The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 268, Deathrow with Rusty Shackles

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Resident Hot Dog artist Rusty Shackles joins Brockway and Seanbaby to talk about Deathrow, another Blue Comet comic title from everyone's favorite page-eater, Craig Stormon. This time he's tackling the gritty '90s with multiple Robocops! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert is going to jail because you didn't buy his book. But it's not too late to help him win some creature comforts in prison. Every copy goes toward the commissary fund! https://linktr.ee/killyourimaginaryfriendd ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert is going to jail because you didn't buy his book. But it's not too late to help him win some creature comforts in prison. Every copy goes toward the commissary fund! https://linktr.ee/killyourimaginaryfriendd

Welcome to the Dog Zone 9,000, the official podcast of 1,900 Hot Dog America's Final Comedy website. I'm Robert Brockway, and I'm a drug cartel cyborg assassin with a ray gun and too many pouches. And with me is, there's a big difference here, it's a drug gangs cyber hitman with a laser gun and also too many pouches. It's Sean, baby. Yes, I was really hoping that would be my description. Thank you. Do you know which one you are? Probably the one with a Mohawk.

Okay. You're wrong, but okay. And our guest, our guest today, he's, oh no, he's a five-year-old child just minding his business, walking down drug street. Watch out. Watch out, Rusty Shackles. I can't wait to have my face go through a front windshield, and it just looks hilarious. We'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get to that is the theme of my...

introductions, all of my introductions for this podcast. I don't think it's funny to anybody else, but it's funny to me every time that I make jokes that you won't get until you listen to the podcast. And then you'll have to, you'll have to, I guess, think back on the intro. I just had you remember. Oh, right, the dead kid. And the pouches. Before we, before we make sense of all of the words I've just said to you, let's get our plugs out of the way. Rusty, I think you've got something exciting to plug this time. I actually have one and a half. 1.5 plugs.

1.5? Actually, yeah, I'll just do the first one real quick. I totally forgot about it until I was doing a podcast talking about the other thing. But actually, I did work with Kurt Kolata to do the now playing book that's coming out from limited run games. That is all about 80s and 90s TV and movie based video games. So yeah, just limited runs got that coming out. actually be very soon. All those famously good video games.

Yeah, I actually had to review Beetlejuice for the Nintendo, and everybody's like, hey, it has a great soundtrack. I'm like, cool, it still sucks. Yeah, sucks. Yeah, it's, oh, God, it's terrible. So that should be out very soon. But the big one, of course,

I've been mentioning it every time I've been on the podcast, I think. For the last three years, I've been working on a mobile game that is a management simulation for wrestling called ERAs of Wrestling. And it's out, and people seem to really enjoy it,

although they are working on balancing the reward system and stuff like that and some other features. But yeah, you basically are in charge of your own wrestling company set in different eras, and characters move in between and retire, et cetera.

But yeah, it's been a blast. I'm really happy with how it came out. I've hey rusty I've been playing it and uh it it makes me so happy like I love your art but it's also got like that slot machine dopamine like just it's like dialed in so it's just like all this shit you're like you're winning you get points your things with that and then like all the art I love so much and all the wrestling I'm in an era like from the 80s so it like reminds me of wrestling when I was a kid so I got like a

sting I got a whole bunch of racial stereotypes it's the fucking best crew. So you're doing the mania line progression, I assume, then? Yeah, yeah. So I got my main guys are your sting guy. And it's like a macho man guy, but he's got the hat. So I guess it's his brother, Lenny Pafo. He's a, he's kind of a, um, um, um, he's a he's a both he's a both Pafo. And then I got the wind walker. I like, I love a nice neon Native American. He's actually, so actually that was one too. You're talking about racial stereotypes in wrestling, which, you know, go together, uh, of course. But, um, With that one, they were trying to do a Tatanka analog.

Sure. And the fans were asking for it. And of course, the developers don't want to step on any toes, and they want to make sure they do something. They're going to do something like that. Like, they're not going to do, like, Chief Jay Strongbow, because he's pretty out there. You can't really polish that that much.

But no. So Wind Walker, actually, is I based it off of information input from my family and trial. Oh, that's awesome. I'm pretty happy about that. Yeah. So, but yeah, it's, you kind of have the ability to, to pay the extra or use your extra money to bolt on storylines that you have all of these guest characters that play through like you were talking about. And if you like them enough,

you can keep grinding and owning them. But yeah, when I was doing that, I got a concession to make. Yes. I found that I am just as good at the game when I just put them in randomly as when I'm like, oh, this is going to, people are going to love this tag team and this manager. No, it doesn't matter. The game's like that. That's very WCW of you, I guess. Yeah. That's my confession. I'm terrible at your video game, but it looks amazing. Well, thank you very much.

Robert, are you playing it? And then you can ask me if I've brought your book yet. No, it sounds awesome, though. Okay, cool. I'm going to buy your book, too. Just wanted to get it. Oh, I see. I see how this is.

I don't read, but I will. I'm going to learn how to read just for you, Robert. No, God damn it. I respect it. I see how it is. And well played. Good move. Go for the long, the hard sell on Broadway.

Quite frankly, I'm astonished. You're the first one to try it. And it worked. Congratulations. Thank you. I'll go buy the game. I was just thinking as you were talking about it, like, that sounds fucking awesome. I got to bolt down the, it's fun storylines.

It's free to play. It's, uh, it's, but yeah, eras of wrestling, just look it up on app store and, uh, I have another confession, Russie. I gave you like 120 bucks already. Holy, holy, wow. It like adds up. You're like, you know, I could, it would be kind of fun to open packs for the next 10 minutes. Well, and again, too, like I said, they've been trying to balance out the, you know,

they don't want it to come off as pay to win. They want it to be like pay and play, which is, you know, they want that sweet spot. Okay. And then, like, they've been giving. That's not the impression I got, but that's fine. They've been giving people, like, you know, a lot of tokens as it rewards early on because, yes, it's a little difficult to do a game launch. It's, you know.

But like I said, like, I did every wrestler in the game. If you don't like it, I didn't draw it. So there's my kind of it. Only the really racial ones, but it's fine, he's got the card. He's using the card. He has some rhetorical authority for the one. It's all stolen land, man. If you're in America, he's allowed.

That's the official stance of this podcast. I, of course, I am still legally obligated to promote that book, Rusty mentioned. It's called I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for 200. It is out right now. And do me a favor. If you haven't looked up this book already, if you don't know anything about it, aside from just me yammering about it,

go to Goodreads right now and check out the reviews. From the title, the cover, the way I promoted it on the podcast, the way I just generally am in life, you will find it very surprising and very funny to see the hundreds and hundreds of rave reviews saying they webbed.

all throughout the book. That's true. People are getting really moved by it. You didn't fucking expect that, huh? You didn't expect that shit from me, from this promotional campaign. They say it's a, let's see, I've got a few, it's a touching look at the way

neurodivergent children are exploited in the modern media. It's about the layered suffering that class warfare puts on working families. Yeah, you didn't think I was bringing that from this promotion campaign. But that's the reception. It's getting a...

And anyway, I'm in prison for not promoting it good enough, but that's... It's fine. Prison's fine. You're not smart in every way, but you're smart in some ways. Yeah, I did a good job on the book. I did a real bad job on everything else. But prison, pretty okay. That's my plug.

Try prison. Especially if you are a member of the United States government. Please, for the love of God, give it a shot. I only have time for half a plug, so I'll just go to website, 1,900 hotde. That's all I got time for. Well, come on. Come on, we could do a little better than that.

That's it. I only had time for half a plug. I've got the rest of it. Ogg.com. Thank you. And if you go there and spend money, you actually are going to pay for Sean's era as a rustling addiction, which pays me. Thank you.

Yes, that'll be there. There you go. Just send all that money to Rusty's video. game team. Let's get started because I get the feeling. I have kind of a lot to say about these comics, weirdly enough. For real? Only like three things happen. Let's try to get through both of them. It might end up being a two-parter. Wow. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you guys got fucking nothing at all to say. This is just we're going to breeze through it. But it might end up being a two-parter, so let's get started on that. Today we are talking about all six. I'll

Say it easily, my favorite comic book lunatic. It's Craig Stormon. Yeah. Craig was owner, editor, head writer, head creator, and anchor, and occasionally terrible, terrible artist of blue comic. Letter or copy editor. Head of promotion and marketing, which he mostly did by standing outside and throwing knives at passerby, I guess.

