Robserecaps Thirty One – episode 66 Changing Of The Guard! End of an Era!
by Joe
So this was almost done. Doing Todd & Joe Have Issues, not the post, but reading an extra 3-4 books a week has put me severely behind on my podcast listening. However, listening to this episode, which you can find here, I’m inspired! I may bank a few, depending my schedule, so there’s not four in a row
- The Rob is talking about what sort of books drive him, and mentions he’s never read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, but is aware how good it is
- A lot of rehashing the prior stories about the Rob getting squeezed out of the last six issues of Heroes Reborn and the in general shady dealings of Jim Lee
- The Rob mentions how the original seven Image guys fell off from doing books there or all together, and mentions, rather cavalierly, that Dale Keown could no longer enter the country at the time do to a variety of legal problems, none of which I could find information on
- Now, the Rob tells some stories of the jobs he pitched and didn’t get, starting with the Giffen era Justice League
- The Rob talks at length of his love for this book, specifically citing Guy Gardner and the art style of Kevin Maguire
- When Kevin needed time off, people like Ty Templeton and Bill Willingham did fill ins, the Rob submitted samples to be a fill in and was not selected by Andy Helfer
- There was a Secret Origins issue written by Salty Keith that the Rob actively pitched to get on and was flat out told no, which the Rob relates with a Borat impression
- Mike Power, the Intruder and Bullet Man are from the 70’s GI Joe toy line that the Rob purposely put in his Snake Eyes mini series, issue four just came out this week
- Of all the Kirby creations out there, the Rob’s favorite is OMAC! The Rob reached out to DC in 1998 and pitched an OMAC relaunch and was turned down. The person at DC said “we’re not giving this property to anyone right now, even if Alan Moore called, we couldn’t give it to him” which the Rob feels may be short sighted
- Next up, in 1999, the Rob submitted three penciled Legion pages with color guides, looking to revitalize the franchise and was told ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’
- in 2000, the Rob was contacted to do a three page story in a Superman Christmas story featuring Aquaman
- in 2004, Bill Jemas contacted the Rob to do an X-Force miniseries, which sold double what they projected.
- The Rob had a bad rep in the industry at this time due to Wizard Magazine and Jim McLaughlin continuing to poison people against the Rob
- Around this time, the Rob cold pitched The Liberty Legion, a currently not being used Marvel property from the 70’s, to Tom Brevoort but was told J. Michael Straczynski had a book called the Twelve coming soon with those characters
- Tom did offer the Rob Marvel Team Up after Kirkman left Marvel and the Rob regrets turning it down, instead he did two issues if Teen Titans that the Rob saved from the gates of Hell
- lastly, in 2018, over Wonder Con weekend, the Rob pitched a New Gods/Fourth World story directly to Jim Lee, but Tom King had already staked his claim with the Mister Miracle book.
- Bear in mind, this was 24 hours after the Fourth World movie was announced by Warner Brothers and no one at publishing knew this was happening
- The Rob did a few covers at DC a few years back and someone (not named NOW) flipped his lid and fought to get the Rob removed from any future assignments, more on that in a coming episode
If you want to help the show, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Spotify Player FM, TuneIn, Overcast, Beyond Pod or Castbox and leave a comment.
If the link at the top of the page isn’t working, you can always make your Amazon purchases through our affiliate link here!
Or you can support on Patreon and get early access to episodes of After Dark and more!
