Good Job, Brain! - 159: Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na... BATMAN!

Episode Date: August 27, 2015

Holy comic book trivia, Batman! We battle against crime, and some of Marvel's silliest criminals ever in a REAL or FAKE comic book villain quiz. Learn what sets Japanese manga apart from American comics in terms of business and reading habits, and the very very real inspiration behind to very very fake Batman character. And if you like Brad Pitt or Laser quiz, then you'll love "BATMAN? OR TASER?" Colin shares some very outdated and ridiculous Comic Code Authority guidelines from 60 years ago.  ALSO: GJB LIVE!, Game of Thrones Um, Actually... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, fellow, okay, this is a long one. Hello, fellow brains wearing haines on trains or reading Mark Twain's books on planes or walking your great Danes with canes or changing lanes in Ford, fair lanes while your wife complains of labor pains where the brains who will why cranes land on the plains of Maine do they in the pouring rain in search of grain

while storm drains strain hard to contain water they obtain from steep to rain that was beautiful that was very slam poach yeah that's what I was thinking I like it a snap clap for them yeah the Bears of Barron's stain Yeah, they feel my pain. No, you need the bongos. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast.

This is episode 159, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And that was that beautiful slam poetry intro was written by a listener, Randy Johnson. Thank you so much. That was a whole story. I'm Karen your humble host I'm Colin I'm Dana And I'm Chris

Some some big news No Yes What did we do? We are having Oh yeah Our first A baby

Oh no Wait We already did that Oh right Well you did that We are finally Doing a live show Finally

Good job Brain live Can I go Yes I think you're obligated You might have a seat Reserves So we had a couple

meetups, like in-person meetups in Vegas and in San Francisco. And that went fine. No stabbings. No. Only one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Colin's fine. I had it coming. Yeah. I don't even know how to describe it. It is a show.

It's a good job, brain show live, but also we're going to have like audience games. We're going to have Q&A. So it's a whole variety show. Good Job Brain style. It's going to happen on October 3rd on a Saturday. in San Francisco, Japan Town specifically, and the tickets are on sale now. We've been kind of a... Not telling anything.

Yeah. We just kind of, you know, we told people on Facebook, and then we just wanted to see. But now it's official. I also needed to put down the deposit for the venue first, so I didn't want to be like, whoa. And then we're like, whoops, yeah. We didn't get it. So it's for sure happening. October 3rd, you can get your tickets.

Right now, it's the early bird pricing. So it's $5 off. $25 and later it's going to be $30. Two hours of awesomeness and everybody's getting a cool goodie bag. And this is daytime. Daytime. So, yeah. Fun for the whole family.

If you are interested, you can get tickets. There's a Bitley link, which is faster. So bit. .ly, bitlis slash GJB Live, lowercase, all one word. And get your tickets there. And of course, we're going to link it in the show notes too. So hope to see you guys there. Don't stab Colin.

Anymore. All right, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. Pop quiz, hot shot. And here, I have a random, not a trivial pursuit card. It is from the, it's random from the box. It's called Forte, and it's really hard. Okay. And I think it's hard because of...

It's like trivial pursuit, but harder? Yeah, I think it's supposed to be a little bit tougher than trivial pursuit, but also it's kind of dating. And it's random categories? It's, uh, yeah, well, I can tell you what categories. Okay. It actually says here. So it looks, it looks very much like a trivial pursuit card.

Yeah, but like slightly less well laid out. We can rock this. We can do this, guys. Okay. All right. Well, here, here we go. All right. First question from the category of soaps.

Oh, all right. Oh, okay. Which Falcon Crest role is played by Chowlii. Falcon Crest Wow, let's come back to the 80s No So all I think of was like Elizabeth No, Joan Crawford was she in there

Not Joan Crawford, what's her name? Morgan Fairchild, right? Wasn't she? Right, which Falcon Crest role Is played by Chowley Cheat I was barely allowed to watch that show I'm gonna guess it's something

Very stereotypically Asian sounding So what are you going to say? Well, you know, if you give me a profession How about a profession? Oh. A doctor. Incorrect. Laundromat.

Incorrect. Chef. Close. The butler. Oh, okay. Or man-servant. Sure. What's the name of the role?

Chow Lee. Oh, really? Yeah. They didn't come up with another name. They're just like Chowley the Butler. Yeah. Okay. All right.

All right. Next category. Cartoons. Here we go. What was the title of the 19. 1968 version of The Legend of King Arthur Oh

Chris The Sword and the Stone Incorrect Gosh darn it Is this a kid in King Arthur's Court? Isn't that? No That was like a live-action

One Yeah It's a cartoon It's a cartoon Okay The kid in King Arthur's Court was a thing But it was a live-action movie

With Cura Knightley Kate Winslet Was this in the 90s or I think Right It is Is it Robinette? What is it?

Arthur and the square knights of the round table. Never. Do you get it now? I don't remember that at all. I don't think they played it again after 1968. I don't know if it's a film or a TV show. I don't know. Anyways, okay.

Well, here we go. That's not your forte. No. Okay. Next category, space. What caused the lunar module Snoopy to be tossed around all over the skies on its test descent, nine miles from the moon. What caused?

Can you mean that again? What caused the lunar module Snoopy to be tossed around all over the skies? And it's test descent nine miles from the moon. I was going to guess like a tornado or something, but there's no weather on the moon. I don't know. What is it? A faulty switch setting on the instrument, Pam. Oh, that was my second guess.

Okay. Yeah, I just didn't. Just like, something went wrong. Right, right, right, yeah. What caused it? Something went wrong. The faulty. Yeah, faulty, what you're called on the new Hickey.

That's a really fun trivia question. Yeah. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Forte, the game, never said it was fun. They didn't promise. They didn't promise. That's the slogan.

Oh, right. Next category, pairs. Which married couple were the force behind the controversial film Bolero. Have you heard of the movie? Oh, yeah, I've definitely heard of Bolero. And I remember that it was, I mean, at least at the time, minorly controversial.

But, I mean, just being racy, but I don't know who the couple was. I don't know. John and Bo Derek. Oh, okay. All right, that's right. So he was the director. That's right.

