Matt Fraction on the Future of Batman

You guys read the title, there's no need for me to waste any time. Matt Fraction's back on the show, he's talking more Batman. You guys already know the jewels with these intros, patreon information down in the show notes, all my links are in the show notes, and my panel bound codes are down in the show notes below. Hope you enjoy this conversation. Matt Fraction, welcome back to the show, second time. How are you doing? Joining the two timers club, I'm very excited. All right, yeah, yeah, two timers club. You've matched Bendis. Bendis has been on twice, so they are matched up with him. See, we're going to be talking about the second arc of Batman which just started with issue 7 came out two days ago. Yeah. Yeah, the time is recording. So yeah, I'm very excited, but before we get to the comic stuff, because I have you here, and because I'm a massive cinephile movie fan and you are, gotta have a little movie corner here. Yeah, if you watched anything recently that is of note. Yeah, dude, I have found yes, so much so that with the exception of the secret agent, which is tremendous, the Brazilian film. Yeah, I really recommend that. Do you know Bruno, Ferranzi and Aline Cate? No. There are husband and wife Belgian film making a couple. They've made four films and a lot of shorts. They're the best and I literally have just since January, only watched their movies again and again. That's. They are, they make me wish I was a better writer or not because I want to write like them, but I want to be able to explain what it is about their work. They do. It's like they use the language of different film genres and film mechanics to say entirely different things. So it doesn't feel like like like there's their first two or these kind of quasi-giolo amers, the first one and it's kind of it's a little Susperia, you know. But it's all their work is a ferociously feminist, which is pretty amazing. So it's sort of Susperia, but very much with the different lens on things. The next one is called the strange color of your body's tears. And that's a little more of a, um, a little Euro crime. Giallo, you know, it's a guy comes back from a business trip and his wife is missing. But like that's like saying Fantasia is about broomsticks. Then there's one called let the corpses tan and that's kind of the spaghetti western ish. And then their most recent film is called reflection in a dead diamond and that is their euro spy. I saw that. Okay. Yeah. It's amazing. I watched it again last night and I every, I can't remember the last time I saw consistently four in a row, four very different films that are also clearly authored by the same, you know, I'm not a big otur theory, at least not in the sort of American like interpretation of it, but like so clearly their movies. So clearly only the bright, but also that there's maybe half a dozen shots in every movie that stops me fucking cold. I'm like, fuck, whoa, my like, think like it's so rare to see anything you've never seen before. Yeah. Their movies are just like distributing literature everywhere. Like I, I, I, I fucking love it. I can't get over it. How great they are. And like, they remarkably little press attention. Like I was like, oh, well, surely there's been a piece in film, like maybe I missed an issue with film comment when this came out. It feels like this is being in film comment. Why haven't, and like whenever there's like fantastic fest or like a kind of genre festival that they have a film in, there's little pop with them, but like I'm, I'm, oh my god, they're so good. Those movies are so incredible. And then you will like this, do you know Walter Merch has a new book? No, really, what does. So, and because it came out in England and for some reason, Faber and Faber have been publicized it here, but like he had agreed to do a memoir. And he was kind of doing other stuff. And it was, and then the pandemic happened. He's like, all right, well, I don't have any excuses. I'm gonna work on my memoir. He worked on his memoir, finishes it. He writes to Faber and Faber, he says, all right, good news, bad news. Good news is it's done. The bad news is it's a 2700 pages. Jesus. But it splits really nicely. Maybe I'm it's maybe less than that, but like it's a very large, it's a 1500 pages, whatever, 1200 pages. But it splits really well in thirds. So, whatever it is, a three book series. And it is my memoir. It is an exegesis on the history of film, the history of editing, the science of cognition and sight, the mathematics and the mechanics of the devices. If I fucking 20 pages in, I'm like, oh, this is life changing. This is absolutely changing. This book is 100% astonishingly jaw droppingly incredible. And like, here's a chapter about the time we had to do pickup shots on the conversation. Here's a chapter about when I bought a farmhouse with my wife. Oh, here's a funny story about the first movie that was ever shown in Leon by the Lumiere brothers, right, which was shown on a bed sheet in a whore house because it was the only place in town that could hold enough people that wanted to see it. And every fucking chapter is copiously illustrated and noted, but with QR codes to his private Vimeo page where he's put everything he's talking about. There's a, he talks about a shot in the conversation that bugs him that he wishes an edit. He wishes he could make, he makes the edit and puts it on Vimeo. Wow. And it is so like, you've ever made a movie? You know the thing, the invisible thing that ruins it for you, but nobody else ever notices. It's clearly that for him, but like, he'd make the fix. I just wanted to do it here. And like, it's so good. So it's the first, the first book is out now. It's called suddenly something clicked. Okay. So you absolutely must seek that out. It is as incredible as as his other books are, you know, in the blink of an eye and like it's such a, it's the closest, I think any of you, you mirror ever going to have to like having dinner with him. Yeah. Yeah. It's just this free floating and you're like, where's this going? And then he can exit to the next thing. And you know, it's really astonishing. So that, I got that for Christmas. And that was just like, I was reading it at New Year and was like, oh my god, did I, would I not, you know, and then that was right around the time that I saw. Yeah, Dead Diamond came out in December. So I saw it right before the New Year and that's just sort of been like I'm, I just got the playtime 4K that the Criterion part. Oh my god. Yeah. I picked up a bunch of their new 4Ks that they just started to watch playtime a while back and have if you pull that drawer open, it's in there. You looking for blank paper. She's got her headphones on. Did you paper pull up those bottom drawers, the black ones, if you pull it out. But we didn't get to watch playtime over Christmas break and didn't get to the end of it. So now I'm waiting for us to have time to rewatch playtime. Do the, do the voice. The one winning this lady is like, yeah, I love Jacques Tauti. He's one of my, one of my, one of my favorites. I recently with Criterion, I picked up network 4K network 4K which I mean, I've loved that movie for so long now. I also picked up the e-mail people were like, come on man. Come on, this is ridiculous. And