September 18, 2024 • 9 mins
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – An in-depth look at Mark Rahner’s ranking on the list of the “10 Greatest Army of Darkness Comics Every Horror Fan Should Read” - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mark talks about pontificates about pop culture. Ronner Report with
Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
KFI Later with Kelly. The other day, I was minding
my own business, bubbing around the internet. Got this text
message from a friend saying, Hey, did you see Mark Ronner?
He was in screen ran And I checked out the
link and Mark Ronner, our own Mark Ronner. I know
(00:51):
I may tease him. I know I make may may
make fun of him from time to time. You wouldn't
dare now, I wouldn't. But Mark, over the years, very
accomplished writer, and he made the list of the ten
greatest Army of Darkness comics every horror fan should read
(01:14):
via screen rat. Screen rat is a big deal, very reputable.
That's the best you can do. That's the best cheer
you can find. Three people in a room all by themselves.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
That's about right. I appreciated being on the lay. It
was completely out of nowhere. That book's been out for
a while now. I don't even remember the year it
was published, but it's number three all time, all time. Well, listen,
Army of Darkness is so much fun to write because
you get to write in the voice of Bruce Campbell
as Ash.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I'm a big Bruce Campbell fan, so I can hear
his voice. He and Sam Ramy have done a lot
of stuff together. They've done like, whenever you see a
Sam Raimi a Spider Man movie, Bruce Campbell is in it. Somewhere, Mark,
He's somewhere in the movie. It's almost like, where's Waldo.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Yeah, he's terrific and he's funny, and he's kind of
one of these guys who could have been a leading man,
and you wonder why he wasn't a much much bigger
star than he was.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
But but we love him. I loved him with Burn.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Notice I mean that was one of my favorite shows,
and I loved his contribution to that show.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I didn't see as much as that of that as
I would like to. It's been on my to do
list for years now, and I need to just get
all the way through it. And one say, here's my plan.
I'm gonna catch COVID again. I'm gonna just go all
the way through Burn.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
You know that you can watch the TV show and
not catch a communicable disease. You know they're kind of
they're not required. They're not like a sandwich you don't need.
It's not like peanut butter and jelly. You can just
have the peanut butter or jelly. Well, now you tell me, okay,
but tell us a well you're so strange, O'm brot.
It still needs a little word, but I can see
(02:50):
a learning curve. Just the backstory about Army of Darkness.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Well, okay, So this was for a company called Dynamite,
and they have a lot of licensed pulp characters, like
I've written The Avenger for them. The Green Hornet, I think,
was my first one for them, and I came to
that right out of the Seattle Times. So I wrote
a Green Hornet story about the Green Hornet's secret identity
is he's a publisher of a newspaper. The Green Hornet
(03:15):
goes berserk because he's got to deal with layoffs and
downsizing at the paper, and it sounds laughable, but he
goes completely ultra violent on some criminals to get it
out of his system. This Army of Darkness was a
Vamparella team of If you don't remember who Vamparella was,
she debuted in the late sixties from Warren Publications. You
(03:39):
might remember Creepy and Eerie magazine. Well, Vamparella was the
third and she was a character, and so in my story,
Ash from the Army of Darkness film does this incantation
from the Necronomicon, which is Klatu barada Nikto, which they
ripped off from the Day the Earth stood Still Clatu
latu barada nikto, and he gets it wrong again and
(04:02):
winds up summoning Vampirella back to that medieval period, but
not just as herself. She is a giant vampire that
needs to feed, and in the process of their adventure
dealing with an necronomicon, they deal with a whole abbey
full of possessed monks. And it's just great fun, great
fun to write. I should tell you we're talking about
(04:24):
this now. I don't get a penny if anybody goes
and buys it any place.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
That's my next question.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I got paid a fairly low pag rate upfront, and
that's all I was going to get, and we'll ever
get from this. But I was really tickled to death
to write it, and I'm grateful for the assignment.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
It was lots of fun.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You've written for different books you've written for the Seattle Times.