She started and he was married to him. Sure. We're almost done with this card, guys. All right. This is weird. Last category, fair play. Okay. It's very specific.

What would they know? about that, I'll ask you. What was Indian spiritual leader Mahandis Gandhi's middle initial? Oh. That is a valid question, yeah. Fair play. I don't know with them.

Okay. Colin. Jay. No. It's not one of the instance. K. K. Yeah?

Yeah. Oh, I think I had that Mohandis K. Yeah. So I remember a long time ago, I think I believe it was in Walt Disney World. there was a film hosted by Walter Kronkai and Robin Williams. And Robin Williams kept on trying to pitch like characters, you know, and one of them was Mahat Mous Gandhi.

So that was the first time I've even heard of the name. So I always think, oh, they're like Gandhi. Oh, Mahat Mouse Gandhi who's like a Mouse Gandhi. Right, right, right. That's why I'm like, what's Mohandis? Mohandis. Mohandis. Mohamedus.

Um, before we continue, we have a little bit of housekeeping here. Uh, we have a installment of, um, actually. Karen, on our epics episode, you had the quiz where we had to name as many characters from epic franchises. Oh, I'm so happy. I'm so happy people were joint, people were taking pictures of, of their, you know, they're writing it down. Yeah.

People are taking pictures and like, this is what I wrote and they would cross out the ones that we should do more of that type of quiz. Yeah, I didn't know how that would be a receipt, but it was, like on the steering wheel of their car? Yeah. Sorry, it's a little jumpy. So you had asked us to list as many characters from the Game of Thrones novels as we could, or show, I suppose. And so many people wrote into correct.

I had listed. Oh, I did not pick up on this when we were recording the episode. I'm ashamed of myself, but this is such a... I am actually, because I was listening to the episode two. Okay. You put as one of the characters, Carl Drogo. Wait, is this not even it? Let me tell you all about this, because what I heard was he said,

Carl Drogo, and this was after you had given me crap over, like, R5D4, and Carl Drogo, that is not his first name. That's his title. Yeah, it's his title. So it's not a first name last name. I'll defend a character that only has one name, though. I'll defend that. But I said R5D4, and you said, no.

But that's a robot. That's not a first name. Or Arbato, who only has one name. And then you said Cal Drogo, and it went by. I see how Cali is... Because she's CaliChii. Because she's CaliChii. So if we count Cali-Grogo, we should count Lato.

It has to have two words. One is the first name. One is the last name. He only has one name. Why? What was the other one? This is kind of blow your mind, Chris. This is such a great, actually, because I was so ashamed of myself.

I should have gotten this. You can understand why maybe I made the mistake. I said Mercella Lannister. Lannister. Oh, no. But in fact, she is Mercella Barathean. She is, of course. As is Joffrey Barathean and Tom and Barathean.

They are not Lannister's. Right. And I will say no more about that. Can't believe we let that one go. No, I mean, I feel like I'm in the spirit. It's in the spirit of I know what you mean. Like, wink, wink. You know, you're absolutely right.

But when you said it, it was like, oh, yeah, you know, Marcela Lannister. Yeah. It makes sense. But yes, well done to all the people who sent that one. A lot. Okay. Yeah.

Well, that's good. That's good. Yeah. I love it. I have a lot of, um, actually, I know, and Dana joked, uh, Hodor, Hodor. And that's actually, his name is not. No, it's not. Walder, yeah.

That was a fun answer. I was joking, yeah. But I did take a point for it. I gave myself a point for it. Oh, really? Oh, okay. I don't think we. I'm keeping it.

I'm keeping it. He reinvented himself as Hodor, Hodor. Luckily, nobody remembers who won, so. I'm sorry. The points don't matter. Right, right. Oh, wow. Oh, you're not keeping a running tally starting from episode one.

I've got it in the other room. I almost was going to make like an infograph one time of like, oh, who got the most right or like percent. And I was like, I really don't want to go through all those episodes. Oh, okay. Yeah. Also, somebody's going to be upset at the end of that. I will be because I'm, I'd be the least, right?

I would be the least. Oh, yeah, because you participate in the fewest quiz. Yeah, maybe it's just like on average. Yeah, I would imagine that way we would pro-rated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, points per minute of the show. Well, that earlier geekoff was actually pretty good.

Yeah. Because, you know, what? Today's episode, we might get a lot of them actually. Probably. You know, or heated, passionate clarifications or more info. Yeah. Are there enthusiastic fans of the thing we're going to talk about right now? A few.

Is there a group of, yeah, okay. Just a few, I think. Do they enjoy correcting people? Colin is like, yes. His lips got so tight. Let's jump into today's episode. Our topic is something we've had different segments about, but we never a whole dedicated topic.

And it was actually, you know, suggested by listener Dan McArthur, who's like, you know, I would really like to have an episode about Batman. And I was like, well, why not? Let's open it to comics in general. I love Batman. I personally love Batman. But let's open up to all sorts of comics. Prepare yourself, everybody.

Yep. So this week, we're going to talk about comics and comic books. One of the first comic books I ever remember getting was an issue of Spider-Man. And it was the... debut appearance of Hydro Man. Hydroman and it, for some reason... He's into water conservation? He, no, he can turn himself into water, basically.

And he ended up being a fairly long-lasting villain in Spider-Man. That seems like that's a good power. That was pretty good. You can freeze. Right, you can imagine all the ways that, you know, the good guys have thought to beat him. You can bust out a lock by, like, you know, filling it with water and expanding it. It's pretty powerful. It is pretty powerful.

somebody right yeah yeah yeah um you could no no slow down i want to keep brainstorming this you could but how would you defeat him a sponge a fan oh a fan yeah he's been turned into vapor before um just just that's one way to beat him you know if you happen to chance upon hydroman yeah you could drink him you can mix some poison into the water well actually so you guys know sandman i think they've even had sam man in the spider man movies right at one by at one point in the Spider-Man continuity Hydromen and Sandman got merged together

into Mudman How many? Was this a special like six-issue sort of mini-series? It was a short run. That's very intimate. Well, you know. He was dumb, too.

