heard all year,
And then I found it. It was from friends of ours,
so I just posted this on the discord.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Has nothing to do with what we're talking about anyway.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
So but these these choices here are are incredible. Also,
the palette going back to Jordi is so incredibly different
from other Jordy books, from the things that Jorty does
an image or even what we did on Lesion, just
incredibly different. And that it just presses the shit out
of me. It just does like there's no there's no
set of answers. It's what does the project need and

(29:12):
let me see if I can find it.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Well. Also, the times when she does do flashbacks, they
have different palettes for different stories and that's great, you know.
And I and again it think I.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Just hit one even though it's a different artis it's
the other artist, right?

Speaker 1 (29:28):
This is the other person?

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (29:29):
And five? That was five.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
I'm sorry I knew their name.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
I actually rememberized that I did before we move on
to I'm going to hit hit you in a second day.
This is when I fell in love with the book.
I'm sure a couple of you have a similar thing
where oh, look at that little tiny storytelling trick that
I've never seen anyone do before. And you've seen anyone
else do this. You let me know. I couldn't think
of anyone else doing it in either confraction. We couldn't

(29:54):
think of anyone seen like we've seen the time change
or cut the next panel three days later. I even
like I I wanted to do a joke the other
day where I only have a few pages to tell
a story, but I wanted to know, like, if I
had more pages, this would have been six pages of
this person just staring in shock at something, and I

(30:15):
wanted to go six pages later and just have it
on the same page. But this, this idea in the
second row that just literally goes off the spread. And
then and then in the dialogue, it doesn't say ten
minutes later or something. It just says and a thing like,
so we we skip the list of things that she's
talking about. What a brilliant piece of fun, character motivated nonsense.

(30:40):
It's very it's a very hardy joke. It's a new
Harley joke. It's very well done, and it's it's show
offye without being too show offye. It's everything I kind
of love about comics, you know, all right, So Dave
you hand hands up. We got a lot of hands up.
So I'm just gonna shut up and he listened whatever
one else has to say. I'm very excited to hear this.

Speaker 6 (31:02):
Well, it's gonna be cool. I'm glad we picked this
book club because this is a book that I would
not have touched. I'm usually DC deficient and usually scared
of the team books because it brings in and usually
brings in a lot of lore that you're like, Okay,
I sort of feel lost, And like you said, there
wasn't I didn't feel lost in this. I got what

(31:23):
I needed to understand the story and follow it. The
thing that really struck me and I want to find
out what you think, Brian, with the other members of
the session think is is you've got this assembly of
characters of different personalities. Not everybody is talkative, not everybody

(31:43):
is an extrovert. Yes, and yet what I felt in
volume one was that it was pretty balanced. You know,
as I would do these first issues, I didn't feel like,
you know, this could have easily become the Barta Show,
or the.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Harley Show for that matter, being the leader.

Speaker 6 (32:01):
Right and and you know so especially you know someone
like Zellett who is not the natural extrovert. Let's talk
about my feelings type of character, you know, And so
it struck me and I was like, Okay, this is
something I want to I want to applaud because it's
not easy when you've got to move the plot forward

(32:23):
and you've got all these different characters who have their
different motivations and different points of view. And you know, Brian,
especially with your your experience with team books, you know,
how do you grapple with that? You know? Knowing Okay,
I can't, you know, not everybody's going to get the
exact amount of speaking time, But how do I make

(32:43):
this balance so it feels natural and organic?

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Well? You, thank you. It's a it's an excellent question,
which there is a lot of answers, but I'll tell
you what what I'll focus on Kelly's work here because
what I noticed and I saw the same thing you said.
And we have all being have read a book where
a character like Harley just takes over or Deadpool just

(33:06):
like completely consumes all the air in the book or
other media. But in comics that can happen a lot.
It's sometimes a bit of a nervous writer energy that
comes with it, Like you know, you feel like you're
sitting on gold, you better throw as much of it
as you can. But here what I like to say,
so Dinah is the centerpiece of that.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
It's her.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
She's running the show, she's launching the mission. Her energy
is bringing it all together. So instead of having everyone
run to Harley's energy, it was everyone's gonna come to
Dinah's energy, right, and Diner's energy is we're gonna get
shit done. So almost like a like a Captain America vibe. Here, Yes,
we're going to talk about whatever you want to talk about,
but we're going to talk about the mission, and I'm

(33:50):
going to tell you why we're doing it. I'm going
to tell you what I'm worried about. I'm going to
tell you why we're going to fix it, and everyone's
gonna talk to me. So what it did was it
had the right have Harley meet her instead of Hardy
trying to even there's not even a scene where Harley
tries to take over, right, It's as closest we get
is the one I just showed you right where they

(34:11):
literally like cut her off. So it's like kind of
like kind of like And what I like about the
writing is that that happens in real life too, is
that there's there's often someone in the room who's kind
of like dictating the energy of the space, right, whether
it be a parent or a boss or just someone

(34:31):
in charge who's just gonna like, top down, set the table.
And you've heard a lot about like, you know, when
you're in a toxic work environment, it's usually top down.
When you're in a good work environment, it's usually top down.
Someone's bringing that energy to the space that's making everything
feel a different way. So Dinah's bringing her energy to

(34:52):
this saying I have a selfish reason for doing this,
this is what we need to do, and this is
how serious I'm taking it, and kind of every even
if they were inclined to goof around, don't, because our serious,
our serious friends seriously needs our help.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Well. And further, Harley, who is usually you know, the
random and the crazy one and the one that says
the inappropriate stuff. Oh it's sin, Oh it's a kid.
Well we you know, it's it's good that we have
kids like that because we need them to be women
like that very prescient for our current political landscape to
have a character says something like that.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, so so I did, I did, like and I
think that there's a lesson there to be learned, and
it's also a lesson you'll see in life as well,
is that, like you, you can control the narrative by
giving a character the desire the need to control the narrative, right,
and they could do it with power, not with ego. Right,

(35:54):
Diana's not bringing ego here, just a shit, we need
to get done. I need to get done well, I
will say. What's very interesting saying is having a team
with so many introverts is a daring choice because Batgirl also,
these are not characters that monologue, These are not characters
that share, so for them to even get into a point,

(36:16):
whether even sharing a little bit, seems monumental, like a
real moment. So when Batgirl turns to Diana a couple
of times during this piece and basically whispers how she's
feeling or what she needs, it's profound and well timed
and and and part of what I really really loved
about it, and a trap that many people could fall into,

(36:40):
of trap I have I've maybe fallen into. We have
too many goofy people on the team, like everyone's trying
to like it's like you're in the back of a
comedy club, and everyone's trying to outdo each other, right,
which is an energy that happens too, Like that's not
a bad energy either. It's it can be fun, but
it also could be like all right, all right or right.
So anyway, I admired this a great deale, So it's

(37:01):
really not only is it finding the balance, it's really
like finding out who's setting the table, so the balance
can start from somewhere.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
And there's new layers to characters tomorrow. When you speak,
I'm yeah, yeah, to get into the dynamic between Barta
and Cassandra Batgirl, because when I had Kelly on that's
the first thing that I told her. But another thing
that I find interesting is the makeup of the team,
not only with the introverts and the extroverts that are

(37:31):
in check, but also I step back, what rereading it
this time, and it's like, wait a minute, We've got
people going from Kirby's Fourth World to the Wild Storm
characters to Gotham Academy. So we literally have stuff from
like nineteen the beginning of the Bronze Age to yesterday
as far as the makeup of this team. And I

(37:51):
was not a big Wildstorm reader. I didn't know who
you know they were. I didn't realize that Meridian was
the kid from Gotham Academy. And it's like, holy ship,
look what she did. Look what Kelly did. Assembling the
team this way really amazing.

Speaker 6 (38:06):
Right, and John, let me just have one more thing
for the next person. Is everything is Brian said everything
you just said. I'm not confident we would have gotten
this result with a male writer, totally characters.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, yeah, I guess.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
For us.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
For the mostly dudes here there, you can genuinely feel
the energy of of of of experience and perspective that
that is not yours being presented to you, right, and
it's it's quite something.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Compare compare this caper to what Rucca and nic Nicola
are doing right now in uh In, in their book
right now with God damn it. Kids don't do this
much like they rather it's called yeah, yeah, but it's
such you know cheshure and helped me out, kis help
me on the chat.

Speaker 6 (39:03):
League.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah that's what it's called.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah, yeah, but that's what I mean. It's like. And again,
Greg and Nicholas certainly know what they're doing. Greg certainly
knows how to write great women's cootization, and not to
demean one or the other, but different five from Kel,
different five from Greg, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Absolutely so uh And and then Dylan, I'm in pow.
I'm dying to hear what you have to say. But
I also was curious if anybody in the economical dialogue
was lost in the continuity or vague and stuff, or

(39:37):
did it like did Big bart of land for anyone
who didn't know who she was or something like that.
I'm curious about that a little bit. Steve says a
little bit. Yeah, it's we're I'm I'm enamored by the
time that we're living in, both in comics and outside
of comics, where continuity is there. But let's not get

(40:00):
lost in it. Let's just let's just let's power forward.
And I'm I'm reminded. I literally was just writing some
powers back matter of how many dozens of long conversations
I was part of, while executives and publishers wrap their
heads around, well, how will they know who Superman is?

(40:21):
How they know where the superheroes came from?