The use of Blue Comet Press was the name of his press As a spunky little independent comic press Mostly in the 80s and early 90s that you just you love to see it fail It's it's so good Don't please don't feel bad for him Like I know we want to root for indie comic presses here By his own admission in his editorials Craig Stormon abused and harassed his employees

Refused to pay them and was just just generally completely fucking insane. He's very derivative creatively. He's never spelled your the right way, ever. Almost intentionally. That's enough, right? Those two already are disqualifying. But yeah, and we've read through so many of his

editorials, if you aren't familiar with the other episodes, he has, like, in his own editorials in his comic books, thrown his employees under the bus, admitted he does not pay them, like talk shit about every other creator. That's how we know. From his mouth, we know it. Yeah, we know. He thinks Marvel might be trying to kill him, I think. Definitely some sort of conspiracy. Todd McFarlane wants him to fuck his wife.

But that's normal. It's very ordinary for the industry. That's a real one. So as a writer and creator, Craig Stormone was manic and rather prolific. He did most of the titles for Blue Comet. Unfortunately, he was also the editor. And if he's manic as a writer, he is depressive as an editor. editor and he has canceled every single title he's ever made in less than three issues. So you're telling me, okay, so I got to, that's one of my questions already. It says Turf Wars Part 1 of 3 at the start of this comic. I immediately wrote my nose, number three never came out, did it? Number three did not come out.

Okay. I was actually going to have a son too, because I looked at like the back issues thing in there. It actually says Life Brigade had a second printing. Wow. Wow. Yeah, for whom? I think maybe he ate the first printing. So like, I don't know.

I don't think people bought it. Okay, you need to know when he says things like second printing. He doesn't know what that means. He doesn't mean, he doesn't, like the demand for it wasn't such that it sold out. He just decided to do another printing. And he's like, right, there we go. We're on the second printing. Like, that's how he runs his business.

He made a second trip back in his car. He might have meant second issue Brockway owns the one It made it to three A Life Brigade got three A flagship of the series Death Row here today Promise three

Only made it Only made it to two issues Before he cancelled Again He's the owner and editor of the press So it was up to him Whether to keep going To one more issue

Of that just one is all he promised And he could not make it We had to see that story resolve itself We'll get to it We'll get to it. I mean, let's be real. Two issues, that's a Stormon success story. I have some issue zeros that never had an issue one.

So they technically did not start. So this, you got two issues. This is pretty good for him. It's pretty good. Craig Stormon thinks all of his ideas are leagues better than not only all of the other people working for him. Because he, again, almost everything. It's rare you'll see a created by that's not. Craig Stormon coming out of Blue Comet.

He also thinks that they're better than every other comic creator in existence, and he has no idea why his comic press is failing over the course of 10 years easily, maybe more than 10 years. I have a sincere theory on that. A lot of these comics that he's writing aren't comics. Like, he's clearly writing movies. He's clearly writing things he's imagining happening in movies. And so the panel-to-panel makes no sense.

it might as a storyboard if played out. So it really feels like all of these stories are taking place in his imagination, but like vaguely in a way that he definitely can't get down on paper and absolutely can't adapt into a different medium. And so I feel like that's why they suck so hard is that he, in his imagination, they're one thing and then on paper there another. And he doesn't, he's so delusional he can't tell the gap or he can't spot the gap and adjust to it and fix it.

We have seen him blame his artists for that. Yes. Well, if I may, too, because I've been, you know, I've partially been in the comic of the industry and I'm surrounded by comic book people at the time. There's a very, like, kind of like, because you're indie comics, you have, like, the power and the faith and everything that you should be to succeed. You're automatically successful if you believe in the healing power of comics. It's a little bit of a cult.

So it doesn't surprise me at all that this guy thinks that he should be a success because that's very much the mindset that's that's pummeled into people. It's kind of like on kids in the hall, Rod Torvalson's or Mata, the band who thinks they're going to make it, but never does. But they're like, no, we're going to make it, right? It's kind of that mentality. That's a very generous way to say it. I think this comic, I think Sean's right in that these are like a child's memory

of a movie they sort of saw on cable put down on paper. Like, for example, Death Row is Robocop. fighting Robocop 2? Yeah. And I think that might be literal, because this did come out in 1993, and Robocop 2 was 1990. So plenty of time for him to catch that on cable,

sort of remember it, and demand that an artist draw all the Robocops from Robocop 2 fighting each other. Which, you know, in theory, that could kick ass in more capable hands. I don't blame him for pursuing that idea. This in the 90s, this is part of a trend with Stormont.

He's been jumping on fads many years too late. Like he jumped in the sword and sorcery fad in comics in like the late 80s. So he's sometimes missing it by about a decade. And here, I think this is probably the closest he's been to like nailing a fad because he is very, very clearly, and his artist especially is very clearly jumping on the Leifeld era of gritty reboot, gritty superhero reboots. Design art, sensibility, extra lines in the face, the whole thing. It's 100% Leifeld.

It's not as bad as Leifeld, but it's clearly like inspired by Leifeld. Yeah, it sounds paradoxical, but you just can't draw as bad as that guy, but you can draw like him. And let's be clear, it's pretty bad. Oh, for sure. It's really bad. remarkably bad. It's just not Leifeld bad. Right.

Which I guess is why it didn't succeed. I still could never explain the Leifeld success story to you. I've watched a whole documentary on it, thanks to Rusty. Still no idea, no insights. I've gleaned no insights from that documentary. We'll never know. An hour and a half of somebody explaining why Rob Leifeld is successful, I came out of going, I didn't, nothing. I got nothing. So yeah, we're talking about death row, both issues, full run of the series.

Death Row himself, the title character, is basically a dickhead cable in design. It's got a Mohawk. One of the bad guys. I didn't know he wasn't the good guy for like two-thirds of the first issue. I was like, I don't know if there is a good guy in this series? That's a beautiful point you're bringing up. There is a good guy, but you don't meet him. He's not the title character.

The title character is Death Row and he's one of the bad guys. And the other guy on the cover of both issues is another cyborg named X187. Also another bad guy, also not your main character. Your main character is Detective Hank Blood. LA's Best Detective. That's the narrator's not mine. You do not meet Detective Hank Blood, the main character, until 18 pages into the first issue. You will not realize that Hank Blood is your main character.

until there are about 10 pages left in issue two, which is the end, the end of the series. You're like, oh, is this our main character? Hold on, that was it? Hold on. Let me go back. I think it might be. He's got a jumping car and a bad attitude.

So right up front, I want to get two things out of the way. Craig Stormon has apparently realized that his unhinged editorials where he calls the penciler of the comic, you're reading a dickhead, where he openly is, admits to wage theft and being like canceled because of it like public other the distributor won't work with him because

he's so notorious for wage theft he realized all that stuff's putting that on the first page because he doesn't save it for the last page you put it on the first page of his comics he finally realized maybe that's not selling comics uh and there are no editorials for these two issues yeah I was really disappointed in that

yeah I wasn't cutting him out to like save him for a special bonus or anything there were enough the he learned this is like towards the towards the end of a blue comet press and you can see he's like it takes him a long time

to learn stuff and he's not real good at it but he finally did learn that the second thing is that I was wrong I owe Craig Storm on an apology I said I had the original bagged issue of death row number one and he had promised in a different comic

that there was going to be oh my God the best trading card you have ever fucking seen in this comic book and I made a big point of it. We laughed about it on a podcast that I have that comic and there was not a card in it. There was a card in it. Oh, was it the best card?

No, I don't think it was the best card. I did include it in the scan I sent you the very last page so we can talk about it then. But there was a card. It was stuck to the back of the comic itself because he printed this on a weird kind of paper that's kind of squishy. It just feels, I don't know,

it's mostly normal, but there's like a give to it that's a little strange. And then issue two is printed on a much thicker, much poorer quality paper. Maybe he did like a kiss thing and he put some of his own human blood in the ink. Yeah, maybe. But yeah, he included that card. The card is pretty funny. But it was there.

So I am sorry about that one. Didn't expect a weird paper to be absorbing the card. But that's, I should have. It's a Stormont comic. So getting into the comics, this is always chaos. So I figure, I'm going to introduce a little structure to this one. I'm just going to sum up real quick what happens on a page rather than go panel by panel. And then if you want to talk about anything on that page, we'll jump in after.

Okay. So death row, let me make sure I have the right one because as Rusty said, the cover is these two cyborgs fighting, very Leifeldian, does not have the price or the issue. That is on the back cover. So Rusty asked if I had if I had accidentally scanned this backwards. No, he printed it this way. And there's no logo treatment on the back. You have the price and, oh, God,

just the whole like, right away. I was like, okay, there's something wrong here. He's just wrong about everything. Like Brockway is about trading cards. That's true. I'm going to shut my goddamn mouth. I can't believe I can't believe I owed Storm on an apology. Man.

But yeah, he's the same way with his page numbers and that his page numbers are sometimes wrong, always in the different place than they were the last page. And often just not there. Some people will be like, okay, well, I don't know what page one. So some of this is going to be guesswork by me. And unusually necessary for a comic book because stuff just happens in these comics. Just like, here's a guy, we're at a different place. You're like, I don't know what page we're on.