It wasn't like he was like twice as smart. It was almost like they, yeah, yeah. All of that to say, I've had a fascination with the villains in particular. And Karen, I know you and I have talked a lot about the good villains. The good villains, the bad villains, the dumb villains. I'm a Marvel guy going all the way back.

I'm not a big D.C. guy. So I put together a quiz about Marvel Comics villains. Okay. So if you've read or seen Spider-Man, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, this is the universe that we're talking about. Now, for this quiz, I will give you a description of a villain and their name. You tell me, is it a real villain from the Marvel Comics? or is this a villain that I have made up to try and fool you?

So not like from another, like not from D.C. Right, right. I feel like we're all going to learn something. Oh, man. I've tried to choose some of the more obscure ones, but some of these have shown up more than once over the years. Okay. So.

This is giving me flashbacks of Dana's a lifetime movie. Yeah. Right. And her fake ones are so good. Yeah. And the order of these has been entirely randomized, not by me. so you can't try and out smart me by oh well he wouldn't put two of these back to back the dice decided the order of this quiz so here we go yeah but whose dice were they

it was on the iPhone yeah technically it was a dice app yeah that's how sad that's how sad things are today it didn't even find real dice it was a dice app yeah uh all right here we go so uh once you asked me a thumbs up for yes this is a real villain from marvel comics or a thumbs down, Colin, you are just BSing us. Okay. Stiltman. Stiltman is a scientist and inventor who developed a pair of super long telescoping legs

allowing him to rob tall buildings. If you made it up, you did a great job. Yeah, it captures that time. It's like Inspector Gadgety. All three of you say real. You're all correct. This is a real villain He first fought Daredevil

In 1965 It's simpler time, as you said Yep Moving right along It's dumb enough to be true The silver platters Spoiled Rich Kids Arthur and Eva Silver

Turned to a life of crime Using metal throwing discs As their weapon of choice Oh again I'm going to say it's real. I hope you made it up. I know, I love it so much. Everyone says real.

No, it's is false. I made this up. I made up the silver platters. That is gold. The silver platters? The right level of. No one would suspect them because they're rich. Right.

Why do they need to throw metal discs around? They're so rich. All right. But they moonlight also as like a doo-wop group. All right, moving right along next to the end. I know some of our listeners like to draw the things that we talk about I'm not saying you have to I'm not saying you have to I'm just saying if you're not doing anything right now yeah listener Anna always draws uh yeah she does she does

I don't want to she's very busy though yeah paste pot Pete Peter Petruskey is a chemist who develops an advanced adhesive and turns to a life of crime using his super sticky paste to combat foes Oh, my God. Again, I hope you made it up. Wait, what's his name again? Paste Pot, Pete. Peter Pachowski. So they love alliteration. They love alliteration.

It sounds old-timey as it is, and so far as it refers to an obsolete piece of equipment. Yeah. And it also sounds like the sort of thing that a comic artist would have. Would, like, on deadline, literally just starts looking around his office. Like Kevin Spacey and the usual suspects. lands on the paste pot, and it's just like, Bing, bang, boom. I got this one.

So I'm going to say, I'm going to say true. I like it too much. I'm going to say true to all of these. All right. Well, Chris is all in on true. Yes. Dana says true. You know, I really like the fact that he has like a Russian-ean last name to.

Yeah. The Colossus, you know, had a... Makes it east coasty. No way. Yeah. Okay. True. You're going to say true.

It's too good. All right. Yeah, you are all correct. He is a real villain. And Chris, I love your... I love the. deduction that you go through. Yeah. Yeah. And he really did. He had a little paste pot and a gun and he would just spray. I mean, it's, it was simpler. He was simpler. He was a very early Marvel villain. This was 1963. I wonder how long he was around. He showed up a lot. He would, he would, he thought, as a legit villain. He fought the Fantastic Four many times. He did, he did, he did later rebrand himself as the trapster, which was kind of, yeah. And he would, you know, he really, his whole thing was like, he would build the. kind of elaborate, you know, devices.

He braced out. He diversified from that, yeah, just the one. So acetone man was his like arch rival. Yeah, yeah. All right, moving right along. Next villain. I'm going to say true. The Big Wheel.

Jackson Wheel is a disgraced businessman who turns to a life of crime as the big wheel, piloting a giant armored mechanical wheel to carry out his evil plans. I say no Only because it's like the silver kids This is Jackson Wheel I don't think he'd do it twice I'll say it true No I feel like if if it were real

His name would be Jackson Wheeler Or Wheelman Not just Wheel So I'm saying I'm saying Colin made this up All right Dana and Karen say false Chris says true This is true

This is a real one Chris got it Yep he is a real villain showed up in 1978 would fight Spider-Man on more than one occasion. What does he do? You know, I mean, what do any of them do? What do any of them do?

They cause havoc. They rob banks. They have these, you know, hair-brain schemes with all of their plans are always geared around everything going exactly to plan. And, you know, and of course, the hero shows up.

But he really did. He had a giant armored mechanical wheel. They could, like, climb up the side of buildings and had guns and things like that. I mean, it would be pretty intimidating, you know, if you saw that coming toward you. Kangaroo A young man from Australia

Who was so obsessed with kangaroos He lived and traveled among them Eventually developing a superhuman leaping ability He was raised by kangaroos Before turning to a life of crime There's a lot of A lot of height-based villains Like it's only can conquer

Because back then it's like That's how you get into things Is to just put it out of reach And if you could like reach a little feature of it I'm going to say this was put in as a nod to our Australian listeners in an attempt to get more Tim Tams and that it's collimating. I say true. The Tim Tamp play. Yeah.

Is there a lot of like singular animal-based villains? Like there's like shark. Penguin. Yeah. All right. But kangaroos raised by camera. My thumb is getting uncomfortable. Karen says true.

Chris and Dana's, Chris says false. Dana's torn. I'm going to say it's true because I think you would have made a better one than this. It is true. So point to Karen and Dana. Kangaroo appeared in 1970. He was another Spider-Man foe. He said so much later than I'm thinking like the 40s and the 30s.