now it feels almost quaint. It didn't go far enough. There's, it's the monologue about the world is, every nation's a, you have interfered with the fundamental forces of commerce. Two minutes, 20 seconds, Ned Bady want to fucking Oscar. It's, it's the, the world is a corporation monologue that just gets me. It's like, oh my god, I, I mean, it's incredible. It should have won, I mean, I like Rocky that whole Oscar years kind of insane. I think it should have been either network or all the presidents men, but that's a whole another thing. But I mean, it's it's one of those years where somehow. But you know, it won all the acting awards. It did like fade on a way. I mean, that's the one that she should have won for it. She did win. So that's yeah, it's nice. Yeah, um, it's always yeah, what else did you get? What else do you see? What do you want to what do you see? Um, well, I the other one I bought was the E. E. Edward Yang's master producer at the 4th and the 4K. That's one of my favorite movies. So I'm just glad to have it in 4K now. Um, I've been doing a lot of rewatching because I'm working on a an article about my favorite debut features. I've been doing a lot of rewatching. Um, I actually I showed my dad, Badlands for the first time the Terrence Malak film. Um, like Terrence Malak is one of my like one of my guys and I've seen badlands so many times. Um, so I rewatched Badlands. Um, I rewatched 400 blows the other day. Um, yeah, it's just a lot of great stuff. I've been playing around with the idea of, you know, I'll teach film classes out here as part of film for Northwest movie madness university in the Hollywood theater. Um, and I was thinking about doing one about uh, second shots. Like what's the second movie you make? That's, I mean, days of heaven for Malak, like that's one of those great one, right? Um, um, Rushmore. Yeah, Rushmore is, yeah. Yeah, everything in Rushmore in Bottle Rocket, but like, nope, here's the ideal or are you Sodorberg and you do Kafka, right? Like, let me ever make a movie ever again. I'm taking my shot right and I'll spoil my article now. My number one and what I, my, well, I, I profess at the beginning, I say I'm not putting Citizen Kane or 12 Angry Men on this list because they would automatically be one and two. So, you know, I got to be fair, but my number one on that list is sex lives and videotapes. I think that that is still his best film and I think that that is just a bonafide masterpiece. Just so so good. And it invented 90s independent filmmaking. Yep. Have you ever read his journal? I've not. No, he used to, he, uh, he put out a journal. Uh, he put out a couple of books. They're all terrific. Um, one is called Getting Away With It, and that's, that's really fantastic. And that's sort of about the crisis he went through after undertow that kind of led to Skitsopolis and what's, and, and, um, out of sight. And then that kind of astonishing, um, but it's also an interview book with Richard Lester. So it's like, you know, it's conversations with Richard Lester. Uh, but he has a journal of, of his time making sex lives videotape. And as I recall, it literally starts with him like driving back home to Baton Rouge because he's either just finished editing the yes concert movie he worked on or he's going and he's like, I had an idea. I think I think it's called this. And then, and then it ends with, and then Con ended. So let's see what happens next. It's just an amazing, it's great. I love, I love Soda Burke so much. He's, he's amazing. And, uh, as we're talking now, I think he just finished shooting four movies, uh, as we just finished talking. You know, he was interesting in the, um, in the, uh, during lockdown, during the pandemic, like I, yeah, he did, he did a crazy podcast with somebody. It was like a promo thing for his liquor. He's like weird to kilo or whatever it is. And, and he's wearing the lucky, Logan, the Logan lucky fucking racing suit. Yeah. He's wearing a crazy hat. He's drinking. And like, oh, yeah, no, I just re-edited Kafka. Um, so I'm gonna put that out. Oh, and I finished writing the sex life video tape sequel. And oh, yeah. And I did, and just like all, yeah, yeah, just like, and then it'll be like, oh, hey, let's do a contest. Next person who asks a question and he just turns around and he goes, oh, here, and he holds up like, here's the original 2001, a space Odyssey subway poster from the UK. That's yours for asking that question. Uh, uh, uh, like, sing high, whatever it is, you look it up, you'll find it. It's just a delight of Soda Burke, liquored up, and had been locked up for a while. And just like, I have to do things. What kind of do, well, I'm gonna re-edit my old movies. Okay. I'm gonna do this. Yeah. And then at the same time, he's making, uh, let them all talk and the laundromat and Kimmy and all these movies just back to back to back. He's, he's such a hard worker. I mean, yeah, I respect that guy. Did by voices place of like, it's actively hard to keep up with him. Yeah. You know, yeah, I mean, he's like kiss every nine months. There's another, there's a new out. There's there's another record out, you know, he's, yeah, I love him. I'll follow him to the end of the earth. He's what, like 16 movies now. I, my, I love blank check. That's like my favorite podcast. I want them to do Sodaberg, but they're never gonna be able to do it. He just releases 10 movies a year. Yeah. I mean, they'd have to do it like, you know, you do it by period, right? Though you could do, you know, up to schizopolis and, you know, then the kind of the miracle run. Yeah. And then the reinvention and all that kind of stuff, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was, that was great movie talk. I always always love getting the movie talk out of the way. What did you do? I think of badlands. He loved it. And we also watched days of heaven, like a couple days after that. And then he loved that. Doesn't know what to think of it. And I'm like, yeah, that's Terence Malik. He got to really be locked in. But yeah, he's, he's on the match right now. I'm gonna try and show him thin red line, but that's commitment. Stan right line. That's if he's if he's, yeah, if he's ambiguous on days of heaven, maybe, maybe that'll be a yeah. No. All right. Well, let's get to some Batman talk. Um, so we are one complete arc into your Batman run. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, yeah. Like, and it was, yeah. There's going to, that's where the collections get the first collections going to end there. Yeah. But you know, it does make a nice little cut off there because issue seven is a very big issue. Um, we can go, we can talk about the issue. Of course, there's been offer a few days now. Sure, people read it. Um, but so maybe spoilers for the last seven issues of Batman and, and we're in some hints about where we're going. Yeah. Of course. All right. So we're technically one arc into Batman. I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. Um, I guess just, you know, general question. How does it feel to be one arc in what are some of the things you found challenging so far and some of the stuff that you've found rewarding? Um, you know, it's, it's, it's all been rewarding. It's genuinely the most fun I've had in the world of work for higher comics. Like it is, it is yet to actually feel like work. I've been doing it almost two years at this point. Um, it was interesting. You know, I, I, I got so far ahead at one point. I kind of had to make myself stop because I was writing like deep into the arc before Jorge had started drawing. I was like, I did, I wrote like the luxury of this was I could kind of learn a little bit more in private. You know, I, I always feel something to me like, you know, you have to learn in public when you, I have to learn in public when I, when I start a new book, like, you can see, I think how I'm figuring it out, how I'm figuring the book out, how I'm figuring that how it all works and feels, but also how to work with my collaborators, right? Because it starts in my head and I'm writing what I hope works. But then what it, there's, for me, the, the process really becomes real once I start getting pages back because then I can think, oh, I write this, you do that. So if I write this, what happens then? You know, we can really start to work together. But like, I wrote one, two, and three, I threw out his shoe one and rewrote it entirely. I did four, five, and six. And then I didn't throw them out, but like, re-sequenced it. Yeah. Like, and just because it, you know, because at that point, not only was Jorge doing work and I had a better idea how to write for him, I had a sense of that, you know, I was, there were stuff, you know, I'd set out to kind of do done in one stories that really focused on Batman and that kind of, I didn't go away, but immediately it was, you know, it's a, I think it's, you know, it's a, it's a well-worn, um, writers cliche to be like, you know, the city is a character, but literally the city is a character in the book. Yeah. And although I was like, no, no, it's, it's a two-hander. It's Bruce and Batman, but like, the minute Damian shows up, I'm like, oh, God, I really like this kid, right? The minute Tim shows up, I'm like, well, I love, I always love Tim, Tim's, you know, and like, it, it, it, it, I, in my, um, exuberance and enthusiasm, I think it sort of threatened to get too thready, you know, too many running concurrent plots and stuff. And so part of it was like, oh no, no, no need to reconsider and refocus and, you know, like originally the date night thing was over two issues. Oh, but I, but like, but it, like, it wasn't, you know, I, because we got through six and it wasn't sitting right and I was, well, I had time to think about it. And I, and I sat down and I just cut all of the scenes from the two issues that were Bruce and Annika in trouble. And it was 22 pages on the button. I'm like, all right, that's a sign. That is in fact a whole issue that I diffused over two and it's going to better system alone thing. There's always the challenge I find of learning to write up up, but I also had the luxury of being able to figure that stuff out in public or in private rather than having it be published and then be like, "Oh, this doesn't work, I could do this better, right? I could kind of do it and sit back from it." I learned a lot in the time because I was so kind of far ahead. That was great. I learned how to work better with Jorge. That is incredibly gratifying. He's so fantastic and such a brilliant guy and wonderful person and I love writing for him. I've discovered kind of to myself, not surprised, but I have a list in one of my books. It's just like, "Should I think it be cool to see Jorge draw just as it's fan?" I'm so in love with his work and what he's doing. He and Tommy are doing on the book. I will. My should have come later. Let's say what happens. What if this scene goes longer than I thought it's going to go? What if this app? It's a love writing for them because I love seeing what they do with it. I learned that I like being this far ahead because it gives me a moment to have a 30,000 foot view of things and kind of let it get a little cold and go back and reexamine so I can kind of fix and adjust in ways that I don't know that I would have. I didn't know I needed to redo the first issue until I had finished the third. I didn't know I could make four, five and six better until I had seen one, two, new, three, what started to look like and then saw the whole. Oh, what do you know what I mean? It's a thing that I like being this far ahead, but also we had an editorial retreat last year at DC and everybody was talking about what was happening in March and I had to shut up because I realized I was talking about March 2027. Everybody else was talking about now. I was like, "Oh, I need to shut the fuck up. I'm too far out." It was the opposite of being a good. It's a different kind of bad collaborator to be so pregnant that I can't play, because I have nine issues drawn. No one's. I learned, "Don't get COVID." That sucks. I got COVID for the first time and I learned, "Don't go into the hospital and I learn, don't freak out when you think it's long COVID because COVID can take a long time to go away and to thank your lucky stars that it finally does." So that was fucking rough. I had never been in the hospital before, like on that side of the hospital bed, I never slept in a hospital overnight with shit in my nose and arms and stuff, like that was a whole that was. All the September was launching Batman. All of October and November was being sick and recovering. I remember seeing that. I'm just so glad you're okay, first of all. That's amazing. I mean, I bet you're glad that you were so far ahead of writing Batman around that time too. Right, right, right. Well, I was sort of a blessing of like, "Oh, cool. It's all right if I don't write for a little bit because everybody's fed." Yeah. Yeah. And there's genuinely a good month and a half where I didn't think I was going to be able to write anymore. Like I just couldn't. All the raccoons in my head were finally gone. Right? Like all the voices, all the thoughts, all the, you know, you've ever had two songs in your head at the same time? I have that all the time, all the time, right? All of it was gone. Like it never had such quiet, but with that went like imagination. Like I couldn't, I couldn't also, I couldn't see my eyes stopped working. Like I couldn't concentrate. It took me 10 days to sign my name 84 times. And that's 10 days of like, I'm sitting at my desk for as long as I can trying to just, it just, it took me eight, nine ish hours probably closer to 10 if I'm being honest to write three emails, right? Like it was a, my brain was not working. And I couldn't, like I said, and I physically, my eyes, like, you know, how your eyes are in the morning, right when you wake up? Yeah. My eyes would just do that. And the only way I could look at a monitor was a guy to turn all the lights off, turn the brightness all the way up and just make the biggest blindest old man fonts on my screen. It was the, you know, it was like the only end, the only thing that made me feel better was moving. Like, as then I, like then I fucked my back up because I was just like lying around all the time in my back. So like, I would just get on a treadmill and just walk. I played that Indiana Jones video game. I could do that. That's really good. That's a really good game. Okay game. Yeah. Game rocks. Yeah. It looks like Doug Slokum lit it. It's the best