Speaker 3 (40:24):
How will they know.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Like like like, as superheroes entered it's the medium outside
of comics, people were like worried that the audience wouldn't
catch up with it. And now we're today, just years later,
going yeah, it's Superman. He came to Yeah, don't worry
about it. GTT Gardner, you'll figure it out, like like
google it, don't google it. I don't give a shit.
And uh, that is surprising and shocking. And I'm curious

(40:50):
if it's not clever storytellers being overly clever, if we're
not pushing people away by not holding hands, I don't know.
I'm just I was curios if anyone felt that it
felt any disconnect to any of the characters.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Just just that initial appearance of like it was just
said in the Chad's Zealot and Meridian, that's a great one.
But yeah, and it's like, oh, okay, great. But Barta,
I mean, my god, it never occurred to me, even
though she's a new god to as I told Kelly,
and again, I didn't mean this in comparing it to
a male character, but there's a real Thor vibe. It's

(41:26):
kind of like Hulk meets Thor in one one character,
the way that Kellen is depicting Barta, especially that amazing
Wonder Woman fight scene with Barta in issue four. But
and again I just yeah, there's there's a real like
I said, there's a there's a legitimate thor, there's a
I should say Odin son Thorp, not Jane Thorp, and
Odin sun Thor to Barta's characterization in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
All Right, Dylan and Powell, you were already talking in
the chat. I'd love to hear your direct thoughts about this.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Hey, guys.

Speaker 7 (42:00):
Something I was gonna talk about first was just kind
of about Kenny Thompson's writing just across the board. I'm
a big fan of her, kind of before we had
done this book, i'd come in on her. Hawkeye Run
was the first one i'd read, and I think something
she does well that you know, Brian does really well,

(42:20):
you know, Matt Fraction, Chips at Arski, Tom Taylor is
take that light, bouncy, rhythmic dialogue and it's just a
pleasure to read. You know, you just really enjoy yourself
and you could be put into maybe the most let's say,
absurd situations that maybe doesn't work in other mediums, you
know when you see things translated into film or into books.

(42:41):
But I do think that's something special about comics that
you could be like, you could do something that you
try to describe it to your friend and they maybe
they don't read comics. I think that's ridiculous. But you're
you're reading it, you're having a good laugh, and you're
also just heavily invested in the characters. And I thought
Birds of Prey was a great example of that. Yeah,
I was really happy this is the book who chose

(43:01):
really enjoy.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, I was very charmed by it as well.
And you said neither of you were lost by the
lack of continuity or handholding.

Speaker 7 (43:10):
Yeah, Like in my case, I didn't know most of
the characters, but at the end of the book, like,
I want to read the other volumes because I'm really
invested and.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
I wasn't lost.

Speaker 7 (43:22):
And the way she introduced every character is like, oh, okay,
I understand who they are.

Speaker 8 (43:28):
So it was really nice.

Speaker 9 (43:29):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, subsequent arcs are amazing. It really is a great run.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
It's a it's a very run. It's a tight run.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
And but but Leonardo is not a big part of
the run going forward, and you can't feel it. I mean,
you do get really awesome artists, but the magic of
the creative team was, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
The makeup of the team changes as well. Vixen shows
up in a couple issues and uh yeah, no everything.
I mean, there's there's a great there's a great issue
coming up where they infiltrate a fashion show and and
it's so great and very very funny. And that's that's
what I mean. It's these it's these women trapping kind
of like settings and kel totally like tilts it on

(44:12):
their heads and everything, and it gives us something new.
And that's why I said, I'm like, I'm so sorry.
I don't mean to be such a guy, but it's
like that would have never occurred to me. And it
is one of the best is episodes issues of the run.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
It's a great issue, but it also is the other
side of Uh if if a guy writer would have
written that, it would have landed much differently.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, how dare her misogyny?

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Is very exceptional about it? Everything about it was well
drawn and well done. Anyway, all right, very cool, tam
or how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Great?

Speaker 10 (44:44):
H it's when you know you're just talking about Merrill's art.
The fight scene, which is phenomenal, but for me, something
I think as a kid I think most of fun.
We always like the fight scenes for punching, But for
me as an adult, I especially the last few years,
towards the character stuff, the little moment like even the

(45:05):
stuff that you could say are throwaway stuff, but they're
just so for me. Like my favorite scene, it's one.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Where Dinah and sin.

Speaker 10 (45:17):
Are talking and she asked kind of ask you a
questions like, sure, is it about Pokemon?

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Never mind, it's.

Speaker 10 (45:23):
Your favorite hilarious bits and for a fair right reasons One,
it's great character development. But also we were just talking
about Bendez, you were talking about being goofy characters and something.
I think it's been brought up a lot in recent years.
No shade in Marvel, but you know Marvel's movies, there's
something called Marvel dialogue where almost every line can go,

(45:47):
well that just happened, you know, which you know, totally fair.
It does get great for me. I definitely noticed it,
and it gets great for me. It's a fine line
how to do humor.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I think sometimes.

Speaker 10 (45:58):
Humor can deflate drama or the emotional moments. Absolutely, that's
a great emotional moment. It's almost like in the New
Superman film at the end, you know, the robot goes
maybe someday you give me a name. It goes well
for his name, so it's scary. James Gunnam was cut
it out because he thought, you know, it was little,
it silly, but no, it's actually great. It's funny, but

(46:21):
also it does relate the characters. It is an emotional scene.
So again I just love the emotional character relationships within
this first volume.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yeah, yeah, and again that's I felt that some of
that comes in the edit. You know, you find it
as you're going, you know what I mean, like those
moments and also finding out like a lot of your
writers you'll know what I'm talking about. There's that Jenga tower.
You're like, is this one too many?

Speaker 11 (46:48):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Like? If is this one bit? Is this it's all clever,
but one more makes it all not clever? Like there's
a very that's that spinal tap joke is the fine
line between stupid and clever? They're really if. The reason
people love that that line is because it's absolutely true.
It's absolutely true. So it's hard to know when like,

(47:10):
like particularly if the characters in a groove and you
mentioned as little inconsequential moments, I actually don't think they're inconsequential,
I think the most important moments, and that's why they're
so curated. That's why there's that's why they like at
the end of the day, you think of your comics,
your movies, your film, the stuff you remember first is
those moments, like you don't remember the big explosions. You

(47:31):
remember I remember that part where, right, like if you
go to like even Avengers Endgame about a lot of
people go to Tony hugging Peter in the middle of the
battlefield over the one hundred million dollars they're spending around
that to dazzle the pants off you, right, So it's
it's it's this constant for any any storyteller in any medium,

(47:55):
this constant battle of what's too clever, what's not clever enough?
Of what's like, what's what's the perfect amount of dialogue
to make this matter? And we've all experienced when something
is like is this scene still going Jesus Christ, and
you're like, yeah, because the scene the moment had happened,

(48:15):
and no, and they didn't cut. And then that could
be in film or in comics where like the scene
the scenes wrapped and I even had it where I've
like seen some of my own work from years ago,
and I'll like, see a scene and then I turned
the page. Oh it's still going, god damn like and
and that's something I carry with me as I try

(48:36):
to improve on my journey.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
When it's funny. Just a couple hours ago, as I
was going down an Instagram rabbit hole, they had a
deleted scene from the first Avengers movie with Harry Dean
Stanton and Marco when he's the maintenance man, and it's
a shame. I get why they cut it, but it
really informed Bruce Banner, Oh my god. And it's this

(48:58):
wonderful scene of him going are you you? Are you
a guy that gets bigger or a big guy that
gets small? And he's like any and really Banner is
lost and like, you know, I really don't know. And
it's such a shame because again it's a great moment,
but unfortunately we got to get back to the punching
and all the in the invasions. So I get it,
but it's a shame.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
One of the great joys of being part of the
creative committee is how many of those scenes I have
watched literally dozens of times, to the point where I
don't remember that scenes not in the movie anymore, Like
I've only seen it with that, Like I've seen a
version that toward the dark world no one will ever
see and I don't like When I saw it with
my kid, I went, oh, this is the movie, Like I.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
Saw a different movie completely.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
For me.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I've made this reference in classes before and I highly
recommend it. It's on YouTube if you want a chance
to take a look at the Mastery of knowing when
to cut is on the Bowfinger DVD extras. Frank Oz
has a bunch of deleted scenes. They have director's commentary
on the deleted scenes, and one of my favorite ones

(50:04):
is there's this You watch the deleted scene and it's
a perfect Steve Martin joke. It's perfectly written, it's perfectly executed,
and you want to go, why would they cut this? Like,
I literally why did they cut this joke? And then
you put on director's commentary literally to hear why is
this not good? And then like this is maybe the
funniest thing Steve Martin's written in ten years.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
It doesn't further the story. It's got to go and
I'm like, god.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Damn, just the real Like he goes he goes. I've
been through way too much stuff with the Uppets. I've
been way too much stuff with Star Wars. When when
you're working at a high level where everything costs money,
you go, it's gotta go. If it's not if it's
not moving it along, I don't care how much like
you go. I can throw it on the DVD. You'll
still get a laugh out of it. It hurt my heart.

(50:49):
I stayed up all night thinking about it. But at
the end of the day, if the story's not working,
if it's not helping the story, it's got to go.
So with comic writers, because it's page count and it's tight,
and it's twenty page, you can really hone those skills,
like me and some of my friends, and when we
get to work in other mediums, we're like, we know,
we've got some of our skills honed in a way

(51:11):
that just others don't. It's kind of like when improv
comedians make it to TV and you're like, oh, look,
you've got an extra set of skills. Comic book writers
can really break it down to you know, two lines
of dialogue, three lines of dialogue, you know, and some
of our favorite scenes are just that set up, punchline gone,
boom done you know so so yeah, work on it.

(51:35):
And sometimes I'll like do like a ten page, like
write all the jokes. Just get them out of your system,
don't don't let them, don't fight with them, pull pull
them out. Maybe one of them will work better than
you think. And then just edit it all.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
It all goes.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
I just edit all di smither reins all right, Steve,
how you doing great? Great comments? Comer, thank you, Hi, thank.

Speaker 8 (51:57):
You, really good time. Really really loved the book.