So you need those numbers. There's a part here where I'll explain when I get to that But there's a part here that we'll speak to that Especially So we open in southwest Los Angeles With a bunch of gang members Just kind of hanging out

One of them says, holy shit And then we see what he's looking at And it's the Sean Baby Cyborg It's Death Row He's got a Mohawk He's a me cable Yeah He's a Sean Baby cable

And then of course Death Row just immediately wordlessly leaps at them with his with his ray guns pointed at them. And that's the first page. What do you want to talk about here? I mean, you said it all. Nothing?

All right. If I can go back to the cover just for a second. Sure. The fact that Death Row's palette is lime green, purple, dark green, yellow, and silver. I don't know. It's like he's Mysterio, but Mysterio cable. And then you have the other character who will get you more, but he's like Deathlock by way of Lifeel? It's such a.

The more you look at, the more confused and angry, I guess. Yeah, he's very blatantly just ath-locking story as well. I guess I want to mention that one of the gang members is wearing Oakley's in a chef's hat, if I'm not mistaken. Okay. That's just worth mentioning. That's something we're talking about. Big floppy chef's hat. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a doo-reg, then there's something really wrong with his head.

Could be a bad drawing of a du-rag. Sure. I don't know. Do you probably, right? It's a chef's hat. He's their gang chef. Death Row himself has like a, I guess it's an inhaler. He has two, what I'm going to assume,

are oxygen tanks on his back. And a thing that is sometimes drawn on his chin, sometimes in his mouth. So maybe it's just supposed to be like in position that he can breathe from. You would think that would be important if it was an inhaler that this guy just can't breathe sometimes. Maybe that's his weakness.

It will never come up. Yeah, it doesn't come up. Nope, never come up. He's got, it looks like C4, wrapped around his thigh, a bunch of pouches on it. I mean, I assume there's supposed to be, like, pouches, but there's no, like, buckles and things. So it just looks like his leg is rigged to explode. Just like you. Just like me.

My legs are always ready to go. He's a you cable. Yeah, he looks real fucking stupid. This is real, like, somebody just Frankenstining Leifelds, everything Leifeld is done into one guy. Yeah, just like Leifeld stuff, like some tubes. Like, let's add a tube on his shoulder. That's something. We'll need that from something.

I will say, too, I had been trying to pitch you guys on doing a Lifeeld-esque shirt at some point. And this really is like, okay, wait a minute. This might be the key. This could be it, yeah. This could be it, yeah. So let's move on to page two. Page two is the firefight. All the gang members are shooting back at him and they call for backup.

He guns down a few of them brutally. And then he tells, he picks one up by the neck and tells him, you were warned about selling your shit here. So you think, like, oh. This guy's. comeback is pretty good. It's pretty disarming because he says, don't kill me. I'll show you our crib, which I don't think they're great last words, but I think they're confusing enough to like haunt the man who kills you because that's a weird thing to say. It is a weird thing to say. I didn't

take that as like, it's not like, hey, no, I'll give you sex, buddy. No, don't kill me. I'll do anything. It's just like, no, no, no. You want to see some, you want to see some cool stuff? We got a real slick stereo system. Super Nintendo. He tells him it's on the third, floor room 69. Yeah. You see, he's down, Craig Stormont's down with the kids still. Mm-hmm.

But that doesn't buy him any reprieve and death row just shoots him in the gut. So that's page two. Anything you want to talk about there? Is he filled with spaghetti or is he a cyborg? I really, when I saw this, I was like, this man's insides are like, I don't know, crab grass. Maybe the gang member is also a cyborg? Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Is everybody in this world a cyborg? Spaghetti Borg? Has that been done? Yeah, he's a spaghetti borg. One of the Ninja Turtles rip-offs? But yeah, he calls him Sucker. Like, ha-ha, you fool. You've given me information and I will kill you anyway. But he just told him, he came there to specifically, right?

Like, he knows where they live. And he's like, wait, no, buddy, don't kill me. I'll tell you where I live. It's this building I'm in. And he did not need to know that, so he kills him. It all checks out. Like, that's kind of the only dialogue. It's happened and it's so worthless.

Yep. He just wants to get to the kill him. He's had enough kill on this page. He just wants to like, ah, let's go, let's go. Let's go. You are sort of for there's like, I feel bad crediting him with even this because I think it's probably accidental. But there's at least the way he says you were warned about selling your shit here that

you're like, oh, this is our good guy. And if he did set that up as an intentional misdirect, because in the next page, he's just going to reveal himself as the bad guy. I don't know. I still thought he was kind of a bad guy. anti-hero. He goes up to the room, page three. All the gang bangers are in there, ready to do some drugs. He bursts through the door and guns them all down, and then they knock the table over, and the whole room fills with one must assume cocaine. And that is page three. Anything in there

you want to talk about? No, he says very clearly, well, okay, there is some confusion because the first guy says, four and a half pounds of pure rock cocaine, sample time. And that's when our boy jumps in screaming, sample this. He was what he was sitting around waiting for a cue. He's come on, one of these guys got to say something. And then sure enough, one of the screams about cocaine, he's like, this is my chance. Entrance time. And then he says, holy shit, look at all that nose candy. And there's just clouds of cocaine everywhere, even though we were just told this is crack cocaine, not powder cocaine.

See, that's why I said one must assume. There's no reason that can't be both. I'm just saying this is a weird way to confuse your readers. Well, he said four and a half pounds of pure rock cocaine, even as they were looking at a pile of powder. has drawn as this. Right. Sparkly powder. They're a little diamond sparkles. Yeah. So Craig, you could see how this might be confusing for me, your most loyal reader, right? It's how I would draw pop rocks, maybe? Yeah. Yeah, they're having pop rock. I guess he thinks that that you get the crack cocaine out of, like it's a crunchberry situation, like you buy a bag of cocaine and then there's like

little nuggets. Yeah, little nuggets of crack in it. You got to fish them out. They're your favorite part. Oh, Timmy's only eating the crack again. He's left me only cocaine. I have to find it, but this is a swipe of an Arthur Adams mojo. I know it. Oh, the face on page four? Yes. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

So page four, let's get into page four. It's just him, it's death row, reaching in, grabbing a bunch of the cocaine, snorting it, and saying like, ah, that's better. and then he just starts blasting. And now we can talk about the page. Also, this is the first time he uses his British accent. Right. Just all of a sudden, it's like, oh, right, he's British.

I better do that. I better use a little clamorism. I like that he says, I better have a smidge just because I'm so sleepy. Not because I'm rad. Not because I'm an addict. Just like, you know what? I'm a tired cycle. I didn't get enough sleep before this.

murder. Killing those guys in the street really took it took it out of him. He needs a little nap. He's covered in sparkles. Like he, when he snorted, he got it like all over his like mouth and chin. Like he,

it's whatever. This guy's really partying. And again, I thought he was the good guy. And I thought, oh, wow, this is,

this guy's partying hard for a good guy. But yeah, there's clearly like some, some traced mojo in, and here in this page. Like, I bet you could find that. And that's very 90s to copy Rob Laifeld

and, Arthur Adams and like fail to live up to either one of their standards. And there's such like a opposite ends of the same spectrum where like Arthur Adams uses detail in such a beautiful way. Lifeel does it in such a horrible way. So it's the same tool. It's like using a hammer the wrong way, you know?

That's a good way to put it. Absolutely. I'm worried listeners are thinking, oh, but you could still use the claw part for some things. No, no. It would be like using the flat part of like the handle. Right. but like sitting on it.

It's like eating it. It's like eating the hammer. It's like trying to sell hammer anal play to an undercover cop. You're like, I didn't know you could get it that wrong. What the fuck? It's like eating the hammer and then going to the doctor and saying that you were just trying to get more vitamin hammer like he prescribed you. And you're like, nobody told you to do any of this. What?

I'm never, you're not my patient. And also this is an Arby's. Like, also I'm an undercover cop. Yes. Yes. And a child. And a fruit pie. I'm lost. I'm lost in this hypothetical. But you know what? This is in vibe with a Craig's Star 1 comic. I think that's how the storytelling works in a Storm one comic. A super awesome guy comes jumping in. He's kind of drawn badly like he's made out of like shiny metal. And so it's like, oh, cool. There's like a metal

superhero guy. He's like, he kind of looks like a Native American. He's got like a ponytail and a head band, which to me reads like Native American. If I have my camera on right now, that's exactly what I look like right now, Sean. So you're right. Yeah, shirtless, pony. Made out of wet metal. Made out of wet metal. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

This guy looks exactly like Rusty. And so he comes in and just punches our dude in the face, punches cable in the face, and it like works. He gets completely fucked up. And his friend comes in with a gun, like a Rob Leifeld guns. It's just a bunch of shapes. And he goes, no, no, no, no. Don't shoot.

because he knows he's going to fuck it up. Anyway, our guy, Mohawk Cable, pulls him in front, and he's dead. Like, that guy, that's his whole arc. He comes in, he's like, guns aren't going to work on this cyborg guy, starts punching him, but then, yeah. This is a weird little story to happen. That guy's gone. He's, he's completely dead. We'll never see him again.