Indiana Jones since last crusade. And it's the best Harrison Ford performance since witness. And it's not even Harrison Ford. It's not even him. But yeah, it's like that game killed. But like I could focus on that. And even then there would be times where like, all right, I know what I know how to solve the puzzle, but it can't with my brain right now. So I would like look up the sheets just so I could get it through. He's like, I'm literally going to be here the rest of my life trying to move these fucking tiles around. I know I have to move the tiles like this and it's going to make the water do this and it's going to make this naked. I if I could solve the puzzle, I would let myself cheat, but I just couldn't physically actually do like the math of the puzzle, right? Oh, so this was crazy. So but it went away like that. Yeah, I just like yeah, I agreed to do a fundraiser in Asheville, North Carolina for Hurricane Helene benefit. And I committed to do it before I got sick, felt bad pulling out, flew out like I wasn't, you know, positive anymore, anything, but like I was just fucking brain dead, you know, yeah. I had to take a red eye to get out there. I can't sleep on planes. I showed up and my friend Andrew picked me up. Andrew Eiton who did a march and run and my partner in publishing ventures and and Andrew should be just out. So like, well, we had a couple hours before the thing just crash and I'll wake you up and we'll go to the store and do the thing. Okay, great. And I crashed and I woke up and I was drenched in sweat and entirely better. Like I couldn't literally sweat it all out. That's yeah, and like it was not like it was yeah, it was the weirdest like I couldn't tell like I'm a jet lag, but like the whole signing I'm like, no, this is better. I think I'm better like it's gone. It's all gone. But this is the crazy thing. So like my eyes, my glass has always looked blurry afterwards. And they're like, well, my eyes were fucked up for like two months and there must be some kind of damage. Like I've got some kind of my prescriptions, you know, like my glasses don't, they're not, my glasses aren't smudged all the time. They don't work anymore. My prescriptions change right. So I went to my optometrist entirely convinced I needed, you know, a different prescription stronger or whatever, which is true. I didn't need a different prescription, but as he put it, well, it's weird. My eyes got better. Like wow, I was overprescribed. So I needed new glasses that were actually weaker than the ones I had been currently wearing. So I mean, your body completely broke down and rebuilt itself. You know, I'm talking about that. It's amazing. You gotta get COVID. If you're in your sighted far sighted stuff like me, get COVID. You gotta get it. It'll make it like you didn't your eyes directly. You'll be better. So that was that's like the punchline was. Yeah. Well, it's not the craziest thing. It's weird, but anyway. So don't get COVID. I learned that. And yeah, and it's it's it is a genuine challenge to I have to actively stifle the urge to touch all of the toys in the toy store all at once. Because because the temptation is there. I want to just I could it is it's it's I've never been a strict outline guy. You know, I have kind of shapes that are really about lines, but like I really need it with this because like I said, left to my own devices. I'll be like, well, wait, wait, wait a four-hage or this for what? This is the thing now. Oh, who's that person? What are we doing? Like, oh, wait, wait, I'm never going to, you know, so I'm having the time of my life and love working on the book. It's been a blast. It's been incredible. And like the reception's been huge. And like our numbers go up every issue. Like that doesn't happen. Yeah. DCs weirded out by it. But like, they're in a really strong place, which is incredible. Like the energy and the vibe up there is really terrific. And like poor Scott Snyder who was who has sort of like, it feels like like a war movie where all of the upper management have wiped out. And now there's just the serge who's has to be in charge. Everything, you know, like he's like, like, he didn't sign up to be quarterback, but now he's quarterback. And like he is with everything that has happened with the absolute line. It's just the everything at DC is so much fun right now. And so great and the energy is great and the communication is great and people are getting along and genuine fans of one another's work and it's fun and creative and like from editorial throughout all the like the below the line folks that like in the middle of a trade whose names you would never like who's that guy who's that guy you know like all these people are incredible and yeah it's been great it's been a real I feel real fortunate I feel really lucky and you could see that energy in the books themselves I mean the quality is just through the roof on nearly everything at that company it's it's incredible and Marie Javins is a hero yeah and I'm so glad you mentioned Jorge I mean obviously he's an integral parts of this book but I mean I've been a fan of his for years now and this is by far just the best stuff he's ever done thank you which is just like crazy to say I think that you guys match each other so well um one of my buddy of mine we were we were actually talking about this run and we were saying like one of the best things is that there are there are moments words multiple pages where there's just no captions no words and it's like it's that collaboration you just let the art sing sometimes and to me like that's that's true collaboration that's like one of the strengths of this book thank you well you know and that was one of the like just as a writer and as a Batman reader like I I I was tired of all of the Batman captions as a as a reader I was tired of all the captions as a writer I thought oh that would be challenging Batman's been thinking at us for so long what if I robbed myself of that and just you know like what if we didn't know what Batman was doing as he was doing it all the time you know can we make it mysterious can make it strange could make it uncomfortable it's also incredibly hobbling like it's it's a huge tool that I just it's like having a toolbox from the hammer in it like oh yeah no it's it also knowing that Jorge can do it you know and and he feel it feels like he's a like a formula one car that is like oh wait we've not found the top gears yet yeah think oh this is it there's five years no there's six there's seven there's eight like he's he's a superstar and he's nowhere near his upper limits is upper levels that's great it's been great working with him just as a fan like like I gotta go what if he had to what if Batman fought a bunch of motorcycle ninjas great yeah I want to see where he draw that you know awesome um yeah and so you did mention like right at the start that um you were doing these one and done like one to two issue kind of one and done stories and that has kind of um changed a little bit but I still feel like these issues can still be read stand alone and to me this feels like classic big two comics like it reminds me of the Claremont X-Men days route have these one and done issues with like an over-arkey narrative at play in the background and it just it feels so