Well, I mean, Marvel only goes back to the 1960s. I mean, the modern era of Marvel. So, yeah, almost all these are going to be 1960s, 1970s for the most part. There was a second kangaroo. Not only was there one, but in later days, there was a second kangaroo who even had, like, like, powered costumes, like a, to actually kind of look more like a kangaroo. Yeah. Like the long-year-old. The original kangaroo, apparently, his emmo was he would rob you and then just leap away really quickly.

Yeah. That's what I do. Yeah. It makes you feel worse. You're like, that guy robs me. Right, right, right. And he's just hopping around. Hell's Bells.

And now that's B-E-L-L-E. Hells, Bells, an all-female team of high-end burglars who dress in demonic costumes to hide their identities and intimidate their victims. Wow. Very progressive. There's also like a band, I think, called The Hells Bells. It's all a girl band. Yeah. Kiss had their comic. Kiss was big. Maybe this was some jumping on that train. I feel like just the kiss the All right, all right Karen and Dana say true Chris says false

I made this one up I made up the hells bells Hammerhead a vicious crime boss who received metal implants in his head

following a severe beating giving him a super wide super flat super strong forehead but I say yes and I think maybe it was a Venture Brothers cartoon had something like that

it's like a Dick Tracy thing this sounds like a Dick Tracy thing This sounds like a Dick Tracy bad guy. Yeah, animal-centric. Everyone says true. This is true. Yeah, he is a... Actually, yeah.

This guy, yeah, he's real. What does he do? He hits things with his head. He shows up in the head with his head. He's really modeled after like kind of the old school, like Jimmy Cagney, Al Capone style. But he lives in a modern world. So even in the pages of Spider-Man, the characters around him know he's kind of an an anachronism.

Yeah. So he goes back to back to 1972, again. Dick Tracy like, very Dick Tracy like, yes, yes. Eventually over time, more and more of his skull

was replaced with high strength steel and other metals. Except hitting it on thing. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, what I always wondered with him is like, okay, so your skull is,

you know, indestructible, but your skin isn't. Like, your skull is still wrapped in normal skin. I wouldn't think about that too hard. Yeah. All right.

Next one. the splinter Is he a rat? A former lumberjack Who discovers a mystical hardwood So strong it can puncture steel And turns to a life of crime That makes me sad

Which part of that is The villain It's the piece of wood No, not the piece of wood The man He is the He is the villain yes he real right what's his name again the splinter the splinter if I

if I were if I were him why would I name myself the splinter I would mean something like the trunk or something more mightier right right right right splinter is like this annoying little thing roots McGillicuddy I would say it's true but I feel like if Colin made it up it would have had a better name or lumber jack or timber or something You know, timber, that would burn. So that's why I think it's real because it's not as good. All right. Chris says fake.

Karen and Dana say real. I made it up. Yay. God, reverse psychology. I know. It's supposed to compliment and an insult. The Circus of Crime. A criminal organization of oddballs and misfits

operating under the leadership of the Ringmaster. If it's not real, you have to. write it, Colin. You should write this. This is good. Wait, you guys all locked in? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I know it's true. I said it's real. Okay. Oh. You all say true. It is true. Okay. So, Circus of Crime.

You know, lots of good. Rotating membership. Rotating membership. Yeah. It's fun. It's fun to read the members. It seemed like such low-hanging fruit that if it didn't already exist. So they go back to 1962, originally, fighting the Incredible Hulk. But over the years, they kind of have become sort of like the intentionally a jokey collection of like the loser villains in the Marvel universe. All right. Last one.

Boomerang. A former Major League Baseball pitcher who washed out of pro sports and turns to a life of crime using an assortment of deadly specialized boomerangs. This sounds... Wait, he's a baseball player? Former. So he can throw it really hard. Oh, and it comes back. So it's not just, he just throwing balls at people.

No. In fact, not balls at all. He throws the ball, and then he has to run and go back. That ultimately is his weakness. What do you say? Oh, I'm going to see true. I say false. Okay.

I think it's real. True. It is real. It is real. So point to Karen and Chris. I said false. But then also, there was another Australian one in here, the kangaroo. Right.

He's not Australian. You might think he would be. Oh, but he's not. He's an MLB pitcher. He does have, frankly, a fairly ridiculous costume. There's, like, a giant boomerang on his head, and it's, yeah, they're like all over. It doesn't look discreet by any sense of the word. You could have done the didgeridoo.

He got his street clothes on. He's got like a hat on. He would play the didgeridoo and it would produce a note that will, like, shatter glass. He plays the brown note, causing everyone in a five-mile radius to poop themselves and have to run home. So you go to the bank. Put them in a trance. Nope.

You go to the bank. All right. Well done. Well done. You guys know mostly your real villains and now some of my fake ones. Pace pot is the worst.

Pace pot, Pete. Uh, hole punch Harry is on the loose again. Punching holes in your money. And it's like, render it would be like, sir, we found these a little circular piece of it.

His calling card. Yeah. This can only be one person. And it's just confetti. It's hairy. Uh. Ever dreamed of traveling the world with your children without leaving your home? Tune into Culture Kids podcast to embark on an incredible adventure right where you are.

At Culture Kids, we collaborate with cultural organizations, authors, and educators from all over the world to expand our children's horizons, inspiring them to embrace our differences while bridging communities worldwide. And that's Culture Kids podcast. Here's your passport. Let's go. So, if we're going to do a comic show, which we are, pretty deep into it, I need to talk about Japanese comics, manga, my thing. Sorry, because Colin, you talked about your first comic book that you remember was Spider-Man. Do you guys remember your first comic book? I mean, they're like newspaper funnies.

So my first comic book book was a book, was a manga book. And it was about a sushi chef. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Shotan no sushi. Oh, wow. And it's a kid. There are a lot of kid wonders in manga world.

They're like 15, but they're really good at this thing. And there's a lot of stories that deal with like sushi chefs or whatever. Like, yeah. What about you guys? I think my first was, oh, there was a Donald Duck comic book. I think that was one. And they're Archie. I used to read Archie's.

