by Joe Let’s stay motivated as the Rob continues his tales of the origins and influence of Deadpool. If you’ve never checked out the Rob’s podcast, what’s stopping ya? There was stuff I left off the previous episode where the Rob just reads a letter David Michelinie wrote about creator’s rights and Wizard Magazine interviews with Fabian Nicieza (who the Rob just calls ‘the plotter’) about what he added to the characters the Rob createdthe Rob also had big plans for Tollivar, being a Jabba the Hutt like character in Cable’s life, citing Bob Harris (his editor at the time) calls the Vanessa/Domino reveal bigger than the Stryfe/Cable onethe Rob calls 2021 Deadpool’s 30th anniversary opportunityBit of a digression back to the origins of Cable, claiming people always try to play ‘GOTCHA’ with the Rob in where he gets his influence from, but he claims to always be forthcoming about those thingsTodd McFarlane would taunt the Rob about how easily he could whip up a Spider-Man splash page which was the impetuous for the design on Deadpool“The Spider-Man of my youth was not very prevalent in 1990” because of darker comics like Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns which I do not think is correctIron Man was never a “funny character” until the moviesthe Joe Kelly/Ed McGuinness Deadpool solo book was a middling book, sales wise. The Rob claims he stole McGuinness away for Fighting American after three issues, but was actually nineIf you like the ‘breaks the fourth wall’ Deadpool, that’s Joe Kelly, if you like the ‘cuts off your arms and legs and wisecracks’ that’s all the RobDeadpool started to become ‘parody’ once Howard the Duck villains like Doctor Bong showed up in his bookAxel Alonzo, then Editor in Chief at Marvel, contacted...

by Joe I skipped the holiday episode, let’s start the new year fresh. And I recommend listening to the show as always, this is gonna be a banner year for the Rob, I can feel it! With the two weeks off, the Rob will NOT be discussing Wonder Woman 1984 on the podThe Rob hopes one day they tell the story of how dirty Zack Snyder was done by Warner BrothersThe day New Mutants #100 came out was the first day of the Rob attending junior college. The Rob only lasted ten days and only enrolled to hang out with his buddiesSince the Rob gets the question so often, there will be a future Robservations about the difference between cover date and ship dateThe only Batman or Daredevil the Rob likes is the Frank Miller versionsThe Rob also feels the Mandalorian and Rogue One are closer to George Lucas’s vision of Star Wars than anything elseThe Rob hopes these next few weeks are the audio equivalent of the Empire of Dreams documentaryThe Rob turned down offers to draw Doctor Strange, Alpha Flight and the Hulk to write and drawn New Mutants, since it was the lower selling title, the Rob could take more chancesthe Rob has 13 new characters, each with individual contacts about rights and licensing, he introduced in New Mutants, and the Rob himself cannot even name them allKeith Giffen (aka Salty Keith)’s approach on Justice League (top tier book without top tier characters and having a scripter and a layout person) is what inspired the Rob on his New Mutants and X-Force workThe Rob writes to page flows, but sometimes an ad contract, a certain ad has to appear after a certain page, can mess that upAnother inspiration for Deadpool (the...

by Joe An episode about original art and such! Not my wheel house, but I’m sure the Rob will give up tons of cool details. As always, check out the episode for yourself. “when writers give us endless jabberfests, know that our art is what makes your work a comic and not a novel”The Rob sees Jack Kirby art as the inspiration for what we see in the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe last two years, original art, especially stuff from the 90’s has increased in interest and valueArt collectors will bring their collections to cons, but stuff has been stolen, several covers of Savage Dragon original art was stolen from New York Comic Con a few years backLast week, the cover the Todd McFarlane’s first Amazing Spider-Man cover (issue #298) sold for a quarter of a million dollars, talks about another Todd cover for Spider-Man #1 sold for over $600,000 (the Rob flips between saying $657,000 and $675,000 through the episode) with interior pages topping out at $125,000 a pageIn original art forums the Rob frequents, people were criticizing the quality of the art in these two covers, which the Rob feels is unfairThe Rob is waiting for one of his covers to hit these auction sites to track it, but the Rob knows where many of his covers are known they will not be soldthe Rob learned from Walt Simonson to sit on your original art to let it accrue valueI always forget that the deal with original pages, one third goes to the inker and every third coverIn today’s market, John Byrne interior pages, especially from X-Men, go for $25,000 each. Back in the day, Byrne was selling them for $35 a page after his fee of $45 a page from MarvelJim Lee’s...