refreshing yeah because I feel like that's kind of a rarity nowadays in superhero comics um and yeah it's just it's just really refreshing honestly thank you thank you you know I like I think there's there's maybe one too many but like it's it's you know I was really it's funny kind of the thing that was most in my head from Frank Miller was his time as writer artist on Daredevil yeah like that it's sort of like what how do you do that how do you modernize that a little bit you know where it's it is still very much Daredevil's book but there's a thing with foggy in here and this has happened and over you know that kind of thing so at just any time you've got more than one storyline you're gonna accrue you know continuity or whatever so you know the it's not quite as monofocus but also like I think I wanted to see like the last time I wrote a solo superhero book like this was Hawkeye and I wanted to see can I want can I not copy that can I can I take what I knew then take all the stuff I've learned in between and apply it now and what does that look like and how does that work you know like that was just a creative challenge I wanted to set for myself and you know going back and looking at how I was kind of hadn't done since it was published and was like oh yeah this isn't really as done in one as I remember like you can you can kind of hook oh yeah no this is the one with this or the one with that that was always the goal is like the friends gag of like all of the episodes have yes the whatever like I just wanted they can make it that clear what was this one about oh this is the one with the monster man right this is the one with the motorcycle ninjas this is the one with ridler whatever like that that's that's that's kind of ultimately the goal so it's you know um um yeah well and then the other thing is after six issues of these kind of stories coming apart then we can do something like seven that's in pretty much one room you know like we're a sustained thing of like let's put to you guys in a room and see what happens and see how it goes right because it's been this kind of polyphonic kind of wall of sound thing and now let's just narrow down to one channel and stay with it for a sustained period of time and and I think it served as kind of like a big underline to issue seven because beyond the fact that it's Joker beyond the fact that immediately cashed in the goodwill that Batman I literally when Batman won sales figures came in I wrote back like hey now's a great time let me tell you what I'm thinking about for issue seven could we do this knowing that my stock was never going to be higher so um but like I think I think it makes seven I hope it makes the intention I hope that this sort of resonates a little bit more when you look at it with all of its you know brother and sister issues yeah and I guess that's a great segue to talk about issue seven because it's like neck and neck with the date night issue as my favorite issue so far it was just brilliant and there's this you know there's this thing in online spaces which I'm like not on social media like add all anymore so I don't know if this is still hot going on yeah it's awesome um but you know people are always complaining all the Joker so overused yada yada yada it's like he's the fucking Joker he's the coolest villain of course he's overused who cares he has the best stories um uh dirt yeah it's come on uh Hitler where was oh I mean oh I mean yeah we're gonna stop fighting now so sorry you feel differently you're you're not over Hitler okay okay no I am I'm over that guy a bad guy to be clear um unicorn okay do you do you do you remember a book about um the drugs that the Nazis were running on the speed and the infetamine that they gave all of the troops and like like they were it was the book is literally called blitzed right and it's just about oh amphetamine amphetamine and tanks were what made the blitzkrieg possible uh everybody all these guys were crunching speed or whatever but I remember the headline of review of the book was you know new book exposes cd underbelly of Nazi Germany like whoa they finally really was not sees oh my god anyway Joker Joker's back Joker so okay I've been I'll be completely honest I I was not reading Batman comics for a long time until your run started so suck it just see it listen I'll go back and read chips run I'll make that I'll make that a promise I it's a long run I got I need time um but I will say is this so basically for for people who haven't read the issue which you should go read the issue um the Joker is in a tube um and seemingly has his he's like sane he has his memories but he's sane is this did something happen with the Joker when I wasn't reading or is this just like an entirely new thing like we're just here now we're just here I mean awesome that's what I hoped it was you know all kinds of stuff happens who knows you know he he he gets the shit knocked out of him in DC KO and you know so something happens between there and this and who knows what it is but yeah he's been he's been medically paralyzed so he's pithed he's got like giant pit needles out of his spine and the electricity and his you know those structures a thing that I believe that Grant Morrison came up with and in Arkham asylum with the machine that like oh Joker's like he's got like super sanity like he has to reinvent himself every day to try and keep up with all the stimulus of the world they can't regulate and I have a friend who's a uh a neurobiologist and and we were talking about stuff and I read things about people with kind of profound untreatable depression issues and this guy built like a like a cap and it regulates electricity, he had a patient whose kind of entire life was was depressive episode suicide attempts institutionalizations in an endless cycle and at some point on an MRI or a CT scan or something he saw he noticed that some part of her brain wasn't lighting up like it should be and like it sounds like he went to Radio Shack and just made it like literally it just pings the dark parts of her mind and like in the time of the article her life had changed she had held a job for more than a year she was engaged to be married like everything thing was different for this woman. So just kind of playing with all this stuff. The idea, what if that supersanity is generating like all this electrical activity beyond what people are supposed to have in your brain? And it's why he's so thin all the time. He's like just burning like a marathon's worth of calories every day, just being alive. And what happens if you stop that? So he's got this thing on his brain that's burning through special comic book Batman medal at an alarming rate because he's so, but yeah. So yeah, that's where we meet our boy is in a tube. And because now his metabolism is stopped, he's not rafed like in thin anymore. He's kind of husky. And it shaved and he's wearing because he's in this sort of fluid. So he doesn't get bed sores and no one has to touch him, right? Because that would be a thing is like he could be a no contact kind of to take care of him, but he's paralyzed. We can't move. He's floating in this kind of saline tank. And he's got this thing over his face. So you can't see his mouth. You can't see the big Joker grin. And it's where we meet our big boy. That's where big boy comes in. This is a huge swing. And I love it. This is amazing. Like it was I remember seeing the end of issue six. And I didn't even I was like, who the fuck is this? Like I didn't know who this was. And then seeing issue seven, seeing the cover seeing the Joker's back. I'm like, whoa, what is this? And the entire issue is just it's basically one conversation for the bulk of the issue. And it is so fascinating. It's one of the best deconstructions of the Batman Joker relationship, which I found really interesting. And obviously we have those two amazing double page spreads from Jorge that are just incredible. I have the I have it digitally. So yeah. So do you know the thing, the actual thing? I do not know. This is all new to me. Oh, dude. This is what I meant when I said I cashed I, so you know, here's this. Oh my God. That's that's amazing. Yeah. So like the physical issue. It's a fold out. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's amazing. I want to bump to make that happen. That man. I mean, truly, like this is this is the best issue so far of serious. It's amazing. I just want to know what, what about the Batman Joker relationship is fascinating to you? Because like I said, like you really broke, broke it down here. So I want to, I want to know why, why is that relationship so interesting to you? I think some, you know, there's, there's a line in Michael man's man hunter. Oh, yeah. Where, where, where I have electric, says to Wilgram, how did you catch me? And he says, you had certain disadvantages. He's like, like disadvantage, like what does advantage is you're completely insane, right? Is the response. And so, so that was that something about like that, that something, when I started to think about how do you do a Joker that is in any way, even slightly different, you know, because it's, it's, it's been so well-trod. You know, yes, he's the best villain in comics, but that also means there's about as many Joker stories as there are Batman stories, you know, and like what is it's something that feels new to me as a reader, feels different or feels like something we haven't seen. Just what's different? And like what's, and maybe it's just like oppositional defiance disorder and expression, but like what's the opposite of everything else and like slow, fat and quiet. And like the suspicion that if he wasn't completely insane, they would be best friends. You know, and I think I think, again, I think Grant got it that a lot with over in sexton in their run. I know one of the best who's like details like you do that constant every single thing is a thing is you and like, yeah, except you Bruce, you're the one that saw it. So, so that I think I think what happens with, you know, it's, it's the frog in the scorpion and the frog's like, fuck you scorpion scorpions. Like, yeah, dude, I'm a fucking scorpion. Stay away. No, get on my back and you're going to fuck me and fucking know it. I fucking hate you scorpion scorpions. Like I can't help it. I'm telling you now before I kill you that we both know what I'm capable of doing. That felt I don't know what to do with that. Like I just as a, I don't, I mean, I have, I know what I'm writing towards, but also just in the course of writing this issue, you should surprise me because it doesn't feel like I've got a wealth of material like for all the, like, okay, so what if, what if, what if what if this truly was a, I'm trying to write it, what if this was truly a different character for a moment, you know, yeah, we'll see, we'll, you know, what does that open up and what does it mean for some, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Well, you know, like I said, I know, I know where I'm headed, but just doing this issue surprised me so much that that, you know, in a year we could talk and I could be like, yeah, I thought, I thought I thought I knew what was up, but I don't know. It's, um, it's fun. It feels like a grenade and I don't know how it's going to explode quite yet, but I like having a name. I just, I know, I just hope it's different. I hope it's a challenge. I hope it's not, you know, I can promise that just as a reader, I'm trying to not do the what I expect as a reader because there's 38,000 Joker stories and that they all have shape and rhythm after a while, right? Like I'm just like, I don't know, how do you do something different? What haven't we seen before? Where have we done before? Can I do it credibly? And what does it mean? And how does it complicate things? And where is it going and all that kind of stuff? But again, Frog, Scorpion, clocking each other, knowing, but I don't know, it felt, it felt like it scared me. It's, it's, it felt like I'm abs. It's more than anything else, more than taking away Batman's first person narration. It felt like the biggest, I talk about throwing away a tool, you know, like, like, yeah, he's in the book kind of, he's in a room, he's in a tube, in a room and you can't see his face. Yeah. But also then two Jorge's credit, he designs a breathing mask that looks like a Joker grin. It's, it's amazing. Like, and it's like, that was him, that was not me. I like, he's got a thing on his, he's got a fucking thing on his face, bubbles. Like, oh, of course, you can kind of see it. But like, to like, this, to make my punishments also Jorge's like, let's take away all of your tools. And now you just have to tell Joker's story with his eyes. You know, yeah. And that's just fun to see like, oh, let's see, let's see how this goes, man. Let's make this issue really hard for the two of us and see what happens. It's, it's so interesting, because like you said, you're, essentially, you're putting, you're taking a toy away. You're putting the Joker on ice. And, but at the same time, it's a ticking time bomb. We all know the Joker's going to come back. These are, these are license comments. Former fashion, right? Yeah. But how is that going to happen? What's, what's going on here? And I, that's why I, I, I love the clarify that this is just, this is how it is now that I love that like that is such a great decision. I love the cause. It's like, what happens? Doesn't matter what happened. Just know that this is how it is now. And it can go wrong at any moment. But we just don't know when. And it's just going to be a constant threat. Yeah. And you know, I think this month across the DC line, like there's a sort of thought of like the end of DC KO. There's the alpha energy that kind of cracks. It was a chance to like, we're not rebooting things. But if you need to present something suddenly new and different, there's a kind of blanket continuity wide, line wide incident that could, you know, explain some of this, you know, away. If someone needs to, how do we get there? How do we get there? And like, what you're going to do an issue where Joker gets caught and captured and like, I, you know, that looks like it's happened before. He's been in those tanks. Where's been an Arkham before? He's been like, yeah, well, all right. That's not interesting. Getting Joker in a tube is not interesting. I can figure that out. I don't know what happens after he's in the tube. And that was exciting. That felt dangerous and, and, and like a really big, a really big swing. Yeah. Yeah. I do big swings. I