Imaginary Worlds - Harley Quinn (Special Edition)

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Every year, I like to play a full-length version of an interview from a previous episode where a lot of great material ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. In 2019, I interviewed the comic book creators Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner about their three-year run on the Harley Quinn comic book series because the way they reinvented the character influenced her live action movie appearances, and the Harley Quinn animated series on HBO Max. Also, Jimmy and Amanda are a married couple, and I really appreciated the way their rapport and the sense of humor they share defines the worlds they create together. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See Kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief i'm eric malinsky every year i like to play a full-length version of an interview that i did for a previous episode where there was so much good material that ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor in 2019 i did an episode about the character Harley Quinn. And in that episode,

I interviewed a team of comic book creators, Amanda Connor and Jimmy Palmiati. They redefined Harley Quinn in her own comic book series. Before that, she was mostly known for being the Joker's long-suffering girlfriend or a member of the Suicide Squad, a super secret strike team that the government recruits to do its dirty work. Jimmy and Amanda worked on their Harley Quinn series from 2013 to 2016, before handing it off to the next set of writers. So if you need a quick refresher,

the character of Harley Quinn was first created in 1992 for Batman the Animated Series. The character was so popular on the animated series, she got incorporated into the comics, and then video games, and eventually movies. Speaking of movies, Margot Robbie is back for the third time playing Harley Quinn in the new Suicide Squad sequel. What? You were here to save you. You were going to save me? It was a really good plan too. Well, I can go back inside and you can still do it. That's patronizing. I'm so sorry. Harley Quinn. The movies have been borrowing pretty heavily from Jimmy and Amanda's comics.

The movies have been borrowing pretty heavily from Jimmy and Amanda's comics. In fact, Jimmy has been proudly tweeting screenshots of the new Suicide Squad trailer and comparing them to panels they drew for the comics. Also, there is a hilarious animated show on HBO Max called Harley Quinn, which came out in 2020. Jimmy and Amanda were not involved with that show either, but they were also very proud of how much that show borrowed from their storyline in the comics, where Harley breaks free of the Joker and realizes she's more of an anti-hero than a villain. You treated me bad. You lied to me. You never loved me. I know that now. Well, that's nonsense, Puddin'. My motives are never clear. I'm an agent of chaos. That's what you love about me.

Not anymore. We're through. That show and the Harley Quinn solo movie, Birds of Prey, all came out after I interviewed Jimmy and Amanda. after I interviewed Jimmy and Amanda. So when I talked to them in 2019, I didn't even realize how influential their work was going to be in redefining Harley as a character in pop culture. But another reason why I want to play the full-length version of this interview is that Jimmy and Amanda are a married couple. I haven't interviewed a lot of married couples before, and I really appreciated the way their sense of humor and the rapport that they share defines the worlds that they create together. Hello there. I am Amanda Connor. And I am Jimmy Palmiati. And we are here with you today.

I thought you were going to say, we are Jimanda. You know, we don't have superhero names yet. One day, when we get powers, we can go there. Do you remember the first time you came across Harley, and what kind of form of media did Harley take when you first saw her? I actually don't remember the first. I just remember Harley kind of not being there and then always being there. I don't actually remember the first time I ever saw Harley.

I remember the Batman animated series. Yeah. She was just a character that was in there once in a while. And then not till years later, we actually did a short story. Remember we did a Harley short story? We did. Yeah. And then the next time I saw her when I was I was one of the writers

on the Injustice game. And I wrote Harley into the game. We wrote her into the game. I love those Injustice games. Yeah. Thanks. Especially Harley. I mean, I know. Did you work on the first one or the second one? I just did the first one. The first one was such a big hit that they didn't ask me back to the second one. The first one. The first one was such a big hit that they didn't ask me back to the second one. I do love them. Okay, so did you pitch Harley to them or were you assigned Harley?

