Holy Roller / Lotus Land / Marvel Gang War

Welcome back, comic book enthusiasts and casual readers alike! In today’s episode, we delve into the captivating world of graphic novels with a focus on a groundbreaking new title that’s creating waves for its daring and poignant representation.

We’re thrilled to discuss the launch of an innovative comic book, Holy Roller, featuring a Jewish protagonist who courageously returns to his hometown. The once-familiar streets are now overshadowed by the rise of anti-Semitism, a real-world issue that is boldly tackled within the panels of this daring narrative. We're genuinely excited about the potential for this comic to become a staple in the industry. With a strong narrative and a creative team that’s committed to authenticity and depth, this comic book is poised to leave a lasting mark on the genre.

In a landscape often dominated by conventional heroes, the emergence of a Jewish superhero is a significant step forward for diversity and representation in mainstream comics. This protagonist is not only a figure of strength and resilience but also a symbol of cultural identity and pride.

Recommended Read: “Lotus Land” Despite some criticisms regarding its depiction of future technology, “Lotus Land” is recommended as a cohesive and immersive detective story set in a well-constructed futuristic world. Listeners are encouraged to explore this tale for its unique take on the genre.

As we wrap up today’s enlightening discussion, we extend an invitation to our listeners to join us again for more engaging talks on the latest and greatest in the comic book scene. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or new to the medium, there’s always something exciting to discover.

Remember to tune in next time for another deep dive into the stories that challenge, entertain, and inspire us. Until then, keep turning those pages and exploring the universes hidden within!

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Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FirstIssueClub

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• Transcript

  Hello and welcome back to another episode of the First Issue Club, the weekly comic book show that talks about what? That's right. The first issues of the week. I am your co-host Greg and with me is my dear, dear friend, Andy Bartholomew.

  What's up, what's up, what's up? Andy, how you doing? Whoa, coming in hot. You know, I got to bring that morning, got to bring that morning zoo energy, baby. I was waiting for like a little alarm or cowbell or something.

  You came in, you were like hot dog. That's your new morning zoo name, hot dog. It's Greg and the hot dog. It's a hot dog in the bun coming to you live on 98.9. The slab. Oh, yes. Hey, everyone, we usually don't do that and we never will again. It is me, Greg and Andy, as you said, as we said earlier, Mike D is out this week and possibly next week.

  He is at L.A. Comic-Con. We are just green with jealous rage that he is traveling right now to L.A. Comic-Con. He will be in beautiful weather, surrounded by beautiful comic books. And I hope he gets a splinter, to be honest. I hope he has just a little tiny inconvenience because I so badly want to be him right now.

  I think he. Is already experiencing the maximum amount of displeasure that Mike D can experience because he has to transport his pleasure, his treasures from Kansas City to L.A. and then back. Yeah, if I know my little stressful guy like I'd like, I think I do. He's very worried about his little corners of his books and whether or not they'll get dented and dinged on the commute there. So thoughts and prayers with Mike D and his collection as he travels during this time.

  Oh, poor Mike. There's a lot of there's a lot of cool artists and creators going to be there at L.A. Comic-Con, so hopefully he takes some videos and pictures and we'll post them over on the Patreon. Speaking of Patreon, we just got done recording a pretty unique episode of the Patreon. We did kind of like a live show where we had an audience participation during the show where we got to talk with fans of First Issue Club. And I know it's a small amount, but they were there. And so we got to talk about the 10 best selling comic books of all time, which comic book writer has the most annoying fan base. You know, we did a Mount Rushmore. It was really, really cool. We're really grateful that the those people showed up and made the episode so much more fun. So if you want to go check that out, go to Patreon.com slash First Issue Club.

  It will be in the free section because this will be the first episode of the month, the first and last. Episodes of each month, you will get a free episode of First Issue Club if you join and we have two tiers of paid membership. You have the just a taste here, which is one dollar. And then you get full flavored, which is four dollars. And you get articles, videos, audio episodes, all kinds of crazy stuff.

  So go check it out. We have a lot of stuff there for you guys to enjoy.

  It's great for Christmas. If you're looking for a unique Christmas gift to give someone this year, give them a First Issue Club membership over on the Patreon.