by Joe Allow the Rob to be your guide through the Marvel, DC, Star Trek and Doctor Who multiverses! As always, check out the episode for yourself, this is a shorter one. When the Rob hears ‘multiverse’ he’s reminded of a dog food commercial from the early 2000’s where the dog would say ‘multigrain’The Rob uses both ‘Other Earth’ and ‘Counter Earth’ when talking about the Avengers/Squadron Supreme crossover for this first exposure to multiverses in comicsWhen the Rob would attend conventions when he was 12, tons of people would be dressed as Doctor Who, his first exposure to the BBC series“Wander into your local gun store and get some ammo and if you can walk out in 15 minutes without hearing some of the very best {redacted} theories, then you have done something impressive.”‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ was done by DC to clean up their multiverse problem, but the Rob, like many fans felt it was unnecessaryA lot of the rumors for casting for the ‘Flashpoint’ movie are discussed, the Rob is a big fan of the Ben Affleck Batmanthe CW Crisis crossover and Into the Spider-Verse laid the groundwork for presenting multiple earths to a general audience, making it mainstreamthe most overused words in TV and movies are ‘grounded’ and ‘relatable’The only good example the Rob can think of of a ‘grounded’ character in Sci Fi/fantasy films is Luke SkywalkerThe Rob also relates being ‘grounded’ and ‘relatable’ to Poison’s video for ‘Fallen Angel’the current generation who grew up on videos games like Halo and Call of Duty live in a world of the fantastic so they don’t need ‘grounded’ and ‘relatable’ movie or TV characters‘Into the Spider-Verse’ winning an Oscar kicked down the door for all these future movies mashing up the...

by Joe An all Todd McFarlane episode! I hope the Rob doesn’t wear out his voice doing his impression, listen for yourself! I’m almost certain I still have many of these Spawn toys in the basement, I let them breathe long ago. The only thing better than seeing your creations on TV or movies is to see them on the toy shelvesthe Rob states the reason toys today look so good are because of what Todd did some 25 years agoA lot of this episode so far (ten minutes in) is the Rob just naming toy lines from his childhoodthe Rob’s nephews call him “Uncle Rock”Marvel still sends comps to the Rob usually on a delay of six monthsthe Rob talks about flippers and apps that allow you to track stock, being an avid listener of the Major Wrestling Figure podcast, I’m well aware of thisA great story of a Wal-Mart check out person questioning the amount of figures the Rob was buying and to prove he wasn’t a flipper, the Rob told her to ‘google me’ to verify I am the creator of these charactersin 1993, the Rob met with Mattel about making Youngblood figures and calls their offices the Willy Wonka of ToysPlaymates, with the Ninja Turtles line, was making huge headway in the toy market so Mattel was looking to get in business with ImageHollywood attorney Jake Bloom, who also represented George Lucas, was representing the Rob here, and literally slapped 2-ups (industry term) out of the Rob’s hands saying Mattel was trying to get a lower deal on the Rob“Ol’ Toddy is in the toy business!” around the 32 minute mark is where the Todd impression begins. The Rob feels Todd did this on the sly so no one else...

by Joe Back when I first started writing these, inspired by the tales of the Heroes Reborn Saga, I called the Rob the modern day Stan Lee. And here we are, the Rob talking about Stan Lee! Check out the episode for yourself here! the Rob call Stan ‘a figurehead without equal’Again, the Rob mentions how both the Transformers and Iron Man films looked like something that came out of an Apple store with their sleek, white plastic designs and blue lightsHollywood, in the 90’s wanted Hollywood movies to be campy and it wasn’t until X-Men that they changed their tune, which I don’t feel is correctThe Rob continues to say Blade is not a comic book movie, but marketed, sold and did business as a horror moviethe Hulk TV show was Stan’s first Hollywood success, followed by Spider-Man which was very cheap and not the same level of hit as Hulk and Doctor Strange, which was better than you remember it beingThe Rob cites the myth that Human Torch was kept off the Fantastic Four cartoon to prevent kids from trying to light themselves on fire. He then follows this up with a story of he and a friend of his, Matt, spraying their arms with lighter fluid and lighting their arms on fire. And holding matches up to Raid cans to light cockroaches on file. Please don’t do this.The Rob is correct in stating Spider-Man has the best villainsAs important as Stan was as a creator of comics, he was more important as the brand ambassador The edict at Marvel to go to single issue stories, like DC was doing, hurt their character development, leading to new characters like the Kangaroo, Cobra and Mr. Hyde that resonated with no onethe Star Wars...