Okay. That's a good story. So Dan DiDio was doing a retailer summit in Orlando. Dan DiDio being, of course, one of the people that runs DC Comics. Yeah. And because we're in Clearwater, he said, hey, I'm going to be in Orlando for a day or two. You want to come talk to the retailers and pretty much hang out with him. And so I drove to Orlando and he did the summit and I talked up whatever book I was writing at the time. And then afterwards, a retailer went to Dan and said, you know, you guys should do a Harley Quinn book, a new Harley

Quinn book. The character hasn't been seen for a while. And Dan just turned to me and said, hey, would you and Amanda want to do Harley Quinn? And I said, yeah, let me talk to Amanda tonight. We'll see if she's interested. And I got home and Amanda. I was like, that sounds like fun. Yeah. And we came back and we got the heads up that it might not sell or it might not be around for a while, but we can do whatever we want. And we were planning on it lasting for only like four to six issues. You know,

we, we thought it would just be, you know, a fun, very short mini series. Yeah. It would probably be bomb. Like most of the things we were doing at the time.

And because of that dancer, just do whatever you want. So we decided to, okay, we're going to take her out of Gotham because if she's going to be in her own book, she shouldn't be stuck in the place where she's an eternal. Secondary character in her own book. Right. A B character. And because being a New Yorker, I said, well, why not Coney Island? Because that's kind of a fun place. Well, she's originally from Canarsie, if I remember my Harley history correctly.

That is correct. She's from Canarsie. And we were like, you know, I think it was you that you would say, I mean, let's put her in Coney Island. I was like, well, that just seems natural for her. Yeah. And I think it was when Amanda was drawing the first cover. And then she put on some gear, right? You put on some gear.

Well, I was fooling around with her costume. And I just like add things and try out things. And I put shoulder pads on her costume and knee pads, you know, just because, you know, she's not actually, you know, she doesn't have Superman strength or anything like that. So I wanted to put a little bit of protection on her here and there. And she ended up looking like a roller derby girl. And I'm like, oh my God, that's exactly what she would want to do. I could totally imagine her roller skating and elbowing people in the teeth. Yeah. And so we took that. And then I remember we were in San Diego, and I had a dream about doing Issue Zero using 18 or 19 artists. And I woke up and told Amanda. And we had breakfast that day with Dan DiDio.

And I said, hey, how about we do a Zero book right before Issue One, and we get a different artist for every page? And he looked at me and Amanda like we were crazy and said, if you can corral the artist, then I'll think about doing it. So we went around San Diego to Artist Alley. That was our job for San Diego, corraling artists. Right. We got 18 artists to sign on to do a page each for the book. And that's how the Zero book came about. and it's been crazy ever since i mean we just it was one of those books where dc let us do whatever we wanted and sometimes stuff they didn't love but uh a lot of times stuff they didn't love amanda started changing

her costume every issue every issue cover and um at that point they were like well let them do what they want and uh yeah we were lucky because nobody thought, you know, everybody was like, oh, you know, it's Harley. They just didn't think that it was going to be a hit, so they just pretty much let us do whatever we wanted, which worked out perfectly for us. Yeah, I have so many questions I want to stop you guys. First of all, so I didn't know that she was technically,

I mean, I know it's funny, people forget there is a New York City in DC world. That's interesting that you probably thought about her accent. The accent probably means that she's from Canarsie and then therefore she said in Brooklyn. Was that personal to you guys too, being in Brooklyn? Well, yeah. I mean, you know, people always say, write what you know.

And Jimmy really knows Brooklyn. Yeah, I mean, Coney Island was like, you know, my park thatmy really knows brooklyn yeah i mean coney island was like you know my my park that i went to your childhood yeah um so uh knowing and when paul dini and bruce tim created her they said you know she's from canarsie and i said great this is going to be easy to write i could put her in brooklyn and we kind of went crazy in the series too, because everything's correct. The parts when she's in Prospect Park, it's actually where the things are in Prospect Park. Like everything in that book is on the nose. It's not like a movie, a New York movie they shot in Toronto. You know, this comic has actual streets and names and places in Brooklyn.

Yeah. And then Amanda, in terms of redesigning her costume, what did you think of her costume beforehand that you felt like, this needs some work? I'll tell you exactly what it was. It was the neck ruffles. I don't like neck ruffles. She had neck ruffles on in the Suicide Squad comic. And I feel bad. I don't know who designed that costume,

but I just feel like neck ruffles are the mullet of the 16th century. So I just don't like them at all. I don't even like them on, on Queen Elizabeth. I'm like, get those off. But yeah, I didn't want to do neck ruffles. And, you know, they wanted, they didn't want the classic Harley they they wanted her to you know how they wanted her face to be exposed and they wanted her you know to have you know an updated costume and everything so actually they wanted me to do the Suicide Squad costume but I didn't want to do it you know neck ruffles so I just was trying to keep her costume close to what it was, but then put my own twist on it. And then what about the idea of separating her from the Joker?