Speaker 12 (52:02):
I thought that the team has a lot of balance
with all the characters, and since it's a character driven
type of story, to balance all those characters from all
those different perspectives. There were times where I wasn't sure
that Diane excuse me, that that Dinah had the most
interesting point of view, and I was like, oh, that
was a big choice then to keep her as the
only internal narration that we heard throughout the book, as

(52:25):
opposed to jumping to different characters, and I thought it
paid off because emotionally, her point of view was the
most intriguing, whereas in my head I was kind of
jumping around. I think depending on you know, certain characters
reaction to that moment, I think that I'm super duper

(52:46):
impressed with how Kelly wrote everything because it's so tight,
like you said, like it's.

Speaker 8 (52:52):
Not too much dialogue or anything like that.

Speaker 12 (52:54):
Myself, I struggle with just writing three characters in eight
pages and five pages, and so when I think of
like team books, I'm always thinking, like every character and
to be a character driven, like how do you avoid
kind of kind of falling into this whirlwind of like
jumping back and forth and pulling in that and staying

(53:16):
balanced Because I think of, like you know, the bad books,
Every bad book to me is a team book because
even like in fractions right now, it's like there's out.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
There a family book at this point, yeah.

Speaker 12 (53:26):
Yeah, exactly, there's like two Robins, there's now Fred, there's
somebody else, and then there's the then there's.

Speaker 8 (53:32):
The other character that whoever they're opposing.

Speaker 12 (53:34):
So in my head, I always think the fewer characters
involved in a story, to me, the easier to write
because I can now limit the points of view and
the and what's driving the story.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
When you have so.

Speaker 12 (53:47):
Many, how do you keep each character kind of involved
and keep people involved and want to be intrigued.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Well again, just using the example that we see in
front of us, I will say that I think that
there's an argument that says having a bigger cast is
actually easier to write because there's someone there to represent everything,
Like there's there's someone there to make fun of it,
There's someone there to go.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
Guys, this isn't a joke.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
There's there's someone there to go the stakes are this high,
there's someone there to go here the anyone wants biscuits, like,
there's someone to bring across everything. Whereas when you're writing,
and I love both, when you're writing a single or
a duo, you've you've just got that's your you, just
that that's your point of view and your your narrator

(54:38):
can be someone we can rely on or someone we
can't rely on, right uh, and and that can be both.
Both versions are completely interesting. But like, my favorite thing
to do when you're having a like if it's a
one person or two person, is that down the line,
have someone else come in and show us how fucked
up the point of view we've been shown, is uh. Like,

(55:02):
that's one of my favorite things about a team like this,
where everyone's got kind of a shared history, kind of
the same age. I mean there's some there's some generational stuff,
but there's a there's a class here right with a
history and we just got to get to work. And
if you know it, great and if you want to
google barta great. But but there's just just you can

(55:22):
tell everyone's coming at it from a very specific point
of view. I think that's delightful. I think you should
really relish in that, right. It gives you a great
opportunity that they twelve angry men, there's there's someone at
the table with a different point of view. It's as
old ass uh.

Speaker 8 (55:38):
A storytelling really, so then do you so then do
you think that having the single internal monologue narration amongst
a team it book is like super crucial to keep.

Speaker 12 (55:51):
It through line, because do you think it's it would
have jumped around because like, there was an emotional moment
where Sin is talking to was the I can't pronounce Maghera,
where the thing that's supposed to the big bad is
talking to her and it feels like it was going
to be like an emotional Oh well, let's start seeing
everything from Sin's point of view and maybe she gets

(56:13):
the internal narration. She carries it to the end there's
this moment where I thought that there was gonna be
a ton toss, but it wasn't. And I don't think
that I'm not criticist. I think that the book it
works really great, but I just I can't help but
think of like, oh, in a team book, is there
when you do the double internal narration.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
When you know there's so many ways to do it,
but the narration needs to serve her purpose, and it's
to get information across, but also a point of view
on the information. It's like we're getting Dina's point of
view because it's her mission, right, Basically, it's her idea, right.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
So I saw this.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
I saw an Aaron Storkin play years ago called the
Frinsworth Experiment where there's a dual narration. There's Farnsworth who
invented television and then the and he hasn't and he's
literally talking to the audience the entire time. You can
you can download this and read it. It's really it's
a great Aaron Sorkin piece, and and Farnsworth is literally

(57:17):
pleading with the audience for their sympathy as he tells
the story. And then all of a sudden, the head
of r C A who's the man who stole television.
He starts talking to the audience and he's got his
own narration a very different point of view on how
this pardon I think so, but it was played by

(57:38):
Hank's area and and and and so we're getting two
narrations and then by the middle of the play, all
of a sudden, one of them should the other go
shut the fuck up, like, oh, you can hear each
other like ohh like and they and they start screaming
at each other, and then it turns into like just
the greatest kind of theatrical like two hand or just

(58:01):
like the narrators are fighting for dominance over the story, right,
And I remember I was with other writers and one
of them turns to me, goes, who's stealing this first?
Because it's perfect for comics. It's like a perfect idea
for comics. It's having one narrator coming in and all
of a sudden, and then we were reminded that like

(58:21):
it has been done before, like kind of Frank Miller
did it. And Dark Knight returns where Batman is the
narrator until Superman is the narrator, like Superman literally takes
over the book when he comes into it, right, And
so there's other versions like that as well. But and
so you should look at narration as this like tool
that is deceptive, and how many ways it could be implemented. Right.

(58:44):
It could be completely what you need. It can be
completely fucking with you. It could be it could be
you know, the last thing you need, Like, it could
be all of these things. And because comics are comics,
you can have other narrators take over. And I did
steal this idea for a book called Scarlett, where Scarlett
is literally talking to the audience, and then three issues later,

(59:05):
the person that's pursuing Scarlet turns to the audience like.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
And and and and and I wanted the.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
People go, well, I'm sorry, like like, just as you
get like lulled into whatever the vibe is, the vibe
decides for you.

Speaker 3 (59:19):
We're changing now, right.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
It's a trick. Some people love it, They get all
excited about it when you do this in comics, and
and some people get very like frustrated and feel unsafe.
I remember like Soda Birks the Informant. I remember reading
the reviews for that, where Matt Damon's character is the
most unreliable narrator, you've ever seen spoilers, because it takes
about an hour for you to go, wait, is Jason

(59:43):
Bourd fucking with us? Like it takes like an hour
for you to realize everything he just said is a lie. Right, writers,
go oh bravo, you ballsy. And I remember like a
lot of critics were not happy because you've like, don't
fuck with me, I'm here to watch your movie right
looking with me, And so you've got to be in
the mood to be fucked with, right or or the

(01:00:04):
trick's got to be so delightful that even the person
who's the most fucked with goes, all right, you got me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Ken usual suspects.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Absolutely, But that's that's the one where that pays off.
And you know, fock spaces that pays off because it
literally is you knew all of this, and now let
me put it all together for you, and you don't
feel stupid for me doing it. You know that that's
a trick as well. Okcept, all right, I know this

(01:00:33):
is I'm it's hard to talk about the many variables
of narration without feeling you're getting lost in the weeds
a little bit. But I think the trick is and
I've done this too. If you're looking for some Steve,
if you're looking for like ways to like work on
this is that I will and have done even recently.
I'll do a whole book with no narration, then I'll

(01:00:56):
do the whole book with narration. Then I'll do a
book with a different since the arras that we've never
met before. I like that as well, Like who's talking right,
just to see if you're getting what you want out
of it as a writer, Like if what you're trying
to express is being done again, Like I just showed this,
this panel, this page here fucking six words of dialogue

(01:01:20):
to literally describe it. The multiverses has completely fucked us, right,
that's incredible, that's incredible writing the economics of it. And
it wouldn't it be wrong to also spend three balloons
of dialogue to land that for people who don't know
what's happening. It's just it's completely up to the taste

(01:01:40):
of the creative team. So I would like, if you're
struggling with it, go go take it for spin. You've
heard me talk to you privately about like artists will
sketch all day, like I'll sketch this character fifty times
until I feel like I understand how their arms fit
in their clothes. Right, Right, get very worried if they're

(01:02:01):
doing a lot of drafts they think they're like, No,
think of them as word sketches. You're just taking them
out for a spin. You're just seeing how they sound, right,
You're just seeing what happens if this happens, what happens,
if that happens, how will they react? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
I always like, I come from crime writing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
So I'm always looking to throw my characters into the
space they least want to be in.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Right, That's one of the rules of crime fiction.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Right, So I'm always taking the shortcut to you don't
want to be here? Now, what are you're going to do?
And then we get to discover who, discover who we
are and who we are in relation to each other,
because not only are you discovering who the characters are
in relationship to each other, you're discovering who you are
in relation to them.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Yeah, that makes all the sense in the world.

Speaker 12 (01:02:44):
And you gave me advice earlier this week for writing
because I'll stuck on my pages, and you said, just
keep writing and don't worry about the page count.

Speaker 8 (01:02:50):
Yeah, it's helped tremendously.

Speaker 12 (01:02:52):
I finished my draft and now I'm just editing and
revising it down. So I do have to get back
to work soon. Everybody, if I jump off, I'm sorry,
this is I don't know what you need is I
don't have a little weekend time. So I know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
What was your issue? What was what was the you
I was?