by Joe Flash forward to 1997, a follow up to episode 46 where the Rob talks about pitching to Will Smith. As always, check out the episode for yourself! I will freely admit, the Rob claims his property the Mark was a hot topic in comics and movie news since 1993, and before this podcast, I had never heard of itThis all takes place on Halloween Day 1997, Will Smith is hot off Men in Black that summerThe option for the Mark with Tom Cruise’s production company was about to run outThe pitch for the Mark is our main character is a degenerate gambler who stumbles upon an old man being assaulted, who as his last gesture, the old man grants our lead the powers of a godWhen the pitch was in the Tom Cruise camp (pre-1997) the only successful comic book movies were the Batman franchise, because of this, Tom wanted to change the lead to a toy maker with a utility belt, which the Rob balked atThe Rob asked “Why would someone with the powers of a God need Batman’s utility belt?” Tom’s response, “why not?” so the utility belt was added to the scriptTom taking on the Mission Impossible franchise resulted in him passing on the Mark, but the Rob still had to wait for the existing deal to expireWith Tom acting opposite the likes of Gene Hackman, John Voight, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins, etc. the Rob wanted to villain of the Mark to be Sean ConneryOn Tom’s last pass, they wanted to make the Mark as a TV show, the Rob saw it as a movie, so the Rob decided to take a pass at the scriptJust like Tom before him, Will Smith was also turned down for the role...

by Joe Another detour! This time, to 1994 and the Image Crossover “Month” where different creators take over different books and how it relates to Age of Apocalypse. As always, check out the episode here for yourself! Image X Month was an experiment, a Hail Mary pass to try and reinvigorate the original seven Image booksthe idea was that it would be a surprise, who would be the new creator, until you pulled the book off the shelf to shock peopleGolden Apple Comics was the Hollywood, nationally known comics book shop, everyone from Michael Jackson to Frank Darabont to Gene Simmons (of KISS) shopped there. Mile High Comics may have been bigger, but Golden Apple was more well knownGolden Apple would hold post San Diego Comic Con parties the Rob would attend with Wizard’s Gareb Shamus, even staying at each others homesAt one of these parties, the Rob met Scott Lobdell for the first time, who was writing X-Men post Jim Lee leaving Marvel, and Generation XDuring this era, the X-Men and Spider-Man books, were firing on all cylinders, with 8-10 books a month, which I don’t think is true for Spider-ManAt this party, Lobdell approached the Rob, maybe he had a few too many, to say “we (Marvel) are coming to get you, we got something big, gonna put you (Image) on your heels”After some digging, the Rob discovered this was going to be a “wide line” (how the Rob says it multiple times) relaunch of the X-Men books at all new number ones which would later become Age of ApocalypseIn poaching talent from Marvel & DC, the Rob once got a nasty call from a prior editor, shocked someone would walk off an X-book to go to ImageSome early Image ideas to...