That was really important to us because we were feeling like if it becomes, you know, if we put the Joker in it too much, it'll be the Harley in the Joker book. And we wanted it to just be the Harley book. And we wanted her to be the main character in her own book. Yeah, we didn't introduce the Joker into the book till the second year we were on it because, again, we thought if we're going to develop Harley, we need to give her her own book and her own supporting cast. But we just at one point we wanted to have the opportunity where she got to address her abusive relationship at some point. And that's what we did with issue 24 and 25. Had you, I mean, some people had been bothered by that relationship or, I mean, that relationship

had sort of mixed reviews over the years. What were your thoughts on it? I mean, it's one of those, you know, relationships in general aren't perfect. So I think people can identify with it. It's like, it's easier to identify with Harley and the Joker than it is with Lois and Superman, because it seems like Lois and Superman have such a perfect, flawless relationship. But with Harley and Joker, it's flawed. And, you know, he, by then he was her ex-boyfriend, you know, in the Suicide squad. He was long gone. I guess he was supposed to be dead or something.

And I can't remember. There was like so many different things going on. And we made it so that she thought about him a lot because sometimes you do, you know, think about your ex a lot. What are you saying, Amanda? What are you saying? Not everybody, but she was the kind of person that would sort of obsess over lost loves and stuff like that. So it sort of worked for us. And then it was her climbing out of that.

I miss you whole. Like we wrote it and then Chris Conroy, our editor, and Chris went over it and said, well, this is a big moment. And he had some ideas. And we kind of talked out the scene because we wanted to make sure everything was right. Because again, it's somebody dealing with ending an abusive relationship. And we wanted to get the language right. But we didn't think it was going to be, it was just part of the story. And we didn't think it was going to be singled out or something that was like a big change or and then when the book came out it it went through the roof and we were like oh okay i guess we hit on something here you know yeah um and we had a lot of people who uh related to the

story saying they were in relationships and you know a a lot of that feedback was terrific. And you hope for those kind of things when you're writing to get people emotionally invested in the work. And this was something different for us. Yeah, we had never had anybody really like have a storyline hit home for them quite the way this one did. Do you think that people romanticize that relationship you see cosplayers a lot doing the harley joker kind of photos and everything like that i i do i mean i think that uh maybe people like look at it as like a really kind of cool i mean visually it's a cool looking couple you know her with the red and black and him with the green and the purple. And they're just like really cool to look at together. And I think I think it's romanticized in a way that it's like, oh, this is a cool comic book couple. deep thought that other people give it you know um or if they do they think yeah there there are relationships that are like really bad and this is an example of a really bad relationship and

for other people they they don't like it you know they're like let's get out of this relationship it's bad yeah i think when uh a lot of people love the animated series so they want everything to stay in that zone you know how comic people are right this like this is the thing i grew up with therefore i always want the character in this place but it didn't make sense for the times and for her being to step out that we kept her in that relationship on any level you know for our character to mature and step out on her own and create a life away from him, she had to address her past issues, the things that were still bothering her. So there were people that hated

it. They didn't like the idea of it because they loved the cartoon version. They loved the, you know, a certain version. I think you also love things that, you know, you grew up with, you know, it's like you become close to things that um at a certain time of your life it hit you a certain way and it's it's hard to see it change although i you know the i i did read that it was when you know they moved harley to the comics it was difficult because the joker and the animated series is kind of much more goofy i mean they they indicate in as dark as they can get an animated kid show that he's killed people, but the, you know, comics Joker

is an absolute mass murderer serial killer. Yeah, he's a monster. And for her to be in love with that Joker was very different. I mean, the way we approached it was she didn't see him that way. She just sees him as her wonderful boyfriend and Batman is this bully that keeps beating him up.