Speaker 12 (01:03:11):
I kept coming, I kept getting down on myself while
I was writing because I kept pushing up against my
page count.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Yeah, yeah, that that was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
That was a great one. And I was like, you
don't worry, don't don't don't worry, just write, don't.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
You'll figure it out later.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
You'll you'll you'll figure out what needs to be there
and what doesn't need to be there. But when you
start putting up roadblocks in front of yourself, you're literally
creating roadblocks. I mean, there's no no, you're literally stopping
yourself from writing. There's no need to all right, Steve, Thanks,
those are both excellent good points. Steve by the way,
Steve by the way, both questions professional writer, seasoned writers

(01:03:46):
struggle with every day. It's the job. It never goes away.
There's no there's no one answer. That solves all of
these problems. There's just things that work, and writing into
it always works. And so I'm like, all right, So
let's what happens if it's all there? What if what
if Birds of Prey was all from the point of
Diana and we won't even hear the dialogue, it's just
what Diana thinks of the dialogue, all right? Or what

(01:04:08):
if it's all from Bart's point of view? What if
Bart is telling mister miracle the story of what just happened?
How would she she would she describe it? That sounds
pretty good, right, could be just as interesting, if not more,
if not less than what we saw. But that's not
the one. That's not what Kelly was looking for. Right,
So there's there's a million ways to do this. The

(01:04:28):
one that speaks to you is always the right answer.
The one that makes you smile, the one that makes
you like smirk while you're typing, that's the right answer.
It's just it is. You can you can second guess
at all you want. That's it, all right, Ethan. How
you doing, Hey, I'm doing all right? How are you
very good?

Speaker 11 (01:04:48):
One thing that I noticed, one thing that I really
enjoyed about this was we were talking about the characters individually,
especially in an ensemble book like this. Harley has always
been I've always liked the idea of Harley more than
I've liked Harley herself. And what I really enjoyed about
this is that, uh, she was often right and she

(01:05:10):
was competent, Like she was someone who's just really good
at her job. Like something had to get done, like
I got to get into you know, got to get
to the Amazons. I can do it. She's like, we
should go and do that, like I could do it.
Somebody mentioned in the chat just a little bit ago
that Diana kept saying, well, Harley's right, Yeah, she's right
about this. She's right about that, and she just became

(01:05:32):
from she was she is an agent of chaos, but
she also is she is competent, and that was my
That was one of the things that I really enjoyed
most about it, because I expect I expect that from
some of the other characters.

Speaker 8 (01:05:46):
I don't expect it.

Speaker 11 (01:05:49):
I don't expect her to have the best plan, I
have the best strategic mind, or have the chaos worked
the way she she intended to. So that was that
was one of my takeaways like I kept coming.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Down away from that a little bit too.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
And one of my favorite things about the team dynamic
of existing characters with the history is like, oh, there's
something about this dynamic that's.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
Making Harley not be Harley.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Like Harley's like kind of rising to the occasion of
where she is versus how she might behave It was like,
let's say like the Justice League, or it's like just
you know, I don't know, there's something about Barta and
like this is like, all right, I'm gonna be me,
but I don't know. I can also, you know, read
the room a little bit.

Speaker 11 (01:06:31):
This is a this is like a big kids table
she wants to be at.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Yeah. Yeah, even though she's.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
She's taken the mission like I said earlier, she's taken
the mission seriously, it's like, oh, oh, sins in trouble
and sins a kid. Well, I don't like kids in trouble,
and I don't like them being taken advantage of No
you got me, and Kelly circumvents expectations. The same thing
could be said about King Shark when King Shark shows
up and everything and I and no, I think, I
think like I said earlier, about bart.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
As well, and shark shows up in all Kelly's work.
I'm now, I'm fascinated by it that the shark. There's
a shark and the guy. That's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Yeah, And next time I talked to I got to
remind myself.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
Absolutely, Brian wants to know what's what did what happened
with you in a shark? Is this?

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
Where did the shark touch you? Yes?

Speaker 11 (01:07:21):
Indeed, And I'm sounds crazy, sorry, I'm not a DC
first kind of guy. And I knew Zelle by the
end of his run. I knew Zellot three issues in
like I knew exactly how she was made. I knew
how Barta was made, and I don't know anything about
Barta like. So it was really really nice to immediately
understand the essence of a character and learn more about

(01:07:43):
him as it goes.

Speaker 8 (01:07:44):
But it was it was really easy to follow it.

Speaker 11 (01:07:48):
It made sense when everybody the pieces fit together because
everyone so well defined, And that was I.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Also want to in that statement two things. Number one
is that that's also what Leonardo need some credit because
there's a lot of Kelly's allowed to be this economical
because the acting is spot fucking yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
And I've had that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
You were like, Oh, I don't have to oversell this.
It's it's you can healing this in her eyes. You
can see the pain, you can see you can see
all of storm Watch in her eyes. Right, And you're like, Yeah,
that's fantastic, that's that's you know. So a great that
Leonarda can do it, and great that Kelly can go. Oh,
I can be quiet now because it's it's it's I

(01:08:28):
don't need to say what's clearly being shown. So and
Ethan a perfect May I say perfect move over to
an show I happen to know does know a lot
about the history of the DC universe and those those
of stuff. So we get a very different point of
view here. And I was curious to what you have
to say and this book. Before you would, I saw

(01:08:51):
you were doing your homework online.

Speaker 13 (01:08:53):
Yeah, I bought the floppies at a point, so so yeah,
I'm an old school Birds Prey fan. One of the
things I'll say, and it's been mentioned before dozens of time,
is that you know, the dialogue is very economical, but
clearly you know who is speaking what This is not
Gardener Fox's Justice League, Right, you can't pull one word

(01:09:14):
balloon out and put it next to another person and
say like, oh, they would say that, right, So so
I thought.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
That was great.

Speaker 13 (01:09:19):
I thought Batgirl being the one that said we need
Harley because something is missing and she's going to bring
something I thought was brilliant because she's like the most
regimented and she said we need some of this, which
I thought was great. But my question really is, like
again I say, I'm an old school Birds of Prey person,
and for me, that means I'm going to get Black Canary,
I'm going to get Barbara Gordon, and I'm going to
get the Huntress and I got one, and then you

(01:09:44):
get all these other people around it. And then of
course at the end of the storyline we find out
why Barbara Gordon couldn't be around you. You've shown that page.
I guess my question to you is, and like maybe
you can talk about New Avengers as part of it
is that, like you get a team name, you expect
certain people to be on that team that's going to
bring the fans. Now, I'm not going to give you
all of those things. I'm going to give you some

(01:10:05):
of them, and I'm going to bring in other people.
Is that a hard sell for editors or the company?

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
Depends on the book, depends on the company, depends on
the time, depends on the era. It depends on what's
going on in the shared universe of ideas. I've I've
experienced so many different versions of it where like everyone
you want is available, And when I say available, it's
not like some other writers got them, but available in

(01:10:32):
the continuity. Like there's been times where I want to
use well Thor died, Okay, Well I can't use Thor today. Well,
it's thora coming back to life in the next six months,
Like should I wait for Thor to come back? Like
these are ideas that can come by, So it's a
middle of anything. Even like the origins of New Avengers.

(01:10:52):
I pitched Spider Man and Wolverine, Like, why is this
spider Man and Wolverine the Avenger. I get the book
and then I say, hey, how about Louke Cage and
Spider Woman. They say, you said Wolverine and Spider Man,
Like this is a pretty famous conversation I had with
Dan Buckley, and he goes, as long as Spider Man
and Wolverine's there, I'll give a shit what you do

(01:11:12):
with the rest of it. And then I took that
as oh, I will not prove that Luke Cage is
a better fit for Avengers than Wolverine. Like that's my
job as a writer to prove it in story, right, Yeah,
and so, and I'll never know if I was successful
other than the fact that when Luke Casey's In two debut,
it broke Netflix, and I took that as a personal win.

(01:11:34):
So even though I have nothing to do with that show.
But so, it is what I always look at it
is I get very zen about it personally, and I
give that advice to other writers who get anxious about
their team and who's on it and who they have
access to and what they're wearing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
And I'm like, it's just like real life.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
Sometimes some of your friends are available and some times
they're busy, and like it's just like you just look
at it and use and just like real life, use
what you have to get the job done, right, And
if it's not enough good, that's the story. And if
it's too much good, that's the story. Like there's there's
there's something to be had in any version of it, right, So,

(01:12:19):
and and like even when I was doing stuff at DC,
Like I would be like, oh, can I use Batman? Well,
you can use Batman, and Batman's in seventy five books,
so you can argue Batman could used, so it would
be fun, Like you can use Batman, but Robin's busy, Like, well,
how is Robin busy? Like like so there would be

(01:12:41):
those conversations go back and forth, and sometimes with little
the littlest characters, you can't believe anyone's even fighting over it,
like eight Ball or something like like who like like
like we have to have a bunch of emails about
eight Ball, like it's a you know, and then some
days nobody cares. So it's it's I honestly, I always
took it as, oh, it's my job to prove that

(01:13:03):
this is the way it should be, or this is
what's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
When you sell leaves real fast, when Zella leaves the
team after this arc, I'm really bummed because I listen,
I didn't read Wildstorm. I didn't give a damn about Wildstorm,
but I really like sell it in the story, and
it's like, oh, she's not in the team anymore. Yeah,
but Vix is it? You know, it's nice, but you know,
I kind of like.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Well, I just I did assume she was coming back
eventually the way it was set up, I'm like, we're
getting we're getting the big return, We're getting the hand Sello.

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
She's going to come in at the end and star.

Speaker 13 (01:13:32):
So all right, I'll just say and then I'll pass
it on that. You know, I read Birds of Prey
because I love the Huntress. I picked this up because
of the title. I said, I don't even know if
I'm going to stick with this book. It doesn't have
the character that I want. And then this book just
sings right, So I think you're exactly right. You know,
it's like the recipe can be a little bit different
as long as the story is strong and clearly it
was her.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Well to me ask you the opposite question because someone
who has an abundance of continuity knowledge and you were
very helpful to me in my time at DC. UH,
was there anything that threw you in the other direction?

Speaker 13 (01:14:04):
We're like, yeah, yeah, I mean I didn't know Zello,
so I had to learn about that. I thought that
Harley's voice was like perfect. I think the one thing
that I struggled with was you're not going to tell
wonder woman, like, really, I think you could probably ask
Wonder Woman and they would probably be some sort of understanding.