  They'll love it. We're cheaper than Disney Plus and we don't have ads. We're cheaper than most comic books, folks, and we talk about them. So we tell you which ones to get. So we're your go to spot for the hot gossip on comic books and to help you spend your money wisely, we'll say. What else? Quick plug for all our social media. We're on every platform you can think of. That's it. I mean, you name it, we're on it. Today, we're going to be covering, I think, four or five books on the show, some from this week and some from last week, because we didn't have a show last week for Thanksgiving.

  We premiered our Ed Brubaker interview, which I'm still trying to get over. It was phenomenal to talk to him for as long as we did. And he was so generous with his time. And he was really open with like his process and like what he's been through in the comic book industry. We got to talk about SoCal punk rock for a little bit, which was great for me in my world. It kind of threw me for a loop. But if you want to go check the previous episodes, it's back there. Ed Brubaker talking about his new book with Sean Phillips, where the body was also.

  So it is on YouTube. Yeah, we need to start mentioning that we have more and more of our episodes. They're now being recorded. And so they're going to be up on YouTube. I think just go to YouTube and type in First Issue Club. Slam that subscribe button.

  Tickle that like button. And while you're there, ring that bell. Did I do that right? Is that how they do it? Perfectly. Bam. What do you know? Look at me, old dog learning new tricks. Before we get into comic books, some comic book news, we're going to go over some happy, some sad. On a personal note, we have KC Tower Con coming up here at the end of December, which we'll be covering exclusively on the show. And then in April or no, March, we'll be doing Planet Comic Con in Kansas City, where we'll be doing some special coverage of that con as well.

  On to the news. Avengers Incorporated has been canceled. So the the book by Al Ewing and Leonard Kirk. Which, Andy, you and I both loved this book.

  Yeah, so, so much. It was such a unique take in like the artwork was phenomenal. Unfortunately, the penultimate issue, issue number five, will be debuting in December. Due to, according to Tom Brevoort, low readership sucks, which we're going to have to take Tom's word for it, because no comic publisher releases numbers on how our books are selling. So I wish there was some more transparency with that. But that is a battle we are still fighting. So rest in peace to Avengers Incorporated, man. You were loved while you were here. That sucks, too, because that was such a fresh book. Like it was a superhero, like law and order, you know, like murder mystery. So good.

  You know what, Andy, it just solidifies my my thinking. People don't want new truth with Marvel and DC. Listen. We've made the tread. Stay in the goddamn tread. Don't make it fun. Make it familiar.

  Batman in that book. God damn it.

  It's such a bummer. It's such a bummer that new and innovative. Writing and art isn't accepted so readily within the big two books, for sure, in our humble opinion. Next up, Andy, you know more about this one than I do. I guess there's going to be a Joker year one. Yeah. From Chip Sadarsky, writing and illustrating, is this a solo book or is it within the Batman book he's currently? So it's issues one forty two through one forty four. That he's doing within the current Batman run. And it's it's the same team, though. He's he's writing it.

  But Giuseppe Camillo, Keeley, whatever. The guy who is drawing Batman is still drawing it. And then I think Andrea Sorrentino is doing covers for the series.

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. But yeah, it's it's the apparently the definitive origin of the Joker. And there is some seriously haunting preview art that Zdarsky did. I'm looking at the cover right now.

  That is that is just. Yeah. Are you looking at the one the secrets of chaos? Yeah, it is creepy as hell, but it's got me jazzed. I hope they put that out as a like a variant cover, because that's the one to get. Well, this is such a this is such a big deal.

  You know what I mean? Like we don't really know too much about the Joker, and that's by design, really. Because the less you know about evil, the scarier it becomes. Yeah. And so I don't really know how much they're going to do in these two to three issues. That's really going to humanize or, you know, kind of expose any really big secrets of this character. But the fact that they're they're allowed and being able to explore a little bit is is really kind of cool. Yeah, it'll it'll be interesting to see how close this gets to like killing joke, because that's I think historically like. The quote unquote definitive Joker origin book, but even that doesn't really. You know, it leaves a lot up in the air. You know, it's is it in canon, is it out of canon?