Yeah. I, man, I could not tell you. I think we had just. had a lot of comic books, you know, around. I definitely had a lot of Archie comics. I had a lot of Mad Magazine, yeah. I probably had a lot of Archie comics. Yeah, I can't think of what my first one would have been, though.

But you couldn't go buy manga in the U.S. very much. Like, there were a couple of things that were translated. Like, one of the earliest things was Barefoot Genn, that the manga that's about the bombing of Hiroshima. But that was, I mean, a lot of that was translated because it was like a teaching tool. Historical, yeah. Yeah. And so not a lot of the popular stuff was really getting translated.

I mean, mostly just because of it, because in Japan it reads from the right to the left, to translate manga, you either had to do A, teach Americans to read from the back, which nobody really considered doing, which is what they do now. But what they used to do is they would have to take each page, flop it, and then redraw all of the sound effects. It was just, it was a very laborious process. If this was like 20 years ago, and we were doing good job brain on a cassette tape, or I don't know what we would. do. I'd be starting with the basics of like, what are Japanese comics? I'm pretty sure that everybody listening at this point has a general sense of

Japan makes comics at this point. What I wanted to talk about specifically was that if you think about the manga business in Japan and what kind of separates that out from like the American comic industry, the way that people read, consume,

the way they're drawn, the way they're produced, the key word that I want to talk about, well, before I get into that, just to make it very clear about, like, manga in Japan versus comics in America, in the late 1990s, I looked up some sales data of comics, late 1990s, Japan, the U.S. April 1997 in the U.S. The top 300 comics that month, which pretty much represents how many comics were sold. Because once you get up top 300, that's pretty much, you No, 9.34 million copies, total.

For all of the top 300 titles. So a little bit less than 10 million for all the top 300 titles, roughly. So that's how many issues of comic books that they sold in April, 1987. In that year, 1997, the circulation of Weekly Shonen Jump comic anthology magazine in Japan's a weekly magazine. Its circulation was 4 million. Wow. So, four million copies per week of that one comic book were sold. So that's like 12 million issues a month.

That one magazine is that was in 1997, it was the size of the American comic book industry. That's how big the difference is in Japan, which has one third U.S. population. Wow. That's how big manga is. So that gives us a little clue as to what that keyword was I was kind of hinting at a little earlier thing I want to talk about. One of the understanding the difference in terms of like the popular manga is speed. This is from, there's a very important book. It's sitting in the other room.

It's called manga manga. It was originally published in 1983 and it was really the Western world's first introduction to Japanese comics. That was absolutely mine. That was absolutely where I learned. that word was through that book. It basically just sort of talked about the manga industry, who the big players were, how things were put together. And then, of course, there were some manga at the end of the, at the end of the book. Very early on in the book, we get this. An editor of Shonen magazine, which is one of the competitors to Shonan jump, he says that in their

estimation, it took their readers, this is in 1983, it took a reader, 3.75 seconds a page. My goodness. So, yeah, like try reading a page. Try reading a page. Try reading a panel of watchmen in three seconds. You could get as far as like and and the. Right. Yeah. Yes. Well, why is this the case? Are they just good at reading? Yeah, probably. If you're reading a, you know, giant comic magazine or two or three every week, you're probably pretty good at, you know. But it's really, it gives us a clue as to like, how did manga artists use the page? What were they doing that was so interesting and so influential later? And it was that they were like cinematic. So the writer of the book, Fred Schott, he writes, American artists might use.

one cramped frame to depict a superhero punching an alien villain. But Japanese artists are likely to show a samurai warrior hacking away at an opponent over several pages and to depict the action from a variety of camera angles. So in short, this is me talking again. You're not supposed to like linger on every page. You're supposed to like take it in frame by frame as if it were a movie and just sort of let your eye wander over it, you know, and very quickly move on to the next page as it shows you kind of bit by bit. bit the action that's happening.

Impressionist here and the swords there. Yeah. So you might also now be thinking, you know, Shonen Jump, whatever, these are anthologies. And so they publish many, many stories inside the 320 page edition. 320 pages per week. That's a lot of comics to generate per week. And indeed,

manga artists in Japan, you know, they can make a lot of money. They can be very famous, but they work ridiculously hard and they work very fast. The most prolific artists at that time when this book, was written, we're doing 400 to 500 pages a month. My good. The secret is that they have teams of assistance.

So it kind of differs depending on the artist what they do. And Frederick Schott in the book laid out two very different scenarios, probably at the extreme edges. There was Osamu Tezica, who at the time was still alive, still working, father of Astroboy. And he was very particular. He did the pencils himself. He did the in himself. And then he would have his assistants fill in, like, you know, if there was a big part of the panel that had to be filled in with black, they would do that. Shading.

Usually from those, like, those tone sheets where you're rubbing on. Yeah. Like, they would do that. Type setting the dialogue. Because in America, you know, comics were hand-lettered for a really long time. In Japan, they switched to typesetting pretty fast. But meanwhile, the guy who created Go-Go 13, which is that

the sort of James Bondesque hero, a guy's name is Takao Saito, he is described in the book as leading sort of a full team effort in which he is like the creative director and he might just tell somebody, okay, you know, draw this page and Go-Go-13 is going to do this, and then I'll come back

and look at it later. Or he might draw a page himself, but he might just draw the faces of the main characters and say, okay, well, you guys, second assistant, you fill in the faces of the other characters that are here. And a lot of this happened because comic books in Japan, the creators were independent. It's not like, oh, I got a job at Marvel drawing Spider-Man. It's like, oh, Samu Tezica's company, he creates Astro Boy.