by Joe Now, we flash forward to the mid-90’s and early 00’s with all the new publishers popping up! And Jimmy Jay is back in the co-host chair, but not in studio so the audio quality suffers! Check out the episode for yourself as always! After Image Comics launched, all these other ‘tribes’ of creators started popping up, starting with Legend out of Dark Horse, this was also around the time Wizard was becoming ‘insufferable pricks’According to the Rob, the big difference with all of this Image is a ‘publisher’ (even though they were published by Malibu) and these others like Legend, Bravura, Cliffhanger, etc. were ‘labels’Side note, the Rob laments not having more pics of him with all the famous folks the Rob has met over the yearsThe Rob compares the original Image crew to the Eagles since the both had multiple lead singers at different pointsAfter Image left Malibu, the higher ups at Malibu made up the next tribe from ‘the other old guys not in Legend’ thus came BravuraIn listing the Bravura folks, the Rob does an impression of Gil Kane that is very much the Jim Barnett impressionThe Rob keeps saying ‘Bravura’ in his Todd McFarlane voice. A lotThe Rob states the original name of the Legend label was ‘Dinosaur’ since they were the ‘old man boy band’Another side note, the Rob has been contacted by dozens of people about the DC episodes to share their batshit crazy experiencesWhen Gorilla Comics started, they’re big pitch line was “we’re not gonna be like Image” which no one ever said they would and they lasted the least of all these labelsCliffhanger came the closest to Image’s success, but they were an arm of Wildstorm which itself was originated at ImageA lot of...

by Joe More on the last ten years of DC Comics, Jimmy Jay is nor here so it’s unfiltered the Rob and as always, it’s worth a listen to any current comics book fan. the Rob starts off by saying he loves making comics so much, he’ll probably die with a pencil in his handsAccording to the Rob, DC Comics is currently surrounded by tons of “rumor and innuendo.” Bruce in Connecticut just shed a tearIn the Rob’s 24 years (at the time) in the business, nothing compares to the two years in the “insane asylum” that was DC ComicsWarner Brothers runs all their media like a “multi pronged octopi”When Paul Levitz was in charge, he wanted to keep a low profile so the publishing office would not be scrutinizedFlying home from Baltimore in 2010, Len Wein told the Rob that Paul Levitz made sure Len got a check for his creation of Lucius Fox, who Len made more off royalties from than Swamp Thing or Wolverine, who he also createdDan Didio, on the other hand, decided to sell the higher up on DC Comics being much more complicated than it actually was, and that only he could run things, “mixing the secret ingredients”Behind the scenes, however, Dan became ‘a raving lunatic’When working on the January 2012 issue of Hawk & Dove (five or six), the Rob got a call from Dan and Bob Harris, offering him Grifter, Deathstroke and Hawkman, starting with issue nineHawk & Dove had survived the first purge, but with DC offering the Rob three other books, he knew the writing was on the wallthe Rob had been following Deathstroke, loved Joe Bennett’s art, but Deathstroke (masked guy) was facing some “Annihilus rip off” (masked guy named Legacy) and the...

by Joe I’m delaying this one a day so the site isn’t all the Robbed up. The Rob is joined by friend Jimmy Jay, a west coast retailer to talk all things DC. Go listen to the episode as always! the Rob laments Wonder Woman 1984 won’t make it to theaters, but hopes it will show up on HBO Max firstEven if there wasn’t a pandemic, this has been a tumultuous year for DCJimmy talks about the DC line is hurting, but Tynion’s Batman is ‘Mama’s favorite’ meaning everyone can pick it up and read itDC’s more away from Diamond has added more hurdles to getting DC books to brick and mortar storesthe Rob states DC’s problems go back many years with Paul Levitz (who was EIC at that time) saying DC was the best number 2 company around, no pressure, etc.The Rob makes an analogy about the Clippers playing in the same building as the Lakers, they will never been seen as the number one basketball team in LA and how that relates to DC and MarvelJimmy Jay floats a theory that there are too many Marvel fanboys in the direct market that won’t allow DC to overtake Marvelin 2010, when Dan Didio came in as publisher, this was the first time DC made a real push to be number one, which is where everything went wrong for DCThe Rob mentions when Dan took The Rob out to lunch, they went to Morton’s Steakhouse, when Geoff Johns ate with the Rob, they went to El Torrito’sThe Rob credits Johns with making Green Lantern an A-Lister and with the Brightest Day pitch, Johns came to the Rob to re-launch Hawk & Dove, then Johns kept putting it off to make it part of the...