Yeah, I mean... You know, she thinks she's a good guy. The Harley in the Suicide Squad books and some of the other books, the way people wrote Harley was like this dark, mass-murdering, bloodthirsty animal kind of thing. And we were writing her like it was somebody we knew. Well, we were also, you know, taking her back to her roots, her roots her animated roots you know she's goofy and fun and nutty and you know sure she's you know a psychotic killer but she's a fun lovable psychotic killer and that's i think that was the original

intent for harley when um you know when paul and bruce created her yeah tell me a bit more about other versions and again not not to sort of diss any specific creators or anything, but are there other versions of Harley you've seen over the years in all sorts of different media that you've thought, eh, that doesn't feel right to me. That's not Harley. There was a story where she did mass murder. I can't remember where it was,

but it was like kids playing video games, whatever. And I just remember reading that and going, yeah, that's not that to Harley. It just didn't seem, like, true to the character. No, and especially kids, you know, because that's, like, nothing. We don't see that in the character at all. Well, we call her a psycho killer with a heart of gold.

Yeah. You know, and then in Suicide Squad, a lot of the Suicide Squad books, she was, like, the one-liner person, you know? She'd, like, kill somebody and go, well, you know, take that to the bank, you the bank when the guy's arms are cut off or something. It was sort of like a really one-dimensional version at times, not because the book had different writers. Different writers added their voice. And I understood a lot of these books had to grab that representation

since our book was actually grabbing her when she wasn't being a super bad guy and she wasn't dealing with other super characters. It was our book was like, you know, she was dealing with. This is like Harley on her downtime. Yeah. I mean, what was it like channeling Harley's voice? I mean, when you heard it, tell me more about what you felt like.

Yep, this is it. I can hear this. How would you describe that? It's funny because when her voice is in my head, which it was a lot, it was not quite as high and squeaky as the animated cartoon, but it was still kind of very Brooklyn and very, you know, that's when we would work on the dialogue and I would write everything phonetically when she talks. I had a mom come up to me with her little girl and she's saying, we read this together and we love it. I show this to her to teach her spelling. And I was like, no, don't do that. This is not the book to do that with.

But yeah, it's like a little bit deeper than the animated series, but it's still pretty high and loud and obnoxious. Yeah, I have it. I wish I could do it. Don't. What do you think was the hardest part of writing Harley? I got to say she's one of the easiest characters I've ever written. Yeah. It's just so easy to write her because she's a wish fulfillment character. She is like, you know, somebody steps on a foot, she gives them a kick in the ass. You know, it's like she's such an easy

character to write because she wears her emotions like right on her sleeve. She reacts instantly without thinking. And then she pauses and slows it down and then has integrity, you know, and it's interesting. And it's interesting to write a character that in the matter of a page, she's going to change her point of view like three or four times. Yeah. I mean, you know, you have to remember that, you know, she is, you know, crazy, psychotic, out of control Harley, but she's also a psychiatrist and a doctor and somebody who can like yeah like you said slow it down yeah at the drop of a hat and analyze the situation yeah I mean it was funny because in the first issue we have some guy dragging a dog

and she gets really upset emotional yeah throws. And throws a guy off a bridge, I think. But we've always had a thing with animals. She drags him with her motorcycle. She drags him and then throws him off the bridge. But we've always had her connection with animals and little things. There's a scene with the New York Aquarium where she's like hugging the window where the beluga whale is. And people always come up to us and say, I love that

scene because she's in the middle of everything. She just stops there. How many times she's a very stream of consciousness character. We wrote the book sort of as a stream of consciousness. It's not you know, it wasn't way planned out in advance. It was just like writing it like Harley thinks. Yeah, that's so much so the solicits never match the actual book you got. Chris Conroy, we used to say, he used to say, give me the solicits for the next four issues. And we'd make up something. And then we'd write the book and it was completely different. Very Harley of us.

Yeah, very Harley of us. Is solicits sort of like a summary of what you're going to do or is that a? Yeah, kind of yeah it's for the retailers kind of yeah the retailers say what's going to be an issue 44 and it says you know harley takes a boat trip to the bahamas and meanwhile you get issue 44 and she's in coney island and she got too much of a tan and she's yelling at big tony you know and it has nothing to do with the solicits well as you say it's interesting because so harley has this i don't know if you feel this way about her too, but I feel like Harley has like a drive and motivation. Like this character absolutely has a life of her own.