And then he goes to the publishers and says, oh, okay, let's have a contract where I'll finish these stories and just deliver them to you. So that's how you get rich and famous is by actually controlling the IP of your work, because then you sell the Astro Boy merchandise rights. Yeah. When they would publish, like, the richest people in Japan lists, like, these are the people who make the most money in Japan, the whole country. Like, manga, the big manga artist would be in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They would be on the list. You would not see that here. Is the huge volume that they had to produce these at? I mean, part of the reason why so many of them are black and white. I mean, if it were color, that would be completely insane. Right. Yeah. You just, I mean, you just, it would just make it. That's true. I mean, they've got to print these massive magazines which don't sell for very much money. So, yeah, they just have. have a tradition of like black and white everything is black and white you know it's super super super cheap newsprint they're meant to be thrown away if you were to collect you can't you can't

collect comic books in japan no i mean if you think of a two inches thick and they come out every week yeah oh my goodness goes to your ceiling of one year's worth of comics yeah well that's the thing so they get thrown away and then um that's when they released them in the graphic novel the small format and then it's only one story because because the anthology, the Shonen Jump, has like 20, 30, whatever different stories in there. So you just pick out your favorite. And then you go

and you throw that away and you get the novels to have on your shelf. Because there isn't this like comic collecting of original editions in Japan, like there's, you know, we have like the $3 million action comics that just sold in America. There's nothing that touches that

in terms of like old issues of comics in Japan because there just really is no there's so many. It's hard to collect comics. Interesting. So the prices don't go up because there's not as much interest. You know, now we have more creator-driven comics in the U.S., but, like, at the time, it was really more big brands owned by big companies, and you as a writer would just sort of get hired and like, okay, you're on Spider-Man this week. Okay, well, now Bob's on Spider-Man, and, you know, you're, yeah, whatever. You're a paste pot p. Yeah. Until you shape up.

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You're listening to Good Job, Brain. This week we're talking about comics and comic books. Okay. So Colin usually does or has frequently in the past done Brad Pitt or Lasers. Yay! Yes. Yay. So for comics, I'm going to do a round of Batman or Tazers.

Yeah. I promise. She told us early. I won't see you. I won't see you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to.

to give you guys two characters or comic books or items, and you tell me which one came first. All right. Very close. Many of them are close. Some of them are not close, but maybe surprising. Okay. All right, let's start off with Batman or Tazers.

We'll pick it off which one was first, Batman or Tazers. I know when Batman was published. Do you guys know when Tazers? Why would I tell you if... Oh, we're not doing it. This cooperatively? No, we all have our own little individual pads and markers here. Ready?

Okay, so Colin says Batman, Karen says Batman, Chris says Batman, is correct. And the taser stands for Thomas A. Swift's electronic rifle. Okay. Electric or electronic, I forget. But one of those, yes. All right, so this one is a little bit different. I modified the rules a little bit on this one.

Put these in order. Wolverine, the character, X-Men Comics number one, and Hugh Jackman. Oh, that's good. Huh. All right. Colin says X-Men, then Hugh Jackman, then Wolverine. Karen says Hugh Jackman, X-Men, Wolverine. Chris says X-Men, Jackman, Wolverine.

Wolverine was premiered in October 1974, X-Men Comics was 1963, and Hugh Jackman was 1968, so it's X-Men, Jackman, Wolverine. I thought he was older. Yes. Halliberry or Storm. Hallie Berry played Storm in the movie, but when Storm first appeared. Well, we know she is younger than Doritos, if that helps. Did Storm happen before or after Wolverine?

Yeah, I'm going to say You wrote Alibair, you wrote Halliberry Karen says Storm Chris says Halliberry It is Halliberry Halliberry's born in 1966 Storm was first introduced in 1975 One year after Wolverine

Which came first Nick Fury or Samuel L. Jackson And the reboot of Nick Fury was based on Samuel L. Jackson. Oh, so not the reboot. No, the original character. Oh, man, shield. Close.

Well, this one's tricky for a tricky reason. Colin's over thinking. No, yeah. Okay, Colin says Nick Fury. Karen says Samuel L. Jackson. Why am I always writing the opposite of what you do? It was Samuel L. Jackson. Yes.

He was born in 1948. Nick Fury was 1963. Wow. Wow. 1948. Yeah, that's just me being surprised at San Diego. Samuel L. Jackson is old. Uh-oh.

We have a, uh, precog. Um, actually, I think, I think that Nick Fury is one of the pre-Marvel characters. It says first appearance, Sergeant Fury and is Howling Commandos in May, 19663. Okay. Okay. I was like, I can also Wikipedia. Oh, you have Wikipedia, too? Yeah.

All right. A few more, uh, actor and character they played, uh, combos. How about Star Lord or Chris Pratt? Wow. Star Lord and Guardians of the Galaxy. I have no idea when Guardians. Guardians, I think, is 80s. How old's Chris Pratt? How old is Chris Pratt? Yeah, my only question is how old is Chris Pratt? It's pretty close. I'll give you a hint. This one is a close one.

Man. So, Colin says Star Lord. Karen says Chris Pratt. Chris says Star Lord. Yes, it is Star Lord. Star Lord was 1976, Chris Pratt, 1979. Oh. Pretty close. How about Gamora or Zoe Saldana? This one's also very close.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. How old is Zoe Saldana? She's ageless. Yeah. Yeah. Never ravaged by time.

Oh, Karen, we finally guessed the same thing. Oh, wait, are you changing it? Man, why are we opposites? I don't know. All right. Colin says Gamora, Karen says Gamora, Chris says Zoe Saldana, it is Gamora. Yes. Gamora, 1975, Zoe Sal Donna, 1978.

How about Captain America or the attack on Pearl Harbor? Whoa. Did America enter World War II before or after Captain America? What year was action comics? Just as reference. That's D.S. That's D.C. 30s. But no, but just reference. Sure, sure.

Oh, I see. We were saying. Okay. Colin says Pearl Harbor. Karen says Captain America. And Chris says Captain America. It's Captain America. Wow.

Captain America came out March 1941. Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was December, 1941. I knew it was close. So close. Yeah, man, man. Actually, that's a good thing to know what month. How about Superman, who is a newspaper reporter?

Or Citizen Kane, who is a newspaper reporter? magnet. Oh. Yeah, man. Best film. I don't know the Oscar year for that. It's pretty close. Colin says Superman.

Karen says, Superman. Chris says Citizen Kane. Superman's 1938. Citizen Kane was 1941. Yeah. Wow. That's close. Yeah.