It's not like a cyberpunk future where everybody is cyborgs. There's only the two. So, like, cyborg technology doesn't, like, infiltrated this society or anything. All these are normal guys. so this is just like a strong guy there's just a strong gang member and he stands up to the cyborg and just punches him in the face and it

they draw him like fully splayed on the ground blood coming out of his mouth like it works where bullets do not so you think okay maybe that's like that's what the other that's what the other that's what the guy on the cover the death block is going to do it's he's the brawler

and he's going to get in close but no it'll never come up again yeah no no His weakness is face punches, but no one thinks to do it. By the way, this guy's dying words are, stupid shit, you, you've killed me, which I think are much better. Still not great, but... They're better than let me show you our crib. Yeah, they're less confusing and let me show you our crib.

But you're right, they probably won't haunt him as much. So the next page, we see one of their runners. They told at the very beginning when Death Row started his attack to go get backup. She is calling for backup. She's calling a mysterious figure, Dr. claw like with his chair turned away from us. And we see that the city here is, is, uh, the Jetsons. This is the Jetsons future. It's a ridiculous city for what I assume is supposed to be near future, because most of this is just like, our, our world, but with some cyborgs.

It's like he lives in a Vons Gardsberg or something. It's so, it's just, there's all these angles. I'm like, what is going on here? Just shape, there's a big, a big cross on a weird oblong. it paints absolutely no vision of the future and like you are seeing what you're seeing on the street level what he has shown you literally people standing around the street is just L.A. exactly how it looks right now like just ordinary buildings and shit but then like next door

I guess Santa Monica is the Jetsons Star San Diego 3000 so she calls in some backup and a helicopter flies overhead and then we see a punk flying out of the out of the glass. Is there anything on this page you wanted to talk about? We haven't already. It feels like you're setting me up, but no, this page sucks. It's like a child true space city. This pilot might be a cyborg. He's got Colossus arms. He doesn't have, he doesn't have shoulders either. It's hard to tell like the foreshortening there. Like,

there's absolutely no sense of foreshortening proportion, scale. There's nothing. Perspective. There's none of that in this comic at all. It's as life-felding as it gets as this panel, because it is just wrong. I'm, I'm a you recognize this monstrosity as a pilot, as a human? Like, that speaks so much to, like, our propensity to, like, have pattern recognition that you were able to look at this and be like, that's probably a pilot. Like, how was that even? I would not have necessarily, like, I get it from context.

I got it too. But, like, if I had just showed you this, you would be like, this is a, is this like a tumor? That's a good point. If you showed this to, like, your dad, he'd be like, fuck. am I looking at? Like, you need to speak 90s comic to even understand what they were trying to draw. Yeah, it's an incredible failure. And the next page is just a big full page of the Deathlock Cyborg,

leaping out of the helicopter, apparently, to fight what's below. And it says, Turf Wars, Chapter 1. So that was the... I'm assuming that this was the prologue up until now, and I hear, okay, chapter 1, our main character has entered the fray. And he looks exactly the same. Just a bunch of shapes on a cable, but his head is kind of like a, he's got a Frankenstein skull.

It's got a death block head. It's literally. He's a death lock. Yeah, I don't know why we're. Also, they also indicate this is where like a new penciler takes over. I'm like, wait, wait, how did, I know there was a thing you said before about like he's wage theft and all this other stuff, but how did he convince three people to draw for him? It's actually not quite yet that the new penciler takes over

Because this, remember, this is chapter one, it says on this page Now you turn the page and you see that he is rocketing down towards the skylight And he is singing break on through to the other side to himself As he guessed what breaks on through to the other side That Val Kilmer movie had just come out about the doors So like maybe this was fresh in his mind And that's all the other. that happens on that page and then the next page says turf wars chapter two now we're turfors

that was chapter one was he's jumping out of a helicopter and he fall through a skylight and then the first guy says holy crap what's that chapter two uh and that's when you see that he has changed uh he's changed artists yes so it's this two panels uh the first one deathlock is shooting his mini gun, just like unloading rounds. Second panel is our other guy, point blank range. Like, we know they're two feet from each other. He says, uh-oh, period, not exclamation point, which, but he's already been firing us minigun for like a few thousand rounds. So he's either fucking dead or completely immune to these bullets. He's certainly not in a gunfight where he's dodging bullets. He's just being shot. I'm amazed you were able to make all that out,

because I feel like this new penciler is worse in every way than the last one, who was already terrible. I like that they had the show that he has like shiny teeth, in that too, or like wet teeth. I'm not sure. Yeah. That's an odd detail to think. Oh, he's like dripping, too. And Rob Leifeld lines everywhere. Lines that make no sense for any

kind of structure. Mid cheek lines. You know those mid-cheek, deep mid-cheek wrinkles. I just love that he's switched an artist nine pages into the same comic and they're not like oh, we had something happen.

totally different art style. I my bet here, and this is based on nothing, just knowing as I do Craig Stormon, I bet about nine or ten pages is all he can get out of an artist without paying them. To be like, look, just let me see a sample page of like the script and then we'll see like 10 pages. 10 pages is a good free free work sample. And I think that's what he does because he will from this point out throughout this issue and issue two switch artists every 10 pages. And I think he does this to avoid paying them. And I think the artist, as long as I'm hypothesizing here, I think the artist is probably thinking, well, I mean, none of this makes any fucking sense.

So like, if he wants to finish this, he's going to have to, you know, come back to me. Like, this isn't a complete story. He's not getting work out of me that he can use. Never imagining that he would just staple it together with other artists that he has ripped off. It's genius in a way. I think. Yeah, it's very presidential in a way.

It's genius in a way that you could probably get away with in 1993 because it was really difficult to talk to other people, even in a small community to be like, hey, did this guy rip you off if you were like an aspiring artist? You might not know enough people. Yeah, you can't just go on social media and say, this guy ripped me off. Yeah, you would have to wait for Craig Stormont to put it in one of his own editorials. You have to wait for him to admit that. I did actually look up the artist who did this section, too,

because I think that they said that they had worked for Marvel. And I sent it to you a little before the show. But when people say they work for Marvel and you're like, who are you? A lot of times that means they've worked for Fleer or a trading card company. Oh, okay. Happened to have done the Marvel properties or Star Wars. Because like, I've been an artist alleys and people are like, oh, I've worked on Star Wars. I'm like, somebody contract.

You drew on a blank Star Wars card, right, from me. the thing. So yeah, he's a interesting style, I'll say. Okay. So our guy now has a, it is a hairdryer, I would think. It is, it is a rectangle shape and it's shooting like a heat ray. And he's saying quovadas. And then there's a little asterisk and then the editor has translated that for us to we kick ass. First of all, he's alone. He's not with anybody. So the we is very strange thing to say. Also, you probably know this, but that's not what that means. This is Latin for where are you going? And also, he's supposed to be like a British uneducated hooligan.

Is his character? He says he's from, he's a Brummy. He's from Birmingham. He likes to do cocaine. He's not, it's not in his character to be quoting the Latin for we kick ass, which I don't think they... I don't picture them saying a lot in Latin, in ancient Latin. We fucking rock, bro.

Yeah, it's a weird thing. If you're by yourself saying we kick ass, it's a very strange thing to say. Anyway, I think this is a famous Bible quote. I think this is like what they said to Jesus when he was like going to go get crucified. So they're like, Kulvadas. And then Jesus is like, I'm going to get crucified.

I don't know the Latin for that part. But like, I think that's what happened here. Is he remember that part? the Bible where they kill Jesus. Okay, this is from that part. Hey, Jesus, we kick ass. And he was like, fuck yeah, guys. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go see what these brothers are up to.