mean, and in as much as anyone can do a big swing with a, you know, 89 year old corporate icon, you know, like, yeah, let's go. Or let's see what happens. Yeah. And I'm so excited to see where this goes. Like, really, really. And this is, I mean, it's, it's no surprise. Like, all my friends know I tell everybody, this is my favorite ongoing comic right now. And I'm just, I continue to be excited. It's really amazing. Because there's a lot of that in the world. And, that's the thing about the numbers going up. It means that people are reading, they keep reading. And then they're telling other people to read it. Like, it's, it's the same thing with Hawkeye. Like, you know, like, right away, we're like, oh shit, this is like, yeah, it's, it's incredibly gratifying. Also, at a time when hang on my chair, - Yeah, and that's also selling like hotcakes too. - Insanely so, and it's cool that there are like, two incredibly different flavors of Batman that sort of explain, here's why it's still around. Here's why people love it. - Yeah. - You both, these do not cancel each other out. You might go to an example, it always been like, yeah, you know, like the Ben Affleck Batman and Lego Batman were literally on movie theater screens at the same time. No one was confused. No one, well, is he a Lego? Or is he, like, no, he's Batman, he's elastic, he's plastic, he's, you know, he's like water, man. He's a, so it's dope. It's a cool, it's like I said, I'm having a blast. It's been much fun. - And like, it's that Frank Miller quote where it's like, you could put Batman in any genre and you could still recognize it as Batman. - 1000. - Yeah, it's awesome. So I wanna transition a little bit. We're not gonna spoil any upcoming issues, of course, but I just want to know because I always try to not look at solicits, but I'm weak. I always look at solicits anyways. Ryan Suck is coming in for a couple of issues. Ryan Suck is one of my favorite artists. How did that come about? - You know, that was amazing. - That was entirely Rob Levin, beloved Bat Group Editor made that happen. And yeah, Ryan's great. You know, Ryan's incredible. And I had the very special pleasure of watching Brian Bendis build his Legion with Ryan when they did Legion together. And like when they were done, Ryan sent Brian like his, not even like a sketchbook, but it's like a concept sketchbook. It's the most incredible, it's just great. It's like 200 pages of Ryan Suck figuring Legion out in drawings and it's incredible. So it was great. And he asked about it. Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it. And so our next issue is kind of, it takes a moment to catch up with a couple of different, the kind of three big plot threads that are happening. Kind of look at them, move those pieces around and sort of remind everybody where we've been 'cause it sort of has been a kind of action packed for a little bit. And then we had Joker. And now it's kind of like a little moment to like reset the stage. It's called Three Old Men One Night in Gotham. And we go around, I won't spoil it, but we do sort of three parallel conversations happening the same evening. And I even conversation's being done in scenes. And then issue nine is called Operation Paragrin and this shit absolutely hits the fan in that one. And if people freaked out at the end of Batman 6 with Joker in a tube, they're gonna lose their fucking minds at the end of issue nine. It's a crazy, it's a big crazy cliffhanger that really sets up a whole awful lot of things. So I got, I got, I got to apologize to Ryan. Like look, I know there's a lot of like, not a ton of action, action, action, action, action, in eight and I'm sorry for that, but I promised you nine is fucking balls to the wall and it absolutely is. So you get to see Ryan do two entirely different modes of storytelling and it's great. And then, and then, where he's back and then where we go. - What a tease. Wow, I'm so excited. That's amazing. Yeah. - And let's see what else can I say? Yeah, I'm like I say anything. - All right, yeah, let's leave it at that. That's amazing tease. - Yeah. - I'm so excited. - After 12, which is, you know, Kabongers, we go into our first Bat group event since I've been here. - Ooh, that's sort of, I don't know if you've been reading a Poison Ivy. - A little behind. - Right. - It's so great. It was not, it was supposed to be a mini series. They're closing in on 50 issues or whatever. - Yeah, it's amazing. - Yeah. And after this kind of alpha wave thing, after the events of this month, Pamela Isley is now mayor of Gotham. And so she's doing this kind of storyline about that, what happens when the eco terrorist tries to seize the levers of power in the straight world and what goes wrong there. And that leads to our event called Bad Seats, which we just had another retreat and got it all kind of on the books and like, oh, this is gonna be fun. And it's two months, it's short. And it's one of those things that like, check it out, I think we have a really incredibly strong roster of books and it feels like those old summer animals. - Yeah. - But like I said, it's two months, and we're done. And you can read what you like, you don't have to read everything. It's very, it would be like if you watched, like shortcuts and could opt in to what character stories you wanted to follow. You could just follow two or one or whatever and get a story, but they all link. And it's, I mean, I'd been a part of so many of these kind of events that were always mandated and like I tried to go into it with all the lessons I had learned from what were the worst things about these things? Like how do we build an event that is not that? How do we build the opposite of that? And I think it's gonna be really cool and really fun. And like just getting right to it with Willow is great. And yeah, oh my God. And then fucking Batman 15 is gonna be the biggest issue we've done since issue one or seven. - Oh, yeah. - So you know, then that's Jorge back. We have the Jorge for the third arc is, I think it's the arc that got me the book. - Oh, you have to ask Robin Murray, but it was in my kind of initial, this is what my first two years would look like. I think this is the thing that really got them going. So it's gonna be an insane year. - That's so excited. - I hope, I don't know, maybe the wheels come off and it's all over. Maybe people reject Fat Joker and I'm outta here in two months, whatever, but we'll see. - We will see, I'm so excited. And I mean, I just, you know me so well. I perked up when you said shortcuts because little tangent, Robert Altman is my favorite filmmaker of all time, shortcuts is in my hypothetical sight and sound ballot that I made. So yeah, thank you, thank you for mentioning one of my favorite movies of all time. - I like it more than Nashville, but I, you know. - I think it's the best movie. - Yeah, kinda. - Yeah. - I'll do it again, just. - The writers room for Monarch season two was the, the old sunset, let's palm the studio where they filmed the player. - Oh god. - It was Griffin Mills office, like all of that. We were that was where we were building it. It was great. - Oh my god. - And it's also, they shot a little bit of Barton Fink there. - It pops up every now and again. So it's a studio that frequently stands in for