41 was a big year for stuff. Last one. Stan Lee or Pez Candy? God, Stan Lee is old. Wow, maybe he's listening. No, no, I mean, just scientifically. Yeah. Not making it objectively.

It's point of the game. It's indisputable. He could not, yeah. How old is he? They are... It's going to be real close. I'll give you a hint. They're in the same decade.

Colin says Stan Lee. Karen says, Dan. Chris says Dan. It is Stanley. Yeah. 1922. Pez Candy is 1927. Whoa.

Stanley older than Pes. Man, for the first five years of his life. He did not know the joy of Pez. I also had Patrick Stewart or the first folding wheelchair. Oh, for Professor X. Yeah. That's good. What is it? It is the wheelchair. It was four years older than

Patrick Stewart. Yay, good job, you guys. That was good. Yeah, that's good. It has a feel to be on the other side. It's stressful. It's stressful. Especially when I've looked up some of these very things for Brad Pitt or lasers. And I'm like, I cannot recall. That's good.

Yeah. That's how I feel a lot of time. I'm like, I read this article. What did it say? So it is not a secret that I love Batman. I love the villains. I love the fact that he doesn't have superpowers, except for the fact that he's really rich, and I love the fact that he used technology. And you know what? I was reading something about Batman, and they were saying, oh, everybody in Batman is really into the thing that they're into. And that's what kind of characterized. is the characters in Batman, they're all like committed human interest to like an obsessional level. They're all obsessives. Yeah. They are. Like Karen. Hmm. I was kidding. You are, you are into the thing you're

into. And I appreciate the other even the villains that they're really into. The penguin. He's just all about penguins. It's fine. There are a lot of good books. There are a lot of good Batman books and writing and art. Good video games. The TV, the animated TV show.

was so good and so I really love Batman something in particular drew my eye when I was doing the research is Batman was influenced by some parts of his creation were influenced by real things and I want to talk about some of the real things that you may not know that shape Batman like

Bats are real is what you're saying? Yes Bats. Did we ever tell our bat story? What bat story? We have our bat story or sort of bats the millions of bats Oh, bats, bats, bats, bats, bats. Oh, yeah, yeah, we have a bat story. We have a bat story. And a song.

Oh, yeah, we have a big song. You're burying the lead there. No, we went to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and there is a bridge in Austin. Oh, I've heard of this. Where all the bats in the area, they sleep during the day. But if you go down there at sundown, and a lot of people go down to watch this, you go down there at sundown, as soon as the sunsets, and it's still, they're still, like, reflected light outside, all the bats. leave the bridge to go out doing back stuff. Like a cloud!

But it's, yeah, but it turns the the sky black. Did I tell you about that time I got chased back to my hotel by some bets? You've never told us this. So I was... In California? No, no. I was on a island called Banawatu. We were coming back from some festival thing.

We're walking along this moonlit path. We're like, oh, it's really nice out. And then all of a sudden we hear like some noises. Yeah. And then something like flies by us and we were like, what was that? And we, like, look around and it's, we noticed the bats. And then we just start running back to her hotel as fast as a kid. I had, uh, I had, when I was a kid, I went to a cave in one of the national parks in Taiwan.

And yeah, there, do you remember in Batman forever the movie was Jim Carrey? And Val Kilmer puts on the riddler, the, the weird TV thing. And then it's supposed to show your nightmare. And then he sees a bat flying towards them. Yeah. That's exactly what it looks like was this kind of dark thing. There's some light. And you just see this.

this bat flying towards your head. It's not going to eat your face. It just fly somehow they're just... You don't know what they're going to do. Yeah. But they just kind of fly over your head. Yeah. You know, for the moment, you're like, I'm going to die.

Yeah. It's funny that we have these shared experiences of bats flying into our face or close to our face because that really is a fearful thing and kind of part of the Batman inspiration. So, um, Colin, you know this. Who's often credited with creating Batman? Often Bob Cain, traditionally. Traditionally, Bob Cain.

There is a co-creator, Bill Finger. Yes, in the last couple years especially, has really started to get a lot more recognition. Yeah, I mean, back in the days with the comic books, you're kind of, you know, crediting ideas or you're co-working with somebody, sometimes like, there's some weirdness there. So Batman was said to be inspired by a couple things, by bats, by the Leonardo da Vinci drawing. Oh, yeah, Vitruvian man. Yeah, the flying machine. The flying machine. Kind of vaguely bat-like.

Yeah. And Zorro at that time, the mask kind of like crusader. And one of the other things that's listed often as the inspiration is a movie called The Bat. It's actually debuted as a Broadway play in 1920s. And it's, I know Chris, you also like, like, Agatha Christie's stuff. It is kind of like, who done it, kind of like. And then there were none or a mouse trap. It has that feeling.

And, you know, it was a play. Suspensful. That it got adopted into a silent film in 1926 about people are looking for a treasure. And there's just one dark, mysterious silhouette that keeps killing off people one by one. What is Batman's real name? Bruce Wayne. Bruce, the name Bruce is Robert the Bruce. King of Scots.

Oh, Robert the Bruce. Robert, the Bruce. Okay. One of the most famous warriors and led Scotland during its first of the wars of Scottish independence against England. They picked Bruce because of that? Mm-hmm. I didn't know that.

And the inspiration. And then Wayne, so we have Bruce, what's kind of the warrior, the Scottish warrior, like, you know, bring people together. And then Wayne is, was picked because it was named after Anthony Wayne, which is old, they needed like kind of a colonial. old standard American dynasty kind of family name. An old money name.

So like Adams or they eventually thought Anthony and Wayne a U.S. war hero also has a lot of places named after him and has that legacy. So they have a combination

of the Bruce from Robert the Bruce and Wayne from Anthony and Wayne so it's like Super Warrior and also old money which kind of fits with his persona. So yeah, some cool real things

It's a good hero name. It's not alliterative. Yeah. No. Which kind of makes it a little bit cheesy. Campy. Like Lois Lane, Clark Kent, and you're like, Bruce Wayne. Yes, I believe that this guy is a super rich, like tycoon.