I bet Jesus also said grunt, grunt, back to back. Yes. This dude says grunt when he gets shot twice. Not the sound effect grunt, the word grunt. He gets shot by the hairdryer. He slams into a wall, this is X187, that death row is shooting the death lock. And he says grunt. And then it goes to the next panel,

he's laid out and he says grunt. He's nude now, right? Like, look at the picture. This artist decided not to draw his clothes, so now he's just a big naked colossus. He was a Rob Leifeld like Commando a minute ago. So we flash back to two months earlier where the evil mafia guys who apparently run X-187

are talking about how, or no, who apparently run the gang that needed to hire X187 are talking about how Death Row was becoming a problem for them he killed several of their boys and stole 125 grand I don't know that that justifies commissioning a cyborg it does it's hard to make those numbers work that if they're complaining about that they can afford a Frankenstein's cymborg yeah like I they decide they need a right

cyborg because they can't afford to lose a hundred and twenty five grand. So I guess I guess deflation is a thing in the future because I mean we we had the six million dollar man even in even in the 70s like yeah we had a ballpark for how much a cyborg is going to cost. I like a moment here there's a link they have a hunchback so the these guys just apparently run you know crime. They're just like drug dealers but they're like okay we need a cyborg and he says how do they expecting me to build a ultimate hit man in a two-month period. A head! I need a head!

He's got a fully built Frankenstein with no head. He's like, what fuck am I going to find a head in two months? Yeah, you see it on the wall behind him. He already has a Frankenstein cyborg waiting in the background. Yeah. They're holding the meeting in the Frankenstein body room. Yeah. It's lucky that he was already working on this when they came in and said,

all right, this is going to sound fucking crazy. We need a drug cyborg. He's like, ah, that's amazing. Hold on a second. I have 90% in one of those. Like, right behind me. Anything else on that page you guys want to talk about? It always feels like you're setting me up. What am I missing?

I guess there's a big, there's a fart cloud behind this hunchback. I think, like Rob Leifield, they didn't want to draw the background. He's like, what if there's just a bunch of gas behind this man? I do, I would like to read the quote then, if you're not going to read it. This is how Craig Soromon writes a mafia guy. Well, boys, as you's knows, we've been a wekin on the ultimate hitman in our labs in Switzerland.

And Prof Hunzen has hit Paydoy. It's my pleasure to introduce X187. That's what he thinks. That's what the tough guy. The tough guy specifically running Compton sound like. I also love the kingpin right after saying, what, what's that? It's just such an odd. It's so weird.

And he's right behind him. Also, I thought he needed a head. So, like, I guess this next panel is flashing back even before those two months. Yep. Okay. No, it's saying next day. He was complaining, ahead, ahead, how can I do it in two-month period? And then the next day, he happens to have found the head.

So he was making a mountain out of a molehill this Frankenstein hunchback. He was definitely doing that thing at work where somebody gives you an easy job. you're like, oh my God. Oh, it's got to be so hard. Oh, geez. I'm going to need two months. And then he just spends like 45 days masturbating and then finds a head and comes in ahead of schedule. Yeah?

Yes, he does find a head. It's a psychotic Vietnam vet head. I'm sorry, it was chosen for his ficotic. behavior. Oh, right. I'm sorry. Ficcaic. I've never seen anyone spell it that wrong. I think on this page, this is when he learned out about Italics. This is the first time there's any sort of variation in the lettering, dialogue lettering or captions or anything. And there's also he,

he does like a special font for life as well. Because there's quotes around it, because he's not quite alive. Right. It's not bad. But yeah, he put the psychotic marine head on the killer robot. And he brought him to life. And he's named X-187, which is just like peak rad name. Like, fuck yeah. It's pretty, it is a pretty good name.

Yeah, I don't hate it. I don't. Specifically a murder cyborg? Like, he's not supposed to be, if it was a hero cyborg. No, that's a good name for a murder cyborg. Sure. Or like, my old aim handle. You were X-187?

Yeah, probably. You don't know the life I've lived. You never allow follow-up questions. and none today either. The next page, we're back at the battle. So that was it. That was the flashback we needed to see. The origin story is they built him.

They made him. They made a Frankenstein. Yeah, good. Thanks for showing us. Yeah. We figured. I figured when a Frankenstein showed up. Somebody must have built that guy.

But yeah, so we're back at the battle. This is my multi-timeline flashback, like out of blood sport. And it's saying X-187 is hovering. three floors up outside a wall that he just threw death row through, which, you know, I didn't know he could hover and he might, he won't do again. Like, we will see this in a later issue, but from here on out, he will need space bikes to fly around, space motorcycles to fly around. So he can only hover for this panel. Suddenly he launches, I guess, both of his fists off.

Yeah. They each get their own panel, but now he's got like Johnny Soco, robo. punch. But here's an interesting fact. They regrow or the artist forgot? Because he has the hands again in the next panel. Yep. They don't come back to them. I just, I thought it was a bold move to like, I mean, that takes some dedication to launch both fists. Like, you launch one fist. Like, okay, I got a rocket fist. If this doesn't connect, I still got something. But to just have stumps, if you don't connect is a, that's a big risk. So it's lucky he can regrow those or forgot.

And they do hit, well, we can't be sure because they don't show the impact. Our guy, Cyborg, what's his name? Mohawk Cable. Oh, right, death row. He says, oh, shit. And then he, like, the next panel shows him getting hit by something, maybe, or maybe dodging. It's unclear. I know the sound effect says whack.

So he got hit. But, yeah, you don't see the. object. You'll see speed lines and you're like, are those lasers? Because we have established that those look exactly, that's what lasers look like earlier in the comic is just, you know, a white line. So this really needed,

you really needed to draw that fist one more time, but I guess you couldn't get that for free from your artist. He's like, can you erase that? He just shot his hands off. Can you erase those hands now, man? Not until you pay me. Yeah. You think I'm a fool? You think this is my first hand-launching

cyborg comic? I learned. The next page, I'm very confused by the layout here. I'm tempted to look at what looks like X-187, the death lock, having his arm twisted completely around the wrong way, in a way that is very clearly broken. And he appears to be saying the word would. And then below them is his death row looking all bloody, as though he has been destroyed. And he is saying, Mist Me Stupid. Right. But the way it's laid out

is a big L shape. So the missed me stupid happens after the three panels, four panels on the right. In a way, only a madman would lay out. Okay. I did not get that.

Because it's one panel, so I'm tempted to read the one panel over here on the far left first. It's crazy. No one has ever done it this way for a lot of good reasons. It's kind of ironic too because on one of the,

there's actually like a clear shot of the Nike logo on a building. board. So like if he's trying to do a Nike swoosh, that would be kind of brilliant, but he's not. He's not doing that. He's not. Also, that Nike is, I'm going to steal that idea though, but yes, go ahead. The Nike is very interesting. So the rest of the, let me tell him up the rest of the panels before we delve into it. So death row is running away. He's, he apparently got up and just ran out of there after getting double-fisted by the murder cyborg, which good for him for taking it. In such stride, took a like champ. It's his weakness. Face punches are his weakness, remember?

Yeah, double fisting from a cyborg is his only weakness. And then he's running around outside and then X187, the death lock, swoops down in front of him, cutting him off. Because remember, he can fly for this panel and we'll never be able to fly again afterwards. And then they tackle each other and seem to have been laid out. Both of them are laid out on the street like they could not withstand this tackle, either one of them. And an ambulance is coming in. And I guess that's when he says, missed me stupid. although clearly he did not.

Oh, I'm so confused. You're laid out, you're bloody, you're on the street. You're not missed. But just in the background, irrelevant to all of these things, is the actual Nike logo, which I feel like is legally actionable if anybody read this comic book. It really is just, like, so lazy. To not know anything about, like, whatever, trademark law,

but to just, like, I need a billboard. I don't know. This could be, like, good world building. We could have, like, a crazy robocop. style like commercial here. No, just Nike. It is kind of funny that like with with Nike it makes you subconsciously think of feet

and you know, with the raw life of inspiration you never see feet in the comic or think about them. Yeah. It has been a good long while since I've seen some feet. Let's be real. Both in my personal life and I'm also in this comic. Yep. There's that Lifealdian. I feel like he's actually oh yeah, there's

some feet. You can draw feet okay. But his like impulse in ripping off the lifeelt style is I got to hide. I got to hide the feed even though I can do them. He uses every part of the life field. Just it's the, I just want to emphasize. It's not, he didn't draw the Nike logo. He'd lift it. It's the actual Nike logo that he lifted from somewhere.

It says Nike. It's, it's just the laziest fucking thing I never said. If I was the artist of one of these comics that had gotten ripped off for three 10 pages, I simply would have reported him to Nike and it would have been the funniest end to the Blue Comet Press. Yeah. So on the next page, a van pulls out and three, uh, what he He calls Death Blood Heavids. This is the name of one of the gangs. It's brand new.

There's these Death Blood guys, and they look like they're also kind of metal guys. They look like there's another image comic where everyone was covered in gold. Yeah, What Works. Yeah, they look like What Works. They're here to provide backup for Death Row. So they drag him into their van and speed away from the cops. Meanwhile, another gang comes in and grabs X-187, because remember these are the two gang cyborgs fighting it out.

and they drag him away and the police give chase and one of the cops says like get the copter down to Pico and LaBrea now which I looked up even in the 90s was not quite the ghetto maybe he's extrapolating to the bloody future but I think

probably he just didn't look it up yeah I don't I don't remember where Pico and LaBreya is some fantastic facework in these panels before we move on yeah it's impossible to tell that they're like I really thought maybe the death blood heavies we're supposed to be like they're all undead, like death lock, right? But then they pick up death row.