What other disciplines and places have you written for a
video game?
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I just did the dialogue, the hard boiled noir dialogue
for just came out recently called Nobody Wants to Die,
And I can't take credit for any but the dialogue
and that.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
You have to see this game. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
It's like a Blade Runner game where you get to
be the detective in a twisted, bizarre, sick mystery.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
That's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Working on a couple comics now that I shouldn't say
anything else about because I've had them stolen from me
before and seen the advertisement for a TV show made
out of one on the top half of the Marriotte.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
It's so funny because I listened to your story and
it's kind of like Mine's. Like if you would have
told me fifteen years ago we'll be doing talk radio
talk radio specifically, I would have said, oh, hell's no,
it's no way in the world. Why do you say that,
Because talk radio for me was something I listened to.
I didn't envision myself being in Remember, I was working
in the music industry, other forms of entertainment. Was trying
(05:50):
to be an actor for a while I was doing
extra work.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Even though I grew up listening to talk radio and
I loved talk radio, the idea of being a talk
radio host was so foreign. If anything, it would have
been sports radio. If anything, life takes you in some
strange directions. Last night I wrote a letter to an
old teacher of mine. I saw that one of my
favorite teachers had passed, and I looked up the other
one who really cut me a lot of slack when
(06:16):
everybody else had written me off as just a wise
ass troublemaker. Those assessments were.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Fair, kind of accurate. You know, those were fair.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
But this guy showed great kindness and steered me in
the right direction with being a wise ass troublemaker. So
I wrote him a letter saying, just to give you
a little update, I went from newspapers to comic books
to now talk radio, all industries known for being lucrative
and stable.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
By the way, I have a similar story to you.
I would say my most impactful teacher I had was
the late Barbara Hawkins, taught honors English at South Torrence
High School.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
I thought we were going to say hawk two of
there for that.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
No, Barbara Hawukins, and she was a task master, but
she loved the English language. Yeah, got plenty of English teachers,
but she loved the English language. She would say, Marris,
you speak with such a lam And I said, what
if there is a laan?
Speaker 5 (07:15):
But she pushed me.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
She was one of the people who encouraged me to
go ahead and read the dictionaries I could develop my vocabulary.
She was the one who really made me come into
my own as a writer. And she lived long enough
to hear me on the radio.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Oh good on you. Yeah, and her.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
It's important that we thank these people while they're still around,
because teaching, that's a thankless job, and it's a hard job.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Oh but I was a big smart ass in class.
I mean I was one like you. I wouldn't say
I was disruptive, but I was. I was subversive. I
would undermine the teacher just about every way.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Oh yeah, Well the teacher I mentioned who just passed,
I put a centerfold on his pull down map and
waited weeks for him to pull it down in front
of the whole class.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
The other one who I sent to thank you to
saying listen, I just want you to know you made
a big difference in my life. So the long overdue
check in and thank you. That's the guy who, instead
of letting me disrupt the class, said here, we're going
to have this slide show, and Mark and I are
going to wise off at each of the slides. We're
gonna we're gonna, we're gonna trade off with punchlines. So
(08:25):
that guy found a direct direction to channel all this nonsense.
It's great if you have the chance to show gratitude
with these people while they're still around.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, but that's another great point because not all the teachers.
Most of my teachers tried to stifle me and shut
me up. Barbara Hawkins said, Okay, let's redirect this energy
and creativity into something that will help you get a
decent grade in my class. And you don't know at
the time, but she saw something in me that I
didn't see in myself.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
You just can't put a price on that kind of kindness,
and I appreciate it more and more the older I get.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Well, congratulations Mark Ronner on your recognition as writing one
of the greatest army of darkness comic books in the
history of.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
Comic book dumb Well.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Thank you, Moe, and I'll see if I can scare
up a copy and bring it in for you.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Be able, Will you sign it for me? I'll make
sure there's something on it. I AM six forty we're
live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mark talks about pontificates about pop culture. Ronner Report with
Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
KFI Later with Kelly. The other day, I was minding
my own business, bubbing around the internet. Got this text
message from a friend saying, Hey, did you see Mark Ronner?