by Joe A first for Robservations, a one on one interview with a creator the Rob has heaped tons of praise upon, writer of Invincible, the Walking Dead and so much more, Robert Kirkman! The Rob credits Kirkman for getting him interested in comics again, cites his work at Image got them back on track as a publisherKirkman stars the interview with a joke, “You know it’s hard to get one of your closest friends on the podcast”Kirkman loves the podcast as it gives the fans a look at the private the RobKirkman first approached the Rob to get him to read Battle Pope, which the Rob declined immediately, but loved everything about InvincibleWhile at the printer for the 2000’s Youngblood run, Kirkman’s Brit was also being printed, BUT the guts of the book were tossed out, and the Rob crawled in the dumpster to get the uncut eight page proofs of the bookThe Rob states his destiny is to ink a Robert Kirkman drawn coverKirkman’s first comic was a Captain America book from around 1987, but has very little recollection of it, but the first impact comics had on him was his dad buying him a stack of Iron Man books (Armor Wars 2 era) thinking Iron Man was a spin off of Metal Men, a book Kirkman’s father read in his youthin his little Kentucky town, the only “comic store” Kirkman had access to was a Marvel only spinner rack at his local Wal-Mart, from there Robert was on the lookout everywhere, gas stations, grocery stores, to find any comicsKirkman didn’t see his first comics store, Comic Interlude in Woodland Park, KY, until 1992, where he first saw DC, Vertigo and Image comicsin 2006, while working at Marvel still, with the Walking...

by Joe No history lesson this week, looks like it’s more process than anything, either way, give it a listen. “The biggest crime Wizard Magazine ever did was make everything stupid”Comics Journal, Amazing Heroes, Comics Interview and Amazing Feature did deep dives into process, Wizard threw journalism in the trash and became the teeny bopper equivalent of comic book reportingComics Journal would be 30 pages of just all interviews, all process, no filler, treating comics as an art form, not an investmentthe Rob is a victim of the collectability of comics and other media, as he has bought DVDs multiple times for exclusive items like Funko POPs and trading cardsThe denseness of Alan Moore’s scripts (average 40 pages on a 22 page comic) on stuff like Supreme and Warchild made it difficult for some layout folks to translate, where he would take one script page to describe one panelThe Rob has now changed it to no one does comic books for money, they do it for love and because they’re half-crazyJohn Byrne boasted about getting paid his full page rate on an issue of Alpha Flight that obscured the characters in a blizzard, a trick the Rob emulated for an issue of X-Force where a battle took place in a blackoutOn Claremont’s X-Men #245 that the Rob worked on, Chris gave the Rob room to play so he snuck things like ALF and Clark Kent into the issueSome writers at Marvel would get a plotter credit/pay off with only one page of plot for a 22 page storyGeorge Perez would get the plot told to him by Marv Wolfman in 2-3 hour phone conversationsThe Rob relates the process between Jack Kirby and Stan Lee that Stan would build a paper airplane and throw it,...

by Joe The Rob teased this episode on his Facebook by saying he was once banned from attending San Diego Comic Con. You have my interest! The Rob put out a call for anyone who has attended the secret underground cons that have been going on during the pandemic to contact himThe Rob feels San Diego Comic Con will not return until 2022, but other conventions will be back next yearThe Rob does an impression of ‘seven guys from Reed Pop’ who constantly tell him New York is bigger than San Diego, but he feels they may be padding the numbers, grabbing people off the street and bringing them inThe first piece of original art the Rob bought was a Justice League page from George Perez for around 60 bucks, the Teen Titans pages were a bit more priceyOf all his convention sketches, the only one he sold was a George Perez Cyborg for $100 over what he paid, he he still regrets itJames Cameron was at a Biltmore Comic Con to promote the first Terminator movie with a three foot animatronic of the T-800The Rob can usually do 60 commissions over the course of a convention weekendLike Pauly Shore (the Rob’s words) and the WWE (my words), the Rob likes putting smiles on people’s faces, so he cut back the amount of commissions he does at a convention to he has more time to press the fleshThe Rob specifically mentions he’s drawn Jonah Hex only twiceBecause of his father’s illness, the summer after his senior year of high school (1985), his family had relocate to Illinois, but with the fanzine connections he made, he was able to meet up with folks to attended the Chicago Comic Con for the first timeThe Rob relates...