They're the guys who commissioned death row. So I think they're supposed to be normal because he has drawn them as some truly terrifying ghouls. Yeah. Well, this is someone learning how to draw. And then I think if it's inked by Stormon, he did a bad job because they do look like they're like chrome monsters or something. They don't look human. The other gang are called the crypt men. So we've got the death bloods.

and the crypt men, which I think is an incredibly, an incredibly funny thing to call your analog of the crypts. They're the cryptmen, right? Like, that's what a sophisticated British person would say when they got very lost in like a 1990s comedy. Oh, no, it's the crypt men. Someone's having sex with the dead bodies. Call the cryptmen.

They're like cemetery cops. They're two mooks, the cryptmen, and they grab X-187 and drag him away. One of them is a cyclops. He's got a Cyclops visor. Just wanted to draw the Cyclops visor, I guess. Okay, so what I found very funny is the last panel of that page. The police officer is saying,

get the copter down to Pico and Libreya now. And then on the next page, the first panel is the helicopter saying, we're already here above you. Yep. So this is just a dipshit cop. He's doing a bad job. He called in helicopter backup when it was already... Look, we're already...

Somebody already called us. We're here. We're above your car. Right. Who wrote this dialogue? So they're pursuing, they're pursuing him, pursuing the death row van. He gets up and he jumps into the driver's seat and says, let a man drive. And then immediately pulls over onto the sidewalk where we see the silhouette of a child screaming, mommy help. And then his next line is gurgle because he has been run down by the van.

And as he flies over the van or perhaps through the van, he smashes. through the windshield of the police car. And the cop driving the cop car, as the time, as the kid is exploding through the windshield, has the time to say, oh, shit, not a kid. And he's got like the face of like Archie eating shit. Like from a different world where like, no, this is a world where you can like throw a kid through a windshield.

He's fine. Yeah. It's drawn in a wildly different style. I went from being so horrified to so entertained by the fact that he dreams, he kills a child. But then that kid is looking like, hey guys, he's just popping his faith. The way he's popping through the windshield. It's just hilarious.

Well, he drew him cross-eyed for one thing. Don't draw the dying child cross-side if you don't want a little laugh. Also, he's got just a fully muscular tiny man body because he's one of those people that can't draw a child. So he's just like, that's like a buff little man, right? Yeah. He's got the shoulders, the fucking the pecks on this kid, the delts on this five-year. year old child. It's a goddamn tragedy. He was going to be the strongest child in the world. Also, the joke he makes is har. If you don't like my driving, stay off the sidewalk. Har.

That's like straight off of a fucking bumper sticker that would have been 20 years old at the time of this comic. Right before a child dies. Okay, so the next page, the van is heading towards a giant. What he informs us is parking complex, but with quote marks. It might, I guess it's not really a parking complex. I just say parking on the side of the building. Yeah. I don't know why we're in parking. Just throwing some shade. So-called parking complex.

It took me. I actually, this is this, there were a few points in this comic, and this is one of them where I thought I had somehow fucked up scanning this comic so badly. Because I was going over the scans that I sent you guys. I thought I had fucked it up so badly that I somehow crammed multiple pages together. They weren't supposed to be together. Like, oh, I got a little bit. layering wrong on this or something? Because I genuinely

don't know what the fuck is supposed to be happening here. So we see the van driving alongside the parking complex with the cops behind him. And they're saying, now we gotcha. No way out. But he's not in the parking complex yet. And it says, suddenly the van heads into a parking complex.

The van, once on the highest level, death row punches at full speed. So we've already gone from not in the parking complex to the highest level, just in the text, on the first panel. And the second panel, it says the van then speeds up the ramps to the top level, five floors up.

And then it shows the van ramming through the entrance gate that says parking all day, $5 and it's got the little bar. So it's just now entering, but the text is like five minutes ahead. It makes sense if time has no meaning and you're a madman. Maybe Dr. Manhattan is narrating this so we don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And then it shows the van inside and they're saying, what the hell are we doing?

You're a trap now. on the police copter hovers at roof level, the van is streaking towards it. They're all screaming, stop, don't do this death row, and he guns the van towards the helicopter, leans out and leaps off out of the van, pointlessly, to grab the helicopter. At which point he says, sorry, boys, but me, helicopter is waiting here.

He's got full, full Coughney, full Mary Poppins cockney accent. I like when the police officer is like, I guess, three quote unquote panels before. I'm using that term loosely. But he says, he's telling him to stop. He's a death row stop now. Stop this truck. Quit hanging out that door.

Hey, don't hang out. That's the problem. Right. Put your seatbelt on, pal. It's not safe. So yeah, he just killed a bunch of people. But then the helicopter guy's like into it. He's like, can't believe it.

That was amazing. It's like, no, no, you just watch several of your coworkers die, guy. This is the next page. And the panel is you see a guy plummeting because he's just thrown this guy's coworker out of the helicopter and taking his place in the seat. And the helicopter pilot is saying, I can't believe it. That was amazing. He's just, he's all for it now. Fuck. Yeah. Look, I don't, I don't approve of you killing Jim. I liked Jim. But come on. Fuck yeah. Right? Fuck yeah. I got to give you a fuck yeah. And, and like, death row becomes genuinely bashful.

And he says, oh, it was nothing. I'd do it all the time. Heard the copter for Elsa. or head the copter for El Segundo and 405 Freeway. Just, oh, it was nothing. I like all the name drops of different like streets and highways in L.A. He has seen Los Angeles. 405 Freeway. Oh, you're a local. This page 18 is when we meet our main character.

It says back at the aftermath of the battle, LA's best detective is on the case. We meet Detective Hank Blood, who will spend every single panel with his fists clenched and his teeth gritted, just looking like he's about to die of a coronary at any point. And he runs into police headquarters where he meets Sue Martin, who is like a liaison, not an actual cop, but like sort of the civilian that he's going to be sassy female reporter, right? Yeah, basically.

Well, it's like a little more official than that, but not a cop. I see. That's all that happens on that page, I think. We saw the guy genuinely impressed. That's my favorite part of this comic. Like I was almost willing to forgive everything else of this comic when you had the pilot be like, I mean, fuck yeah, boys, come on. Super rad. So we get a news report where they sum up exactly what happened there.

Doing your spot page there. Yep. Yeah, very much of Todd McFarland. Explaining the comic we just read. But not the confusing parts. Like the parts who were like, wait, what the fuck happened? That part is still up in the air. But the stuff that's obviously what happened.

Like, they do mention the kid. They, they, they verified that kid is dead. Uh, death row is now drawn as a completely different guy. Uh, it took me a minute to realize this wasn't a different cyborg somewhere else. So I think we've, I think we've switched, we switched pen. I think we did switch pencilers again. He's also got like two knives sheathed by his junk that are pointing toward, like, they form like a V on its crotch, like Dgeneration next pile.

But the handles of the knives are grenades still. They're kind of awesome. The scabbards are kind of like snake. Carapace, I don't know, it's hard to explain, but like, kind of cool. Like, he looks like a he man villain. Yeah, like the Rattler or whatever that they moved. Yeah, he had like the segmented thing. Yeah.

The placement of the knives is such that even if they're in sheaths and even if they never came out of those sheaths, as soon as you did like a squat, they would cut your penis off. Right. Even being completely sheathed, they would still like just pinch it off. And that's like what gets him going. going that it's that edge knowing that he get cut off at any time it's just very alluring for him so death row was watching the news explain what he just did i don't know why uh it's this is still the same comic it's not like we've skipped issues uh and and his boss uh tells him he's gaining

quite the reputation uh and the the cryptman has a new killer named x187 and they do this like this is the introduction of x187 the third time we met this fucking guy yeah We know him. We throw to it. It's just his hero panel of him posing there with his Ray gun out. And you're like, yeah, we just watched him getting a big fight. You just fought that guy. Like for 18, 18 pages.

It was like an 8-8-A adapt, like a 9-volt adapter plug he's got, I think? Yeah, he's got a completely different equally nonsense gun because... First protective gun, there we go, man. He's like, God, I got to assume... I brought my European gun. Where do I plug this in? I have to assume Craig Stormont's instructions to the artist. Some bullshit, I don't know, go nuts.

And they do. Just like, I get him a bunch of squares. I don't know what this. Well, they also have his respirator tank thing, death row that is. They have his, I don't want to get confused. But they have the death row's respirator in front of his face. And now I'm like, wait a minute.