  It's it's pretty wild to me to see them just like straight up calling it Joker Year Zero and having it take place within just the straight up Batman numbered series. So, yeah, the the the year one tag is very synonymous with other characters throughout D.C. that have been like really pivotal arcs of of the characters. So I'm expecting some pretty big things from that. Yeah, it's going to be cool. Yeah, and then and then really, honestly, that's really the big news that's been coming out lately. We're we are going to talk a little bit about the Spider-Man gang war stuff that's going on because I covered I'm going to be covering the Luke Cage book. So we'll get into that later in the episode. But. Yeah, I mean, Andy, do you have anything else newswise that you want to you want to cover or any? The only thing I had was Mike D sent a text to the group in the last couple of weeks about a book of essays about Moon Knight called Waxing and Waning.

  Probably not for everybody, but I will definitely expand to the moon. I will definitely be picking this up. I love like intellectual conversations surrounding comic books and characters. And to have one that's specifically about my boy, Mr. Knight, is pretty exciting for me. So. Yeah, Andy's ears always perk up when there's like extra pro stuff about his his characters that he likes, which, you know, makes perfect sense while you're a Grant Morrison fan, because you're just like the heavier, the better, baby.

  Let me read. Yeah. I want to know the inner workings of this psycho. Yeah. Have you had a chance to watch?

  This is off track. Any of the Scott Pilgrim? Oh, it's so good. The animated series. We haven't started it yet, but it's just like sitting there waiting for me to devour. And I can not like three episodes in. And I won't spoil anything, but it's not an adaptation of the comic. Is it a rehashing of the movie? No, it's not word for word that either. Oh, OK, well, then consider my interest. You are you are in for a treat, my friend.

  And I'm I'm stoked to get it finished. And, you know, I just read a a little little blurb from Brian Lee O'Malley saying that with the prevalence of. Shows being canceled after season one, they weren't like developing this as a multi-season thing. They just tried to make it one, you know, one little. Be its own thing, hedging their bets that this would be canceled after season one. Which I imagine it's expensive to make, though, with just the voice acting alone. Yeah, probably. But I love that approach. I think any movie, any show should just try and tell a story in the amount of space that you're guaranteed. Because nothing ruins a show for me more than. Teeing up, you know, something midseason that like never pays off.

  I hate that crap. Case in point, Firefly. Yeah, right. Yeah. Firefly. I mean, that's the that's the definitive, just like. Ultimate cliffhanger, and we got a movie from it, but still there's so much. Left that they wanted to so much meat left on that bone or, you know, the HBO Max like Swamp Thing show. Like, oh, yeah, they get to one and they didn't they didn't even get to do all they wanted to do. It got canceled before the show was done filming. They didn't like he didn't even get to say a signature catchphrase, which I am.

  Yeah, he didn't even get to all those that no fear burn at the touch of the swamp thing. Has anyone seen my donut?

  I'm glad 10K is classic. The classic swamp thing. Yeah. OK, well, let's get into the first two issues. I read Luke Cage. Gang war. Oh, yeah. Which is, I think, the second in the gang war series that they're doing, which if you're not up to speed on what is happening, basically, Luke Cage is now the mayor of New York. He ousted the kingpin or the kingpin just like kind of left because he was trying to be president. It's a whole thing that happened in reign of power. Devil's reign is a dare to devil's reign.

  That's that's what it was. And so now Luke Cage is now mayor. There is like an anti superheroes law in New York where like superheroes slash citizens cannot interfere with criminal investigations or any kind of criminal involvement. And so what is now happening is that crime is now skyrocketing because everyone knows that superheroes can't do anything and the police force can only do so much.

  So all these B and D level. Villains are like carving up New York. And like making their own territories and just kind of making it into a really unsafe place to be because they're basically going unchecked and being allowed to do whatever they want to do. And so now we have. This issue, which is by Rodney Barnes, about Luke Cage, just like coming to terms with that and trying to figure out how as a mayor and as like as a mayor who is supposed to uphold the law and as Luke Cage, as someone who kind of is on the other side of the law, not really a law breaker, but like has to do things that he shouldn't do to protect people. So it's kind of like this. You know, duality thing that he's he's trying to grapple with. As a side note, sorry, I wanted to confirm Rodney Barnes wrote and produced the boondocks. And American gods. Mm hmm. One sense. Incredible. And. And this book, it's it's it's it's a great set up book because something that I didn't realize is that the gang war comic event is there's 26 tie ins, which is way too much, too many, way, way too much.