(01:14:24):
And then they they and then the best thing about
it was that I was like, why aren't they just
asking one? And then it's immediately answered, here's why I'm
not asking Wonder Woman.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
And I still sort of stroke my chin.

Speaker 13 (01:14:34):
A little bit and said, like, I think Dinah would
feel pretty comfortable asking Diana that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
I wondered that too.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
I wondered if I had missed something in their relationship,
the like, oh, maybe they're not that close. Maybe this
is uh a step above like I just assume you're
in the like with the Avengers, I'm like, oh, you're
an Avenger. Listen, I need help, okay, And then if
I can't, I'll let you know why. But I'm my
my initial instinct is we're on the same team. We've
got little we've got matching cards. Let's uh, let's help

(01:15:01):
each other. Right. So that's that that is interesting, I
will say before I forget and I and I I
won't curious if anyone else and pretty of you and
had had this issue. Is someone had pointed out I
guess during the Snyder verse stuff that there was a
bummer that the Amazons were being treated like Ninja's, Like

(01:15:24):
there's a million of them and you can beat the
ship out of them and they never win, and they're
but they're a good fight like it's good visuals, less
stuff swinging around. But these characters that we've heard over
and over again have trained for nothing but more their
entire time, no matter who shows up, beats the ship
out of them, and they're little little cannon fodderish, which

(01:15:45):
is not what I ever saw them as, but you
over and over again in the Snyder movies, they're they're
they're cannon fodder even in the Justice League stuff. And
then and then here too a little bit, and I wondered,
like that was the one thing I go by. I
did that is not how I would handle this? What
did you think? And am I amazing?

Speaker 5 (01:16:06):
You know?

Speaker 13 (01:16:08):
I think somewhere late in the story, I think they
say that mcgara had some sort of like effect on
the Amazons in general because she was loose, and so
I just sort of said, they're probably just not in
like their right mind. There's no reason that Harley Quinn
should be able to beat an Amazon in my mind,
although she does bring KOs obviously, and so I just
kind of said, like, I bet they're all like slightly

(01:16:28):
confused because there's this demon on the island. So I'm
just going to put that aside.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Okay, fair enough, all right, JJ, Hello, doing good, Doing good.

Speaker 9 (01:16:40):
I want to talk about the artist change in Birds
of Prey. Now I was not so much taken out
of it, but I was surprised that it continues straight
on instead of jumping out for a flashback or doing something,
which Absolutely Wonder Woman they kind of do, and a
lot of other things. So I guess my question was,

(01:17:01):
in the plotting of things, do you see artists change
upcoming and.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
You plan for it?

Speaker 9 (01:17:07):
Is it just this artist is off and you plow
through keeping everything the same?

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
Like how does that work?

Speaker 3 (01:17:13):
Say again? Say it again?

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 9 (01:17:15):
So, like in Birds of this one, the artist change
happens and the story just continues exactly where it left off,
like nothing has changed. But in both Absolute Wonder Woman
and Batman, when there's an artist change, they do a
flashback and they pull out of the original story and
they go to a b story or a side character story,
or they do something to kind of signal this change

(01:17:36):
in art style. But in Birds of Prayered they don't
do that. So I was just tossing up, where does
that decision made?

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
Are you plotting this out? And yeah, has it?

Speaker 12 (01:17:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
I don't know that. I would ask Kelly that next
time that happened, like what what what happened here? I
feel like Leonardo is just not a monthly guy. It
seems happened to our guy. Were literally at four four
in them, and then it seem like there's there's a
handful of of artists that are just at this level
of play. They're just not monthly and they're like like

(01:18:07):
six weeks in issue book. So you can start, you
get like four out of them in six months, and
then you got to tap in. I have had both
experiences or sometimes life just happens. Oh no, broke my foot,
can't draw next issue? Sorry, you know, Oh I got COVID. Sorry,

(01:18:27):
Like that, just one hundred percent happens and you have
to pivot and try harder. The only thing that's very different,
I'm sorry, I ronic I did want.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
To talk to is.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
That it's it's it's very unique to comics that an
artist comes in and it does look like an entire
different cast of characters has taken over the roles of
the of the movie you're watching. Right, it was almost
like you're watching Friends, and all of a sudden they
cut back to commercial and six completely different actors are
in the roles and you're like, okay, hold on, give

(01:19:03):
me a second. It just it does pull you out
and then pull you back in. So I'm I'm of
two minds, but at the same time, some I've just
I've been there. It is inevitable and you can't help it.
It's it's a monthly train that leaves the station, and
it's got to be what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
I have.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Been in a position where I could not plan ahead
of time and just have to deal with what's in
front of me. And I've also had the great joy
of going listen, Issue five is gonna be someone else
plan right, And so I'm going, oh, what can I
do with that? Right? And you've all seen me on
certain projects go oh good, I've got Marcos Martin for

(01:19:42):
seven pages. I'm going to do something like I'm going
to make a meal out of it, right, and and
or the Dotson's or something like. These are these are
all great versions of it. So we can plan ahead.
You can really start like arranging the narrative to support
the multiple artists. Right. I did it a very heavily
on Legion of Superheroes because I was I was, I

(01:20:03):
was desperate to keep rying on the book for as
long as humanly possible. Also, Legion, and I mean no
disrespect to any previous runs, has a history of starting
very strong and tapering right, not tapering into garbage or
tapering in the day. But like, oh, you're not Keith Giffen.
What happened right? Like that happened? Or you're not? This

(01:20:24):
started with Adam Hughes. What what where are we now?

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
Uh? So I just I just you know what, I
want to feel like they're getting less than what they
signed up for, and you want to make it feel
like you're getting. Oh you're getting a little more than
you're signed up for, right, So that that would be
an opportunity for me. And if I knew, oh, this
artist can't finish and you got seven pages, well what's
an artist? They can never hand in a monthly book,

(01:20:48):
but they could get in seven pages. Oh Michael Golden,
Oh p COREGT. Russell like like like like that's when
you start swinging for the fence and see who else
you can get your hands on. And my my legion
of supers filled with that because I was like, all right.
And also it's good because you go, oh, different planets,
different artists, Like you can really start setting up with, oh,
this artist is going to be on Krypton and this

(01:21:09):
artist is going to be on Earth. You can set
it up differently. This artist represents all things Batman, well,
this artist represents all things plastic Man. Like, you can
do it that way as well, but that involves an
enormous amount of pre planning, most of which falls on
deaf eyes of the audience. They're just like, you.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
Know, give me the story.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
But the people who do really see, oh I see
what you did there, it can get really special. Like again,
not everyone's going to see the magic trick, but when
they do and they come to you at.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
A show and go, hey, that was really cool when Blah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
Blah blah showed it, Like when Mark Badley took over
in Jessica Jones, Right, yeah, that was like and it
looks like, oh, that's what that comic book would have
looked like.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
Right, So this film like a deadline thing. They really
did feel like a deadline thing that you know. And
then again, I Kelly might have even said that to
me when we talked about Bird, but I mean, because
it is so different the the art style really, but
it's still that story. You know, We're still focused on
the caper, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
Yeah, and and and yeah. Again, there's so many variables
to this. I hate the thing. But if you look
at the second arch of Birds of Prey, it is
literally like, I'm not getting Leonardo back, but here's six
different artists each doing a chapter. And that could be
very That's a very economical and powerful way to like
just settle that in Like you're not getting Leonardo, but

(01:22:28):
look look at it. Look who you're getting instead, all
of these people.

Speaker 3 (01:22:32):
That's pretty cool. So all right, all right, a good question.
Did I answer it correctly?

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
There is more there that's it to be continued as well.
There's so many variables to that. All right, Mark, how
you feeling a feeling great? I have?

Speaker 14 (01:22:48):
I guess it's probably you know, uh, comic books are
not my my miliu, but it's a playwright, Brent.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
All right.

Speaker 14 (01:22:59):
Yeah, but there was something that struck me in the
script that we were given to look at and when
I was reading the first issue that I it just
really struck me. And part of it is Leonardo is
such a great visual storyteller. There's this four page part
where Cassie is talking about fighting Harley, and I found

(01:23:24):
myself reading that four pages and I was completely understanding
what she was the story she was telling, and then
we get this joke where she's not a good storyteller,
and I almost wished that they had that Leonardo had
done something a little more chaotic, or like something in

(01:23:48):
the realm of those double page spreads or something like that,
where I mean, I guess that's you know, kind of
lightly critical, but I hate to do that. But some way,
it's a book club where allowed to be critical. I
just yeah, it just happened to be a good book,
you know, right, Yeah, No, I and I love the book.
I mean, this was just like this more pages where

(01:24:09):
I was like, is this a missed opportunity? And it
was when I was looking at the script, I was like,
it could tell that Kelly was was sort of chewing
over what that sequence should be, and I almost felt
like it should be something where I kind of wanted
to read those four pages and then have the other
characters be like you are not a good storyteller and

(01:24:30):
have to go back and go like, Okay, what what
actually happened here?

Speaker 15 (01:24:33):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
I guess like, yeah, that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
It was that the art supported the disjointedness of the
description of what Cassie's trying to do absolutely.

Speaker 14 (01:24:43):
Because as it was, I felt like the art was
so very clear about what was happening there that it
really was just like, uh, you know, okay, so there's
a couple there's not very many you know, narrative balloons
because that's the point where Cassie is actually narrating. And
I just I thought that was interesting. I don't know

(01:25:05):
if you had any thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
It didn't ring bad.

Speaker 3 (01:25:07):
To me, and I can hear you completely. I thought it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
Read exactly how they wanted to play out, like they're
there one hundred percent is a bigger version of that
of that gag. But I thought maybe the gag was
we're not going that big with it like that, It's
not like the punchline is not obvious, because if that
makes sense, sure, yeah, yeah, the punchline coming because you're like, oh, wait,
was this a bullshit story?