Why does he need that? He just did cocaine earlier, like straight. Like, does he have asthma or not? Nope. He's never needs it. In his mouth in one of these. Right. Yeah.

It's maybe just, it's like a security thing. It's like, that's his binky. It's just a little binky. It's a little binky. He's like, it was 93. He was a raver, probably. So on the next page, X187 is walking around with his crypt men in the sewers. And they ask him, what are we doing?

We've been walking around down here for hours. And apparently he has not said anything. They just followed him to a sewer for like six hours. And then finally somebody's like, hey, why, why are I doing this? And he says he's going to kill. He's going to kill. death row and they're going to help. And he climbs up a ladder and comes up outside of, I guess, police headquarters. Or no, maybe this is the gang's headquarters. A label here would help. Yeah,

I agree. It comes up somewhere with palm trees is what we, is what we for sure know here. And Detective Hank Blood is there, also looking just bloodshot and miserable. So mad, he's been up for days. I guess the only special thing I want to talk about on this page is the wheel of the car Hank Blood is driving in that panel. Take a quick look at the wheel shape that he's drawn there. I think he might just be eating a pretzel. He's just got a big pretzel. That's why he's mad. He's like, I hate when people hear out my pretzel.

The only good part of Hank Blood's day. So Hank, as they pull up, remember he's got the reporter liaison with him, Sue Martin. They pull up and Hank Blood says, here we are, shut up and let me do the talking. I'm going to try to get him to slip up and see his reaction to questions. That's what a reporter does, man. You would think.

He's mansplaining reporting to the reporter. So they come in, they say, we have a right to see Mr. DeAnglo, who is the boss of the death row cyborg. They bullied their way into the office. And he's, I believe he calls him a flat, DeAnglo says, like, what can I do for you flatfoot? Which is just real nice 1940s gangster representation in the leader of the deathbloods?

And an LA like skyscraper is like their base. Specifically the crack rock dealing deathbloods of Los Angeles. Have a white mobster guy who calls people flatfoot as their boss. Detective Hank Blood, looking more furious by the panel, tells him he knows he's the one who hired Death Blow. That's it for that page. On the next page, he tells them, like, why would I do all of that?

I don't need to sell dope. Look how rich I am. And like, yeah, I think that's, but how did you get rich? Right. Well, I mean, that's how rich people work. You get like a certain amount of money, and then you're like, oh, I'm done with money.

No need for evil. And posing real sexually, Sue Martin confronts him about the five-year-old that died. And then as they're doing that, X187 explodes through the window. And I guess he says the words crash bradda-da-da-da-da-da-da. No, no, no, no. That's not a word bubble or a sound effect.

That's the narration block. You're right, you're right. That's the narrator. Yeah, the narrator is saying crash bradda-da-da-da-dow. Because there's no gunfire happening in that panel. No, no, there isn't. It's another act of a madman. I think you're right, because that's

probably like I'm imagining Stormont dictating this to the artist and that's when he just said Crash, bread a down, breadadada down. And the artist was like, I guess that's narration. No, what's happening as? I just fucking said it, man. Write it down. Okay. You're the narrator. So X-187 just starts blowing the shit out of everybody. They start fleeing. Death Row is here all of a sudden. I guess he's been downstairs or something. It's like on the desk maybe. just waiting and he starts shooting back at X187

that's pretty much all it happens on that page hold on both of the yours are correct on this page I take it I owe Craig Stormon an apology he's saying you're out of your league and they're both the right yore fuck that's the only time that's ever happened there's also like death death blow death row

has like a very visible foot in the correct shape So like, good for you. Yeah, good for you. Good for you. That's just, I think that's just Stutton. That's just Stutton on Lefeld at that point. I like Hank Blood here says, nobody does this to me.

No, wait, that's the main bad guy boss. Sorry. Yeah, nobody explodes through my window and starts shooting and starts screaming Blattadada Dow, Atabada bow. Nobody says that to me. And then we get a two-page splash and all the big action.

And they're all shooting. So X-187's shooting his beam. at Death Row. Death Row is grabbing his boss and leaping out the window as his boss shoots wildly at the cyborg and misses. And Detective Hank Blood and the reporter are across the room and each and every one of them in a different way are saying, we're leaving. It's an odd choice to you because it's a double page spread, I think primarily to show the fact that X-187 has a loaded diaper pants. Yeah, he's got... Yeah, dude.

He's got some weird, lumpy, like, what is going on? And they're supposed to be his metal legs. So he's got the Colossus metal legs. You can't even say that's like... It looks like Clayface's like calves or something. I don't know. It's weird. Yeah, it's real lumpy.

So I was looking at Hank Blood's like, uh, shooting. He's like shooting the floor by, um, uh, death blow. Death, what the fuck is this guy's name? Death row. It's impossible not to say the one he's ripping off. He's got, he's got cowboy spurs on. Like, we haven't seen his feet this whole time. And here they are. He's got like, little cowboy spurs.

What an accessory. God, this guy's got every accessory. I think he might have grown a third grenade cockknife in there, too. Yeah, definitely. So he leaps out the window and says, foosh, and flies away with his boss. So I guess Death Row can fly now, too. Everybody can fly, yes. So what was with the helicopter?

Why did you need to crash the van into the helicopter? Good point. It's just anybody can fly until they need to, and then they can't fly when he doesn't need them to. It was again, like, he had to run out of the building. He was like, oh, shit, this guy can fly. Incredible that you have no idea what the powers of these guys are. So they're fleeing everybody, everybody's separately fleeing the building. The X-187 cyborg says, ta-ta, girls, as he leaps out the window, which is just a real, a real catty, sassy turn that I did not picture coming from Deathlock, the Cyborg here.

I think it's cute. Yeah, it's cute. I don't know. I guess I didn't have a real, like, voice for this character in my head, and I assumed he was, I assumed he was sort of a spawn, like a gritty, gritty, you know, former Marine. It's out there just, like, tortured or something. But, uh, Tata, Girls is a real catty, real sassy. How I read it to, I imagine the author intended to be like, Tata, girls, like a, like a kind of a homophobic thing. But I guess I read it as the same way, like, Tata, girl. Like, he's just having fun. He's just kind of affecting this like

Valley Girl type of thing or like Reba McIntyre type of thing. That's the way I pictured it. There it is. That's the voice. It's Reba McIntyre in a Not getting paid enough in a sitcom. Not one of the ones she's into. Right. This isn't getting out of pilot. You're not getting peak Reba for this money. So the cameraman, just the cameraman gets killed.

They make a big deal out of that. He gets his own panel of trying to film and getting killed for it. And the next page tells us Hank and Sue escape what the murder of Sue's cameraman hit her hard. All this helped them to open up to each other. So that's the romance is done in a narration bubble in one panel on the next page. And she's saying, Hank oh Hank, you're the bravest man I've ever met. You saved my life, sob. And he says, oh, it was part of my job, honey.

And she says, oh, Hank, I've been waiting for you so long. And then they kiss. and he says, yeah, I know, because that's the kind of fucking thing that Hank Blood says. Hell, yeah. And it's weird, too, because Hank's silhouette, it looks like he has, like, the dragon from Atari Adventure stuck in his back.

That's exactly what that looks like. I thought it was like a hookah, but no. Like, his Atari came to life. We got a whole other problem going on here. It says a reverse Tron in this fucking apartment. Hank Blood has also grown a real Wesley Snife. style flat top. Like, he's,

he's been getting, I haven't mentioned it, but he's been getting progressively more of a flat top throughout this comic. Like, it started off just kind of a, you know, like a high and tight, and then has grown slowly into straight Wesley Snipes,

hard-lined, just really paying for that fade kind of, kind of haircut. He's going to be a guile and like three more pages. Yeah, it's really escalating. I just like that she's been waiting for him so long. They met today.

Mm. And she's really turned on because, her cameraman got shot in front of her. So she's like, oh, that's what let her open up. You know I need a man. And then we do a tasteful silhouette where she has just said, I've been waiting for you so long. And in classic Han Solo style, Detective fucking Hank Blood says, yeah, I know.

And then in the panel, he has drawn her throwing her bra away. That's what that is. That's what that is. Oh, because I just, I've never, I've never gotten that far. with the lady. That's why I didn't recognize it. Me and Rusty, we thought it was that Target 2,600 dragon, not a lady's bra. That's really

embarrassing for us, but like... That is embarrassing for you. To be fair, it is a cartoon coconut bra. And I just love that like, that's how women move. She's like, oh, Hank, I just saw my cameraman die. I met you this morning. I've been waiting

for you all this time. Here goes that bra. It's just such a child's understanding of everything, but especially women and sex. Yeah. This is someone who does not fuck. This is where he does explain at the bottom. The final letters in this story. Issue one of this story are chapter 3, page 18 to 29, pencils, different guy.

