019 - Who Shittily Watches The Shitty Watchmen and other Wonder Con Stories

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, it's Bryce Rankins, and you're listening to episode 19 of Sneaky Geek. Hey, everybody. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Whoa. [00:00:32] Speaker A: What's going on? It's late. [00:00:34] Speaker C: It is late. That's not that late. [00:00:36] Speaker A: It's late for Brian because he has mono. [00:00:38] Speaker C: I have the mono still. [00:00:39] Speaker A: This week in Sneaky Geek, we talk about Brian having mono. [00:00:41] Speaker C: Yeah, it's okay. [00:00:42] Speaker A: It's no different than his regular life. [00:00:45] Speaker C: Because it is my regular. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Sorry. Welcome to sneaky geek. [00:00:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:00:52] Speaker A: And my name is Bryce Rankins, and this is Brian Romero. [00:00:55] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:56] Speaker A: And we are here by ourselves, but we are going to be here with lots of special guests today. [00:01:02] Speaker C: Yay. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Yay. So Brian and I went to Wondercon. [00:01:06] Speaker C: Yes, we did. [00:01:07] Speaker A: And we went there with our friend Amir and our other friend Dave, and our new friends, other Dave and Nicole and who else? Oh, and we made friends. The dudes from safe haven games. [00:01:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Which were super a. They had. Prove it. And they made this other super cool game with a spider. [00:01:28] Speaker C: Spinners. [00:01:29] Speaker A: Web spinners. Web spinners. Like, I love that game so much that I went back to it, like, multiple times. We went and did a demo, and then I was like, brian, you can come here and play this game. And you came and played. And then we hung out with Glynis from comic book Hideout. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah. Super awesome. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Super, super awesome. And we have interviews from all of them, which is super. They. I mean, we can jump right into them now. We can talk about our Wondercon experience first a little bit. [00:01:57] Speaker C: Yeah, let's talk about that. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:01:59] Speaker C: So was this your first one? [00:02:01] Speaker A: This was not my first Wondercon. My first Wondercon was in San Francisco. [00:02:05] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:02:06] Speaker A: And it's where I got my autograph picture of Chewbacca. [00:02:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Which is, like, the lamest thing, but it's the coolest. Well, did you ever watch. Did you ever watch in living color? [00:02:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Do you remember fire Marshal Bill? Jim Carrey had this fire marshal who was obsessed with safety but terrible at his job. [00:02:22] Speaker C: Right. [00:02:23] Speaker A: And there's this one episode where he's like, let's say you're going to go freeze yourself a stock of celery and you accidentally put your hand in liquid nitrogen. He sticks his hand in this vat and comes out, and it's like, all hardened, like the t 1000 after he gets hit. And he's like. Then you go to hang up your autograph picture of Chewbacca, and then he smashes his hand with a hammer, and it crumbles and falls to the ground, and he screams out, the iceman cometh. And that's the skit. So an autographed picture of Chewbacca was like this thing that I always wished that I could have. So I got this picture from Peter Mayhew when I went to Wondercon very briefly. I think I was there for, like, maybe three, 4 hours. I was on a fencing tournament back in college. [00:03:05] Speaker C: Oh, cool. Yes. [00:03:07] Speaker A: So we snuck out. We didn't sneak into Wondercon. We paid for Wondercon. But we snuck over to Wondercon after the tournament was all over, and we were all exhausted. We got in and we bought our tickets or whatever, and we went in and walked around as it was kind of closing down. But that's where I met Daleberry, who not be confused with Dave Barry. Daleberry is a writer who used to be a dj, and he taught most of my fencing instructors how to fence. [00:03:29] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [00:03:30] Speaker A: But he had his own comic about this ghost hunter in feudal china, which was cool. Okay. And then that was like my first non anime con ever. But it was so brief, it was. [00:03:41] Speaker C: So small real quick. [00:03:42] Speaker A: And I hadn't been there. I haven't been to Wondercon, really until this last one. And now it's in the Anaheim convention center, which is where my first anime expo was. So it was like going back to my first con. But when I went to Comic Con last year, I thought, jesus Christ, this is the hugest thing I've ever seen in my life. Like, it was overwhelming running into people left and right, and I was running into people like, oh, hey, no. Like, was bumping into people. Too many damn people there because there's too many people in there. And it was such a tiresome experience in so many ways. Don't get me wrong, I loved know you're, you're in the thick of this mental quagmire of just all of this nebulous love of geek shit. But it's not really that much about comics. It's not nearly as much about tv as it used to be. [00:04:26] Speaker C: Yeah, it's more pop culture. [00:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah, more pop culture. But it still kind of focuses more on superheroes since they're a little more available in tv and film now. But Wondercon. [00:04:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:34] Speaker A: Which is, I mean, I know I just ranted a shitload just to get here, but Wondercon is everything I wanted Comic Con to be. [00:04:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, yeah. [00:04:43] Speaker A: I got to talk to artists. I got to talk to creators and game makers. I got to buy comics at a really good price. The prices were actually really reasonable. I didn't feel like a douchebag wasting people's time when I wanted to haggle, I got things that I'd been looking for, and I haven't really gone into a con with a goal of what I wanted beyond I would like something in this particular thing. The first time I went to anime Expo, I was like, you know, I think I want a really good anime soundtrack. So I found the soundtrack to Akira, which you still haven't watched. But in this one, I was like, I know what I want in comics. I know what I want in cartoons. I know what I want in clothing. And I went and it was on this treasure hunt. [00:05:27] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, totally. [00:05:28] Speaker A: It was the best. Now, for me, this is also the first con I've ever gone to with you where you weren't semi working, really, aside from, like, Bakersfield Comic Con. But Bakersfield Comic Con is so tiny. [00:05:38] Speaker C: Super small. Yeah. [00:05:39] Speaker A: This is the first really big show that I went to with you. No disrespect to Bakersfield Comic Con. Bakersfield Comic Con is awesome. [00:05:48] Speaker C: It's great. [00:05:48] Speaker A: But it's not the Anaheim convention. So with all that, I pass it to you. Tell me about your Wondercon history and experience. [00:05:59] Speaker C: So I first went to Wondercon last year was my first one, actually. Yeah. [00:06:03] Speaker A: When is your first comic Con? [00:06:05] Speaker C: 2003. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Okay. You've been going to cons for a long time. [00:06:07] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. So I've been going for a while, but last year was my first Wondercon, and it was awesome. Yeah, it focused more on the comics. It focused more on the creators. There was a lot more booths set up to just buy random stuff or just see vendors. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Lots of vendors. [00:06:23] Speaker C: A lot of vendors. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Not as many showrooms right now. You went to Comic Con back in 2003. So my idea of what comic Con should have been or could probably around is what you probably went to. So how does current Wondercon stack up against old Comic Con? [00:06:41] Speaker C: Before it blew up? Even then, Comic Con was still huge in 2003. Definitely not what it is now, but it was still in the San Diego convention center. It still used the entire floor, and it still used upstairs ballrooms to do all the panels. [00:06:58] Speaker A: The panels. [00:06:59] Speaker C: So it was still really big. So this one is still smaller compared to it. There weren't much of any movies when I went. It was only one day and it was Star Wars Day, so I was all about the Star wars stuff. But even still, I don't remember it being just crazy. [00:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Exhausting. [00:07:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:15] Speaker A: That's a good word for it. And Wondercon isn't exhausting like that? [00:07:17] Speaker C: No, not really. No. I felt surprisingly, yeah. [00:07:21] Speaker A: I mean, Wondercon, it's a little easier also, because at the end of every night, you could pretty much walk home. [00:07:27] Speaker C: It was right up street. So, yeah, shout out to clay, my roommate, for dropping us off. [00:07:31] Speaker A: Heck yeah. And shout out to all of our cool Lyft drivers, because I've never used Lyft before, but $22 later, I've gotten a couple of lift rides now, and I'm officially an LA citizen. I think that's how that works. [00:07:44] Speaker C: Yeah, something like that. Did you get your kale smoothie, too? [00:07:47] Speaker A: I didn't. [00:07:47] Speaker C: Okay, so you're almost there. You're almost there. Yeah. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Okay, so tell me more. [00:07:52] Speaker C: So, Wondercon this year was great because. [00:07:53] Speaker A: We split up a couple of times. [00:07:54] Speaker C: Yeah, we did. Because we both wanted to do different things, see different stuff. We're like, cool. Yeah, we'll check in later. [00:07:59] Speaker A: And I didn't feel like I would never find you again, which is a problem that actually happened at Comic Con a couple of times. Definitely with multiple people. [00:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah. So the first thing I wanted to do was just walk the floor a little bit. But it was also because we mentioned this in our last podcast. Bryce and I both got. Well, I got back into magic, the gathering. Bryce got into it. So I want to go check out some of the tournaments and let's just get some info on it. So I went back to the game section, and they were just giving out free cards. [00:08:28] Speaker A: It was awesome. I got like several new decks out. [00:08:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Easy. Take as many as you want. [00:08:33] Speaker A: I got so many. We did. We had enough that we gave comic or we gave comic. We gave magic cards away to people, to our friends. [00:08:41] Speaker C: We're like, look what we got. [00:08:42] Speaker A: You want some? We already have these cards because we got them three times. Yeah. [00:08:47] Speaker C: So, yeah, so I signed up for my first magic tournament. [00:08:50] Speaker A: How was that? [00:08:50] Speaker C: We'll get into that later. Did that. Walked around. We ran into Dave, who was working a booth. [00:08:59] Speaker A: Dave was the hero of Wondercon for me. Not only did he help me find a very elusive comic book that I have been hoping to find for a long time, actually two of them. But he also helped me to get my badge because I was having some issues with the site, and he made sure that I could get. I mean, I met so many cool people, and I just love Dave. Okay, I know you're listening to this right now. I love Dave. He's the best. [00:09:30] Speaker C: He's the man. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Anyway, so we hung out with Dave for a little bit. Dave went on break, Amir and I, and Dave, actually, before you got there, right. Amir and Dave and I were all. [00:09:38] Speaker C: Going because you got there Friday. [00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I did the full four day. [00:09:42] Speaker C: Right. [00:09:43] Speaker A: On or three day? Three day. [00:09:45] Speaker C: I had to work Friday, so just came Saturday, Sunday. [00:09:49] Speaker A: But you didn't feel like you missed anything by it? [00:09:51] Speaker C: No, not at all. Yeah. [00:09:52] Speaker A: See, me, I needed to walk every. So I. I did. Exactly. [00:09:57] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So I did that last year, and it was great, and it took a while, and I definitely missed a few panels I wanted to see. So I was like, this year, I'm going to bounce around a little bit and just do whatever. [00:10:06] Speaker A: But we got to see panels, too. And we never had any major problem getting into them. Not at all. [00:10:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Which is so nice because comic Con, it's like, hey, I think I want to go see this panel. [00:10:13] Speaker C: You have planned three days. [00:10:15] Speaker A: Better get there yesterday. [00:10:16] Speaker C: But, yeah, so we'll get into more of that stuff in a little bit. But no, I had a great time. I saw some really cool art, talked to some cool artists. [00:10:24] Speaker A: Super cool artists. [00:10:25] Speaker C: We got hooked up on magic cards. [00:10:26] Speaker A: Hooked up on magic cards. Oh, my God. And then we found, like, the grab bag guy where it was like, pay a dollar and pull any rare card, mystery card. [00:10:34] Speaker C: Rare card, yeah. [00:10:36] Speaker A: And then we got the guy who was selling the $5 decks where he had, like, built a deck that's better than three booster packs because of the. [00:10:42] Speaker C: Amount of good card there, $5, you get a whole bunch of uncommons. [00:10:48] Speaker A: It was like 15 uncommons. And then, like, a guaranteed rare. It was like a guaranteed five rare cards. But one of them was going to be, like, super foiled. [00:10:58] Speaker C: Yeah, one of them was at least a foil, I think. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah, at least one of the cards I bought from him wrecked Logan for the entire time I played him, he was not happy. I think our final score was 42 to zero. Every time he had to put a card away. Yeah, every time a card left his hand or left the battlefield, I got like an additional three points. So I was like, playing. Playing discard cards. [00:11:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:23] Speaker A: It was the cruelest thing. I felt like such a dick. [00:11:28] Speaker C: Yeah, good time. [00:11:29] Speaker A: It was awesome. [00:11:30] Speaker C: But, yeah, magic. You know what? The guy that sold us those cards were really cool. He gave us a little hint. [00:11:35] Speaker A: That's super cool. [00:11:36] Speaker C: He's like, hey, I put these cards together myself, the packs. If you look at the top, you can see the different kinds of cards that are in there because older cards are thicker. We bought cards on Saturday. We went back, talked to him on Sunday. [00:11:47] Speaker A: His booth was so busy, we never got a chance to record. Plus, he had music playing in the back. So we didn't end up getting an interview with him, but he was really, really cool. And he was so cool. [00:11:56] Speaker C: And we got along real well. He's like, take one of these. And he just gave me a 50. [00:12:01] Speaker A: Pack, dude, that's so that's what I hope for. [00:12:05] Speaker C: Yeah. And everything was not that I hope. [00:12:07] Speaker A: For people to give me free ship, but I want somebody to be like, hey, dude, I see. And I appreciate and I value what your enthusiasm. Know when I went to Wondercon the first time, not to go totally on the side tangent, but when I went to Wondercon the first time, my budy John Hazlett, who is one of the biggest Star wars nerds I've ever known in my entire life, and, like, you could go toe to toe for sure. And he looks up and he, hmm. Mandalorian's welcome. I dig it. And he might have said, I dig it. I say, I dig it. But he was like, nice. The guy looked, and he was like, you read Orobesh? And he was like, yeah. And he goes, take one. And he showed him, like, five different figurines of various Mandalorians. He was like, take one. [00:12:54] Speaker C: Oh, that's like, that's the kind of thing, what I really love about Wondercon is all the vendors are super cool like that. [00:13:00] Speaker A: They're in good moods. [00:13:01] Speaker C: They're in good mood. [00:13:02] Speaker A: They're not getting screwed by the con. [00:13:03] Speaker C: They want to be there. They're happy to talk to you. Any other there for business, but they're still like, they're nerds and geeks just like us. And so they want to talk. And we talked to a bunch of people. [00:13:15] Speaker A: We did. And the first major group we talked to is actually our old friends. I say old friends. We actually didn't know Dave Baker until this con, but we talked to Nicole Goo and Dave Baker. [00:13:27] Speaker C: Nicole, you might remember from our Bakersfield. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Comic Con episode, she came out to Bakersfield Comic Con, and we talked to her briefly. So we got kind of an update of what's going on with her. And then we got to meet Dave. Dave is super cool. I mean, don't get me wrong, Nicole. You're awesome. You're great. So great. And I love talking to you, but Dave is so cool. Anyway, here's their interview. We're here with Dave Baker. Dave Baker, where are you from? [00:13:51] Speaker D: I am from Tucson, Arizona. Yeah, originally, anyway, I live in Los Angeles now, though. [00:13:56] Speaker A: And what have you written and artisted and pinned? [00:14:01] Speaker D: I am one of the creators of action hospital, which is kind of like eternal sunshine of the spotless mind meets men in black, set in a hospital. It's executed a little bit differently than most comics in that I write it and I draw one of the characters, but there are six other main characters that are each paired with the characters. So whenever they showed up or whenever they show up, we all draw on the pages together. It's a big collaborative thing. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Very cool. Very cool. [00:14:24] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's way awesome. [00:14:27] Speaker D: We're figuring out the choreography for the mic. [00:14:30] Speaker C: Yeah. This mic thing is weird, but it's working. This mic thing is weird, but it's working. I'm not going to keep repeating myself. I'm just going to speak really loud and just hope the mic picks it up. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Perfect. Okay, cool. [00:14:39] Speaker D: Or we could all just put our faces together. It's so good right now. It's so great. And then I'm also the writer of Fuck Off Squad, which is a romance comic drawn by Nicole Goo. [00:14:52] Speaker A: What's the most challenging part about being self published? [00:14:54] Speaker D: The most challenging part about being a self publisher is the fact that nobody gives a shit about what you're to. You have to figure out how to arrange freight shipments to an apartment complex. You have to figure out how to work in indesign. You have to figure out all these nuts and bolts of dumb shit that is just not fun. And then at the end of it, maybe somebody will care, but really, they would risk rather if you had drawn Deadpool. That being said, I love comics, and all of the disinterest of all these people will never dissuade me. Comics are the best. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Well, you seem to be having a lot of success with Shitty Watchmen. You want to talk about Shitty watchmen for a minute? [00:15:28] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. Shitty Watchmen is an art project that me and ten of my friends made where we redrew watchmen page for page, panel for panel, but very poorly. We did that to deconstruct the compositions in Dave Givens pages, basically boiling the book down to its worst possible execution to see if it still communicated. [00:15:47] Speaker A: I noticed that on a lot of the panels, you wrote things just like opinion or know things like that. Was that challenging at all to go through and really break down all the dialogue as well as the art? [00:15:59] Speaker D: So everybody did it their own way. Some people took the first word of, because there's eleven of us. So it's me, Nicole Goo, Robert Negretti, Sabrina Deeger, Colby Bluth, Chuck Kerr, Sam Ancona, Rachel Dukes. Shit, there's like two or three other people, and I'm sorry, I'm forgetting you, but there are two or three other people, and everybody did their own way. So some people, they took the middle word of the balloon. Some people took the first word. Some people actually read it, boiled it down. Malachi Ward is one of the people I didn't name, and he took it and actually just used Kirby and gibbons original work. Oh, and I'm being supplied. I'm on there too. [00:16:37] Speaker C: Me. [00:16:37] Speaker D: Oh, and Emily Vo. Emily Vo was the one I forgot. So. Sorry, Emily. But, yeah, so because of that, I think some people chose to do it more comedically, and they chose whatever would be the funniest thing. And then some people really tried to boil the essence of it down. And then me, I got lazy sometimes and was just like, fuck it. There's no words in this balloon. I don't give a shit. [00:16:55] Speaker C: Yeah, it's shitty. Whatever. It works. But, no, I was so intrigued with the project, I just bought it right then and there. And then Dave drew a shitty drawing of shitty worship. [00:17:04] Speaker D: Yeah. Whenever somebody buys a book at a show, I always make a point to draw a shitty drawing. The worst one I've ever done is somebody asked me to draw Sally Jupiter. That is the least iconic person in the book. That being said, her hair is very iconic. But other than the pompadour hair, it was awful. It was the worst drawing. So if you're out there and you have that Sally Jupiter drawing, kudos for you for asking for a deep cut, and I am super sorry, or you're welcome. Maybe that's the point. You're welcome. I was totally on purpose. [00:17:38] Speaker A: Okay, so I want to talk to you about something controversial. At your booth right now, you have a pin that says, fuck Stan Lee. And, I mean, obviously, that's meant to draw attention to people, as it's kind of a brazen statement in a building filled with people who look up to him as if he is God. So please bring to light the counterpoints of the Stan Lee is God in the quickest way you can, because we're running out of time. [00:18:03] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. So I guess there are multiple points to it, one of which is that everybody thinks he created all the characters, which I think does a fundamental disservice to the artists he worked with, because the Marvel method in the come up with a name, you do everything else, including giving dialogue suggestions. And then I maybe take your dialogue suggestions, maybe don't. But most of it is done by the artists, and I think Stan's fingerprints are on a lot of those comics. And then I think Stan's fingerprints are on or less so on others. I think also the fact that a lot of people think he created all these characters because he appears in all these Marvel movies, and the reason he appears in those movies is because he won a lawsuit in the mid two thousand s for back royalties on Spiderman. And one of the settlements, one of the clauses in the settlement is he got a cameo in every Marvel movie ever produced. So he's in movies that he had nothing to do with, like, Captain America. He didn't create Captain America. Like, that's Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Like, come on, guys. [00:18:55] Speaker C: Same thing with the Guardians. Yeah, he didn't have anything to do. [00:18:58] Speaker D: With any of the guardians except for Groot. [00:18:59] Speaker C: I think Groot was a very early concept. It was supposed to be a monster. And then this new Groot version, they've kind of retconned it around. [00:19:07] Speaker D: But, yeah, the original Groot is just a monster named Groot. It'd be like if we made a werewolf movie and we called him Lon Chaney. Like, we didn't create the actor Lon Chaney. That guy's a living, breathing thing. He is multifaceted character, and it has nothing to do with the universal movie that Lon Chaney starred in. It's just a character named Lon Chaney, although that's a weird analogy, because that guy really existed. So that doesn't make any sense. But also, it's day three of this convention, and my brain doesn't work so great. So fuck it. Whatever. [00:19:32] Speaker C: Yeah, just go with. It's fine. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:19:37] Speaker D: Did that answer your question? I don't know if that answered your question. [00:19:39] Speaker A: Did it? Yeah. No, totally. Because everybody. I mean, I think people who know a little bit know, like, oh, he's here because of Marvel, not because of that, with Captain America and things like that. But a lot of people who don't know aren't necessarily. They had to go look for that, and they're just kind of given this hint, like, oh, he's here. So he must have had something to do with part of that legacy, which I'm sure, like, in writing and such. He's written Captain America comics. [00:20:02] Speaker D: He was one of the people who made the editorial decision to pull cap out of mothballs and have the whole, oh, he's a man at a time idea, maybe, or who the fuck knows? Because he was like, guys, what are. [00:20:15] Speaker A: We doing with Cap? [00:20:15] Speaker D: Maybe he said that in a fucking meeting at some point, and then they were like, let's dust him off. [00:20:20] Speaker B: Let's do him again. [00:20:21] Speaker D: All right, Cap c. It's insane. But also, I mean, there's so many facets to his character that are so interesting. And the fact that after the worthham hearings of the mass comic book burnings in the 1950s, the industry collapsing, he was a big part of kind of attempting to legitimize comics again, and he would go on college speaking tours and really tried to make comics be art. And when you think about the way that, I don't think you can deny that the way that comics are credited in large part is due to him, because before that, people didn't have credits on books. Case in point, the early issues of Millie the model, where the only person name listed is Stan Lee in the place of an. It's so. Yes, he did some cool things, but also, there's so much awful just stealing of legacy and stamping on people and just me, me. Look at me ego shit. That is just morally reprehensible. [00:21:12] Speaker A: It's kind of like, who's the guy who runs Nintendo now? On the american side? No, on the american side. [00:21:18] Speaker D: But Mr. Nintendo. [00:21:20] Speaker A: No, not at all. But mimoto, if you gave him credit for everything beyond just Mario, and we're like, yes, and Metroid and Kirby and Mega man, and take it away from Enafune and all that, it's that same sort of thing where you're the face. [00:21:38] Speaker C: Of the company but create everything associated with the right. [00:21:44] Speaker D: In the same way that Steve Jobs is someone who gets a lot of credit and is very beloved, where in all reality, he was a guy that was like, can we do it better? Like, at every turn. And that's very difficult to remain true to that creative vision and say, can we do it better? But let's be real. Part of the reason why Stan is so beloved is because most people don't know anything about comics. There's no education. I mean, there is, but it's books written by fucking tomorrows. And I read them. It's, like, me and a bunch of, like, 60 year old dudes, right? So this is my way, especially because a lot of our fan base is younger readers and people who are just getting into comics. And I think that's really great about what's happening right now with the convention scene. There's all these fresh faces, people who may not have a long history with this stuff, and they just see Stan in the movies. And I can be like, actually, maybe you could go read some cool old comics, and then you can make up your mind for yourself. Because maybe I'm wrong. I could absolutely be wrong. I'm not, but I could absolutely be wrong. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Right? I feel like that's a very millennial and generation X sentiment. Like this. Like, hey, look, we love this guy. He's definitely a hero. But we also need to understand that he's not a God, not perfect, that sort of thing, which I really. Yeah, I appreciate that. [00:22:53] Speaker C: Good stuff. But he's also done some shitty stuff. [00:22:56] Speaker D: Straight up fucked over a lot of people. There's the stuff that's like stealing of legacy, which may or may not be purposeful. And then he actually, in a lawsuit in the 80s, fully in deposition, argued that Stan was or Jack was not a writer and should not receive any. You know, because Stan takes credit at every turn. Jack Kirby has systemically got fucked over through his. [00:23:23] Speaker A: Well, let's. Let's talk mean. You just finished action hospital number two. Yeah. And you said that's, like, being printed right now. [00:23:36] Speaker D: Currently, yeah. I just got an email from the printer on Friday. The book has been printed. It's 300 pages. I wrote and drew it. It's called action Hospital. Half light bleeds, and it will be shipped to my house April 6, which is weird, because it's taken two years to get here. And there's part of me that's like, is this ever going to be real? Is this book ever going to be here? I don't know if it is. I think it's just going to just live out in the void, right? [00:24:01] Speaker A: Emails. [00:24:01] Speaker C: Just out in the emails. You're just figuring out, like, oh, I'm going to get messages on every once in a while. [00:24:05] Speaker A: So when this comes, I mean, where are you going to take it? You're going to take it to a comic book shop meet lately? Are you going to start shipping them out online? Are there pre orders already? [00:24:13] Speaker D: So I did a Kickstarter to fund the printing. So the first orders that go out are gonna be the people who bought it on Kickstarter. And then after you, it's. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:24:22] Speaker D: Put it up online, sell it there, take it to conventions. This year, Nicole and I are doing a shitload of shows. We're doing La Zine fest, San Diego Comic Con, New York, Chicago, and a bunch of other shows that I'm now blanking on. But, yeah, we'll be selling them. Exactly. Yeah. [00:24:38] Speaker A: And. All right, well, then, where can we purchase this? Find you on Instagram, et cetera. Where is all that going to go? Online. [00:24:44] Speaker D: So my Instagram is xdavebakerx. My website is heydavebaker.com. And, yeah, you can find all that stuff on heydaydaver.com. [00:24:54] Speaker A: Cool, thanks. Appreciate it, Dave. Cool. We're here with Nicole Goo and we're turn guests. Yes. We last saw you at Bakersfield Comic Con. So what's been going on since then? [00:25:09] Speaker E: Well, we've done a couple shows since then. Bakersfield was what, November? Okay. So we did designer Con, which was fun. And we just got back from Emerald City, actually, which is amazing. Always. They have the best artist alley of any of the mainstream shows that I've been to, at least. [00:25:28] Speaker C: We were talking earlier today. Just going through here. Like, the artist alley here is so much better than, like, a comic con. I mean, obviously, comic Con, the focus of the con itself is a little bit different, but it's really nice walking through here, and it's huge. [00:25:41] Speaker A: And what's really nice is it's right up front, too. Like, you walk in and you're like, oh, boom, I'm already here. I don't have to go to the poor comic con artists tucked away in the back corner. [00:25:50] Speaker E: Yeah, honestly, at San Diego, small press is really more of the artist alley than artist Alley is, because artist alley, you only get, like, half a table. Yeah. I wish it was better, but like you said, unfortunately, it's now a pop culture show and not really a comic show at all. [00:26:10] Speaker A: So what's going on with fuck off squad? [00:26:12] Speaker E: So as of now, actually, so since I saw you guys, there is a third fuck off squad book. It's called Fever coast. And while the other two focused on Jimmy and Megan, this one focuses on Clark, and it's also the longest book. I think it ended up being, like, 45 pages of main content and then a few mini comics and essay. [00:26:33] Speaker A: Cool. I'm trying to think what else, what else, what else? We had such an extensive conversation with Dave, which was exciting because we heard so much about him the first time we talked to you. [00:26:42] Speaker C: How's it been going with this con this year? [00:26:44] Speaker B: This con is good. [00:26:45] Speaker E: It's kind of a mid level show for us. We do well here, and it's also local, so we don't have to buy plane tickets, we don't have to buy a hotel. And we have a ton of friends here, so it's a lot of hanging out, a lot of, like, after we cover table cost, it's pretty much just profit. After that, we sell some books, talk to cool people, hang out with our friends, and it's really nice and chill and close to home, and we get to sleep in our own beds, which is great. [00:27:13] Speaker A: Regarding sales, I mean, have you guys sold enough? Have you gotten a decent amount? [00:27:18] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. We cleared table on the first day, so that's not a big deal. And then, yeah, we've just been. The nice thing about that is it just relieves the pressure for the rest of the show where you don't have to be, like, hustling and selling as hard and being worried and anxious, and you can just kind of have those real conversations with people instead of please buy my book. [00:27:39] Speaker A: We were talking about that kind of extensively today about how there tends to be this sort of almost carnival esque pushing of merchandise from a lot of people as you walk through. And it's like, I don't necessarily want to buy your book because right now you're trying to guilt me into buying your book. And I feel like you probably have more success being able to sell casually than you do being like, hey, take this out right now. Please. Look at it. [00:28:03] Speaker E: I find that there is a good middle ground because there's a lot of people who sit behind their tables and they either work on commissions, draw on their sketchbooks, or they're just on their phone. And I've walked up to tables and had that person not look up even though I wanted to buy a book. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm just going to walk away since you are not going to acknowledge me. But also, if someone is yelling at you across the aisle, I don't want to deal with that. So we find a middle ground. We engage a lot. We always stand at the table. If someone's there, I kind of try and gauge whether they want to talk or not, and then I'll offer our books to them, be like, hey, do you want to look at this? Here's what it's about. So I try and interact, because if you don't, you're not going to sell books. And that's why we're here. I want you to. And also, I think a lot of people think if I talk to you that you have to buy it, and that's never the case. I don't expect anything from you. I just want to be able to tell you about it. I want you to look at it. People are like, I'll offer them a book. And they'll be like, oh, no, I don't want to look at that because I don't have any money. And I'm like, I don't care if you have any money. I just want you to know about my comic book. [00:29:11] Speaker B: It's not a big deal. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Cool. Well, that's about time. So thank you so much. Where are we going to find you? On the Internet again? And where can we purchase these again? Yeah. [00:29:20] Speaker E: So all of this stuff is available on nicolegoo.com. My last name is G-O-U-X. My Instagram is ngoo. Same spelling. Twitter is Nicole goo. Pretty simple. [00:29:31] Speaker A: Cool. Cool. Thanks so much. [00:29:33] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:29:34] Speaker C: That was a nice segue. [00:29:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it was nice. And we're back. [00:29:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:39] Speaker A: So that was Nicole and Dave, who are super cool. A little controversial. [00:29:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Fuck Stan Lee thing. That was interesting. [00:29:50] Speaker A: I appreciate it that they're willing to go against the status quo because everyone loves Stanley. I mean, obviously not everyone, as we learned in this interview, but he makes a strong case. If he had said, hey, make sure you do some fact checking on your heroes. One, it wouldn't fit on the button. And two, it really, you know, it doesn't. It doesn't convey that same thought provoking, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You said what? Yeah, and I don't know. It's kind of cool. It's cool. Because he legitimately cares about making sure credit is given as a creator. Right? Right. And then, of course, he's got shitty watchmen, which is fantastic. It's so great. And then Nicole with fuck off squad and everything. And action. Hospital. Those guys are kicking ass. Oh, yeah. And they're traveling over. I just saw that they were in Chicago, like, a week ago to do a con over there. They are doing it, and they're self published, which is really scary. And this, you know, everybody. But they're doing it and they're doing it, which is awesome. So I hope. Thanks for joining us. And hopefully they'll come on again because they're super cool. So then over at the magic. The gathering section, while you were over having your magic tournament, let's just talk. [00:31:05] Speaker C: About your magic tournament. Okay? Yeah. So what happened was Bryce and I split up. I find the cards, I'm like, dude, they're giving out free cards to get here. But in the meantime, I'm trying to walk over to where I thought Bryce and Dave would be, because they were walking around the vendors. And turns out we are just crossing paths and not even. And so I'm like, hey, where are you at? And he's like, oh, I'm at the magic cards. I'm like, son of a bitch. I'm over near Dave's booth. So I'm like, stay there. So I ran over and there's Bryce sitting with some guys playing this game. [00:31:36] Speaker A: We were playing web spinners guys over at Safe Haven. We were playing web spinners with them, or I was playing web spinners with them, which was this board game that this guy created that is really simplistic, kind of like suro if you've ever played, surro if you haven't, it's a fantastic game. I thoroughly recommend. It's great for pubs and beer gardens. And that's what this game is. And that's why I really gravitated towards this game, because it really doesn't take a whole lot of strategy to have a good time with it. There's plenty of strategy involved, but if you want to just kind of play casually and have a beer with friends. [00:32:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:10] Speaker A: And so I'm learning the game, and luckily we had only gone through, really one full explanation. And the first set of turns, that's. [00:32:18] Speaker C: When I show up. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Brian shows up and he comes and sits. Anyways, anyways, this is a podcast, and if you heard any word screeching sound, something weird is going. And if you didn't, then our microphone is properly protected. [00:32:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:34] Speaker A: Anyway, so Brian comes over and he plays it. You came and you played? [00:32:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And I'm like, what's going on? Like, hey, you want to sit and play? And I'm like, can I watch first? And they're like, no, it's super easy. Just sit down. You're at the perfect spot to join in and picked it up like that. [00:32:46] Speaker A: And then. So we're getting the demo, but we're actually getting the demo not from the original creator, but from his. What is your job? Assistant. [00:32:56] Speaker C: Well, he explains it, actually. [00:32:59] Speaker A: We ended up interviewing Brian primarily. He definitely talks way more in it. So, I mean, let's just listen to that for a second. Yeah. [00:33:07] Speaker C: Here you go. [00:33:07] Speaker A: So here it is. We are here with Brian Mosley and Kenny Carroll. And Brian is the. Are you the owner of safe Haven games? [00:33:14] Speaker F: I am the owner of Safe Haven games, yeah. [00:33:17] Speaker A: And what games did you bring here today? [00:33:21] Speaker F: Today I brought web spinners, which is our newest game, and prove it. [00:33:26] Speaker A: And how'd you guys fare this con? How'd that go? [00:33:29] Speaker F: It was really, really good. I think it was a really positive experience where we got to do a lot of good demos and overwhelmingly positive feedback on our games. [00:33:38] Speaker G: It was really, really good. [00:33:39] Speaker C: We played yesterday and had a great time with it and then got along well with you guys. And so. Yeah, how we're talking right now. [00:33:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So web spinners is sort of a quick strategy game that's like one you could bring to a bar or beer garden, I guess, because I'm the type of weirdo that brings board games to beer gardens. But how long did it take you to develop this game? [00:34:01] Speaker F: Really interesting. So actual development time was probably about three months. Design time for the actual production and the components was another couple of months. But it actually was a process that took over two years because I initially had the inspiration for it and could not figure out for the life of me how to get the AI system to work until recently, when I just kind of had. I was working on another project, just kind of thinking, totally unrelated, and all of a sudden went, dice. [00:34:34] Speaker C: Dice is the way. [00:34:35] Speaker A: Oh, my God, it's so obvious. [00:34:37] Speaker F: So it just kind of evolved from there. And it was just another bolt of inspiration. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Working probability. I played a demo for a game at GMT West a few years ago, and he had worked all of his probability into cards. And to be perfectly honest, I enjoyed the game, but he wanted to simplify it, which is why he put each card has its own, just random dice as you put it down. And I'm like, I really like rolling dice. It's a fun component to a game. There's that brief moment of as it's going. But I thought this game was fantastic. What are the challenges of being kind of a self published game designer? Because we talk a lot about on the podcast about self published comic distribution can be really tough. What pitfalls do you end up experiencing making money? [00:35:25] Speaker F: No, in all honesty, it's about who you know, not what you know. I made great games, and it's only really now starting to have an actual impact in the industry. I'm starting to see people that actually already know what prove it is and know who safe haven is. And I've been designing for years. I've been designing for years, but it's recent because I've been making some new contacts and getting into more cons and having more of a presence in the community. And that's really the way of it. Now that I'm getting more exposure, I'm making more sales, and more people have seen the game. They're playing the game, actually. We've started up a competitive circuit for prove it, which is really exciting. [00:36:13] Speaker A: You guys had a tournament this con, right? [00:36:16] Speaker F: We tried. We launched the first tournament, but we only had a few takers and far and few between, so not at the same time. It wasn't enough at the same time to run a tournament, but there was enough interest. We had the interest there, and that's what's so big. It shows us that, okay, people don't know what it is yet, but once they do, it's going to be. [00:36:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:40] Speaker D: I've actually been with Brian since the beginning. Literally, the first con I went with you to was. [00:36:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:36:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:48] Speaker D: So first con I went to, Brian went with Brian to was San Diego Comic Con. And we've seen, even in the last three years, I've been helping you with conventions. It's grown so much because of not only the connections that he's made, but the people that are like, oh, yeah, I love this game, and I want to do something with this. And they're sharing it with their friends, and we're seeing it just start to spread. So now we're seeing it grow, and it's really cool to see that. [00:37:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So you actually were the one who demoed web spinners to me yesterday, which I loved. But beyond just sitting at the table and demoing the game, how else do you fit into this, Kenny? [00:37:22] Speaker D: Well, Brian and I have been really good friends for about almost four years now, and really, I help play Test. I demo. We refer to me as the intern or the demo slave. [00:37:36] Speaker A: Play testing is a grueling work. Grueling work. Yeah. [00:37:41] Speaker F: It can be more so than some games. More so than others. [00:37:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:48] Speaker D: So we were actually just play testing one, which I don't know if I'm at liberty to say which one it is or not. [00:37:54] Speaker F: We're working on our first tabletop rpg. That's all we should really say. [00:37:58] Speaker A: No, I was talking about the other. [00:38:00] Speaker D: One that we were play testing at the game store. [00:38:01] Speaker C: No, not that one. [00:38:02] Speaker A: The other one. Given secrets away. Okay. [00:38:09] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:38:10] Speaker F: We'll leave you in suspense. [00:38:11] Speaker A: All right. Mysteries. Mysteries. Secret secrets. [00:38:14] Speaker F: We need some reason to be invited back on. [00:38:17] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Agreed. All right, well, where can we find all of your merchandise so that we can get these people playing web spinners? [00:38:24] Speaker D: Yeah, so you can find us at WW, safehaven games.com. And you can find most of the games on the website or all of. [00:38:33] Speaker A: The games on the website. Excuse. Yeah, are there any physical locations we can find these games? [00:38:39] Speaker D: There are a lot of stores in the San Diego area, and. [00:38:44] Speaker C: We'Re based. [00:38:45] Speaker F: Out of Carlsbad, so there's a lot of stores locally in San Diego and also in the LA area as well. I have a distributor who's been helping me get stuff there. SoCal games and comics is a big one in Temecula. They have all my games, and they sell out regularly. [00:39:02] Speaker A: Super cool. That's super cool, you guys. [00:39:04] Speaker C: That's a great problem to have. [00:39:06] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, well, Kenny, and Brian, it was wonderful meeting you guys, this con, and learning all about this process. We'd love to have you back on again to talk about a little more detail. So, yeah, thank you so much. And where can we find you online? [00:39:18] Speaker F: Instagram? It's just safe haven games. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Safe haven games. Twitter? Safe haven games. Safe haven games. Safe haven games. And there's another guy out there creating. [00:39:35] Speaker C: In the board game world. [00:39:36] Speaker A: In the board game world, which is super awesome. [00:39:38] Speaker C: I've never met anybody who's made a board game. [00:39:40] Speaker A: I do know one guy who has made a war game. [00:39:43] Speaker C: Okay. [00:39:44] Speaker A: If you've ever heard of fields of despair, it's a World War I game. That Buddy Kurt, who used to teach right next door to me when I was teaching English, he created it. But that's a really in depth insane. And there's something to be said about creating a game that works as well as this one does. That is so simple. There's definitely a ton of work that goes into a war game, for sure. Trust me. I was there during much of that process. I'd walk in and he'd be like, I'm answering an email from my writer right now. And we have to rearrange the rules because they can be manipulated in XYZ way. The process took forever for this poor guy. Whereas this game, it's like you've got to dumb it down. You've got to simplify, you've got to make sure that it's very cut and dry in how it works. But I'll tell you what, I love that game so much that when you were in the middle of your magic tournament, I sat down and I played a couple more rounds with him. [00:40:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:36] Speaker A: Because I had time to kill. And we were going to go see. [00:40:38] Speaker C: That panel as hell. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Oh, my God. It was so fun. So cool. We didn't even get to play. Prove it. No, but they sell their games locally in this area, and they're trying to get else. They'll be there at Kingdom Con. Coming up. If you got San Diego, going over to San Diego for board game convention, where you get to play board games and drink beer and have yourself a dandy of a time, which sounds amazing, which does sound really. I really wish we could go. Let's see what we can do. [00:41:04] Speaker C: Yeah, we'll see what we can do. [00:41:05] Speaker A: Anyway, shout out to you guys over at safe Haven. [00:41:08] Speaker C: Yeah, you guys are rad. We'll talk with you guys soon again. [00:41:10] Speaker A: Yes, actually, we want to have them on the podcast, hopefully pretty soon. Thanks, Brian. [00:41:14] Speaker C: So that kind of brings us back to the magic. The gathering. [00:41:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Tell me about the magic the gathering tournament, because we've gotten the whole, like, how we got the card thing. But I want to know. You were really excited. [00:41:25] Speaker C: I was so backing it up a little bit. We really wanted to go see the agents of ShIElD panel. I'm super excited about that because agents. [00:41:33] Speaker A: Of SHIELD this season is freaking great. [00:41:36] Speaker C: They're in space. [00:41:37] Speaker A: What's not to like? [00:41:38] Speaker C: Anyway, so we were like, okay, this is at 430. We'll head over there just maybe 20 minutes before, find some good seats, and in the meantime, we'll just find stuff to do, like, oh, hey, look, there's this magic the gathering tournament. It's only $15. You're guaranteed three booster packs and you're set to go. You get a few other cards, I think. And if you keep winning, you win more prizes. [00:42:00] Speaker A: Yeah, you win more cards, more cards. Each time your deck gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Not that they explained that when you bought it entirely. That was something he kind of more explained to me. I still didn't end up buying in because there was just too much to see, and I was still out there trying my hardest to waste as much of my money as I physically could. [00:42:16] Speaker C: Right. So I go and sign up, it would seem. Yeah. So I go and I signed up. It was supposed to start at 03:00. I'm like, perfect. Tournament starts at three panels at 430. Plenty of time. And they even said that if you need to leave early, you can totally leave early and you'll be fine, you'll be good to go. [00:42:32] Speaker A: So I was like, cool. [00:42:33] Speaker C: So I signed up, paid the money. I'm like, should I come back at a certain time? They're like, oh, ten minutes before we'll start calling names and start getting organized. I'm like, perfect. So as we walk around a little bit, see some stuff, take more of those free cards because they were offering them. I came back at like 245. So I can get a refresher game in because it's been a couple of weeks. Bryce and I play. Bryce kicks my ass. Like, cool. All right. [00:42:54] Speaker A: I think we played with only the cards. We did only play with only our free cards. [00:42:58] Speaker C: Yeah. So we didn't really even look at the decks. [00:42:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:00] Speaker C: Anyway, so I go back up to the table. I'm like, hey, just checking in for the tournament that starts in five minutes. They're like, oh, no, it starts at 330. And I look on the sign up sheet and they crossed out 03:00 and they put 330. [00:43:12] Speaker A: I'm like, no, it does not, sir. [00:43:14] Speaker C: Yeah. He's like, yeah, there was something printed wrong in whatever flyer they were using and in the book, so they had to move it to 330. I'm like, shit. Okay, we'll hang out here. We'll talk with the guys with the board game, and just kind of walk around a little bit more, but stay in the area. So we did that. 330 starts up, and the guy that was organizing it came over and kind of got us going a little bit, and he sat us down, and he's like, okay, hold on a second. And he leaves, and he comes back two minutes later, and he's like, okay, we're going to organize it like this. Ten of us signed up, and he put five of us on one side of the table, five of us on the other side of the table. And then a rep from wizards of the coast who does