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
Like like, I don't know, it just either way.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
I honestly, Mark, no kidding, I slightly felt like, well,
it read fine to me, so I don't know what
they're complaining about. But again, you know, but and also
maybe it was more important for us as readers to
understand why Cassie was advocating so much for Harley at
that moment. And so that's that's how I took it
to explain to me why the art wasn't more chaotic.

Speaker 14 (01:25:58):
Yeah, I guess I just I thought it would be
fun to oh, yeah, to have the to for her
to say she almost beat me, and everybody go, oh wait,
flip flip flip, go back, you know. I mean, we
have this wonderful medium where you can go back and
forth and relook at things.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:26:16):
I I.

Speaker 14 (01:26:18):
That's that was just the thought I had after reading
the script.

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
Quite actually, all right, well, now I'm going to tell
you the real writer's secret. You probably know it already.
You're talking to yourself about the project you're working on
right now, something you're cooking right now. That that's the
answer is for you to exactly what you just said.
So to see what that is. It takes me weeks
to get.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
Through on my own.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
So I just I just let you skip.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
To the to the realization, Mark, is, are any of
the plays running in any other cities right now? No?
Not right now?

Speaker 14 (01:26:50):
Okay, I hope, I hope sometime soon, certainly, but nothing,
nothing yet.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
Okay, Okay, We're going to do a roundtable again the
sub sentence as well for the audience, not only the
group here, but also for the word Balloon audience that
Mark and I and Crystal Skillman and another friend of
Marx who are all comic book playwrights are going to
join me for a round table and talk about, you know,
translating this for the stage Onward Balloon. Yeah, we're gonna
do it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
Wait, I would like to hear that he's listen, you
got it?

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
All right, Travis, how you doing?

Speaker 16 (01:27:24):
Hey, I'm good. I loved the book and I am
just glad we did this one, and I just kind
of had like a more kind of interesting observation just
about just the whole kind of team and how it
was kind of put together, like for me, like I
don't know, after you know, the Avengers endgame, like all

(01:27:46):
the ladies like getting together and like fighting, I kind
of was like, all right, like why are like is
that like too cheesy? Like why are all these women
together fighting other than just to kind of like show
off that, like you know, the kind of like obvious reason.
But for me, I thought it was super interesting that

(01:28:10):
they had a reason, and it was because men can't
go to.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
Wonder Woman's Island.

Speaker 16 (01:28:16):
And I thought that like because of that, Like I
feel like Kelly probably saw like that, like maybe somebody
would bring this problem up. And I feel like a
lot of the like plot problems that could have like
come up she anticipated in like a such a clever
way and was able to like head off this like

(01:28:39):
you know, annoying like kind of snyderbro criticism or whatever
by like having these super clever, you know, plat tricks
Like oh yeah, like that's why this is the team,
Like even though like later it kind of evolves and
becomes different people or whatever. Starting off the series kind
of like this has to be an all women team

(01:29:02):
because we're going to wonder Women's Island, I thought was
just genius.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
I say, I didn't even trip on that even for
a second. And I know what you're talking about. The
The A the A team on Endgame has that moment
of like is this fan service, or is this a
moment that's happening right versus this book here where I
was just like I never got past Diana picked the
best people for the gig, Right, It's just I never

(01:29:27):
that's all I saw. Yeah, I mean I didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
I didn't see it either.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
I just like I just kind of mentioned it, never thinking.

Speaker 16 (01:29:34):
About it as a way that like maybe there was
like this kind of anticipation from the writer's perspective of
these kind of haters to like preempt that by having that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:47):
But maybe maybe I'm off. I know, I say the
best way to print prevent haters to just ignore them
and do whatever the fuck you want and don't worry
about them. And they're they're gonna find whatever they're gonna find.
I just I don't I I would ask Kelly. I
bet she didn't give it a second thought other than
Birds of Prey. I'm gonna pick the best birds of
Prey I can get my hands on.

Speaker 1 (01:30:07):
And Travis, I'm glad you mentioned Endgame in that scene
because honestly, for me, it was an eye rolling moment.
I'll absolutely admit that, because they are all capable and
it was like, hey, look, and it's like No, they're
there because they are good. You don't have to go
that hard. But also it's a general audience, so I
accepted it. And my good friend who's a newscaster is like,

(01:30:27):
my daughter and wife will disagree with you because their
fists were in the air and like, you're damn right,
you know, get out of the way. And that's great,
but no, that is what makes this better because it's like, no,
these are the best people for this job. And also Dinah,
I like the shift as I think I forget who
earlier was saying that we expect and the expectation that

(01:30:48):
it's gonna be Barbara's point of view as leader for
the birds of Prey, and it was nice to see
Dinah in the lead like this.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
So Veronica, I didn't want to ask you thank you for,
thank you for.

Speaker 16 (01:31:00):
I mean, I'm not trying to, like you know.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
You know, it's it's a it's a it's an issue.
And also I think I really part of the excitement
of having so much story in our culture right now,
and we're at a very high rate of story in
all mediums, so much stories being told that our foots
on the gas on certain things and pushing past certain

(01:31:23):
tropes and pushing past certain expectations. We're just we're just
we're just barreling past them in in a way. And
watching my kids not even know that some of these
tropes even existed because they are not seeing them is
kind of cool, right, So so you know, so that's
where we are. It's going, all right, Peter, you're going
to wrap us up. We went and now Veronica is

(01:31:45):
going to wrap us up.

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
I was going to say stuff to say, absolutely, Peter.

Speaker 3 (01:31:49):
Peter, what you got?

Speaker 17 (01:31:51):
Yeah, first of all, thank you for doing this. I
know that Mark's another one of the word blooing guys.
I think most of the folks here are your peeps, Brian,
but uh always always a wonderful conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:32:03):
So al timour are one of us as well. Pete,
we got we got our Pete. We're well represented by
all right, good.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
We have a whole other audience that listen, Dave that
we have so many sort of like can't come tonight,
can't wait to listen. So you know, yeah, we're providing
a service to the larger community.

Speaker 1 (01:32:21):
Beautiful. I love the merger here.

Speaker 17 (01:32:22):
It's kind of like the birds of Prey, the teams
coming together Soman.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
That's right.

Speaker 17 (01:32:28):
So my quick question was you hit on the Jordy
element of this And I think you know, even after
all this discussion, the takeaway for me is this coloring.
It's it's amazing and definitely was for me the highlight
of the book. What do you think about the choices
that she made it? It definitely made it feel like

(01:32:49):
a retro you know, is that kind of the aim here?
Because in the trade I have, it's intentionally not glossy
pages like it definitely preserves kind of what was going
on here.

Speaker 3 (01:33:03):
So what do you guys think?

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
I mean, it's I didn't feel that it was retro frankly,
but but that's a fair observation on your part. Sure
you know, we all our hits as differently, but it didn't.
It did feel retro to me. What about you, Brett? I?

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
You know I have I tend to work with these
colorists that are literally looking for the edges of what's acceptable,
like knowing full well, like like literally anyone with clip
Studio can color in the comic book page half decent.
What do I have to say with my palette? What
do I have to say with my rendering that no

(01:33:40):
one else can do, and I happen to know that
that is where she lives, where Hollingsworth lives, where Dave
Stewart lives, Nick Filardi, where it's like, well, what happens
if I make the background all ready here? Like look
like the background is red, right, Like there's a there's
some swings going on here. And not only there's swings,

(01:34:01):
but you're not lost in the storytelling as well. So
I think this is all very purposeful. I think that
there are a few different attempts at things going on here.
Some of this is there's some drafts going on, like
what if it's blue, what if it's purple? What like?

Speaker 3 (01:34:19):
Like like what if I do this?

Speaker 2 (01:34:21):
The choice, all the choices on Diana and Harley, particularly
the key light, which is the light that hits the
side of the face. There's a way that that gets
done in comics. And then there's this right, and this
is so unique to Jordy that like, the only thing
I'll say negative is that it does pull me out

(01:34:42):
of a comic book for a second, because I get
lost in the craft and I can't tell it's because
I know them or because I'm so always thinking about it.
Then when I see something different. I immediately like, stop what
I'm doing, stop breathing. Look, look, look, look at the choice.
But when you see storytelling like this, that is a
double paid spread, that is really like seven or eight

(01:35:04):
panels being spread out across the thing. Yep, that the
choice here is no go look at all of it,
look at it, take it in, bathe in it, like, look,
really take it. So I I I tend to not
see this as retro at all. I see this as
not to disagree massively future forward, like like like here's

(01:35:27):
where all comics might look like in a few years, right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
Well, And also that that tearing down of the borders,
it's a great example of that and everything and I
and I get and and and it's funny because I
kind of see that moment at the same time, kind
of a Kirby thing that would break panels and everything
in great action moments, but in a very modern sense.
And yeah, like I said, I really liked earlier regarding
Jordie's colors, that different flashbacks had different palettes as well.

Speaker 2 (01:35:57):
Also, go compare this to anything else Jordie does. Go
look at our Legion book with the choices she made
with Ryan versus the.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
Choices she makes with Leonardo. Boy, that's impressive.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
It's just it's just super impressive. Even if there's a
thing here or there where I went and I don't
know if I would have done that, I'm like, yeah,
I don't think I can do any of this, So
like this is someone working on the higher level, and
I'm I'm I'll just share it because it's on my mind.
I just I just posted it on my Instagram that
I just got the Roger Deakins book on Cinematography in

(01:36:28):
the mail. He wrote a book, and you open the book,
it's freaking incredible. It's an incredible book. Like literally, like,
here's why I did the Big Lebowski. Here are the
choices I made. Here's the lighting rig I use, Like, here,
here are kids you want to light like Big Lebowski.
Here's the here's the lighting rig.

Speaker 3 (01:36:45):
Exactly right.