He was in screen ran And I checked out the
link and Mark Ronner, our own Mark Ronner. I know
(00:51):
I may tease him. I know I make may may
make fun of him from time to time. You wouldn't
dare now, I wouldn't. But Mark, over the years, very
accomplished writer, and he made the list of the ten
greatest Army of Darkness comics every horror fan should read
(01:14):
via screen rat. Screen rat is a big deal, very reputable.
That's the best you can do. That's the best cheer
you can find. Three people in a room all by themselves.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
That's about right. I appreciated being on the lay. It
was completely out of nowhere. That book's been out for
a while now. I don't even remember the year it
was published, but it's number three all time, all time. Well, listen,
Army of Darkness is so much fun to write because
you get to write in the voice of Bruce Campbell
as Ash.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I'm a big Bruce Campbell fan, so I can hear
his voice. He and Sam Ramy have done a lot
of stuff together. They've done like, whenever you see a
Sam Raimi a Spider Man movie, Bruce Campbell is in it. Somewhere, Mark,
He's somewhere in the movie. It's almost like, where's Waldo.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Yeah, he's terrific and he's funny, and he's kind of
one of these guys who could have been a leading man,
and you wonder why he wasn't a much much bigger
star than he was.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
But but we love him. I loved him with Burn.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Notice I mean that was one of my favorite shows,
and I loved his contribution to that show.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I didn't see as much as that of that as
I would like to. It's been on my to do
list for years now, and I need to just get
all the way through it. And one say, here's my plan.
I'm gonna catch COVID again. I'm gonna just go all
the way through Burn.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
You know that you can watch the TV show and
not catch a communicable disease. You know they're kind of
they're not required. They're not like a sandwich you don't need.
It's not like peanut butter and jelly. You can just
have the peanut butter or jelly. Well, now you tell me, okay,
but tell us a well you're so strange, O'm brot.
It still needs a little word, but I can see
(02:50):
a learning curve. Just the backstory about Army of Darkness.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Well, okay, So this was for a company called Dynamite,
and they have a lot of licensed pulp characters, like
I've written The Avenger for them. The Green Hornet, I think,
was my first one for them, and I came to
that right out of the Seattle Times. So I wrote
a Green Hornet story about the Green Hornet's secret identity
is he's a publisher of a newspaper. The Green Hornet
(03:15):
goes berserk because he's got to deal with layoffs and
downsizing at the paper, and it sounds laughable, but he
goes completely ultra violent on some criminals to get it
out of his system. This Army of Darkness was a
Vamparella team of If you don't remember who Vamparella was,
she debuted in the late sixties from Warren Publications. You
(03:39):
might remember Creepy and Eerie magazine. Well, Vamparella was the
third and she was a character, and so in my story,
Ash from the Army of Darkness film does this incantation
from the Necronomicon, which is Klatu barada Nikto, which they
ripped off from the Day the Earth stood Still Clatu
latu barada nikto, and he gets it wrong again and
(04:02):
winds up summoning Vampirella back to that medieval period, but
not just as herself. She is a giant vampire that
needs to feed, and in the process of their adventure
dealing with an necronomicon, they deal with a whole abbey
full of possessed monks. And it's just great fun, great
fun to write. I should tell you we're talking about
(04:24):
this now. I don't get a penny if anybody goes
and buys it any place.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
That's my next question.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I got paid a fairly low pag rate upfront, and
that's all I was going to get, and we'll ever
get from this. But I was really tickled to death
to write it, and I'm grateful for the assignment.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
It was lots of fun.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You've written for different books you've written for the Seattle Times.