movie studios and movies about movies or TV, but yeah. - Yeah, listeners, if you want to get into Robert Altman, which I know he's a little, he can be a little daunting because of the overlapping dialogue and the big ensembles, the player, that's a good starting point. - Players, a great starting. - A very true, very terrific starting point. - I always recommend either the player or long goodbye. If you want to get into Altman, these are probably the two best entry points. - Yeah, I think it depends on the person, right? - Yeah. - That's it, so. - And where they're at and in their cinema journey, there's something, like if you love movies, you'll love the player, 'cause the player above all else is a movie that loves movies, but hates Hollywood. - Yeah. - Yeah, delicious, right? That's just fucking great. - Yeah. - But real heads know, long goodbye, man. Long goodbye, that's what it says. - That's the one. That's the one. All right, well, I think I guess we could start wrapping up here where at an hour, I guess, I know you're not on social media so we don't have anything to plug there, which you know. - I'm not really on social media. - I'm like, plug everyone getting off social media. - Yes. - It's great, it's so good for your brain. Oh my god, you're not even gonna know what to do. We'll do with yourself. - Go outside. - I'm actually on the internet. - The reload habit goes away. Your brain will be in your brain. You remember what it's supposed to be like. - Yeah, but is there anything besides Batman that you would like to shout out before we end off here? - Yeah, watch the films. Hammer, strange color of your body's tears. Let the corpse's tan and reflection in a dead diamond. Everything but Hammer is on like, is easily streamed on one server or the other. Hammer, you have to dig around for it. You know, buy a DVD from overseas or go to quasi legal. But you know, these are really fucking awesome filmmakers. So, you know, kick them a little bit of money. - Yeah. - I wanna plug that. I wanna plug the, I wanna plug the films. (laughing) - Listen, that is perfect. You're talking about it. into the right guy. I love my comics. Of course, I do have on a comic book show, but I'm a cinephile person foremost. So I, I, my, it's my stamp of approval. I have seen reflection in Dead Diamonds. I'll, I will watch those, the rest of those. Yeah. Um, oh, I don't know if it's been announced. I know that, I know it's been teased. Um, well, uh, uh, uh, the new Lobo book is amazing. If you like me, yeah, that's been a lot of, uh, and I, I, I, uh, Scotty shared with me the first issue this week. And I, I wrote him back and like, Scotty, it feels like Lobo. I could don't know. I can't give it higher. It's, it's, it's, it's somehow Scotty at his most Scotty as a writer, which is really fascinating and just knowing. And it's, that's great. But there's a demon comic coming. Yeah. It's been announced. Okay. Yeah. They, they, they announced who the team who's doing it. Oh, no, they announced Deadman. I don't think they announced team. That'd be a dead man. I can't wait. Oh, I can't fucking wait for Deadman. Okay. So we can cut the side of it. It's not like, no, no, no, that's fine. He is coming. I'm not going to say who's doing it because I don't know. All right. I feel like Demon, they've at least teased on a logo somewhere. If not, uh, there's a demon comic coming. Oh, holy fucking shit. All right. Oh, man. All right. Well, I got to sit with Scott and Nick and look at, um, uh, the scarecrow issue of absolute Batman, which is incredible. I got to see, you know, what's happening with Robin in that hole, like off of the art boards and it's jaw dropping. Um, um, what else have, uh, I'm still a little fuzzy brained. Like, yeah, I mean, we've been reading like this Walter Merch book again and again. Oh, Paul Fisher's book about Coppola Lucas and Spielberg. I just picked that up. Oh, yeah. Um, and that's, you know, Soderberg has the poll quote. It's like, drop everything and read this book immediately. Oh, I did. And like, oh, yeah, no, I get it. That's that sort of that too. But that's, yeah, yeah. No, go watch Strange Color, your body's tears. If you like, uh, spooky, kind of creepy haunted house, Euro crime movies, watch, let the corpse is tan. If you like spaghetti western ish things and if you're a, you're a spy guy like me, it, it, if you've ever read the book that do with, you know, Gabriel Bonfobio moon, Casanova, it feels like, yes, Casanova movie. I wish we, you know, there's ever a Casanova movie. I wish it was reflection of the Dead Diamond. But now I don't even know how I would do a Casanova movie because reflection of the diamond is so good. Yeah. And I have seen, I can, I can confirm that is a great movie. Listeners, I have seen that one. So I will watch the rest. Um, see you. Oh, thanks. Last, well, uh, uh, watch the, watch the, um, the card game scene again. Okay. Yeah. Where they're, you know, they're pushing the chips at each other and then she ends up on the real, we'll, there's a shot of her. With the little thing that happens in the background that had I not watched the film five times, I wouldn't have seen. All right. If one of those little things that changes everything and you miss it because it's, but like literally just go to that one shot, you'll, you'll know exactly what it is when I see it. And when you see it, you're like, oh, wait, how does that change everything about what I thought I understood for this movie is, but they do it. And it's great. Love it. I'll keep an eye out. Yeah. I'll definitely, it's a short movie to us. I'll definitely rewatch it. Um, yeah. And all right. So the second we hang up, I'll think of like nine other things. All right. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. Um, I, I got to be honest, this is maybe one of my favorite conversations I've ever had on the show. That was amazing. Um, so yeah, thank you so much for coming back. Um, I can't wait for Batman. Just, that's my favorite book right now. It's so good. If you're not reading it listeners, you are severely missing out. Um, so get, get the first trailer when it comes out. Uh, should be out in next couple of months. I, yeah, I think June, first, Wednesday, June, I think it comes out. I'm doing a signing at third eye comics in Maryland, right? I think it's in Maryland, Virginia. Maryland. Yeah. Yeah. It's in Maryland. Somewhere in the DC area. I off the top of my head again, but it'll be a third eye that first Saturday in June for that. Um, and then I'm going to be here. It was con this year. Um, awesome. That's my intention. That's not been announced yet, but there you go. There's, there's, but I haven't, it's, it's my hometown show and I've been there for the last couple of years and I miss it and, uh, come back. So I'm going to go to spend some time in the East Coast in June. I'm excited. Amazing coming to my side of the country. All right. That's right. All right. We're, we're football is played at one in the afternoon and the way you got intended, not 10 in the morning. So we, we're in football at 10 in the morning. It's fucking weird. It's weird. It's really weird. All right. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you again for coming back on. Thank you all so much for listening and until next time.