  This thing should have been and I'm being generous, capped at 15. Like what are you what story are you going to tell in 26 tie ins? That's outrageous. That is that's like racketing. It's like you're just like stealing money from people now. So that's where my first issue with this whole thing goes. But I like the idea of like superheroes getting creative to take down the criminal element that's that's growing in New York now. And like Luke Cage goes around trying to like collect new readers or not new readers, but new heroes to help him with his cause.

  So he sees Cloak and Dagger. He recruits them and he's like going around talking to other allies who support what he's doing to like kind of get reassurance, reassurance that he's doing the right thing. He gets this new suit in the series to hide his identity, which is ridiculous looking is the goofiest thing. Because you look at him, you go, it's Luke Cage with like a Zorro mask over it. Like no person in their right mind, especially like a police officer who's like trained kind of to know, like pick these things out.

  It's going to be like, it's fucking Luke Cage. Like, what the fuck? Like, come on, man.

  That's the mayor. Yeah. Wasn't the same guy that opened a Chipotle the other day?

  Like, what's he doing? And he looks like, he looks like Shaquille O'Neal in Steve. Like that's the kind of like outfit that it is. And you're just like, that is just awful. That is not a good suit. And so he's like now in that garb, like by night he's this character, doesn't even give himself a name.

  And by day he's mayor. And so it's going to be fun, I think, to kind of see how, what teams he starts forming. Because Danny Rand is palling around with him. And they're really addressing the fact that Danny Rand does not have any powers now. Like he's not the Iron Fist anymore. He's just a guy that knows karate and other martial arts. So it's going to be, I think something's going to happen with Danny throughout this. Where, I don't know if his character is going to be like kind of put into the forefront of like how a former superhero who still wants to be good, but like his main power is like taken away. How he rises to the occasion to become a quote unquote superhero. Sure. So that's going to be an interesting thing to watch.

  I think by the end of this, Luke Cage will not be mayor of New York anymore. Sure. I think he'll just kind of be like, I can't be a law abiding citizen because I need to break the rules to protect people. And I think, you know, with 26 tie-ins to get through, I think we're going to see a lot of, albeit pointless, some fun battles between supervillains and superheroes mixing it up in the alleyways. This is very much a street level, street gang book. The one that had my interest was the Shang-Chi three issue series. Yeah. It's like, this is a Defenders series without calling it a Defenders series. Totally, yeah. So yeah, look forward to that.

  There's 26 issues. We will not be covering all of them. It sounds like it read well though, without like having to read Spider-Man and all that other stuff though, right? No, because I mean, it's the most straightforward crossover tie-in book that I think I've read in a long time of just like, you know, hold on. Let me, I'm going to share my screen with you real quick. This is why YouTube is fun. This is the new outfit. Sharing. Sharing. Take your time. Oh, right. Yeah, sure.

  Like that's, that's Steel. I love. That's Shaquille O'Neal in Steel. I love his bald head just sticking out the top of it. You look at that person and go, that's Luke Cage. Like just covering the nose and the sides of the face. Like that's Luke Cage. Give them a better outfit than that. That is ridiculous.

  That's funny though. Good times. Yeah. So what book did you cover? I read a couple of things. I think this came out last week. But the, I read Somna on distillery from Becky Clunan and Tula Lote. And that is a, a spicy meatball. That is a horny ass book, buddy. Yeah. It's kind of peddled as like, this one will get you. Yeah. And it does.

  It's about a woman during the, like Salem witch trials. Witch trials, yeah. And she is not, you know, she's kind of a loveless marriage or an emotionless marriage. And she is having dreams from this entity, this male entity. Who keeps, you know, drawing out her desires and telling, you know, what do you want? You know, it's all the sexy stuff.