And I can't think of many characters like that where, you know, the fact that she just wouldn't, she just won't stay in the animated series. She won't stay on the comics. She won't stay in Gotham. She won't stay with the Joker. Like, do you feel that way when you take up the character that this is just a wild horse you're just riding yeah harley is absolutely a wild horse it's really funny and i just pointed out to someone yesterday i think we did an issue where harley shaves her head and gives herself a mohawk and she joins a she forms a punk rock band yeah it was the skull bags yeah harley qu, right? Yeah, Harley Quinn and the Skullbags.

And we were noticing yesterday that Hot Topic has like 15 items for makeup kits, backpacks, t-shirts, bags, all these something in the book, licensing was jumping on it to figure out a hundred ways how to make this into something. That's when I kind of knew that, okay, this character is just bigger than us. She's just going to do whatever she wants, anywhere she wants. Why do you think Harley relates so much to cosplayers? It's Amanda's fault because every cover she would make put a different outfit on her and there's nothing cosplayers love more than different variations of one character's cosplay. It's a challenge I guess. Yeah. Well also you know the cosplayers and she has such an amazing costume to address cosplay with because as long as you keep those colors and you do the diamond

motif, then it's very Harley. Like, no matter what kind of, you know, if you're doing steampunk Harley or superhero Harley or, you know, as long as she has that theme going on on her costume, she's instantly recognizable as Harley. Yeah. And as creators, we embrace the cosplayers. We encourage them. And they inspire us, too. The cosplayers are like, oh, you know what?

Ballerina Harley. Of course. Yeah. Let's do it. Let's steal that idea. Yeah. I feel like also any body type works. Whenever I see anyone doing cosplay Harley, I'm like, yeah, that works. Yeah, it absolutely does.

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, we have male Harleys and large and small. Everybody embraces it and it's wonderful. It's so much fun. But it wasn't all fun and games. Their Harley Quinn comics had a lot of heart. Because after Harley leaves the Joker, she realizes that she's in love with another villain turned anti-hero, Poison Ivy. Now,

a lot of fans had always thought that there was more to Harley and Ivy's friendship in previous versions of the characters. But Jimmy and Amanda made it canon. And since then, Harley and Ivy have become the most visible queer couple in the DC universe. I talked with Jimmy and Amanda about that story development after the break. This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection, free of aluminum, parabens aluminum parabens dyes talc and baking soda it's made with ph balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils so whether you're going for a run or just running late do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't find secret at your nearest walmart or shoppers Drug Mart today.

Introducing Tim's new Infuser Energy Beverages, made with natural caffeine. They come in two refreshing flavors, Blackberry Yuzu and Mango Starfruit. Try them today, only at Tim's. At participating Tim's restaurants in Canada for a limited time. It's time for Tim's. Let's get back to my conversation with Jimmy and Amanda. Was it when you were working on the book that she ended up really hooking up with Poison Ivy? Yep.

I think so. Yeah, I mean, I always thought that they were sort of, you know, like they were like best friends that just adored each other. just adored each other. And basically Poison Ivy madly loves Harley, but she can't be tied down because she's got so much important work to do as far as Earth and the environment goes. Yeah, we've had issues where they're like, okay, you've gone too far. We've had that a lot in our series. We're reminded that, hey, the book

is, you know, kids 10 years old and up are reading it. So be careful, uh, there, but we always, we push the envelope every issue. I mean, they would sit there and they'd say, you can't do this. You can't do that. That's okay. And then we started like throwing crazy things in to distract them from the things we wanted to get away with. So over the years, I feel for them because every issue we had something like the biggest blanket thing was put a word balloon over that. Don't don't let that be seen.

But what about with Poison Ivy? Were they what were they nervous about in terms of it? Was this too sexual or too intimate or too committed? Yeah. I mean, you know, there was a couple of issues because it was younger people buying the book. So visually certain things were a little too much. But I mean, young people are much more open-minded than, you know, people. It's not my company, sweetheart.

I know. I mean, it's, you know, and then we'd push things, you know, we would try to push the envelope and we got away with things. I mean, look, we had a comic book where the whole plot of the comic was Harley and Ivy go down to the Bahamas and hang out in a senior citizen's nudist colony for one issue. That's one of my favorite issues. Okay. That was the whole comic. There was no bad guy. There was nothing. They just went to a nudist colony, and they just talked about their relationship and talked about life.