Speaker 2 (01:36:46):
It's an incredible document and it's filled with Yeah. I like,
here's Skyfall, and I would put Skyfall like this, like, oh,
this is way better lit than it needs to be.
This color palette is much much more scrumptious than then
the story might be asking for it to be. But
yet I don't want to see it in any other way. Right,

(01:37:07):
So that's how I see when I see good coloring
like this, I see when I see inventive cinematography. I
see a bold choice being made. Nice. Yeah, and I
and I have to, I have to. Yeah, it's it's
a different person, it's a different palette.

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
So anyway, thank you for having it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:37:25):
Oh I love this might so anyway, so I I
I would study Jordi at great on all projects, at
great length.

Speaker 3 (01:37:35):
I think there's a lot to learn from it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
And also as another reason Kelly, you can lightening up
on the dialogue is because you're going to say anything
more gorgeous than what I just showed you. Yep. And
it's very fun to like back the fuck off when
everyone's done their job extremely well.

Speaker 1 (01:37:52):
Rereading this made me realize again, got to have more
color of sun and especially get Jordy on work.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Yes, and I'll tell you should have Marta Garcia on.
That's someone who haven't mentioned. And I show when I'm teaching,
I'll show like a random issue of X Men that
I did with Stuart Wade and Marda And it's it's
at every step of the way, you're like, well, that's
someone at the at the top of their game. That's
someone that's someone just wailing, you know. So it's yeah,

(01:38:18):
absolutely some of these hollers with is a really interesting
dude too. He lived in Portland a long time, so
I know that guy should should have him on follow
follow him.

Speaker 3 (01:38:28):
On the on the hook up.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
All right, Veronica, So I I must say I have
it's hard to like, uh, keep the conversation going. And
also notice that the chat is on fire, so.

Speaker 1 (01:38:44):
Uh, everybody's been amazing with the comments. And again real fast.
This is why the audio audience needs to check out
the video as well, because people that didn't raise their
hand are making wonderful points in the chat.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
Yeah there's something and some of them are by Veronica.
And I was wondering if you felt like you want
anything here that you wanted to share in the chat
comments that we didn't bring up directly in this conversation.
Sorry to put you on the spot, but you did
write a bunch of coul shit, So I don't feel.

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
Like I'm totally id.

Speaker 5 (01:39:14):
I did write a lot of I was. I'm better
at commenting than I amn't speaking.

Speaker 2 (01:39:19):
Which is that's fine too.

Speaker 5 (01:39:20):
I'm sure everybody on the internet says that, let me see,
I think I was just a lot of it was
saying that I it became very apparent that like she's
a really good leader, like Diana is a great leader
in the same way that like early like the Avengers,

(01:39:41):
like Spider Woman like leader. It was great like you know,
pre being a scroll kind of stuff, like like or
like the way that maybe people who aren't familiar with
Fantastic Four and watch the movie were like, oh, Sue
Storm is the ship, Like I get it now, I
get that she's actually like the most powerful person in
the room.

Speaker 11 (01:40:01):
Ye.

Speaker 5 (01:40:01):
And I really like this this evolution of somebody who
was like part of an eighties and nineties Justice League,
and like if I had to reach for the closest
comic book, like I literally just did. I was like,
what's the closest comic book right now that has Black
Harry in it? And it's it's this one, And like
there's an evolution of that, but it's not one that

(01:40:21):
makes her that's more of a side character or anything
like that. It makes it's not what that makes our victim.
And like with all the guy stuff that goes on
and not to get too heavily into that, but like
it's one that she comes out of and she becomes
the leader of a kick ass team and her relationship
with Arrow makes sense, and like she she's somebody who yeah,

(01:40:44):
like really comes out in the beginning as like, hey,
we have a mission. This is why it's important. These
are the people who I want to be involved, even
though some of them scared the shit out of me.
They're they're the ones who if if I'm trying to
save the most important person in the entire world to me,

(01:41:05):
these are the people that I would go to. And
it's not that they're all women. It's just that, like
I'm sure you know, She's like, I don't need Batman
or Superman to like come help me save my sister.
I need these people that I trust and I think
are the strongest at what the mission is, and the
mission is saving our sister. Like saving my.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
Sister, I these these aren't equally equatable. But like there's
a lesson that Kelly Sue Daconic taught me when we
all saw wonder Woman together, the movie Wonder Woman, we
walked out of there. She has now publicly said she
fucking hated that movie and it's kept it chill for
a while because everyone was having a moment with it,
you know, want to be like you know, you know, yuck,

(01:41:46):
and people's young. But there was a moment in the
movie that drove her insane and she shared it with me.
The changed me as a writer, and it was she goes, dude,
when Wonder Woman comes to man's world, she shouldn't even
notice the dudes, like like they she doesn't know what
they are. They serve no purpose in her. In her mindset,

(01:42:07):
she would walk up to the women and ask them
for like like for information and help and guidance and that.
And immediately she goes to try to try to change
on clothes and she's like ignoring the women like everyone
else is. I'm like, no, that's not what she would do.
She would ignore the dudes. And I was like, it's
a it's a story perspective thing that gets lost. And

(01:42:29):
she was frustrated that a female director had leaned.

Speaker 1 (01:42:33):
Into missed opportunity too, especially given that it was sent
in that World War One era. When I agree, are
you women getting to vote? And that Diana would what
Diana would have that perspective? No good call.

Speaker 2 (01:42:46):
Yeah, And once you see it, you can't unsee it.
I can't go into a script without not not just
on that note, but going reminding myself. Character walked into
the room, What do they see from there? What do
they want you perspective? Yeah, basically that brought them to
this room? When they walk in, what do they see?

(01:43:09):
And it could be walking room. There's twenty people there
in a cookie. I'm starving. All I see is the cookie, right,
like like what it could be anything. It doesn't have
to be about like guys and girls and right, it's
about it's about what does that character need, what does
that character see?

Speaker 3 (01:43:23):
What are they bringing into it?

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
Not what does the writer want them to do with
the moment, but what has brought them to this space?
So I just sorry. And I saw the same thing
here in this choice in that Diana picked a bunch
of people that would get her sister safe and this
is the best mission to do that thing. That's that's why,
that's why I saw an extension of what Kelly Sue

(01:43:45):
had had had said. It is like, this is what
she needs and this is what she sees totally.

Speaker 5 (01:43:50):
And there are people who have skills that she doesn't
and did scare her and that like she would never
really like it's not the team that she would put
together for maybe another mission, another miss that's not saving
the most important person to her, like heart, the closest
person of her heart right, Like it's the person who
she's the most protective over. But it could be a

(01:44:13):
different team entirely for a different mission. But this is
the mission, and they all understand that they're all like
a kid's in trouble, the girl's in trouble, like let's go.
And I think as a narrator, she's a great choice.
She speaks very like we talked about the economy of
the language, and she speaks very deliberately as like a

(01:44:37):
narrative voice. It's always something that builds her character. And
it's something that like in that issue where she keeps
agreeing with everything that's Harley saying out loud, you're realizing, like, Okay,
Harley is there, and Harley has no internal monologue. She's
just outer monologue all the time. And it's a noting
that Diana is is the opposite she is. She only

(01:45:04):
says what she needs to a lot of the time,
and then the more personal stuff she's she's got talked away,
and it's I think that that was what Harley was
there for, to kind of be like, these are the
moments that need need to be spoken aloud, but that
emotionally Dina's not going to like, but she's going to

(01:45:25):
agree with them.

Speaker 2 (01:45:27):
Veronica, I literally had that note from the chat up
for me. I was going to ask you the where
you say, Diana kept saying, Harley is right. I agree
with Harley like that that it was an excellent note.
So thank you for going right there without me having
to prompt it. That was right on the money, because
it is it is, and and the writers in the
room like you. You you've experienced this with your friends.

(01:45:50):
Certain friends in your life bring different strengths and energies
to you, Like I don't have to say this because
I know they're going to right.

Speaker 3 (01:45:59):
I don't want to say it. I want her to
say it right.

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
These are these are character defining moments that are sometimes
subtle and sometimes surprising. They happen to you in your
daily life all the time, but you don't see.

Speaker 3 (01:46:13):
Them written well a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
Right. It's a it's a kind of great antidote to
the main character energy that has permeated our culture in
every terrible way possible. But like a main character energy
whose character is yeah, what they said, that's the right answer.

Speaker 3 (01:46:35):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:36):
Now we're done talking. Let's move on. It's kind of amazing. Also,
I see Diana a little differently in that in the
moment of this moment, I'm not going to pour my
heart out, but later on I will, Like when when
when we're done and I'm with my friends or with
my husband, I will. I will. I'll cry into a
pillow later, but not not today. I'll cry later.

Speaker 5 (01:46:58):
Speaking a leader now and she doing the you know
later should do the broadcast news like unplug the phone.

Speaker 2 (01:47:04):
And I love one of the greatest character moments ever filmed.

Speaker 5 (01:47:13):
That period, like end of Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:47:17):
Mark the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
Then, by the way, starts the movie with that, that's
how you first meet her, Yes, since.

Speaker 1 (01:47:25):
Go you know? And I hope, I hope she pulls
Starfleet Academy through my you know, Veronica's so nice to
meet you. Absolutely, I like the role reversal of Dinah
and Ali and and because Ali or Dinah's always that
in the right hands. In a Green Arrow story, Dina
still shines through as a supporting character, but here we

(01:47:48):
got the reversal, and it's awesome because it really is
the subtext of no, they're there for each other and
they always have been, and that's why it's such a
strong relationship. And I like and I like the nod
to almost Miller's Dark Night where just like when Batman's
about to fight Superman and Ali shoots the Kryptonite arrow
to fuck up Superman and everything that all right, Hey,

(01:48:09):
guess this is what I need you for. Ali. You
need a fuck with wonder Woman for a minute while
we can do this. And I'm like, oh, that is
so cool, that that's great.