  And her husband. Equal pay is my male counterpart. Yeah. And her husband is the witch finder for like the town or whatever. So, you know, issue one, he like burns a witch at the stake, right? Like just straight out the bat. While she's having these, you know, impure dreams, whatever. And the issue ends with her seemingly having brought the entity from her dreams into like the real world. Right. Oh, wow. So not sure yet if she is a witch, if this is a demon, if this is a, you know, manifestation of some kind of like supernatural ability.

  But it is definitely a comic for like a certain audience, you know, like it's, I wouldn't recommend this for everybody. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's extremely well written. But it's kind of like a like a Mirka and Dolfo. Like, yep, there is there is provocative imagery, but there's also a deeper story underneath all of that.

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, definitely. You can tell that this this book is definitely going to speak very deeply to. People that are in like a similar situation or anybody who's who are dating witch finders. Yeah, yeah. You know, people who might be witches who are who are going to be burned at the stake. But I mean, yeah, well, I think as we're coming to see a lot of these distillery books are the kind of the deep end of comic books, you know, there's not going to be a lot of capes, not going to be a lot of kids stuff.

  Some pretty serious stuff. Distillery is very much like the thinking man's. Yeah, like they're tackling more complex ideas, you know, a little harder. Thinking harder, harder to swallow. Stories than than most publishers would really. Go after. Yeah, exactly. This is not something that I could see them having an easy time selling even to, you know, boom. Right. No, I think this would have a hard time even on image. For sure.

  But it's it's very good if you're if you're in the mood for like an erotic thriller, erotic horror. Check it out. Obviously, if you're a fan of Becky and Tula, then for sure.

  Go for it. And you're going to love the hell out of it.

  It's a great book. So it was $8.99, though, which seems to be the classic. That's that's the price point.

  But distillery is at so. Was it one and done? Or is it like. Oh, no. It's it's at least going to have another issue. I'm guessing that all these distillery books are going to be like three or four issue minis. So. OK. I think we discussed that earlier on.

  On an episode about. The longevity of those series. On a lighter note, I read The Holy Roller. Yes. OK. So this is from Andy Samberg and the guitarist of Fall Out Boy, Joe, Joe Troman, T-R-O-H-M-A-N.

  And Rick Remender. So three writers for the price of one. A lot of cooks in the kitchen. A lot of cooks in the kitchen.

  This is a 48 page debut for $3.99. Nice. Nice. And this is.

  So hard to explain. OK, so what it made me think of was like.

  If you took Inglourious Bastards. And. Rambo. And Batman. And threw it in a blender. And then poured it in a glass made of Kingpin, the movie.

  That's this book. All right. Well, all of those things are amazing.

  And mixed into one. Sounds even better. So it's about this guy whose family are like super good at bowling. And he's a Jewish kid, plays really heavily into the story.

  The fact that he's Jewish. And. He gives up this promising bowling career to go be in Greenpeace for like 20 years. Comes back to his small town and finds that it's like basically overrun with anti-Semites, you know, bordering on like neo-Nazis. And is immediately. He goes and visits his dad, who is dying. That's the reason he comes home. And his dad gives him his like treasured his prize bowling ball. And as the guy's walking around his town, he gets jumped by like his childhood bully and beats shit out of the bully and his cronies with this bowling ball with the bowling ball. And the story is just going to jump out from there. So I foresee probably the dad's not going to make it. So much.

  And our hero will, you know, come unglued and go out on a mission of revenge. But is this a it has to be a mini, right? I don't know, man. I I think kind of like I mean, I would read 100 issues of some guy beating up neo-Nazis with a bowling. Yeah, that's not a problem. Yeah. I mean, my guess is that Andy Samberg probably doesn't have the bandwidth to like write an ongoing comic series. He doesn't need to just give him the rough idea. Right. But, you know, kind of like like local man, you read the first issue of that and you're like, wow, this is fucking great. I hope they keep it going forever.

  This is kind of the same thing, right? Like, yeah, I'd read 100 issues of this if the story and the sales are there. So. I don't know. I'm hoping that it goes on for, I don't know, maybe 12 if it was a maxi, I think would be great. What publisher is this image? It's it's a giant generator book.