by Joe It’s two for Wednesday at Robserecaps, be sure to check out west coast comic relator Mike Sterling who listened to this episode and lit the fire under me to get my butt in gear. Also, go listen to this episode as always! the Rob has debated changing the name of the show to “Look, it’s a Podcast!”Again, the origins of ‘Robservations” goes back to his early fanzine days and Wizard’s side project, Entertainment RetailingToday, we’re talking Valiant! The Rob says they came up at the same time as Image, however, loyal Patreons know Valiant has been in the Previews catalogs for months, publishing Nintendo comics and reprints of the Gold Key characters they would launch with shortlyLet’s star with Jim Shooter, who, while editor at Marvel, gave voice to Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Frank Miller and moreThe Rob spends a lot of time trying to recall the names of the Valiant launch titles, he missed a fewValiant had nice covers but they were not artistically driven, heavy on the six panel grid very boring comics, nothing grabbed the Rob’s attention until BloodshotThe early Valiant books were by Don Pearland, Bob Hall, Bob Layton, who were ten years past their primeAt C2E2 in 1992, the had an Image ten for the Image boys, and that’s when Steve Massarsky, the money behind Valiant and Aerosmith’s agent, introduced himself to themthat summer, the Rob called Massarky looking to crossover Youngblood with Bloodshot (which had not come out yet) off the slogan “This Blood’s For you!” but didn’t feel Massarsky was interested in a solo crossover, but months later, Massarsky would call Jim Lee to do a company wide crossoverWhen Jim pitches the Image/Valiant crossover, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and Jim Valentino refused to participate, but...

by Joe I’ve been lax on my the Rob duties, but seeing west coast comic relator Mike Sterling talk about the more recent episode has lit a fire under me. This was going to be two episodes in one post, but there’s too much here, let’s start with episode 46, Turtles, Tom Cruise & Spielberg – Going Hollywood! the Rob went to the car wash and saw the influence of comic books even there, they’re in your Happy Meals, at your local mom and pop stores, we won, guys!the Rob explains what re-solicitation means in starting about TMNT the Last Ronin #1. Unrelated, Snake Eyes Deadgame #3, originally solicited for September 30th just had it’s final order cut of date this past MondayThis is the first time Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the original creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, have worked together on a project in 25 plus years. The Rob says he is very much like Eastman over LairdThe Rob saw the first TMNT (not writing it out each time!) issue on the stands, flipped through it and took for granted it’d be there next time, foolishly by his own admission!Robert Kirkman pushed the Walking Dead #1 on the Rob, who was not a zombie guy, but after reading the first issue, binged all the Romero zombie movies that weekendEastman used his royalties from the Turtles to start Tundra Publishing, which was inspiration for Image ComicsThe Rob reminisces when comics were forty cents an issue, this TMNT the Last Ronin book is ten bucks and the average Marvel comic price is five bucksthe early success of TMNT the Last Ronin, the Rob claims order of 150,000 copies, the Rob hopes to do a TMNT project after Snake Eyes is donethe Rob...

by Joe Another pivot off the timeline, as the focus seems to be about Extreme Studios, the Rob’s pivot off of Image, and the folks that got their start there, moving on to bigger and better things. You can check the episode out here. when the Rob was running Extreme Studios, there were 65 creators on site making booksTalks about the difference between good editors (Mark Gruenwald) and bad editors (Mike Carlin)We start with Marat Mychaels who had been with the Rob since day one. The Rob tells a story about driving to FedEx to deliver pages with Marat and the Rob opening the door on the freeway? Not sure how that’s relatedThe Rob talks about some artists that are great technically but are bad storytellers, can’t move your eye through a pageAt San Diego Comic Con, before it was taken over by movie and TV, the Rob spent hours chewing Art Adams (with an impression to boot)’s ear about who are good artists or not Marat has moved off mainstream comics, doing crowdfunded comics, has his own publishing arm, Counterpoint Comics (which seems to be inactive) and convention appearanceKeith Giffen (Salty Keith!) taught the Rob that by doing breakdowns and layouts on a book, it lets you control the productthe Rob states in the early 2000’s, Marvel and DC had edicts to be more photo realistic to get rid of the ‘Image Style’Another time, the Rob went to San Diego Comic Con 2001 in disguise, even Erik Larsen didn’t recognize him, neither did the publisher of Avatar, Jimmy Jay or his mother! Extreme Studios ruined many artists as the Rob was paying $300 to $400 a page, which was double the rate anywhere elseDan Fraga got his start at Extreme Studios doing breakdowns,...