Speaker 3 (01:48:16):
You know, I also do this a lot of writers.

Speaker 5 (01:48:18):
Back from like the Tom King trap that she kind
of was in The Tom King has a story where
the entire United States Army is going to war against
where she's trying to save her sister from and so
what is this plot going to do about that? How
are we going to work around that? And she did
it perfectly and did it like a in a really
intelligent and in a way that I never would have

(01:48:40):
thought of. I would have probably come right at it.
And I don't know if this is just you know,
maybe I don't know how DC works at all, so
I jump in there. But like, if you come at
it and you say, like, we're going to address exactly
what's going on in the main Wonder Woman book, or
do we kind of talk around.

Speaker 3 (01:49:02):
It or it literally depends.

Speaker 2 (01:49:04):
It depends on the vibe, depends on what depends on
you know, some projects are literally birthed to be evergreen
and not touch a bunch of continuity, while other things
are meant to be living and breathing the same space
as the other monthly books are going on. So there's
no harder set rule, which is sometimes frustrating for us diehearts,
but also sometimes liberating.

Speaker 3 (01:49:24):
I'm like, oh good, I don't. I can just enjoy
Birds of Prey.

Speaker 2 (01:49:26):
I don't know, I don't. I can think about it
for a minute instead of worrying and I miss something.
I think. I think the key for us writers is
to whichever version you're doing, you should never feel like
you're missing out on something. You should feel like you
want to go find it without feeling like, oh now
I got to go find the fucking that issue of
Black Canary where she finds out who her sister is. Like, no,

(01:49:48):
you should just go oh great, maybe one day, I'll
go find that issue, but right now I'm completely satisfied
with what's.

Speaker 1 (01:49:54):
Yeah, that was me. I didn't know the relationship until
I read it in this arc and everything, and it's like, yeah, okay,
oh okay.

Speaker 2 (01:50:00):
I also just feel like when you bring up Diana
and Olly when I was arguing, like like I was
at Marvel at a time where they were breaking up
every marriage, like marriage was narrative death, and I was like,
am I the only person in this room that's happily married?
Like I don't know, like why is everyone looking at
marriage as kind of like a story killer when I'm like,
to me, my story didn't even start till I got married, right,

(01:50:22):
So like, like, so my goal with Jessica and Luke was, hey,
let's have a healthy marriage that's never ever, ever under
a scrutiny or threat, Like there's physical threats, things are
going to worry about, but they are fine like you were.
It's never gonna be a hope he doesn't break up

(01:50:43):
with me, Like that's never gonna happen, right, They'll never
be brought up, will never because that's that's the way
I've experienced life, right, And I was looking around comics
to see who else is someone in comics has to
have a healthy marriage. And it was them, No, every
every version, every every generation, no matter how clunky the

(01:51:05):
sixties writings were, and everything, it was I love you
and I what do you need?

Speaker 1 (01:51:10):
I want to acknowledge. And again this is why the
audio needs to watch the video. Skyler, much like Veronica,
if he was, if he was a relief picture and everything,
he's like a left hand side arm picture where it's like,
oh that's what, that's what the angle's coming. He's cracking
me up with his comments.

Speaker 2 (01:51:24):
Very good, all right, Well, because Veronica was so successful
in translating her chat to the thing, is there anything
Shyla you want to say before we tap out? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:51:33):
And again I don't want to put you on the spot,
but no.

Speaker 15 (01:51:36):
Not really, I've just been enjoying the discussion. I mean,
it's just it's so I totally agree. One of my
favorite things about Diana and Ali's relationship is that it's
a partnership, you know what.

Speaker 11 (01:51:49):
I love when I.

Speaker 15 (01:51:50):
See characters that are written that well, like if someone
is at like a seventy, you need to be the
other half of that, you know. It's not fifty and
I love how they're both there for each other when
they need to be, you know, and they back off
when they don't ye, And I think that's.

Speaker 2 (01:52:08):
All these best work as a husband is knowing when
to get the fuck out of the today, buddy.

Speaker 3 (01:52:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:52:16):
So I I just appreciate that from writers, and I
want to see that more. And me being a Spider
Man fan, and Ryan already knows this, Professor Ben, it's
just we we're not a good place right now.

Speaker 2 (01:52:32):
Nuts because I took that energy with me to Clark
and Lois and someone on on online said I killed
Lois Lane, and a bunch of people still think I
killed Lois Lane, and it drove me nuts because it
was like, not only did I not, she was never
even hinted to be in physical danger like that. I
made a rule, no one ever fucks with Lois because

(01:52:53):
they all read that other book where the Joker killed
her and they know what's going to happen, so they no,
Like I just I just saw her as untouchable in
a way, right, and.

Speaker 1 (01:53:05):
She's the most capable human being in the DC universe
that doesn't have powers, And I'm like, we need more
characters like that, and unfortunately sometimes it does end up
being the women. Alfred, I guess you could say, has
that kind of quiet power in his own way as well.
But no, it's interesting people as different writers, as from
Mike Grell, who I felt in The long Bow Hunters

(01:53:27):
in the eighties in that context gave Dinah good agency
to jud Winnick when the marriage finally happened and everything,
and now with Kelly and everything and Ali and Dinah
and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:53:37):
So now it's there, Tamor, that laugh was for you.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
That was funny, all right, and thank you small.

Speaker 3 (01:53:44):
I wasn't fishing, It's just it was something that I
was like.

Speaker 2 (01:53:46):
Uh, when you're faced with a bunch of writers, like
not only in comics, but in writers rooms that I've
been in, where you're like, is anyone.

Speaker 3 (01:53:54):
Having fun at home?

Speaker 1 (01:53:55):
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:53:56):
Like like like why is this such a struggle? I
I I've been determined in my writing to celebrate marriage
wherever it's appropriate and possible. So uh, I'm happy that
that landed with you.

Speaker 3 (01:54:12):
All Right, Well, thank you for I would listen more
over to.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
We're Just under too, but that's all.

Speaker 2 (01:54:18):
Right, No, oh yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:54:20):
But because we didn't start till about ten after Bud.

Speaker 2 (01:54:22):
This conversation was excellent. Yeah, it was great, really appreciated.
I hope Kelly and Leonardo and Jordie if they ever
get up the gumption to listen to this, I wouldn't
but if if, if they ever do, I hope they
really can hear how much appreciation for choices both big
and small.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
We all came at this book with it's it's incredible.
It's all kinds of thumbs up and planning going on.

Speaker 2 (01:54:49):
As John said, if you happen to be listening to
this in your car, great, go ahead. But if you
get a chance, hop on there a YouTube this will
be on ye and yeah, and enjoy Veronica and and
everyone has has been just like throwing like just hardball
comments at this the entire time. It's a whole different

(01:55:10):
conversation and you can enjoy that.

Speaker 1 (01:55:13):
I didn't know what to expect when Brian said, Hey,
we should do the book club together and everything I
know Brian was doing prior to this with the discord,
but I'm really glad and truly as many people together
that people talk over each other as Brian I just did.
But no, it's fine and also no, but really great

(01:55:34):
insight and truly if this is the kind of podcast
I would listen to, not just because I'm hosting it,
but no, everybody was really, you guys are.

Speaker 2 (01:55:45):
Man. This is a high, highly evolved conversation. I appreciate that.
And that's so great because our next one, our next
one we've we've already picked is Richard Parker. The Darwin
Cook Patients that Richard Parker, at least the first novel.
I found myself having a hard time not continuing to
read them. But we're going to have a conversation about

(01:56:07):
the first novel and take off there. And by the
time we have this conversation will be somewhere in December,
in mid December, when I'm back from Milan, I will
be able to tell you why I needed to read
it for work. What does that mean exactly? I'm not
doing with the Parker novels, but something's cooking that made

(01:56:30):
it and I had to read it for work. So
I'm excited to share that with you.

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):
This is great too. It's a good opportunity to talk
about Darwin Cook and how Grady was and it's he
is a guy that from day one when I started
to meet creators and stuff. I'm like, Darwin, we'll talk,
we'll talk, we'll talk. Oh yeah, no problem, John, no problem.
And it never happened. And I'm like, oh man, so
at least I get to honor Darwin by having this
kind of discussion with really smart people that can appreciate

(01:56:57):
the work.

Speaker 2 (01:56:57):
And I was there the knife he punched alex Ali
excel Alonzo at the bar. I was there and it happened, Yeah,
in the face, right in front of everybody. Google it.
It's a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:57:13):
So yeah, if this isn't an endorsement enough to join
Brian's Discord or join the word balloon patrons to be
able to participate in this conversation, these kind of conversations,
I don't know what is. I hope you all.

Speaker 3 (01:57:26):
People on the discord.

Speaker 2 (01:57:27):
No, I've been dropping real surprises that I have not
been made public. So uh, if you want to hear
with some of the stuff that's going on, and there is,
John knows, an insane amount of stuff fell on my
lap the last couple of weeks, and it's going to
be very exciting to talk about. All good, all surprising, right,
It's okay surprising, So h happy to be continued on

(01:57:48):
that front. But again, I just want to celebrate this
amazing conversation and thank you all for being part of it.
For those listening, we hear for weeks on end, we
hear from people going that they love the book club.
So I just want to say thank you everybody. Indeed,
I'll see you online, I'll see on the discord, I'll
email me, we'll talk on Thank you. It's great to

(01:58:08):
see you again, and I'll talk to you all very soon.
I'll see in class.

Speaker 1 (01:58:12):
All right, bye, there we go, see you guys. Thanks
a lot. I'm gonna start the recording. Take care, good job, everybody.
Well done,

All Episodes

Book Club: Bendis & the Patrons - Birds of Prey Vol. 1 by Kelly Thompson

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Book Club: Bendis & the Patrons - Birds of Prey Vol. 1 by Kelly Thompson