  Rick Remender's imprint. OK. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of fun. It's you can tell that Andy Samberg had a lot of like input with a lot of the jokes and stuff. And you can also tell that, you know, Rick Remender had a lot to do with it. It's definitely his book. I don't know much about old Tom or whatever his name is from. I'm sorry. I think we're burying that lead.

  The third the third ingredient to this writing team is the lead guitarist from Fall Out Boy, who I had no idea was a writer. Was into comics. It's like when Taboo was on or is still writing for Marvel Comics. You're just like, where the where did this come from?

  Like, it's just so odd. Like Andy Samberg makes complete sense.

  He's a writer. He's humorous. He's you know, that that's that is an easy transition to make. You know, like, oh, I have an idea. It probably won't be a great movie or a TV show, but like, you know, it could be a fun comic. You know, Rick Remender just started Giant Generator, his his publishing house under image. So he's just like, hey, you know, I'll sit down with you if you want to help structure this thing out.

  Where does the guitarist from Fall Out Boy come in? Where, you know, where does that thread get interwoven? I went on Wiki and I found out that he grew up Jewish, you know, pretty heavy into it and then kind of fell off. But he has like, I guess, a pretty successful podcast about being like a famous musician and has written a book about his experience in that career. Yeah. So. I don't know, man, but. It works. It works really well.

  So, yeah, incredibly fun. It is. It is. The other thing that I'm like, kind of like. None is like it's interesting and kind of an inspired thing of just like you don't see many. You don't see many. Jewish superheroes or any like, you know what I mean? Like so it's to to have that be like in the forefront of it is like is is great. Because like the representation there is like just phenomenal to see. And like it's it's in mainstream comic books, the Jewish people aren't really represented a ton within that superhero realm. Yeah. Well, and the way that it's presented.

  You know, we've we've seen a lot of like. The whole alt-right thing come up in comics, you know, in the last couple of years. But to have like an overtly Jewish character going up against those alt-right people is. Pretty cool.Pretty daring, I would say.Dictionary Well, and I think the Inglourious Bastards comp is pretty spot-on of just like, you know, the oppressed destroying the oppressor revenge story is like so clutch and like just a delightful read.Dictionary Yeah, I'm interested to see if this gets like more heady than, you know, we think, because there's yeah, there are interpretations, I'm sure, of this book you could make of, oh, a Jewish guy returns to his homeland to kick out the infiltrators like, you know, is that is that going to play a part of this book?

  I don't know. I don't even know if that was intentional, but for the time being, it is a very fun book.Pretty, pretty violent. I will say that, you know, it's it's a comedy book for sure.But if you've read stuff like anything Jerry Duggan's done, it's that same thing. So I think that's why these types of books that are kind of sneaky with their message of just like, you know, wrapping the medicine in peanut butter or cheese or whatever to kind of force down the hard bit are great.And I think it's a clever and unique way to tell a story. So when I first saw this being solicited, I was like, I'm completely in 100 percent, whatever the fuck this is.For sure.Yeah, it's it's a fun book.It's going to keep being fun.So yeah.And the last one I read was X-Men Blue Origins.It's a one shot from the Cy Spurrier. This is ostensibly the origin of Nightcrawler, but it more is a history of Mystique.And irons out all of the weird like retcon stuff that we've gotten from her life throughout the years. It addresses the weird, you know, who is Nightcrawler's father?What's the deal with Mystique and Destiny?You know, why did Mystique abandon Nightcrawler?All that stuff gets addressed in this book. Abandoned?She threw him off a bridge.Right.Or did she?Oh, so the thing that I will say about this, too, is that it's like it's surprisingly heartfelt for especially for revolving around Mystique.Right.Traditionally, extremely like. Kind of harsh.Right.Like she doesn't have a lot of emotionality to her character, especially for Nightcrawler.Yeah.But it's it's good.I'm a Nightcrawler super fan.He's my favorite mutant.So getting this kind of definitive origin was very cool.But I think anybody who's a fan of that era of mutants, you know, the deadly origins stuff.There's a. Tone to love here.Good.I'll check it out.I saw that I was getting some chatter on social media yesterday when it came out about kind of how they're trying to not rework the retcons or the back history, but just like essentially just like iron out the wrinkles of just like, OK, let's make this a little more cohesive.Yeah. And that's really what it ended up being, was Cy Spurrier just taking the pieces that we've been given, putting them in an order and then kind of using Charles Xavier to glue them all together.So.And that's easy to do with them.Yeah, exactly.It's really good stuff.