magic the gathering, he was kind of helping oversee because there's like three or four tournaments going on. And he's like, okay, let me see your roster. Let me put this in the computer. And he's like, wait a minute. What are you doing? And of course, us people of the table are like, why are you doing? [00:44:08] Speaker A: What do you mean? [00:44:08] Speaker C: What are you doing? Who are you talking to? He was talking to the guy that was sponsored from whatever card shop that was there running the tournament, and he was there to oversee the rules and stuff, right? And he's like, why are you organizing it like this? And of course, all of a sudden, the table are like, oh, is there a problem now? Like, what's going on? For some reason, the guy, the idiot will refer to him as Brian didn't like this guy. [00:44:29] Speaker A: No, they didn't get along. [00:44:30] Speaker C: Yeah, if you can't tell by now. So he sat us one through five and then six through ten, but he wanted one and two to fight each other. [00:44:39] Speaker A: But one and two were sitting, sitting next to each other instead of in front of each other. [00:44:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So him and the wizards of the coast guy got in a little, like, argument. Like, what are you doing? And of course we're like, yeah, this doesn't make any sense. [00:44:49] Speaker A: He's like, no, I should run this in your shop. Like this. What are you doing? [00:44:53] Speaker C: So they leave for another five minutes. Everybody else is just like, okay, so. [00:44:57] Speaker A: By now it's like 350. And we have the shield is in 20. We got to be there in 20 minutes. [00:45:03] Speaker C: Yeah. 2030 minutes. So finally they get it, everything figured out, and they're just like, just play the person in front of you. And everyone's like, yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Okay, so we play and I win pretty nicely. [00:45:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you had, like, some ridiculous. [00:45:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, no, actually, the girl I was playing, she wasn't pulling any mana. Yeah, that sucks. [00:45:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's tough. [00:45:26] Speaker C: I kind of felt bad, but I kind of didn't because. Whatever. [00:45:28] Speaker A: But then you had to leave. [00:45:30] Speaker C: So check this. So you start out with two booster packs and then you fill it in. No, it was one booster pack. [00:45:35] Speaker A: One booster pack. And then you fill it with land cards. Land. [00:45:38] Speaker C: So it was a shit show to begin with. Cool concept. Really cool. And that's why it was fun, because it was a shit show. That part, yeah. [00:45:46] Speaker A: You're dealing with kind of a tough challenge. Like, half of your cards are mana and you only have 30. [00:45:51] Speaker C: And whatever cards you get in your pack. No trading, no nothing. So it was really cool that the way that worked out, but every time you won a game, you'd get a new booster pack. You were guaranteed at least three games because they would give you three booster packs. And after that, again, every time you won, you can replace stuff, and you only had 30 cars in your deck. But after that first game, I won it with about 510 minutes left in the tournament itself. Oh, there's a mosquito flying around. [00:46:16] Speaker A: No, it's a mosquito hawk. This is a podcast. [00:46:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:46:19] Speaker A: Oh, there it is. And a mosquito eater has entered the house. [00:46:21] Speaker C: Wow. [00:46:21] Speaker A: And is claiming it as his own. [00:46:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, it was nice living here. [00:46:25] Speaker A: All right, anyway, time to burn the house down. [00:46:28] Speaker C: All right, we'll see you guys. So anyway, so we were sitting there just kind of waiting for everybody else to finish up, and then the clock ran out of time, so we're like, okay, cool. And then we sat around for another five minutes, and we're like, what are we doing? I started getting antsy. Also, I had a coffee that I pounded, and I was getting antsy, and I was moving around, and I was like, let's do this. Let's go, let's go. Nothing. [00:46:52] Speaker A: Crickets. [00:46:53] Speaker C: Yeah, they finally came back around. Like, okay, we're just going to shift one seat to the right. Here's your new packs. Sit tight. We'll be back in, like, five minutes. And I'm like, what the hell? So it got to the point where it's 415, 420. And I'm like, you know what? I'm over this. [00:47:12] Speaker A: We don't condone the use of illegal drugs if they're illegal in your location. [00:47:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Anyway, so I'm like, you know what? Screw this. I'm out. I don't want to start a new game if I have to leave two hands in. So I'm like, you know what? I'll call it quits now. I'll check in at the desk and just be like, hey, I'm going to a panel. What's the deal, Leo? He's like, oh, no. No big deal. Thanks for coming in. Sorry it took so long. We're having some trouble with the computers and the guy, and we're like, yeah, we're aware. And at this point, someone else came up behind me to complain about him. So I'm like, cool. It wasn't just me being an asshole. Like, he was actually, he was also. [00:47:46] Speaker A: Very being an asshole. No, that's because of coffee. [00:47:49] Speaker C: Yeah. But also, he didn't explain the rules at first. And when I asked him about it, he was kind of a gatekeepy asshole. [00:47:55] Speaker A: And I'm like, we're not about that. [00:47:57] Speaker C: No. Anyways, okay, so basically, long story. Still kind of long. The dude cashed me out, and he gave me an extra three booster packs. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Nice. [00:48:05] Speaker C: And he was like, hey, like, you won. Yeah, basically. Okay. At the end of it all, I got, like, a bunch. [00:48:09] Speaker A: Four booster packs. I mean, you got. You had your pack. Had to buy a new box for your cards. [00:48:15] Speaker C: No. So that was my very frustrating, and it was kind of a cool tournament. [00:48:19] Speaker A: But, hey, I mean, it ends with a happy ending. You got a real happy ending there. [00:48:23] Speaker C: Not that happy, but I mean, well. [00:48:25] Speaker A: And not that kind of happy ending. I don't know if I want that at the magic. The gathering. No, that is definitely not the mana I want to go for. This is a family podcast. This is a christian server. Not say, heck no, hex, no fricks. Anyway, so, yeah, we ditched it and then christian podcast? No, not at all. Not with the amount of swearing Dave does. Fuck no. [00:48:55] Speaker C: I mean, what? [00:48:56] Speaker A: Anyway, yeah, so we ditched it. We went and saw the shield panel, which was great. We saw an animated panel for Marvel's new shows are going to be super cool. [00:49:08] Speaker C: Marvel rising. [00:49:09] Speaker A: Marvel rising. [00:49:10] Speaker C: Going to be good. [00:49:11] Speaker A: It's going to be great. We've got two of my favorites and one of my absolute least favorites. So we're going to see how that dynamic goes for those of you at home who really like squirrel girl. I don't get it, but you're not wrong. That's really gatekeepy. Sorry. If you, like, know, that's fine. Bless your heart. I really liked squirrel girl. When she showed back up to babysit Luke Cage and Jessica Jones'daughter, she was so cool, and then she became a weird cartoon caricature person. But that's neither here nor there, because the fact is, some people love her enough. And Marvel's people, anytime I ever mentioned this online, people are like, who hurt you? And I'm like, Marvel did, but it's got Kamala Khan and Gwen Stacy. Spider or Ghost spider? [00:49:59] Speaker C: Ghost Spider. [00:50:00] Speaker A: And maybe she just likes the easy, easy to remember tagging. Anyway, we've been trying to figure out why she's called Ghost Spider for a. [00:50:10] Speaker C: While, and I think it's in the. [00:50:11] Speaker A: Newer, it's Spiderman and new Spiderman stuff. Cartoons, comics. [00:50:16] Speaker C: I'm so behind and everything else. [00:50:17] Speaker A: You know what I found the other day, speaking of comics and cons, I found a bunch of stuff that you gave me from a comic con a few years ago when your swag bags were, like, overflowing. [00:50:29] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Comic Con used to be really good at just giving up cool, free stuff. [00:50:32] Speaker A: So you had an excess, and you gave me some of your old excess. And so I've been going through kind of cleaning up my room and going through a lot of my old promotional stuff, and do I throw it away? Do I give it away? Whatever. But I found an advertisement for Ultimate Spider man. [00:50:46] Speaker C: Nice. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Not the cartoon, or not the comic, but the cartoon. Cartoon with Drake Bell. [00:50:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Which was so good. I mean, it basically was the launching point, much in the same way Iron man was for their current animated style. Actually, the entire animation said so that ultimate Spiderman and Avengers assemble really, it's like, those are, the ultimate Spiderman is the flagship, for sure. Avengers assemble is great. I mean, I binged. They had a marathon on XC four or five years ago. Binged. [00:51:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:19] Speaker A: I remember watching it for a day. I remember you texting me about it, too. Yeah, I was loving it. I'm still going. [00:51:26] Speaker C: I'm still going anyway. [00:51:27] Speaker A: But I found that the other day, and it was really cool because now we're here, I got to sit in a panel, and I've met some of these people who are up on that panel before, and it was really neat. I met one of them back when I did day drunk gays. We had both gone to the same award show, so I got to talk to him again, and it was just cool. It was super cool. [00:51:49] Speaker C: Yeah. And most of the panel people, interestingly. [00:51:51] Speaker A: Enough, that same award show is where I met Elizabeth Henstridge, but I did not get to go talk to Elizabeth Henstridge, much to my dismay. [00:51:58] Speaker C: So sad. Me too. She's so great. Yeah. The panelists came out and talked to people afterwards. They showed some funko pop animated shorts. [00:52:07] Speaker A: Which are so good. [00:52:09] Speaker C: They're so simple and cute, but they're three minutes long. [00:52:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't really like the idea of investing in funko pops per se, but, I mean, if it's only three minutes of my time and they're so funny, I'll allow it. Yeah, and it's funny. They kind of get the core of the character. The way they went about that process was really cool to listen to. [00:52:25] Speaker C: So there's no vocals in there. It's all facial expressions and it's all action. [00:52:30] Speaker A: It's basically like the original Lego games, just like, at the very most. [00:52:36] Speaker C: Little sound effects here. [00:52:37] Speaker A: Yeah, little sound effects here and there. But no, because they don't have mouths. [00:52:39] Speaker C: Right. [00:52:40] Speaker A: So, yeah, that was super fun. Did you pick up anything at the con that you were? I mean, you got the Star wars comic that you've been looking for. [00:52:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:49] Speaker A: Ever. Which I told in the last podcast. But was that last podcast? [00:52:53] Speaker C: Yeah, it was last. [00:52:53] Speaker A: Yeah, last podcast, though. You found that one. But, I mean, what else did you find? [00:52:57] Speaker C: What else did I. [00:52:58] Speaker A: You didn't really buy a whole heck of a lot. [00:53:00] Speaker C: No, mostly just kind of the magic cards a little bit. And I didn't even really mean to buy all those. No, but we got hooked up. We got a really. [00:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, like, I spent, I think, maybe 14, $15 on magic. Yeah, I think 20. But we got way more. [00:53:16] Speaker C: Yeah, we did. [00:53:16] Speaker A: I just wish I'd gotten more dinosaurs. [00:53:18] Speaker C: I went in. I was going to a con looking for a shirt. Yeah, I didn't get a shirt this time. [00:53:22] Speaker A: I didn't. It came in the mail. [00:53:23] Speaker C: Oh, nice. [00:53:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And I had had such a long conversation about the shirt because it's a Steven versus the universe. [00:53:30] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, you were telling me about that. [00:53:31] Speaker A: And it's in the font of Scott Pocon versus the world's movie poster. And it's the same position that Michael Sarah's in and that Scott's in. But it was Steven. I was a little disappointed because he's not playing like his regular ukulele, but he's playing an electric guitar in the shape of cookie cat, and he's on that kind of white plane that is the top of the water tower that lapis makes with, like, the galaxies behind it and stuff. [00:53:59] Speaker C: Really cool. [00:54:00] Speaker A: And it's kind of in. [00:54:01] Speaker C: I did make it that weird middle. [00:54:03] Speaker A: You didn't make it to Ocean gym. I did. [00:54:05] Speaker C: I said I did make it that. [00:54:06] Speaker A: Oh, you did? Okay. Yeah, you said you didn't. And I'm like, dude, you've, like, just a few more, and then huge reveals happen. Anyway, but I did get a shirt, and that was the shirt I got, and it finally came in the mail. I trusted this man with money, and he came through. So shout out to you, guy who didn't put his name or business card in the box when he shipped me his t shirt. [00:54:29] Speaker C: Oh, man. No. [00:54:30] Speaker A: His loss. [00:54:32] Speaker C: No, I got a little reptar figure for the girlfriend because she's all into Reptar. [00:54:36] Speaker A: Who's not into Reptar, right? I watched a clip yesterday of Reptar shoving the giant ape toy into a time machine, and it shows up in the middle of Philadelphia or the crossing of the Delaware, and he's like, oh. And the Reptar robot had pushed him through. And I'm like, the start of the episode, the episode, the clip. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, it's weird that there's a reptar that is that articulated and can do that much and that is that big in the world of rugrats. And then they shove it into a time machine, and I'm like, why is there a time machine at toy store? Why doesn't rugrats have more serious problems going on in that universe? [00:55:15] Speaker C: That sounds serious to me. [00:55:18] Speaker A: You have a time machine just available to people. It should be going terribly awry on a regular basis in a way that is far beyond what the babies can handle. [00:55:27] Speaker C: Right? Yeah. [00:55:29] Speaker A: Anyway. [00:55:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:29] Speaker A: You got reptar for your girlfriend? Sorry. [00:55:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:33] Speaker A: I'm just so baffled. Did classic soupo, or however you pronounce their names, not just at any point, and go, you know, guys, I think we're going a little far. [00:55:43] Speaker C: Nope, not at all. Not needed. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Anyway, it's perfect. One potato, two potato, three potato, four potato. What else did you get at wonder what else. You got another comic, didn't. [00:55:56] Speaker C: You? [00:55:56] Speaker A: Didn't get, like, a trade or something. [00:55:57] Speaker C: Like that, did I? [00:55:58] Speaker A: I guess not. I guess I was the one who did most. [00:56:00] Speaker C: Yeah, that was another thing. [00:56:02] Speaker A: You got some good pizza. [00:56:03] Speaker C: Yeah, we got some good pizza. [00:56:04] Speaker A: I mean, you got Dave and I got some Dave. You and Dave got pizza while I sat, nursed a headache, and threw up in the bathroom from a migraine. But, you know. Well, I'll let Dave tell that story, actually. Yeah. [00:56:17] Speaker C: Okay. [00:56:17] Speaker A: I'm going to go through my list real quick. So I'm walking around with Dave, and I spot a Gundam booth. Now, I haven't bought a new Gundam model kit for myself since I was a teenager. [00:56:32] Speaker C: Okay. [00:56:32] Speaker A: But I used to be really into Gundam wing, which is weird because I'm mostly just into endless waltz. As far as the Gundam Wing series, I don't know that I ever actually completed that series. In fact, I don't think I've ever completed any Gundam series. [00:56:44] Speaker C: No. I watched my cousin Steve, a bunch of random ones. Yeah. [00:56:49] Speaker A: And I kind of want to get into this newest one, the orphans one. But I'm also terrified that if I like it enough, I'm going to want to buy all those model kits, too. But. So I'm walking through, and I got most of my Gundam kits actually in that convention center when anime expo was there. [00:57:03] Speaker C: Oh, cool. Yeah. [00:57:03] Speaker A: And so I walk in and I see Gundam kits all over there, and I'm just like, now you take this huge gasp, and Dave goes, are you okay there, buddy? And I go, dude, that's a whole booth for Gundam kits. And it doesn't look like it's not the one with the giant display cases. Yeah, so, you know they're going to be, like, fairly reasonably priced, right? And I walk in. [00:57:25] Speaker C: Tate always gets them at Comic Con, right? [00:57:27] Speaker A: But they're so expensive. Yeah. So I walk in and I'm like, when I bought Gundam kits, they were $20 to $25. Even at toys r us, it was like $25. And I look down and they're sitting there is like the one kit I never got, which was tall geese three has this big old whip and the shield, and it looks super freaking cool. I never had it. My buddy Charles had epion, which was kind of the same thing, but, like, maroon and stuff. But it wasn't in inls. That's what mattered to me. Was it in the film endless waltz, which also has a ton of really cool Ramstein music videos edited around it, if you ever want to look that up. Firefly from way back in the day has this great anime music video. Oh, those were so good back in the day. Anyway, they're good now, but I'm so far removed from that world compared to where I used to be. I was deep in the weebly trenches. So I see this and I'm like, how much is this? And she's like, it's $27. And I'm like, that's $2 more than it used to be. And then I think about it. I'm like, and yet minimum wage has gone up like $2 since then. You lowered the prices. You did not meet inflation at all. [00:58:41] Speaker C: Why are you even thinking about that right now, I did some quick math. [00:58:44] Speaker A: In my head, and by quick math in my head, I went, seems right. And I bought that shit. And hell, yeah, I was like, $27. I'm an adult. $27 is a few hours of work. That's not true. But I'm not telling you how I make, how much I make in an hour, because that's my business. Anyway, so I got this Gundam kit, and it's now sitting on my desk. And is it built? Fuck, no. Well, of course it's not built. I haven't even started on it. But it sits there. But it's there, and I'm really happy about. [00:59:10] Speaker C: That's so cool. [00:59:10] Speaker A: And now I have to display them, and they will protect my virginity forever, which I apparently have gotten back. This is an adult podcast. Sorry, Ziglitz. Anyway, so I got that. I got every Steven universe trade that I did except for one, which. Okay, I'll find it. And then the ones I didn't buy, I already have in single issues, so that's fine. Which are filled with super cool fan art, which I might do again, because that's what I did last year for the. I do this chalk art festival up in Bakersfield. We're actually talking about maybe doing one in Santa Barbara as well, because we all loved it so much. But I did a copy of a chunk of a fan art piece. That's right. From a comic version of Steven Universe. So I might do it again because there's some cool stuff. [00:59:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:57] Speaker A: It's such a artsy, inspiring show. And then, of course, I got my Steven universe thing, and then I got my Gundam kit, and then I got Sakar in the Savage land. Scar in the Savage land was so cool. Yeah. Read the shit out of that right. [01:00:10] Speaker C: Off one of my favorite characters, the Hulk son. If you haven't read up on it, like, check it out. [01:00:14] Speaker A: Yeah, super cool, dude. Right after he and the Hulk have basically have it out for way too many issues, because Jeff Loeb was writing a series simultaneously, as somebody else was. Right. After all that, he goes to the Savage land to chill and to just chill and get away from everything. And, of course, want to be left alone, like pops. Yeah. Hulk just want to be alone. But I can talk. I can speaking in words. So I got that. And then I was talking to Dave, and he was like, is there anything you want? And I've never written the list. What do you have? What don't you have? And I've got that massive chunk of comics from the beard Thor saga, which is what I call it. And no one else calls it, but that weird period of time where Donald Blake was not the mighty Thor, and it was this other dude that had a beard. I'm missing a couple of those issues, but I have no idea which ones I'm missing. But the other thing that I collect are old ninety s. New warrior comics. [01:01:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:01:10] Speaker A: And I was telling Dave, I was like, well, I don't know what new warriors issues I'm missing. And he goes, well, do you have their first appearance in Mighty Thor? And I was like, is it during the beard Thor saga? And he goes, no, it's just after that. So we go over and we look at it, and it's this juggernaut story where the new warriors show up to help Thor. There was two issues. They're in mint condition. They are so good. And I haven't gotten to read them yet because I'm kind of terrified to touch them. Like, I feel like I need to get on gloves for them. Yeah, but give them, like, a white room. I paid $45, I think, for both. [01:01:41] Speaker C: Nice. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Which, I mean, good deal. The new warriors aren't super popular, but, boy, if they become popular, the reason I like them so much is because of Nova. [01:01:48] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:01:49] Speaker A: Like, point blank, period. The reason I got into the new warriors was Nova, but they were a big part of civil war as well, because, like, speedball comes out of there. Is speedball penance? [01:02:01] Speaker C: Yes. If you haven't read Civil War, the original marvel. Run. Check it out. It's mostly cool. [01:02:08] Speaker A: I'm not really into the knight Thrasher. I am kind of in an emerita. I think she's a cool. Like, what if we had a namor character who's a girl and not a son of a bitch? Yeah. So I got those, and it was super cool. And then I almost. Oh, no, I did. I bought it. Oh, what did I buy from? [01:02:27] Speaker C: Um. [01:02:29] Speaker A: I bought a trade of. I didn't buy that from Glennis. I'm a terrible from. I bought a Terminator trade. I bought it in that big ass booth. [01:02:41] Speaker C: Did you? [01:02:42] Speaker A: I thought I did. No, I bought it from her. [01:02:44] Speaker C: I do want to get it more. [01:02:45] Speaker A: I got it from Glenn. Yeah, I got some cool stuff from Glennis, and Glennis is our third interview from Wondercon. [01:02:50] Speaker C: Nice segue. [01:02:51] Speaker A: Nice segue. Yes. [01:02:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:53] Speaker A: Segue accomplice, Bryce Rankin. Segway tours. [01:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah, too far. [01:02:58] Speaker A: Too far. Okay, here's Glennis. [01:03:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:03:00] Speaker A: Okay, so we're here with Glennis from comic book Hideout and Glennis, why don't you give me your full name, stating your full name and spelling the last. [01:03:09] Speaker B: For the record, Glennis Pruitt. P-R-U-E-T-T. But it's soon to be speak. Yeah, because I just got engaged. [01:03:19] Speaker A: Congratulations. Okay, so you have your own comic book shop. [01:03:23] Speaker B: I do. Best comic book shop in Orange county for the last five years in a row. [01:03:27] Speaker A: Tell me all about it. [01:03:28] Speaker B: Well, comic book hideout is full service comic book shop, which means we have subscription services. We have current issues. We have a ton of back issues. We've got a huge indie section for a lot of stuff that's not Marvel DC superhero stuff. We've got a music studio where we do music lessons. We have a full art gallery where we do art shows. I do painting classes, comic creation classes, classes for kids, classes for adults. [01:03:53] Speaker C: You guys do, like, birthday parties there too? [01:03:55] Speaker B: We do parties. We do special events. We do signing events. We do magic, the gathering, and, like, gaming tournaments, board games. We do new board game releases and new book releases from local artists. Yeah, we do it all. [01:04:10] Speaker A: So we talked about this a little bit earlier when I ran into you at the Bakersfield charity con, which is where I first met you, and we talked about how one of the things behind our podcast is just the gatekeeping problems that happen with this. And you had a phrase that you used in your comic shop. Can you tell me more about that? [01:04:33] Speaker B: Well, I stole this phrase from a lesser known will Ferrell movie called Semi Pro, but my phrase is ele everybody, love everybody. And that's how we keep the hideout running the way that we do. Oh, I'm sorry. I got flaily arms. It's a syndrome. [01:04:55] Speaker C: So this is a podcast. And she got excited and flailed her arms. Almost nailed this chick behind over here. [01:05:02] Speaker B: I've definitely not been the first time that I would have hit someone with my flailing arms. I'm just so excited, you guys. If you watch my YouTube videos, you'll know that all I do is be excited and flail my arms. That's like my mo. If I was a cartoon character, I'd constantly be hitting people. [01:05:20] Speaker A: You're kind of a cartoon character, and you are constantly hitting people. [01:05:24] Speaker B: Right. And even today with my hair, especially like this, I'm more cartoony than ever. [01:05:30] Speaker C: So how long have you had your comic book store? How long has that been there? [01:05:33] Speaker B: So I built my shop from the ground up five years ago. A little over five years ago now. [01:05:38] Speaker A: Brick by brick. [01:05:40] Speaker B: Well, slat wall by slat wall. In 2012, in November. And in the first eight months, we got so big and busy. And I bought so many comics from people bringing them in. I ran out of space in my tiny 1000 square foot store. So we moved to a 3000 square foot location, which is where we've been ever since. And we moved there just eight months after I opened. So we've been there almost the entire time. Yeah. And we've got a bitch and mural out front by Dan Fraga. And we're working on doing murals in the back as well. But I got to get my city groove on. [01:06:19] Speaker A: You're next to Heroes bar, right? [01:06:21] Speaker B: We are close to Heroes bar, but we're directly next to the police station. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Got you. So we feel safe and we can have delicious nachos. [01:06:28] Speaker C: Yeah. Funny story how I first found comic book hideout, so I went to Cal State Fullerton. Nice. So I graduated in 14 with my master's degree and then. Thank you. And so my parents like, oh, where do you want to go get food? [01:06:45] Speaker A: Or whatever after? [01:06:45] Speaker C: I'm like, let's go to heroes. Get some nachos. We get some booze. We're going to get some nachos. [01:06:50] Speaker A: We eat a lot of nachos at heroes. [01:06:52] Speaker C: We really like nachos. [01:06:54] Speaker B: Huge. I love that we just gave a heroes a big old shout out. [01:06:58] Speaker A: Thank you. Heroes really hurt. So this is a podcast. No, it's over here. And my whole audio setup just fell out of my head and ripped my earbuds out of my little ears. Oh my goodness. Great. Anyway, so we were talking at Bakersfield Comic con before we started talking about, oh, yeah, heroes. Tell us about how you found heroes, Brian. [01:07:25] Speaker C: No, I found heroes years ago in college because that's what you do in DTF. [01:07:30] Speaker A: Sorry. Tell us about how you found comic book hideouts. [01:07:33] Speaker C: I'm also not going to go into detail on that DTF part. Unless you're from Fullerton, you know what's up? Anyway, so after graduation we go to heroes. My mom starts just, here's a drink. Have another drink. [01:07:45] Speaker A: You want another drink? [01:07:45] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. Let's go. Thanks, ma. And they're like, oh, we got to go soon. You're good to drive, right? No, you fed me seven drinks. That's fine. I'll walk around and I'll just walk it off. So that's when I found comic book hideout. When I was walking around, stumbled to it sobering up, and I'm like, I can grab a drink and then go across the way and go to a comic book store. This is amazing. [01:08:11] Speaker B: We have 27 bars and restaurants in walking distance from the comic book hideout. Yes, you can have 27 bars and restaurants. You can have any type of food that you got. We got lebanese food, we got middle eastern food, we got mexican food, we got american food. We got dive bar food. We got fancy food, whatever kind of food you want. Oh, yeah. [01:08:32] Speaker C: Nachos are there, too. [01:08:34] Speaker B: Burgers. We got two great burger spots. [01:08:36] Speaker A: Okay. On a more serious note, vyon, I mean, food is serious. We're serious about food. So we talked a little bit, and I'd like to talk to you about this more extensively in a future podcast. But you, if the audience hasn't figured it out yet, are a woman. [01:08:54] Speaker B: I am. [01:08:55] Speaker A: And you own your own comic book shop. Is that a common thing? [01:08:59] Speaker B: No, it's not. [01:09:01] Speaker A: And what's that like? And what sort of exciting things happen because of that? And what sort of two creepy forwards things happen about that? [01:09:08] Speaker B: Okay, well, there's a lot of those things. It's exciting for anyone to own their own business. I am such an advocate for entrepreneurship and small business. It's really thrilling to engage yourself in the community, to develop something that is your own, that has your own personality to it and your own quirks. And I think that by sharing that with other people, it's a really special and wonderful thing. I love teaching classes on startup businesses and entrepreneurial management because I really feel like it's something that people are capable of. It's a shitload of work, and it's really hard, and I cry a lot. Sometimes. [01:09:44] Speaker C: It's got to be super rewarding at the same time. [01:09:46] Speaker B: It is. And part of that being rewarding, part of that stuff that's super awesome is the interaction with the community. I'm really involved, and downtown Fullerton has a really great local business community scene. So I'm really involved with the chamber of commerce, with the Rotary Club. I do a bunch of teaching for public libraries and the museum, and I love being able to interact with my community. And I've gotten great, positive feedback from the community and from my customers, who are like, holy crap, you're a tiny little girl, and you own this big ass store, and that's awesome. And so there's a lot of validation that comes from that. That's really rad. But then there's also a lot of people being super shitty and hating on you for no reason. And a lot of that is like. [01:10:27] Speaker A: That'S our friend Blaine, by the way. [01:10:29] Speaker C: He's got some creepers coming up, like, reporting it. [01:10:31] Speaker B: Oh, it's all good. I'm used to that, too. The funniest thing is, when I'm in the shop, and I'm with my employees, who are male, or my fiance, who is also hanging out around the shop helping people out, who is also male, who is also male. And people love to specifically not address me when they ask questions or they're trying to get information about the store. And the most fun part is when they'll ask my employee a question, who's right next to me, make eye contact, ask a question, and then they'll say, oh, yeah, well, she can actually answer that. And then I'll go to answer the question, and they'll keep only talking to the male employee. [01:11:13] Speaker A: Do you think that's out of fear of the fact that you're a woman or complete and utter disrespect? [01:11:18] Speaker B: Honestly, I can't tell half the time, because sometimes there's definitely a case by case basis of men that come in who are extremely intimidated of people in general, especially female people, especially female people with boobs. So I think that there's just like. [01:11:36] Speaker A: So this is the podcast. Glennny says boobs. [01:11:38] Speaker B: They're pretty great. You can't see them. So I have to let you know. I'll tell you. So there's a lot of people I'll say, like, oh, my store, my store. And they'll be like, okay, well, how long have you been working for this store? And I'm like, no, this is my store. I own this store. I'm here because it's mine. And they're like, oh, did your dad give it to you? And I'm like, oh, no. [01:12:09] Speaker A: See? [01:12:09] Speaker B: And it's a popular misconception because I grew up selling comics with my dad. So everybody in the comic book industry knows me from when I was a little kid, from selling at shows and Frankenstein's and all that. So typically, that's an answer that's like, okay, that could be innocent. You think that it's my dad's store? [01:12:27] Speaker C: Their dad's stores, yeah, but then I. [01:12:30] Speaker B: Have to politely correct them, be like, no, this isn't my dad's store. He doesn't have anything to do with the store except for he buys his comics from here, and his daughter takes piano lessons here, my little sister. So it's fun to kind of see people's reactions because it's something that you think that there wouldn't be a big deal about. There's plenty of women that own clothing stores or tea shops or whatever other stereotypical feminine thing that you can think of as a retail store. But for people to understand, like, hey, here's a moderately attractive woman that owns a comic book store in a male dominated industry. It's great for my customers that are women. I have 40% readership of polls in my store, which is unheard of for comic books. And I think that it's really because I'm a female leader in my community, in my store, and I'm trying to lift all of everybody up, not just other girls, not just other business owners or other people that like comics, but everybody. [01:13:27] Speaker A: Elli. [01:13:29] Speaker B: Exactly, because that's the way that it should be. We should all be able to enjoy any kind of fandom we like. I was actually in a movie about fandoms called Squee, and it's about girls in fandoms and how they're treated and gatekeeping and a lot of, oh, somebody's talking about him. They're talking shit on him. Oh, dang. I bet it's about that sweater. Just kidding. It's adorable. [01:13:54] Speaker A: This is a podcast that guy's wearing for everyone at home who can't see. That man is wearing a lovely cardigan. It looks like it's zipping up. And possibly as a turtleneck with a gap. Jeez, that is some good ass sweaters. H and m, I think if I had to take a guess. I don't know. I like the ribbing on the shoulder here. Anyway. [01:14:13] Speaker B: I was going to segue into one of my best friends from college, like, my best friend from