by Joe I like when the Rob talks about DC Comics. He had a bad experience there early, but still speaks glowingly of people there, specifically the creator mentioned in the write up for this week’s episode. The Rob stars by laminating MAYBE he shouldn’t be telling some of these stories, but as he learns some of these tales are being lost to history, it’s good that he isthe Rob puts over the Death of Superman being a great success, not a fluke and got way more people into Superman than ever beforeAccording to the Rob, Jim Shooter wrote the best Avengers, better than any X-Men title at that timeToday’s top writers, Robert Kirkman, Mark Millar are successful because they think like artistsA long time is spent talking about being a comic creator is a lonely business, lots of isolation, lots of work for not a much money as you would thinkWhile in town for a Sotheby’s auction, the Rob, Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri (along with Todd McFarlane who had already left) told Marvel of their intentions to leave and start ImageTerry Stewart, then president of Marvel, offered them to stay, giving them the Epic imprint, which had barely been used in yearsthe Rob states bad blood between him and Marc due to a west coast signing where the Rob had a longer line and Marc caused a scene over itBy June of 1992, with only eight books, Image was the number two comic book company behind MarvelInspired by the Kenner mail away opportunity for Boba Fett in the late 70’s. the August 1992 Image books each had a coupon to be mailed in to get Image Comic #0The Rob brings up the Legends (calls it “Tales” this time) of the Dark Night...

by Joe More about the early days of Image with a ‘then and now’ pic of the original seven in the show notes for this episode. Also, the audio quality is different this episode, maybe the Rob is in another room or someone moved his mic. the Rob states he really tried to stick to the timeline, but we’ve already had detours to 1996 and current day a few times, so back to 1992Jimmy Jay is back, the Iceman to the Rob’s Maverick, that may explain the change in audio qualitythe Rob has been watching The Right Stuff on Disney Plus so he’s in a pilot state of mindthe Rob compares the original Image Seven to the Seven Mercury AstronautsLike JJ Abrams showing the new Star Wars films to dying children, the Rob’s Make A Wish is for Tom Cruise to show him the new Top Gun movie if he were to pass before it was releasedJimmy Jay and the Rob both agree the main thing missing from today’s comics that the comics from the early 90’s had is fun, action and adventurethe Rob talks about the Amateur Press Association that he was a part of as a youth, but wants to cite that as the origins of Robservationsthe Rob likens his approach to comics as Japanese vending machines where you’d get a soda with surprise candy in it, making it more fun!When the Rob’s New Mutants would come out head to head with Erik Larsen’s Amazing Spider-Man, they call each other and, page by page, see who had a more exciting bookthe Rob states all the Image Seven had their own strengths, his being layouts, Todd McFarlane was the best inker, Jim Lee was the most commercial, Whilce was the best at musculature,...

by Joe Just so I don’t have two pics of Captain America next to each other, the art for this post if different, see more cool pics in the post for this episode itself. And away we go! April 15th, 1992, the big launch day for Image Comics and Youngblood #1the Rob says there were helicopters in the sky around his appearance at Golden Apple Comics because there was nothing else going on in the world that day. A quick Duck Duck Go search tells me Leona Helmsley went to jail for tax evasion on that dayThe Rob also mentions his appearance on Dennis Millers Late Night talk show, which you can watch herethe Rob says the cover to Youngblood #1 was all over the catalogs, but not on Diamonds Previews catalogJim Lee, Todd McFarlane and the Robs departure caused Marvels stock to drop 11 pointsOne of the original seven, not the Rob, Jim or Todd, said the pecking order at Image would be different than at Marvel, which the Rob thought was hilariousWith the signing of the the Image boys, Malibu went from 3% market share to 7% market share, Marvel still at 50%Magic Johnson, both on and off the court, and Booster Gold were the inspiration for YoungbloodPart of the deal of the Rob being on the Dennis Miller Show, which came through the day of, the talent booker bought a case of Youngblood #1 to give to the audienceSean Patrick Flannery, the star of Young Indian Jones, was HOT he was getting bumped as the first guest by the Robthe Rob is whisked from the Dennis Miller Show to Golden Apple Comics, where there was a line 9-10 blocks long, footage of the news that day is here Easy-E also showed...