So he credits at the end, I did fire another artist, Craig Stormont. Yes, but he does credit himself for the things he did. That didn't change, but like, let me remind you that it's written inked and lettered by Craig Stormont. And in the back, we get a few pieces of bonus art. The one that I found most meaningful was this coming soon, an ad for another title, The Spear, one of three, a three-issue series. And he says, Naragi Walker and Storm On did not happen. The Dream Team.

It looks like Bikini Babes fighting the Frankenstein Cyborg from this. Yeah, from this. I guess the beloved Frankenstein Cyborg is going to fight these bikini. babes, and it's going to be called the Spear. I don't think it happened. I can't find any evidence of that even getting an issue one, which is pretty bad even for Stormon. Maybe that's why he said Ta-Taw Girls,

because he was going to say hello girls in Spear. Yeah, it's going to pay off in the Spear. It's his sketchphrase in this comic, in the Spear. And then at the end, what I had to apologize for is this card that was actually included. He's been talking up the amazing card, art that's going to be blowing everybody's mind. The card art

is the exact cover art of this comic. No changes. Incredible. This is the mind-blowing art that he's promised you, not willing to commission another artist. And it says Death Row versus X-187. And on the back,

Death Row. Name. Death Row is only no name. Affiliating. Freelation freelance hitman. No, he's a drug cyborg. That's, that's his affiliation. No, that's not, you mean occupation. Oh, Craig.

An X187 name, Arthur Bandis, U.S. Marine Corps. Affiliations, bounty hunter killer. So he does think affiliation means job. He knows some bounty hunters and killers, man. You better watch out. He knows, you know, some of those guys. The text says

This is the cover for Death Row Number 1, introducing Blue Comet's hottest character yet Death Row and X187 Strangely, in Death Row number 1 we don't hear anything about Rose past, but we do see the creation of X187

Why, this is your comic, you're like, Did you forget? Strangely, we don't, it's weird we didn't see anything about his past in this one. Uh, I guess I fucked up on that one. Sorry, sorry, guys. X-187 is created to hunt relentlessly and kill the English hitman Death Row. A mad scientist, Dr. Hunzan, created an atomic-powered body

and added a decapitated Marines head to complete the Mad Dog Hunter X-187. Okay. Death Row is from Birmingham, England. So, a little de-escalation in stakes from paragraph to paragraph here. He added a decapitated Marines head to complete the Mad Dog Hunter. Meanwhile, death row is from Birmingham. He cuts the crusts off his sandwich. He loves Frazier.

I interrupted the cadence of this. Death Row is from Birmingham, England. This much is known. Forsooth, so it has been said. Also, he hires out to the highest bidder when his mentor, Malady Doom, is not using him for one of her diabolical schemes. We have met her in an different one of his comic books where her name is My Lady Doom M. Apostrophe.

So he spelled his own character's name wrong. Amazing. In this promotional, the first and I believe only trading card he has ever made. Great fucking job, Craig Storm on. Some notes. Yeah, I guess we had a couple notes. God, it's been an hour and a half. We only did one issue.

We did one issue. I told you this was going to, there's a lot to talk about in these. I had like 400 words of notes. I was just like, yeah, that was stupid. Like I'd finish a page and go, that was fucking stupid. We won't have anything to say about that. We had so much to say about it. We had a lot to say.

There's a lot to say about it. It's fucking... I just wanted to say, too, the one thing that caught me, like, the... If you were in the comics at this time period, and you look at the back issues page here, where they're selling other stuff. They reference, like, Tim Vigil and Stephen Hughes. Stephen Hughes was the artist of, like, evil Ernie and Lady Death.

Tim Vigil did Faust. And basically, this is like a real... This is like real primo dirtbag comic universe of. Like, it's like juggalovers. Like, if anybody ever handed you one of these comics, they're also going to say, don't go to school tomorrow. Like, this is not for good people. And money's worth.

Yeah, I agree. And Craig Stormon is trying to hang with them. He's the biggest fucking loser they know. He's adding, like, childlike curse words to the setup. Like, they say the juggaloos are all about community. but if you actually go to like the big jugglero meetup there's gonna be one sitting on like a bench alone off to the side uh that's kreck storm on i'd nine hundred frank first please welcome to the one nine hundred hot dog stage a brand new comedian debuting here tonight the insult comic with class lord jimuthan jiggles thank you that's quite enough though i should say flattery we'll get you everywhere ah ho

What a supreme audience we have tonight. I recognize a lot of faces, though they might not like me saying that. Oh, I see Aaron Crosston here. A peacock in everything but beauty. Oh, Adrian H. I see Adrian H here, Alex Nolenberg, Alpha Scientist Java, An Andy, Armando Navar, Autumn Armstrong Berg. Oh, I see Brandon Garlock. He has one of those fine bureaucratic. Cratic faces that once seen are never remembered. Uh-ho-ho-ho.

Brian Saylor. Brockway famously loves the meat millie. A little too much, if you know what I mean. Cerell. Christopher Worthing, I am told porkpacking is the most valued profession in America. Tell your mother, I said, thank you for your service. Oh, I'm so naughty. Common sense, I see Craig Lemoyne, Dan Bee,

David Schell, popularity is the only insult that has not yet been offered to Dean Costello. A Delta Fox Trot, I see Devin the Rogue Supreme here, I see Dusty's rad title and Elizabeth Schope. Elliot Watson is said that he can talk brilliantly upon any subject, provided that he knows nothing about it. Oh, Eric Christian Berg is here, fancy shark. Jello, good Satan and his hot witches, I see you there. Greg Cunningham. Greg Cunningham is an excellent man. He has no enemies and none of his friends like him.

Oh, oh, I slay, I truly do. A haraka, Harvey Pengweeney, honk. I have here, I want Brockway to say Dyke, which I'm allowed to do. because this accent might be Dutch or something. You don't know. Jabar Al Aden, James Boyd, Jared Clack. Jared Mountain Man, it's the perfect man. Always dull and usually violent. Oh, Jared Ruiz, John Deeb, John McCabin, John Minkoff, a lot of John's here tonight.

You know what I'm saying. Josh Quicksall, it is said some cause happiness wherever they go. Others, whenever they go. Ah, but no really. Go fuck yourself, Josh Quicksol. You know what you did. Joshua Graves. Justin B.

Katie Favelle reminds one of a badly bound hymn book. Give her a few minutes, folks. She'll get it. Ken Paisley. K&M. I see KVH. I see Elaine Haygood here. Lisa.

Oh, she seems like a good citizen. Or a faithful wife. Or something else. Equally tedious. Oh! M. Jahi Chappelle, Mark Mahoney, Matt Riley, Max Broy. I see mercenary Sissidman here, Michael Lair. Mickey Lohman, oh, Mickey Lohman, such keen student, always ready to give his betters the full benefits of his inexperience.

Oh, ho! Mort, Mr. Bob Gray, N. D. Neil Bailey, Neil, they say there is no sin, except stupidity. So tell the devil I said, Hello! Oh, fuck you, Neil Bailey. Neil Schaefer, Naku 104, Niklavino,

obsolete. Ogilwan Supreme is like the best art. All style, unpolluted by sincerity. Oh, I'm told one ball in has been received in all the great houses. Or once. I kid, I'm actually. I actually like one ball in.

Henri Weevil, Ozzy Olin, Patrick Herbst. I see Peewey's uncle here with Rebrandrew and Red Wine Time. Riann! Hello, Rihannan. Russell Bauman, oh, Russell Bauman, everybody. You seem, Russell, you seem the kind of person who's brilliant at breakfast. No, don't get that one? Go team up with Katie Faville. Maybe you two can figure yours out together.

Sam Copnik, Sarkovsky, Sean Chase, Seed Space Jam fan, I may not agree with you, but I shall defend to the death. You're right to be a dipshit. Spotty reception, supernot, day to stays, TEDH, Thomas, Thomas is such a good friend, he will always stab you in the front air. Thomas Cavatzos, Timmy Lay, He? Toastigan, I see Tommy G here. Velo. Velo is the kind of person who deprives one of solitude without providing one with company. Ha ha ha ha. Oh, that one was bad.

Victor Malavankan, Booster, Whalen Russell. I see Yvonne Clavom here. Zach and Eva. Jeff Oraski is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a speaker, he has mastered everything except language. As a dancer, he can do anything but move with rhythm. And as a wiener, he is everything but plump. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. I kid, of course. Thank you. Thank you all. I'd say you've been lovely, but I've been told untruths cause wrinkles.

Oh, no, but seriously, folks, truth is everything. Stay true. One must always strive to be true to what they are, Even if what they are is a nasty little cunt.