college. She is a badass entrepreneur herself. She's super duper smart, has a fantastically successful business. And she was talking to me the other day. We were at an event, and she was like, you know what I love to do? I love to just go up to people and tell them when they're rocking it. Like, if someone's doing something bold or wearing something that looks like it was a little risky choice, I like to go up and encourage them and give them support and be like, damn, girl, you look hot as fuck. You're doing great. We can bleep that one out. Sorry, dropping f bombs over here. But that's kind of how I live my life and how I want my business to shine is everybody should be supporting and loving people that are helping to develop and grow any industry, right? If we are all in this together. [01:15:05] Speaker C: Especially this industry, because the comics, the movies, tv shows are doing great comics themselves, it's on the downswing. [01:15:11] Speaker B: We need all the love we can get. We need all the people actually reading physical copies of books and going to local bookstores and comic book stores and helping to drive that business, because without customers like you, if everyone starts buying things online, this is a community center with a retail face that will go away. So we really need to help promote all these things. [01:15:36] Speaker A: Well, Glennis, it's been an absolute pleasure. We'd love to talk to you again sometime. Where can we find your shop? [01:15:42] Speaker B: You can find comic book hideout in downtown Fullerton at two one five West Commonwealth Avenue, directly next to the police station. And you can find us on Instagram, on all of our social media at comic book Hideout and hashtag the hideout or comic book hideout. We have all of our stuff on there, including our YouTube channel where I do weekly what's ups. I read comics to people, and we talk about all the fun stuff that's coming out and what we're excited about in the shop. [01:16:07] Speaker A: And where are you on YouTube. [01:16:09] Speaker B: Comic book hidout. [01:16:10] Speaker A: Easy peasy. All right, thank you so much. Comic book hid out. Isn't she great? [01:16:15] Speaker C: So cool. [01:16:15] Speaker A: She's so cool. She has her comic shop, which actually came to Bakersfield's charity con. [01:16:21] Speaker C: Okay. [01:16:21] Speaker A: Which is how I met her. [01:16:22] Speaker C: Okay. [01:16:23] Speaker A: And she's just the best. She's cool. She's down to earth. She knows her shit. She puts up with a lot of shit. But she also. That ele thing is such a great, like, hey, no, everybody's going to be cool here. And you get a little slogan going on, so everybody kind of quotes it together. [01:16:41] Speaker C: Yeah, super, super. [01:16:42] Speaker A: You just got her. Did you get your pull with her today? [01:16:44] Speaker C: No, I didn't get a chance because I got stuck in traffic all day by the time I got here. That's when you got here. And then we were really hungry. [01:16:51] Speaker A: We were really hungry, and we had tatchos. So now comes the cooking segment of our show. Brian and I have recently discovered our love for both Tater tots and nachos. [01:17:00] Speaker C: Now, we've known it for a while, but now we just got smart enough to put them together. [01:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, together at taken. So here's what you do. First, you make a bunch of nachos. Nope, false. You don't make. [01:17:11] Speaker C: Scratch that. [01:17:11] Speaker A: Scratch. First you make a bunch of tater tots. [01:17:14] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:17:14] Speaker A: Then after. Now you can throw in curly fries. [01:17:16] Speaker C: Which we did today because we didn't have enough tots. [01:17:18] Speaker A: We didn't have enough tots, but it was good. Then. If you want to go lean, you get turkey meatballs. Turkey meatballs taste like chicken nuggets. [01:17:27] Speaker C: They kind of do like, to me. [01:17:28] Speaker A: They taste almost identical. Costco's turkey meatballs. [01:17:31] Speaker C: They're not Costco brand. [01:17:32] Speaker A: I just got them there. Yeah, they're just there. They taste like chicken nuggets and they don't have breading. And Bryce is currently under orders from his gastroenterologist not to eat bread. So that's awesome. So you make your turkey sausage, you make your tots, then you throw them together with a shitload of cheese. [01:17:48] Speaker C: Yeah, because nachos. [01:17:50] Speaker A: Because nachos. Right. Because we're making tater tot. Nachos. Tachos. If you didn't catch that on the way here, even with my mistake in let's make nachos remark, then you are really not paying attention. Anyway, so then you add the cheese. Do you have anything else? [01:18:02] Speaker C: Beans. Oh, yeah. [01:18:04] Speaker A: And then you get some refried beans. [01:18:05] Speaker C: Kind of soften that. We went kind of healthy. And they were vegetarian refried beans. [01:18:08] Speaker A: They were non fat refried beans last time, too. [01:18:10] Speaker C: Today was vegetarian. [01:18:11] Speaker A: All right. The last time we did. Yeah. Refried beans. As long as they're not like smashed, sun burst or sunkissed or whatever. That. [01:18:20] Speaker C: I don't know. [01:18:21] Speaker A: As long as you're not smashing them yourself, you got a solid bet for the refried beans, especially when you're combining them with a shitload of cheese and tater tots. Anyway, that's the cooking segment today. We put chicken in there. [01:18:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:18:32] Speaker A: And you made some guac. [01:18:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Avocados are on sale. Heads up. [01:18:37] Speaker A: Avocados. They're on season right now. [01:18:40] Speaker C: Got. I got a bunch. [01:18:41] Speaker A: Nice. Take that, millennials. You can't raise the prices forever. [01:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:18:45] Speaker A: Anyway, that's cooking segment of our show. [01:18:47] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for that. [01:18:48] Speaker A: And now, actually, I want to do a quick chunk. We've got some great stories from Dave. [01:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah, we do. [01:18:58] Speaker A: So Dave is going to tell a couple of stories about his wondercon experience. He can't be with us now. So we're going to go to Dave via time travel. [01:19:15] Speaker G: Dave, hi. With the jazz hands. [01:19:19] Speaker A: Hi. I'm here from the past and. [01:19:21] Speaker G: Hello, past Shabba. [01:19:23] Speaker A: And I am here to ask you some questions about Wondercon before I go back to the past to finish up my podcast with Brian. [01:19:32] Speaker G: It's like an episode of Doctor who. [01:19:34] Speaker A: Yeah, but. Yeah, I was going to say, but I don't have a Tardis. But I mean, why not? Yeah, of course. Anyway, so Brian and I were talking about Wondercon, and we know you had some really great Wondercon stories. [01:19:53] Speaker G: Yes, I had a great time at Wondercon. I always do. One of the things I like about it is that, well, first of all, for people who don't know it's put on by the same folks who put on the San Diego Comic Con. And I like that there is more emphasis on the comics part at Wondercon and less on ancillary, sort of nerd related things like the video games and the movies. I mean, there's still some of that, particularly in the panels, but we don't have the Lucas Village, the Walking Dead diorama scene and all that. [01:20:32] Speaker A: You can't go into the stranger things upside down across the street at Wondercon. [01:20:36] Speaker G: Yeah. And, I mean, all that stuff's cool, and I enjoy seeing it at Comic Con in San Diego, but Wondercon, for me, is definitely more comics focused. [01:20:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:50] Speaker G: So I, like, know I sling comics at these shows. That's how I get in. I work for a guy, Steve Wyatt. He's the guy who hosts the Bakersfield comic Con, and it's a good gig. I like it. [01:21:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:04] Speaker G: So I spend about half my time in the booth, sometimes more, but generally about half, because that's Steve's deal. You give me half your time, you get the other half to wander the show and play. [01:21:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:16] Speaker G: So at Wondercon this year, we're on Sunday. We're down to the last, I don't know, hour of the show, maybe, and I'm in the booth. And we had a really good selection of stuff. Most of it was Steve's, but he was also selling some books on consignment for a friend of his, one of which was tales to astonish number 13, which is the first appearance of Groot, but not Groot the way we know him from, like, the Guardians of the Galaxy and stuff. This was back when Marvel was doing a lot of science fiction comics and one offs, well, yeah, these anthology titles were very science fiction, very monsters from Space Gugam, Son of Goom, and stuff like that. And Groot was one of those one off monsters. Everybody's got a thing. And, like, on the coverage, just giant Groot tree creature, talking extensively with a well developed vocabulary about how he's going to conquer the earth and humanity can't stop him and all this sort of thing. And it was in really good condition. It's a one $500 book. [01:22:26] Speaker A: Wow. [01:22:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:27] Speaker G: Like I said, we're getting down to about the last hour, and these two dudes actually come into the booth. The first dude rolls in. He's short. He's almost spherical. He's, well, maybe not quite obese, but he was very round, almost spherical. Yeah. And he had the little Boston Blackie, John Waters mustache, very pencil thin. And there was this other dude, easily a good six inches taller than him, a lot more fit, standing behind him, eating an ice cream cone. Just, this is a podcast, and for those of you in the past who are not watching this in the future. [01:23:16] Speaker A: Well, I think, anyway, the dude is. [01:23:20] Speaker G: Dave is miming licking an ice cream cone. [01:23:26] Speaker A: Thanks for that. [01:23:27] Speaker G: You're welcome. Anyway, I don't really think much of it, but whatever. The dude asks if the shorter, rounder dude asks if he can see our tales to astonish because it's up on our board, our wall of comics, I'm like, sure. So I take it down. He looks at it. It's in its little case. He asks if he can see the insides of the book. I'm like, sure. So I slide it out of its case and set it down on top of one of the boxes, and he kind of flips through it. And I can tell that Homie knows his way around the comics because he doesn't just flip it all the way open, he's just kind of turning up the corner of the COVID Not in a damaging way. But I don't want to throw this open and jack up the spine anymore. I just want to look at the quality of the paper on the pages. Are the pages white? Are they faded and yellowed? Blah, blah. [01:24:19] Speaker A: How well loved was this comic? [01:24:21] Speaker G: It was in really good shape. [01:24:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:23] Speaker G: So he says, he looks at, he's like, I'll take it. I'm like, all right, cool. Ice cream dude suddenly springs into action from behind. The dude thrusts over this dude's shoulder. Past his head. A roll of bills, a Roll of Honda's. This dude is rolling with Hondas. And so he hands me, and I'm like, okay, this is a little on the weird side, but I finish putting the book away. I take the hundreds, and then I start counting. 100, 200, 300, 400. And of course I fuck it up when I get to the 1000 because math. And I end up with one, four hundreds. And I'm like, I'm going to have to count this again. And they're both like, what? I said, I'm an english teacher and counting is hard. And they both start laughing. They're like, okay, so this time I just count it. 123-4567 because math is hard, but not that hard. [01:25:14] Speaker A: Yeah, counting the 15 is not tough. Exactly. Stuff when you have to say 100 between each one, right? [01:25:18] Speaker G: And so I'm like, okay, we got $1,500 bills here. We've got a deal. Thank you very much, fellas. Dude takes his comic hands it to the ice cream guy, and out they go. And I'm like. And I was like, that's the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen. I felt like I was in somebody's movie. I was just the comic slinger for some kind of drug dealer. Yeah, I was an NPC in some dude's side quest. So there was that. [01:25:52] Speaker A: So we were supposed to record during Wondercon weekend, and we had set aside time to do so before Bryce's brain decided it didn't want to be a part of his body anymore and I got that horrible migraine. [01:26:04] Speaker G: Yes. [01:26:05] Speaker A: And you told us that we should go get pizza at a place called pizza. [01:26:11] Speaker G: Well, I mean, I think it probably has a name besides that, but that's all the sign on the building says. [01:26:17] Speaker A: Pizza, which is very comic booky, right? To be just called pizza. [01:26:22] Speaker G: Yes. And so I beat you and B Rom over there because you decided you needed to go back to B Rom's place and get my meds, drop stuff off, get the meds, blah, blah. So while I'm sitting there, this group of cosplayers, teen titans cosplayers, is sitting in the pizza joint eating the pizza. And my inner nerd was going, that's the best. And I didn't want to go in and say, you guys are so awesome. Can I take your picture? Because they're off the convention site. They're clearly. They're off the clock in air quotes, so I didn't want to be that guy. I would have taken a picture of them through the big plate glass picture window, but there was a giant charmander sticker on the window, like a window cling. And so I couldn't really get the whole group. I can only get like, three of the five. I'm like, it doesn't work if I can't get all five. Yeah, no pictures. But it was so fucking awesome. [01:27:29] Speaker A: Once again, you feel like you're in somebody's comic. [01:27:31] Speaker G: Yes, absolutely. Once again, I'm an NPC in somebody else's story. [01:27:35] Speaker A: Was there anything else at comic or at Wondercon particularly wonderful? [01:27:40] Speaker G: Let's see. [01:27:41] Speaker A: Did you get anything? Were you looking for something? [01:27:43] Speaker G: Well, given that I had found the issue of young love with the nun at the Bakersfield show the week before, you've seen my list. My want list is a small notebook that's probably about half filled. So there's always something. But I decided that on this particular round, I was going to make a serious effort at getting part of a Wonder Woman run from the early 90s, wonder Woman goes into space. She does space stuff, comes back, and then she takes a job at a fast food restaurant called Taco Wiz. And that's issue 73. And the COVID has her wearing the taco wiz hat and her Wonder Woman outfit, holding a tray of food, kind of looking up at the camera going, it's a living. Yeah. And the segment that I was looking for goes from issue 66 to 73. I find 666-76-8697 I find 71. I find 73. And I'm struggling to find 72. Everybody's got. Not everybody, but people who have runs in that era don't have 72. And I'm like, why is this being such a bitch to find? And I mentioned that I was looking for it to another dealer, and he's like, oh, that's the Brian Boland cover. I said, well, they're all Brian Boland covers. He's like, no, that's the COVID I'm like, oh, shit. Because it's the. This is one of the sort of the platonic ideal of, you know, it's Wonder Woman, and she's kind of standing. She's got her foot up on a rock and the rock has her shield and she's got her spear and she's got her sword strapped on. DC made a statue of. I mean, it's a great cover, but it's also the last chapter in the story. [01:29:44] Speaker A: Oh, no. [01:29:45] Speaker G: Yes, exactly. So Steve says he might have a copy at the house, but he's doing a show in Italy right now. And so, yeah, at the Lake Como comic fest, he's been posting Facebook videos and the scenery is just beautiful. [01:30:05] Speaker A: Oh, I bet. [01:30:06] Speaker G: Yeah. So I have to wait till he comes back in a week or two to see if he's got it. [01:30:10] Speaker A: Gotcha. [01:30:11] Speaker G: So I got a sketch in the sketchbook. [01:30:13] Speaker A: Oh, what'd you put in the sketchbook? Was it in the Star man sketchbook? [01:30:16] Speaker G: No, the Star man sketchbook is done. I have filled the Star man sketchbook. This is the from the characters from the golden age version of the JSA or the modern version. And this friend of my budy Scott's, the artist's name is Mike. I can't remember Mike's last name. Forgive me, Scott. Anyway, he did this kick ass Jay Garrick flash in the book. It is legit. I'm definitely going to hit that dude up. [01:30:53] Speaker A: Cool. [01:30:54] Speaker G: Yeah. So the only other thing that was. [01:30:57] Speaker A: Can you explain your sketchbooks? Because for those of our listeners at home who can't see your sketchbook, rather. Yeah. Absolutely. Podcast. [01:31:05] Speaker G: This is a podcast, but you have. [01:31:06] Speaker A: Something very unique about your sketchbook that I really like. [01:31:09] Speaker G: Well, let's see. Probably 15 years ago, I was starting to get kind of burnt out on San Diego because it was always the same stuff, this and that. And I was like, I need to do something to jazz it up. And I hit on the idea of a sketchbook. A lot of people have sketchbooks, and a lot of people do theme sketchbooks. And so I was like, yeah, I'll do a theme sketchbook. And the theme of that sketchbook is Star man. Because as we've mentioned in previous episodes, star man is my jammy jam. Star man is my favorite. And so, as it turned out, in 2014, the year I started the sketchbook, Tony Harris, the co creator of Starman, was a