Its name's not Batting Sin. Yeah. Yeah. For example. Yeah. Right, right, right. So I found a quiz that's called, Can You Pass the Hardest Batman Trivia Game Ever? Oh.

Oh, yeah? I'm going to share it. All right. Well, I don't know. You know what? Do this until we get one wrong. How about that? Okay. All right. All right. Okay. Survival round. So, so I took this quiz and I did actually pretty good. There's some that were like, okay, there's no way. I would know this. So I found the hardest Batman trivia game ever. And I would say I looked at a lot of different, quote, hardest Batman trivia.

And this is the best one in terms of like, is it getable? Do you remember? and not like in episode 36 how many fingers did you know it's just like should we do should we team up yeah I'm trying to do this okay okay all right when was the first Batman movie released

oh I'm gonna give you they made a lot of early ones well wait they did like serials yeah are we gonna say I'm assuming that they're also made serials yeah are we gonna multiple choice oh it's multiple choice okay uh 1943

1963, 1968. I think 66 because it's, I think they did a movie based on the Adam West But maybe there was something before it.

I feel like there was a really early one. See, there might be, okay, geez, I don't know. Okay. Well, democracy. What do we say? We got three votes.

I like the early one. The early one? Okay, I can go with the early one. Just to see. What is it? Okay. Good job. The earliest one,

1943. Please look up pictures for this. It is really funny. Because their costumes are horrible You know, I think I saw a documentary And they had a clip from it And that's why it looks like grown-ups in pajamas Yeah

Who writes the current Batman comic issues? Oh, man, who's on it now? Is this multiple choice? Is it Jeff Johns? Is it Brian Azarello? Is it Scott Snyder? Jeez. Oh, Azarello sounds

I mean, I know all the... They're all Batman writers. I mean, they're all. very few. I mean, I'll say Jeff Johns, but I, I'm just guessing. Sure. I'm just guessing. It is Scott Snyder. Okay. Jeff Jones Flash, I guess. Okay. Sorry, Scott. Well. And Colin, you got one last kind of. Yeah, I got a quick little thing here.

You know, Chris, many episodes ago, you were talking about the history of Mad Magazine. Yeah. For listeners who maybe didn't hear that episode and maybe you forgot. The beauty of it. The beauty. Or for me who forgets that episode. Yeah. Well, so, so the part of the Genesis is, you know, it's a little bithole. of Bad Magazine was that in the 1950s, there was a lot of pressure from parents' groups and politicians to really this moral panic about what are comics doing, corrupting our youth. They basically pressure the comics industry into creating their own set of guidelines, almost, you know, the reasoning being like, if you guys don't police yourselves, we'll come do it for you.

And so the comic publishers like, no, no, no, we'll do this, we'll come up with a code, sort of in working together with parents groups and concerned senators and congressmen. And so that was the Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America. And for years and years and years and years, every, every major comic from Marvel and D.C. and all the big publishers, they would have a little CCA stamp on there, basically, saying, we passed the code. And I realized, after collecting comics for years, years and years, I didn't, I don't even know what was in the comics code. So I went and I looked it up. The original bylines and guidelines of the comics code from 1954, are they ridiculous are some of them ridiculous at a remove of 60 years i would say they they feel pretty ridiculous this is the general standards crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to

create sympathy for the criminal to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals that's why they're so dumb these things were there's no anti-hero so so specific and and they're so Restrictive, yeah. Listen to this. The letters of the word crime on a comics magazine cover shall never be appreciably greater in dimension than the other words contained in the title. The word crime shall never appear alone on a cover. Scenes dealing with or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism and werewolfism are prohibited.

So this was just broadly striking out all the horror, all the supernatural ones. There are whole sections under advertising matter, which seem pretty straightforward. You know, liquor and tobacco advertising is not acceptable. Like, fine, I can, I'm on board with that, you know, not no liquor or tobacco ads for kids. Advertising the sale of fireworks is prohibited. Okay. Okay. It goes on and on like this, as you can imagine, what we put together by concerned minds of the 1950s.

But here's one here under the, under the costume section. Okay. Costume. Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities. What happened to that one? Yeah, what happened to that one? Yeah, that was thrown out the window. So, you know, they revised these a few times over the years. There was a major revision in the 70s. There was another major revision in the late 80s. And, you know, each time they kind of had to sort of, you can tell that they're like, all right, we really got to scale this back. Eventually, they said, you know, like, crime happens in life. drug use happens in real life. We can show these things in comic books. By the 2000s, it was getting to be really just, like, frankly, a drag, I think, for a lot

of the publishers. Marvel was the first major publisher to say, you know what, we're done with this. We're not going to be part of the CCA code anymore. We're going to come up with our own in-house guidelines. There's something called Internet that parents are going to be more concerned with. Well, and, you know, also... Well, I mean, the moral panic over comic books had, by and large, subsided, you know, for a long time by that point.

Exactly. There were other things to have, you know, even bigger moral panics over. Right, of course. Yeah, music and video games and movies, what have you. And they had moved on to

where, you know, music industry has to police itself or we're going to police you, the sticker. Right. Video game industry has to do that, has the ratings board. It's always kind of the same thing.

DC, DC stuck another 10 years after Marvel did. They stopped following the code in 2011. Did you guys know who the last major publisher to drop the code was after Marvel, after DC? Oh, Disney?

Archie. Archie Comics, yes, yeah, very short after, very soon after D.C. And, like, if these standards, if Archie Comics can get away without the code, you can probably drop the code altogether. Right, right, right. Did all their boobs get bigger? I feel like that's probably the one part of these guidelines. He killed a guy. He killed a guy, right?

Archie got really subversive, Archie. All right. And that's our show on comics and comic books. Thank you guys for joining me, and thank you guys, listeners for listening and hope you learned. Hope you learn a lot of stuff about manga, about tasers, about fake villains and real villains, and Batman. You can find our show on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, on Spotify, and also on our website, goodjobbrain.com. And don't forget, good job, Brian live. Get your tickets now.

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