What other disciplines and places have you written for a
video game?
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I just did the dialogue, the hard boiled noir dialogue
for just came out recently called Nobody Wants to Die,
And I can't take credit for any but the dialogue
and that.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
You have to see this game. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
It's like a Blade Runner game where you get to
be the detective in a twisted, bizarre, sick mystery.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
That's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Working on a couple comics now that I shouldn't say
anything else about because I've had them stolen from me
before and seen the advertisement for a TV show made
out of one on the top half of the Marriotte.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
It's so funny because I listened to your story and
it's kind of like Mine's. Like if you would have
told me fifteen years ago we'll be doing talk radio
talk radio specifically, I would have said, oh, hell's no,
it's no way in the world. Why do you say that,
Because talk radio for me was something I listened to.
I didn't envision myself being in Remember, I was working
in the music industry, other forms of entertainment. Was trying
(05:50):
to be an actor for a while I was doing
extra work.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Even though I grew up listening to talk radio and
I loved talk radio, the idea of being a talk
radio host was so foreign. If anything, it would have
been sports radio. If anything, life takes you in some
strange directions. Last night I wrote a letter to an
old teacher of mine. I saw that one of my
favorite teachers had passed, and I looked up the other
one who really cut me a lot of slack when
(06:16):
everybody else had written me off as just a wise
ass troublemaker. Those assessments were.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Fair, kind of accurate. You know, those were fair.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
But this guy showed great kindness and steered me in
the right direction with being a wise ass troublemaker. So
I wrote him a letter saying, just to give you
a little update, I went from newspapers to comic books
to now talk radio, all industries known for being lucrative
and stable.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
By the way, I have a similar story to you.
I would say my most impactful teacher I had was
the late Barbara Hawkins, taught honors English at South Torrence
High School.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
I thought we were going to say hawk two of
there for that.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
No, Barbara Hawukins, and she was a task master, but
she loved the English language. Yeah, got plenty of English teachers,
but she loved the English language. She would say, Marris,
you speak with such a lam And I said, what
if there is a laan?
Speaker 5 (07:15):
But she pushed me.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
She was one of the people who encouraged me to
go ahead and read the dictionaries I could develop my vocabulary.
She was the one who really made me come into
my own as a writer. And she lived long enough
to hear me on the radio.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Oh good on you. Yeah, and her.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
It's important that we thank these people while they're still around,
because teaching, that's a thankless job, and it's a hard job.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Oh but I was a big smart ass in class.
I mean I was one like you. I wouldn't say
I was disruptive, but I was. I was subversive. I
would undermine the teacher just about every way.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Oh yeah, Well the teacher I mentioned who just passed,
I put a centerfold on his pull down map and
waited weeks for him to pull it down in front
of the whole class.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
The other one who I sent to thank you to
saying listen, I just want you to know you made
a big difference in my life. So the long overdue
check in and thank you. That's the guy who, instead
of letting me disrupt the class, said here, we're going
to have this slide show, and Mark and I are
going to wise off at each of the slides. We're
gonna we're gonna, we're gonna trade off with punchlines. So
(08:25):
that guy found a direct direction to channel all this nonsense.
It's great if you have the chance to show gratitude
with these people while they're still around.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, but that's another great point because not all the teachers.
Most of my teachers tried to stifle me and shut
me up. Barbara Hawkins said, Okay, let's redirect this energy
and creativity into something that will help you get a
decent grade in my class. And you don't know at
the time, but she saw something in me that I
didn't see in myself.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
You just can't put a price on that kind of kindness,
and I appreciate it more and more the older I get.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Well, congratulations Mark Ronner on your recognition as writing one
of the greatest army of darkness comic books in the
history of.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
Comic book dumb Well.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Thank you, Moe, and I'll see if I can scare
up a copy and bring it in for you.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Be able, Will you sign it for me? I'll make
sure there's something on it. I AM six forty we're
live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
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