guest at Comic Con. So he did the first piece in the book, nice little side view of Jack, our protagonist. And then I've just sort of added to it every year. Some years I add just one or two pieces, and other years I've added more than that. I think the most I did in one year was eight. [01:32:14] Speaker A: Wow. [01:32:15] Speaker G: Yeah. [01:32:15] Speaker A: Sounds like an expensive year. [01:32:17] Speaker G: Not necessarily. It's gotten to be more expensive lately. [01:32:22] Speaker A: Right. [01:32:22] Speaker G: But I can usually get a nice headshot in color for $60. [01:32:29] Speaker A: Oh, cool. [01:32:30] Speaker G: Yeah. And sometimes I want something a little more. A little more engaged, extravagant. Yeah, a little more extravagant, a little more detailed. [01:32:40] Speaker A: Sure. [01:32:41] Speaker G: And of course, those cost more. [01:32:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Most of these artists typically have like, well, if you want this type of drawing, it's going to cost this much. You want me to add color, it's this much. [01:32:49] Speaker G: You want me to do it full size, right, exactly. [01:32:52] Speaker A: Most of them have some sort of system in place. [01:32:54] Speaker G: Yeah, absolutely. And I just kind of hit artist alley. If artists are doing signings at publisher booths, I'll hit them up there. Things like that. [01:33:06] Speaker A: Quick conversation with them, I assume, before and after. [01:33:08] Speaker G: Yeah, we talk about what I want in the book. And with the Starman book, generally, my instructions were, any character that you want, here's my reference material. Knock yourself out. [01:33:20] Speaker A: Cool. [01:33:20] Speaker G: And I have never been disappointed. [01:33:23] Speaker A: Right. [01:33:23] Speaker G: So I finally wrapped up the Star man book. It is full. And I was like, well, I'll do another one. And I decided to do the Justice Society of America because that has ties to, you know, both Ted the dad and Jack the son, have been in various versions of the JSA. And I just like the golden age characters. Even as DC has aged them, as time has passed, I still like them. So that's what I did and now I've got a new batch of reference material to haul around. Yeah. So the JSA one is really fun because there's a lot more variety for people to choose from in terms of who they draw and things like that. Right. Yeah. So that's become another thing. [01:34:10] Speaker A: Cool. [01:34:10] Speaker G: Yeah. And then let's see. I guess the only other thing that happened at Wondercon was not directly comics related, but that was the Pokemon community day. [01:34:22] Speaker A: Yeah. But still, you had a couple of things happen that got in the way of your. [01:34:29] Speaker G: Well, so Pokemon community day, for those of you who are not Pokemon players. [01:34:34] Speaker A: Specifically Pokemon Go players. Yeah. [01:34:36] Speaker G: For Pokemon go. Niantic, the company that oversees Pokemon go, releases a particular Pokemon into heavy rotation for a three hour stretch on community day. And there is a shiny version of it available. And you can teach your Pokemon a special move that they can't normally learn. Things like that. [01:35:00] Speaker A: And their evolved forms are also, like, differently colored as well. [01:35:03] Speaker C: Yes. [01:35:03] Speaker A: I think Charizard's black and dratini is like, dark green. No, dragonite. [01:35:08] Speaker G: Dragonite's dark green. Yeah. So the Sunday of Wondercon was community day. And I'm like, all right, we can figure out how to make this work. Except that Sunday was also the day that my niece was being baptized in Riverside, which is about 40 minutes away from Anaheim. [01:35:26] Speaker A: The traffic's being nice. [01:35:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:35:28] Speaker G: Right. Well, so Charlote picks me up in Anaheim Sunday morning from Bakersfield because she's a trooper and a saint. [01:35:35] Speaker A: So she drives from Bakersfield, drives from. [01:35:37] Speaker G: Bakersfield to Anaheim to pick me up, and we drive over to Riverside together. Traffic was nothing. [01:35:44] Speaker A: Nice. [01:35:45] Speaker G: Yeah. So we get there early, we get to spend some time with Grandma because Grandma's turning 99 here in May. [01:35:52] Speaker A: Wow. Congratulations, Grandma. Yeah. [01:35:54] Speaker G: And so we walk over to the church with my siblings that are there. My three sisters were there and their kids and spouses. And so on. Community day starts at eleven. The baptism started at 1115. So we're sitting in the back of the chapel catching bulbasaurs. Bulbasaur. Bulbasaur is my favorite Pokemon. [01:36:14] Speaker A: Bulbasaur is fantastic. Right. [01:36:16] Speaker G: Well, they hadn't started the ceremony yet. [01:36:21] Speaker A: Here we are in the house of God, in the house of the Lord. [01:36:24] Speaker G: Catching Bulbasaur, and we put them away when the ceremony started. [01:36:30] Speaker A: That's good. [01:36:36] Speaker G: So on the way back, we're walking back to Grandma's house after the ceremony. It takes, I don't know, 15, maybe 20 minutes. Charlote catches her shiny Pokemon, her shiny bulbasaur, Charlote. And you've heard me say this before. Charlotte has the magic touch when it comes to catching shinies. Yeah, she's a genius. She's like, the shiny whisperer. [01:36:54] Speaker A: The shiny whisperer. [01:36:55] Speaker G: Yes. And so I'm like, shit, I really want a shiny bulbasaur because bulbasaur is my guy. Blah, blah. [01:37:03] Speaker A: Shiny whisperer is such a great. I'm sorry. I just. Suddenly my brain had all these images of the shiny whisperer. Like, why are you trying to be subtle right now and whisper? You're glaringly bright. Just imagine this little guy walking around me, like. [01:37:20] Speaker G: But also being very sparkly. [01:37:22] Speaker A: Super sparkly. The shiny whisper. [01:37:27] Speaker G: So we kind of hang out with family for a little bit. And then Charles like, hey, I have to get Dave back to Anaheim because he has to get back to work. And I'm like, yeah, I have to get back to work at the comic convention. And he's like, I got you, fam. Let's go. And, of course, the traffic going back to Anaheim was kind of a. It was. It took us. [01:37:50] Speaker A: What time did you leave in the morning? [01:37:52] Speaker G: What time did we leave Riverside? Charlote picked me up at 930 at the hotel. [01:37:58] Speaker A: So you were coming back during lunchish time? Yeah, that makes sense. [01:38:03] Speaker G: So it took us a little over an hour to get back. Almost an hour and a half. [01:38:07] Speaker A: Okay. [01:38:11] Speaker G: Even though there were points where we were on the freeway going slow enough for the Pokemon to show up on. My Pokemon go, Charlote was not playing because she was driving. Of course, none of them were shiny. [01:38:26] Speaker A: It's all that candy mean. That's. [01:38:28] Speaker G: Which is great. But I wanted the shiny bulbasaur. And so Charlote says, look, when we get back into Anaheim, why don't you drop me off at downtown? Know I'll go to downtown Disney. You go park and go back to the show, get back to work, and I'll join you there. [01:38:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:44] Speaker C: Okay. [01:38:45] Speaker G: So I drop her, know, we do the. Okay, everybody out. Everybody being her and me. I run around, take the driver's seat. So she wanders off. I go back to the show, and I get parked. She texts me, hey, I'm done, okay? Can you pick us up some diet cokes on your way back? Blah, blah. She's like, yeah, sure. So I had to go take her her badge because she had not been to the show yet. I go and meet her, and I said, well, how did it go? And she's like, oh, you haven't checked your go yet? And I'm like, no. She's like, well, you probably ought to. I'm like, all right, I'm looking through. I was like, yeah. Oh, my God, she's got me a shiny one. She's like, dude, I caught that at 157 poke. Community day ends at two. [01:39:32] Speaker A: Oh, man. [01:39:32] Speaker G: She's like, I was struggling, and I was afraid I wasn't going to get it for you, but literally, the last one that I found was the shiny. I'm like, hell, yeah. My wife is the best wife. So that was cool. [01:39:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:39:49] Speaker G: And she stayed and kind of helped tear down the booth through the end of the show. Cool. Which did not take long at all because we had sold pretty much the entire stock. I didn't really talk about that. [01:40:03] Speaker A: You guys had a shitload of. [01:40:05] Speaker G: Yeah, well, so here's what happened. I mean, we always have a shitload of comics. [01:40:08] Speaker A: Yeah, but you had a. But here's the deal. Like, complete story. [01:40:11] Speaker G: Well, yeah, because, like, five months. Well, I guess six months ago now, Steve bought a 40,000 book collection. [01:40:17] Speaker A: Five months ago at the time of recording the rest of this podcast. I'll tell Brian. Okay. [01:40:22] Speaker G: Six months ago, as you and I are recording this here in the future, Steve purchased a 40,000 book collection. [01:40:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:40:31] Speaker G: This dude had basically bought one of everything, everything published from 1984 to when he had to sell the collection. Wow. Yeah, well, I guess he was moving to Minnesota and couldn't really justify taking the collection with know, like, one. What? One truck for all the furniture and the rest of the house, and then one truck for your comics. [01:40:54] Speaker A: I see no problem with this. [01:40:55] Speaker G: Well, you and I don't. However, I having a wife can certainly envision my wife having that conversation with me. So, fortunately, my collection is nowhere near 40,000 books. But anyway, so Steve bought the collection, and instead of trying to integrate everything into the existing stock, he said, you know, I can make sets out of this. [01:41:20] Speaker A: And, of course, he pulled thick ass sets. [01:41:22] Speaker G: Yeah, well, and he pulled some, the key issues and had some of them graded and slabbed in the plastic cases. Some of them he put on the wall and things like that. For example, he had a full run of wolverine, the Wolverine series. He pulls out issue one, issue ten, which is the first saber tooth Wolverine battle. [01:41:44] Speaker A: NICE. [01:41:45] Speaker G: 154 and 155, which are two deadpool issues. [01:41:48] Speaker A: NICE. [01:41:49] Speaker G: And he grades them. STeVE's a meticulous grader. Grades them, prices it ACCordinglY. [01:41:55] Speaker A: What is grading? [01:41:56] Speaker G: Grading means assessing the condition of a know in order to determine its value. [01:42:02] Speaker A: Gotcha. [01:42:03] Speaker G: And then, you know, Steve uses the Overstreet price guide for comics, which is pretty much the industry standard. He priced the whole set minus those key books according to their guide value, and then chop 50, 60% off. Yeah. And he was very specific about what was and wasn't included in those sets. For example, the wolverine set. He took out those four books I mentioned, 110, 154, and 155. But he added in a bunch of one shots that were published apart from the main series. So you've got a fatty stack of book, probably 200 books between, because the run went from two to 189. [01:42:52] Speaker A: Wow. [01:42:53] Speaker G: Plus easily a dozen of those. One shot. That's a graphic novels. That's at least almost a short box. And so the guide value for that whole stack was $850, and he sold it for 300. So he HAD huge runs of avengers, huge runs of fantastic four. The run of fantastic four we only put for the bundles out, and the rest were in the long box underneath. And he Had Full runs of each of the new 52 books. He had full runs of guardians of the Galaxy and different X Men books and things like that. And he ended up selling WelL. He sold more over the course of the weekend than I expected. I mean, when he announced on the Facebook that he was not taking his regular stock to the show, but instead was doing these sets, I looked at Charlote and I said, that's fucking stupid. And SHe's LIKE, what? I said, well, in the years that I've been selling for him, I can't say I've ever had anybody come in to the booth and say, hi, I'd like a run of detective comics one through 52 from the new 52. Or I'd like a run of savage shehulk, please. They come in, they're looking for particular issues. [01:44:06] Speaker C: Right. [01:44:06] Speaker G: I guess I'm the goat, because he sold way more than I expected. We sold a $300 run of new X Men. We sold a lot of stuff in addition to a bunch of key books and stuff from the wall. And so clearly, I don't know enough about the business to actually be trusted to run my own share of the business fair. And then at the end of the show, another dealer came and made him an offer for what was left, and he took it. He made up, yes. And also made a lot of money. [01:44:51] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's so cool. All right, well, okay, we've got. Did you have anything else that you looked for? Any piece of merchandise that wasn't comic related but was more merchandise related? Is there anything else? [01:45:10] Speaker G: I picked up about a half dozen Lego minifigures. [01:45:13] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You were looking for a lot of. [01:45:14] Speaker G: Well, I wasn't looking for anything in particular. [01:45:18] Speaker A: When I see them? [01:45:19] Speaker C: And I see some that look cool. [01:45:21] Speaker G: I'll get them. Like, I picked up a doctor strange. I picked up a twelveth doctor from Doctor who killer moth, because I just have a fondness for that character. He's just so goofy. [01:45:34] Speaker A: So when you and I were walking around, we both wound up getting really excited for two different things. I found that Gundam model kit and just about lost my shit. Yeah, you turn around. [01:45:46] Speaker G: That was so funny. [01:45:47] Speaker A: Can you tell your version of the story? [01:45:50] Speaker G: So we come around the corner, and you have this very Tex Avery big bad wolf moment. You're like, what? Like, double take, big eyes jumping out of your head. [01:46:03] Speaker A: Oh, my God, it's Gundam models. [01:46:04] Speaker G: And I'm like, what? I'm aware that Gundam exists, and I'm aware that it is a kind of a sprawling continuity of its own, but I know nothing about it, and I don't judge. You know that. [01:46:21] Speaker A: Yeah, but I had to laugh at. [01:46:23] Speaker G: Just your response, because you're like, take my money. You're just throwing bills at these people, and they're like, settle down, white boy. [01:46:34] Speaker A: It's not just that. This was because, like, Gundam model kits, there's so many of them. The problem is that there have been so many changes to both the grading system that they use, as well as which particular series is being sold at most of these things that the. I don't know, like, five, six series of Gundam that have come out since I actually started collecting these, I've never. [01:46:59] Speaker G: Really cared about, right? [01:47:00] Speaker A: But there was one particular model that I'd been missing from when I was building these back in high school when I first knew you, which I didn't. [01:47:10] Speaker G: Know you were into Gundam back then. [01:47:12] Speaker A: It's not even Gundam. It's just Gundam wing. I was really into Gundam wing, the. [01:47:16] Speaker G: Secret life of high school nerds. [01:47:18] Speaker A: Anyway, so shortly after I found my little toy, for lack of a better word. [01:47:26] Speaker G: We call it a toy. We call it a model. We call it whatever you want. [01:47:28] Speaker A: After I found my plastic piece of. [01:47:31] Speaker G: Goodness. [01:47:32] Speaker A: Goodness. You found four pieces of plastic? [01:47:34] Speaker G: Oh, yeah. Okay. [01:47:36] Speaker A: Excited about. [01:47:37] Speaker G: Yes. Okay, so I assume that, and maybe this is an unwarranted assumption, but probably most people in the nerdosphere are familiar. Do you like that? [01:47:49] Speaker A: I do. [01:47:50] Speaker G: Feel free to use that one. You heard it here first, folks. I assume that most people in the nerdosphere are familiar with the Funko pops figures. Maybe three, maybe four inch figures. Big heads, big, round black eyes. But those aren't the only kind of figures funko makes. They have a very small three and a quarter inch. No, three and three quarter inch line. And by very small, I don't mean the three and three quarter inch figures. I mean the breadth of the line is small. They don't have anywhere near the range of these three and three quarter inch figures everywhere that they have for the pops. Right. And they're similar to the old in terms of the figure, style, and points of articulation where the joints bend. They're very similar to the original Star wars figures. [01:48:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:48:46] Speaker G: Okay. [01:48:46] Speaker A: Yeah, we got legs that kind of go back and forth and arms that kind of go back and forth. [01:48:51] Speaker G: Shoulders, hips, and neck. That's basically the articulation. And they have a Superman figure that I've been trying to find. But they also have four of the Teen Titans from the Wolfman and Perez new Teen Titans run. And there was a dealer that had all four of those figures for $20 for the whole set. [01:49:14] Speaker A: $5 apiece. [01:49:15] Speaker G: $5 apiece. $20 for the set. And I'm like, hell yeah, I am here for that. So he bagged them up. Here's my money. Let's go. [01:49:25] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:49:25] Speaker G: Yeah, that was nice. Now I just got to find the Superman one. And I can't remember if I've seen a Wonder Woman figure, like, a picture of a Wonder woman figure in that line. [01:49:37] Speaker A: But if you've got