  And like I said, kind of hit me in the heart way more than I thought an origin of Nightcrawler comic book would.So.Really good stuff.I'd love to see more of this, to be perfectly honest. You know, getting some of those like definitive origins of some of the mutants that we've only been hinted at or if their history has been, you know, kind of retconned to death, you know, Deadpool, right? Like it feels like I've heard three different origins of Deadpool and would love to see something like this where it's kind of all laid out in a single continuity, you know, moving forward.Yeah, for sure.The problem with that, though, is getting everyone to agree on the background as far as editorial and creator. Very true.But if they can do it as successfully as this Nightcrawler book, then yeah, I'm with you.I say go for it.The last book I read was called Lotusland from Boom Studios by Darcy Van Polgest and Caio Felipe.This book came out of left field for me. I was not expecting it, wasn't really on my radar.Picked it up on a lark and it threw me for a loop.It was so, so, so good.So I'm telling you now, go back to your LCS, pick up Lotusland. It is a futuristic book about a unique type of detective that can, you know, it's not really fully explained, but he can look into your mind by touching you and seeing your memories to figure out what crime you've committed or what you're going to commit. Not like Minority Report style, but like he's imbued with some kind of ability that gives him a certain skill set to solve crimes in a very unique way. He also has a son who we find out as the story ends has the same markings as him.So it's alluded to that he has the same power, but the father mentions throughout the book, he doesn't know, the son doesn't know how to hide it or control it as well as his dad yet. So it's almost like kind of taking control over him or evolving into a new type of ability that he hasn't seen yet. It is hyperfuturism meets classic noir meets parenting woes. Sure. And it is written so cohesively and so beautifully that all of it makes sense as you're reading it.

  You're just like, yeah, fuck yeah. This is the most no-nonsense sci-fi futuristic crime story I've ever read. And that was what was so pivotal for me when I was reading this.

  I was just like, I get it. And not only do I get it, I want to read more stories like this. So now I want to seek out more stories that are in this kind of genre, which is what books like Lotusland should do. It should just open the door for new readers of just like, hey, are you interested in this type of genre? Here's kind of what it is.

  Go check it out. So Lotusland on Boom Studios. Go check it out.

  It was really, really good. Beautifully drawn.

  Oh, the last comment. It's from the writer of Little Bird. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Little Bird was awesome. Yeah. So it was phenomenal. And the last thing I'll say about it is there's flying cars in it.

  We have to stop that. No more flying cars. We're never going to have flying cars ever. Even if this book is set in the year 2632 or something like that. We're never going to have flying cars. Stop teasing us with the flying cars. I love the imagery of it. You know, Scientific America did it so many years ago in their magazine from 1942 or whatever. We're never going to have flying cars. We're never going to have personal jetpacks.

  The future is a lie. Okay? It's fun, but it's not going to happen. Fiction. Seriously, I'm tired of it. Go backwards. Go back to four strong characters in the future. Yeah, I want fucking Flintstones cars. I want to be able to stop a car with my dirty feet. At least that's more realistic than a hover car. It just makes me so mad when I see that stuff.

  Because you want one so badly. The future should be so bright, but it's just chock full of lies.

  It's just chock full of lies. Isn't it always? That's my only knock on lotus land. They're perpetuating the lie of flying car technology. In a sci-fi comic. In a sci-fi comic.

  How dare they? I'm okay with the telepathy. I'm okay with the power that is cryptic that reads someone's mind. Flying cars is where I draw the line. And I'm going to draw the line on this episode.

  Because I think we've done it. We did it again. We piloted another four-wheeled episode of First Issue Club to its destination. And that destination is the end. So thank you again, everyone, for joining us.

  We'll be back next week. Will we have Mike D? Will we not?

  Tune in and find out. Until then, be safe. Bye.