And played naked pool volleyball. Yeah. Yes. And there was a lot of... We definitely Austin Powers'd everything. Everything's covering something. Parrots were flying by. In front of body parts.

Yeah. But we did a lot you know there again it hit a certain amount of people reading the book like all of a sudden that relationship things there were things we were hitting on that the fans were loving or if not loving then talking a lot about again we, we never did anything to boost sales. We always did things that were naturally flow. Yeah, we wanted to talk about, you know, through Harley and Ivy. So you guys worked on the Harley Quinn comics for about three years, and then, you know, other people have taken over,

and they've moved her really far from Coney Island. Like, I think in the latest comics, she went to the planet Apocalypse and she has like these godlike powers now. Yeah. I mean, Sam, I think Sam is, Frank Thierry wrote it and then Sam is writing it. We don't get them. We don't buy them because it's hard to read other people's versions after reading, writing it for five years, you know.

So it's hard for us to even look at it sometimes. I know it's a weird thing. I'm waiting for it to come out in a, you know, it it's hard for us to even look at it sometimes. I know it's a weird thing. I'm waiting for it to come out in a, you know, it's also hard for me to read monthly books. Like, I definitely like trades better. You know, I like to be able to sit there and read a lot. And I'm also at that place that if you're going to put Harley with all the other DC characters all the time,

it's going to, it pushes me away from the book. Like, it's why we work so hard with her supporting characters because I didn't want to make the Harley team up. That's interesting. So you feel like when you see her pop up in other books, you feel like they're using her again as a sidekick to some extent? Yep. I feel like they were oversaturating the character,

which, let's be honest, it's publishing. They're trying to make money. It's popular, so put the character in every book. And she was appearing in a lot of books, and it's hard for us to read because we feel like, well, that's off-character, and that's not what we're doing, and she wouldn't do that. So it's better to not read it, you know, from our point of view.

Not a company. It's their character. At the end of the day, they're going to do whatever they want with the character. That's part of what we do for a living is we come in, we mess with something, and people either like it or don't like it, and then the next team comes on and they either like it or don't like it.

And as people love the book now, I'm happy for anybody that loves the character. And I think that's one of the reasons that people fall in love with her so much is because she's so like I love Wonder Woman. I grew up with Wonder Woman. But Wonder Woman is flawless. And, you know, she's so iconic and can do no wrong. does a lot of stuff wrong and makes a lot of mistakes and has, you know, a lot of different emotions and is very, she's so much more relatable because she reflects a lot of our own feelings. And that's, and I think that's one of the reasons for her popularity is just because she's so much more flawed and that makes her really easy to identify with. Yeah, I think there's a lot of great writers.

Like I said, Sam is doing a great job on the book. And all these people that are doing different versions of Harleys, they're bringing themselves into it. And that's what makes a character so good. You could actually project yourself into the character and make it your own. And so I think she'll be around for a long time. into the character and make it your own. And so I think she'll be around for a long time. Yeah, that is so interesting because that you can put so much of yourself

as a creator in Harley in a way that it's harder to do with other characters because she could be kind of ditzy or she could be really smart. She could be crazy or she could be more calculated. She can be gay, she can be straight. She can be a lot of different things. Yeah, yeah.

You know, she wants to experience everything in life you know and i think that that makes her you know really interesting is like she's she embraces everything that comes her way well that actually gets to something i'm trying to figure out because i mean they're gonna be listeners who are who are not into dc comics or just not into comics at all and so i guess one of the things I'm trying to get to is why should they care about Harley Quinn? I think for at least we can only speak for what we wrote. I think that people do need a little more humor in their lives and in their comics and in their literature. And for us, writing Harley was always about making something that's fun to read. But I think it's all about humor. For us, if a comic's successful for us,

that means that there's some serious stuff and then there's some stuff, laugh out loud, silliness, because that's the life Amanda and I have. Yeah, we're pretty silly. Yeah, we're pretty silly. Things can be tough. We have to go through things, but at the end of the day, we're giggling together,

and I think it comes through in the writing. Things can be tough. We have to go through things. But at the end of the day, we're giggling together. And I think it comes through in the writing. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. And special thanks to Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Connor. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emalinski at Imagine World's pod. And if you love the show,

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