it and if. [01:49:39] Speaker G: You'Ve seen it, let us know to. [01:49:42] Speaker A: Send it to the Facebook, because that's where we're most active. Because we're not very active on the. [01:49:47] Speaker G: Twitter, on the tweeters. [01:49:49] Speaker A: We're definitely more active on Instagram than anywhere else. I feel like, I don't know, maybe a little bit of both. Anyway, Dave, I've got to go back to Brian. [01:49:55] Speaker G: Okay, have fun. [01:49:57] Speaker A: I'll see you later. [01:49:57] Speaker G: Travel safely to the past. Tell B rom my. [01:50:19] Speaker A: A pizza joint. That's just called pizza pizza. So it even looks like it's out of a comic book. [01:50:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:50:25] Speaker A: Oh, my God. We watched him walking out as we got there. [01:50:28] Speaker C: Yeah. I was so bummed we missed that. But he kept texting us, like, get here, get here. [01:50:34] Speaker A: We're like, we're waiting. A lift is coming. [01:50:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, man. [01:50:37] Speaker A: Oh, dude. [01:50:38] Speaker C: The pizza, though, is so good. [01:50:40] Speaker A: I heard. [01:50:41] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, we'll go there later on here? [01:50:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's on the corner. [01:50:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:50:44] Speaker A: Which is super cool. So that's wondercon in a nutshell. [01:50:47] Speaker C: That was Wondercon. We had a great time. I ended up finding my long lost Star wars issue, something I was collecting since I was, like, 1112 when I first got into Star wars, and I. [01:50:58] Speaker A: Found my last Gundam. As far as we'll find out when I look through all of them again and make that note. [01:51:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:51:03] Speaker A: The Gundam, honestly, is almost more exciting than the new warriors for me. Mostly because I've been looking for it since I was, like. I didn't start collecting new warriors till, like, three, four years ago. But that gundam I've been looking for, one that isn't super expensive for a long time. [01:51:16] Speaker C: Right. Oh, we also have our first video cameo. As you heard during that last one with Glenis, our good budy Blaine showed up. Wait, we talked to Blaine? We did talk to Blaine. [01:51:28] Speaker A: We have a Blaine interview. [01:51:29] Speaker C: Yeah, we have a Blaine and his homie that was there. [01:51:32] Speaker A: Yeah, let's cut to that real quick. [01:51:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:51:34] Speaker A: All right. Blaine Poon. You cosplay. Are you. Anyway, how long you been cosplaying? [01:51:41] Speaker H: About four years now. Since 2013. [01:51:42] Speaker A: And you started with ghosts from Call of Duty, right? [01:51:46] Speaker H: Ghost. And Edward Kenway from Assassin's Creed. Black flag. [01:51:49] Speaker A: I've never seen your Kenway before. That's dope. [01:51:52] Speaker H: It's hanging on my closet. [01:51:54] Speaker A: So, what do you think is the best part about cosplay? Especially with this crazy community? With as many nut jobs as there are really cool, chill people, it's probably. [01:52:06] Speaker H: The easiness of making friends. It's typically bonds that don't really break. And, I mean, like today, for instance, there was people that I ran into that we didn't see each other since last Wondercon, and it was just like. [01:52:19] Speaker A: Hey, how's it going, man? I haven't seen you in a year. [01:52:21] Speaker H: How's your life been for the last twelve months? And you just catch up real quick and you chat and you take a selfie and you talk a little bit on Facebook from there on out, and it's like time never went by between the last event and the current event. [01:52:34] Speaker A: Dude, that's actually really cool. I was talking about that yesterday with. I. Was I talking with you or was I talking with Amir? I was like, what's cool about it is it's like a natural opener. Everybody wants to talk to you and be like, tell you, like, dude, you look cool. Or, hey, I love that show. Whatever. Sometimes I feel awkward doing. I'm like, just walking up and be like, I love everything about what you're doing right now. [01:52:56] Speaker H: Definitely. [01:52:57] Speaker A: Are there any downsides as far that you've encountered? [01:53:01] Speaker H: I guess since my face isn't on this, so then I'll say it. No, I'm just kidding. It can be kind of like high school. There's the possibility of having riffs and friendships. So it can kind of have that little drama feel to it. Yeah, it can get clicky. I mean, it depends. I personally try to keep it kind of low key and just be friends with everybody. [01:53:23] Speaker A: Why? [01:53:24] Speaker H: Is there a reason to have a rift? But there are people that take cosplay a little bit more seriously than others. Like, for instance, for me, I just go to these events, and I dress up, and it's fun, and I like being crafty and stuff like that. And initially, when I got into it, I was getting invited to conventions and stuff, and I was selling prints, and people wanted to come see me, and that was kind of low key, but it was still fun. But it kind of took away from the experience for me because I felt like, in a way, it was like, okay, I'm stuck at this booth. It wasn't that I didn't want to meet people, but it was just like, I'm stuck here. [01:53:55] Speaker C: I'm at a go explore the convention. [01:53:58] Speaker H: Exactly. So there's people that take it a little bit more seriously, and if they see you as a threat, quote, unquote, getting in the way of building up their following or whatever they want to try to get out of you, you'll have that rift. [01:54:13] Speaker C: Interesting. [01:54:13] Speaker H: But it's completely like high school. Like, if you think of high school drama and you try to apply it to the scenario that I gave, it's completely, like, translucent like that. It's pretty silly. [01:54:23] Speaker A: So kind of like, we both wore the same dress, and now we're comparing kind of situations, or there's just more to go, far enough, and that kind of thing. [01:54:35] Speaker H: Kind of. It can also be like, for instance, like, social media following. If I have 10,000 followers and this other person has 10,000 followers, they might want to do, like, a duo cosplay, but then as soon as they get to 1520, 50,000, 100,000 followers, and I'm still at 10,000, or maybe I hit 15. I'm not really valuable to them anymore kind of thing. [01:55:00] Speaker C: Yeah, like, you're not good enough. [01:55:02] Speaker H: Exactly. It's bigger than that, but it kind of just goes without saying, you got to get these two clowns in on the interview, too. [01:55:18] Speaker A: She's like, nope. Would you mind? [01:55:26] Speaker E: My name is Kate. [01:55:28] Speaker A: Hi, Kate. [01:55:28] Speaker B: Hi. [01:55:31] Speaker E: Today I'm cosplaying as Cindy from Final Fantasy. [01:55:34] Speaker A: Okay, so what do you think. [01:55:39] Speaker E: Pitfalls of cosplay can be? Honestly, sometimes negativity between cosplayers segue we. [01:55:46] Speaker C: Were just talking about that. [01:55:47] Speaker E: Wait, really? Yeah. So clearly there is a consensus with that where if I'm wearing something that's not completely accurate, someone will, I guess, scrutinize me for it. Or if I am being so, yes, judge me on the spot. Or if I'm wearing something like a more revealing cosplay, people judge me on the spot even though it's accurate to the character. Yeah. Or if I choose to take some creative liberties, like, for example, fallout, one of my favorite video games. I made a fallout dress. I liked it, but some guy came up to me, he's like, oh, you like fallout? Really? Did you make this costume? Okay, explain to me what this is. Can you explain to me what special is? [01:56:28] Speaker A: See, that is one of the reasons we started our podcast is because to get around gatekeepers and people who think that you're not good enough for arbitrary, dumb reasons. Right. [01:56:37] Speaker C: Everybody's good enough for every fandom. [01:56:39] Speaker A: Yeah, everybody love everybody. [01:56:41] Speaker E: Exactly. If people were just less mean, then everything would be more inclusive and it would just create a more positive environment, positive community. People wouldn't be as nervous to, I guess, put themselves out there. [01:56:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one of mine is. I'm always afraid I'm never going to be accurate enough. It's why I haven't really cosplayed more than once or twice. Okay, so what are some of the really good positives about cosplay that you found, especially regarding community people? [01:57:08] Speaker E: Sometimes people are the worst, and sometimes people are the best. Finding, I don't know, friends who are just as weird as me has been nice and just into the similar things, which is cool. [01:57:21] Speaker A: Have you found support? Like, when you do have something that you didn't necessarily like, that's more constructive, where they're like, oh, have you tried such and such material? [01:57:28] Speaker E: Oh, my gosh, so much. Yes. I'm still relatively new to this. I've been doing this for two years. I have. Friends have been doing this for ten years. So where I'm struggling with something and be like, hey, how to do this. And then they can really help you out and then give you advice for how to do something else better. Or, hey, have you tried even with posing in pictures? Oh, do this. Or turn your hips a little bit more that way type thing. Yeah, it's cool. [01:57:51] Speaker A: That's super cool. Can we find you on social media somewhere, Kate? [01:57:55] Speaker E: Yes, you can find me literally everywhere as, hello, I am Kate. [01:57:59] Speaker A: Perfect. Thank you, Kate and Blaine, where can we find you on social media? [01:58:04] Speaker H: Endo fear. I-N-D-O-F-E-A-R. Indo. [01:58:06] Speaker A: Fear. Awesome. Dope. Okay, well, thank you guys both so much. Really, really appreciate it. And maybe one day I'll get to stand next to you and accustomed to myself. Hell, yeah. I can't believe we forgot that. [01:58:17] Speaker C: Yeah. But, yeah. So Blaine was doing his vlog, his video blog, and ran into us. Well, I told him where we were at, so we were meeting up. But anyways, he caught us talking to. [01:58:26] Speaker A: Ms. Glendis over there, so we were on his little. [01:58:30] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So stay tuned for that. He's posting it pretty much sooner than we'll post this. [01:58:35] Speaker A: I'm sure we have quite a lot of work to do. [01:58:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:58:38] Speaker A: Anyways, so what do we have? We have more to say? I think that's it. What are you reading right now, Brian? Reading, writing. [01:58:47] Speaker C: I read a shit ton of Star wars comics over the weekend because I found everything right. All 18 issues, start to finish. [01:58:55] Speaker A: You read a couple over, then again. [01:58:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I've read them since in years. [01:58:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I had to stop listening to catalyst because my audio files, so I need to deal with that Pokemon red is still. I'm still in it. I'm just about to go to misty. I'm really excited about that. [01:59:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:59:13] Speaker A: Oh, dude, I got far cry five. And you get this dog, like, pretty early on in the game called Boomer, named Boomer. Not british. Anyway, Boomer can res you if you get killed in combat, which kind of cool, which is super cool, but it also makes you feel like you owe something to him. [01:59:32] Speaker C: Good boy. [01:59:33] Speaker A: Well, there's a pet option. I do that regularly, and I'm always talking to him like a dog. He'll come in and I'll be like, you got to go kill that guy. Good job. Oh, you're the best. Good job. And then I'll pet him after each battle. I'm way too into this dog, but he's so adorable. Anyway, Boomer, I feel so loyal to this dog. And add to that, if your companion, because there's, like, a dog, and then I guess later there's a bear and a cougar, and then there's a couple of other human characters, which I rarely use unless I need a sharpshooter. But if they get killed in combat and you don't res them in time, they don't come back for a while. And the idea of not being able to call Boomer at any time was really not something I was ready to handle. Right. So the whole game is co op with somebody else if you want. [02:00:18] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [02:00:18] Speaker A: You can have somebody jump in and play with you, which is really cool. On the downside, I haven't figured out a way to play online. There's no, like, in far cry three, there was, like a four player co op side mission thing where it was, like, outside the universe but still on the island. Or maybe it was in the universe but it was outside the main game story. Okay, so this one, as far as I know, there's only two player co op total, which kind of stinks because I have to basically choose, do I play with my dad or one of my brothers? Wow. Which, I mean, at the same time, we can all get in a group chat because PlayStation is. [02:00:51] Speaker C: It's a cool problem to have. [02:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a really cool problem to have. And my dad was the one who actually bought me far cry five. He's like, dude, we got to play together because my dad's awesome. So I'm playing with Boomer, and we're driving down the road, and Boomer can't get in the car because apparently Ubisoft didn't think about that. But he'll always run behind you or run under you, even if you're in a helicopter. Boomer's, like, hauling ass underneath you to get to where you're going to land. And I see that Boomer's been hit, and he's down. Like, in the corner of my screen, I see this little marker. Like, this is where Boomer is, and you need to res him. And my brother and I are on a mission. And if you get too far from each other, you'll lose the mission. I jumped out of the car. I do a roll, and I'm like, brenner, I got to go save Boomer. He's like, forget the dog. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. And I ran, like, a hundred meters back as Brenner's, like, reversing the truck to come get like, no, I have to go save him. And his little meter is going down, and I'm so worried. And then, of course, when you save the dog, when the dog comes and saves you, he licks your face, and you're like, I'm okay now. Yeah, dog energy. So when you go to save Boomer, kneel down. No, you don't lick his face. You kneel down, and you give him a couple of pets, and he's like, I'm okay. [02:02:00] Speaker C: Oh, that's. [02:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I, like, ran back to save this dog. Miner's like, we have shit to dude. Like, I want to play the puppy but the. It actually, it looks just like Deanna's dog, actually. [02:02:14] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [02:02:15] Speaker A: It looks just like. [02:02:16] Speaker C: Oh, that's cool. [02:02:18] Speaker A: Ender is Deanna's dog's name because Deanna's a cool nerd, too. So shout out to Deanna and her cool ass dog, which is what we really care about anyway. [02:02:29] Speaker C: Okay, that pretty much sums it up. [02:02:31] Speaker A: We got Blaine, we got Dave, we got our, we got Brian over at safe haven. We've got Dave. And we get two Dave's and two Brian's on this. [02:02:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:02:43] Speaker A: Anyway, and then we got Nicole. Yeah, man, we really did some work. Yeah, we did some good work on that. [02:02:50] Speaker C: And most of that was all Sunday. [02:02:52] Speaker A: All of the recording, except for Dave, who's in the future. They all recorded on Sunday. [02:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Stay tuned for more of all of those guys because, yeah, we told them. [02:03:01] Speaker A: All we want them all back and. [02:03:02] Speaker C: They all want to come back on, hopefully. Yeah, hopefully. [02:03:06] Speaker A: Hopefully they weren't just lying to us. We did have a microphone to their face, but awkward. [02:03:10] Speaker C: Anyways. Yeah. So we're hopefully going to get them all back on in, like, specific individual episodes. [02:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And then stay tuned also for Twitch TV because we still have to go back and get some more stars. I know you're not happy about it, but I'm committed. [02:03:22] Speaker C: I'm down. I started it. We got to finish it. [02:03:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And so Sneaky Geek podcast is our Twitch tv handle now. So it's Twitch TV, sneaky Geek podcast. All one word. And then you can follow us on Twitter at Sneaky Geek pod and you can follow us on Instagram at Sneaky Geek podcast. Or you can find our cool new Facebook page, which links to pretty much all that, everything on facebook.com slash Sneakgeekpodcast, I think is how it works. [02:03:49] Speaker C: Yeah, maybe, I don't know. [02:03:50] Speaker A: Look us up on Facebook. There's a search option, for God's sake. [02:03:53] Speaker C: Yeah, we're there. You'll find. [02:03:54] Speaker A: You'll find us. We post there regularly, more often than pretty much anywhere else. Why we didn't come up with a Facebook page first, I do not know. If you don't follow us on those. Definitely do. Please do comment. Always do. The if you haven't reviewed us on iTunes or anything like that, we'd really, really appreciate that. And then for those of you who reviewed us before Eric did, we are figuring out our button issue. So please stay tuned. We haven't forgotten about you. Yeah, that's it. [02:04:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we're good. [02:04:23] Speaker A: Awesome. [02:04:24] Speaker C: All right.