Robserecaps Forty Five – The Era’s That Shaped Us – The 90’s: Media, The Biz & The Beat
I skipped Friday’s episode, which was more about pop culture feuds than comic book feuds. And we have the follow up from the Rob’s illness he didn’t mention on the pod but gave the exclusive to some other websites. After getting a clean bill of health for an insurance screening, the Rob came down with a very bad case of shingles and that really put things into perspective. I recall years ago, David Letterman contracted shingles and it nearly killed him. That being said, this episode is gonna be about the 90’s comic book media, which feels like it will be an opportunity for the Rob to bash Wizard.
- the Rob keeps saying that Extreme Studios was 1. putting out twenty two books a month and B. was the second best selling family of comics according to an unnamed large comics distributor. I know this happened at LEAST once for the Rob to cite it as fact without context. I only have at my fingertips from June 1992 to February 1994 and this does not happen once during this time
- While the Rob was not working directly with the Extreme books, the Rob was making the decisions on the important aspects: who got paid what and what the cover gimmicks were
- Deadpool got an early 10 minute spot on the Super Bowl, I’m guessing the Rob confused seconds and minutes
- If Deadpool is ‘Marvel Jesus’ what does that make the Rob?
- Wizard changed very early from reporting on the business to controlling and manipulating the business
- The Rob cites there is no accessible to everyone archive (dot org) of all the issues of Wizard, but the Rob has them all with his notes from the time
- While talking how the media today is much more politicized than it was 30 years ago, the Rob works in a plug for Last Blood and WhatNot
- the Rob compares Bill Simmons’s bias to the Lakers to Wizard’s bias towards him
- Wizard was a big supporter of the Rob, Jim Lee, Todd, etc. while they were all at Marvel but turned on them when they formed Image. The Rob particularly seems peeved over Wizard mentioning the Image crews work on Spidey and Wolvie (Todd and Jim respectively) and not his work on X-Force
- The Rob calls the Wizard staff a “fraternity of nerds” retelling a story of the time the Rob called their offices and challenged staffers to fights due to slanted coverage of the Heroes Reborn storyline
- A Wizard article stated they would never become “annoying, elitist, or preachy” but by critiquing people for getting signatures on the bag and not the book was “polybag shaming”
- The Rob cracks himself up with ‘jokes’ such as Benjamin Biggs (retailer in SC) must be Benjamin Button’s best friend and similar to Hollywood loving to hire Ryans and Chrises, Wizard loves to hire Patricks
- There is a typo in a October 1992 issue of Wizard calling the writer/artist of Superman “Dan Jurgenson” which upset the Rob as much as he and the Image crew not being mentioned alongside other famous writer/artists
- second mid show plug for Last Blood and WhatNot collectability vs readability followed by the Rob stating he’s ‘not in the business to create expensive collectibles, I’m in the business to entertain you’
- Lastly, the Rob reads a variety of retailer reports from an October 1993 issue of Comic Values Monthly that he calls fair while not entirely positive of Image, showcasing the Rob has as much difficulty descerning the difference between fact, opinion and company line
- Almost as much as reading “bread and butter” conveyed as “bread & butter” in an iTunes review
If you want to help the show, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Player FM, TuneIn, Beyond Pod, Castbox, Amazon Music or Podchaser and leave a comment.
You can support the show on Patreon and get early access to episodes of After Dark, two extra shows a month and full scans of Diamond Previews catalogs from the 90’s!
