The Smark Avengers - Vol 4, Ep 19: Who Are These Comics For?! Deep Dive into TidalWave’s Bizarre Biographies

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

🌀 Who Are These Comics For?! Deep Dive into TidalWave’s Bizarre Biographies | Smark Avengers Ep. 19 This week, the Smark Avengers dive headfirst into one of the most unusual corners of the comic book industry: TidalWave Productions — the indie publisher best known for its unauthorized celebrity biographies and unexpectedly wild tie-in comics. From comic book adaptations of Stormy Daniels’ Space Force, Vincent Price Presents, and The Mis-Adventures of Adam West, to long-running lines like Fame, Female Force, and Infamous, we’re asking the real questions: 👉 Are these comics ethical? 👉 Who’s actually buying them? 👉 And how did Dirk Benedict end up in the 25th Century again?! Join Corey and Dylan as they review the history, business model, and content of TidalWave Productions, exploring the blurred line between biography and exploitation in comics — all with plenty of jokes, deep dives, and skepticism. 🧠 If you’re into comic book industry oddities, indie publishing, or just weird pop culture, you’re not gonna want to miss this one. 💬 Drop a comment: Have you ever read a TidalWave comic? What celebrity comic would you actually want? Click the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk 🔔 LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and hit the BELL for more weekly comic book chaos, deep dives, and unhinged industry breakdowns! #TidalWaveComics #UnauthorizedBiographies #StormyDanielsComic #VincentPricePresents #CelebrityComics #IndieComics #ComicBookPodcast #SmarkAvengers #AdamWestComic #FemaleForce #FameComic #InfamousComic #SpaceForceComic #WeirdComics #IndiePublisherDeepDive #ComicsIndustryExposed

There's a lot of ways to describe things in the negative manner. I feel like Regrettable 19 would be the best one, because at any time, it felt like any time someone was going to bid $19, it came with an edge of regret. I'm like, I don't know about this one. We've all had a regrettable 19 in our lives. Yep. Hi, everybody, welcome to Spark Avengers. This is Corey.

I was just going to say, you'll start with that one. This is Corey with me. It's just Dylan. John is not joining us today because John, is doing something. He's been targeted by the Secret Service. Which Secret Service?

Well, it's a secret. Oh, there you go. So... They said they were the Secret Service, but I didn't see any ID cards. They weren't showing badges. No, he might just be in a room with four dudes. It's a real dream catcher situation. Something.

I don't know what he's up to, but I assume being questioned by them. Well, so that's actually a pretty decent segue. So something came about, I was not able to record a couple of weeks ago because I think I was sick. And so you and John picked up the ball and carried it, American football style. I feel like we fumbled that ball as soon as we had access to it. I mean, you know, when you start off an episode with about seven, eight minutes of just hot dog content. Yeah, of all of which I forgot to be sad. I remember the Katie Perry stuff.

I did not remember when we started talking about Hotog. Well, if you ever go into the archives, it's there. If you're wondering which episode to watch, it's the one with Hot Dog Mania in the title or whatever the fuck that was. It's the one with Katie Perry is the thumbnail. Yeah. She's in space and me and John. So what caused that is, in the course of the conversation,

one of you realized that there was a Katie Perry comic book, and it got you thinking about celebrity-related comics. And I knew exactly what you were talking about because of... I used to use this website called Fresh Comics, which every week would show you what comics were coming out. That way, I would just take a literal list of... When I go to the store, I'm going to pick this, this, this, and this up. And I would always see it...

Katie Perry, Katie Perry. Got to get all the variant covers. That is neat. Of course. But the publishers were always listed in alphabetical order. I don't know why they did that, and they just didn't go, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, everything else. Other, yeah.

But that's just the way they did it. So I was always seeing Blue Water Comics near the top, and Blue Water Comics always had comic books that were, like, celebrity-related or politician-related. So when you guys were talking about that, I knew exactly what you're talking about, and I think it was like wouldn't it be fun if we just did an episode

talking about these celebrity comics so I think I think John might purposely avoid this one because John didn't do his homework well here's the thing I want to make this clear right I was convinced we could make like comedy gold out of this

and John is being a targeted by the Secret Service and you were like I don't know if we can get a full episode under this until you started to research it a bit more and then you're like oh my god

this is the same what have we stumbled into yes you know I was pretty confident we'd get a couple of laps out of oh you know a Bill Hicks comic the Ellen DeGeneres comic obviously tickled me and Corey

because we're big Ellen fans this hasn't been known on the show but we're big obviously not fans of the way she treats the people of work for her he's a monster we were on the forefront of her being a piece of shit though I have to say that's the thing

I feel like her being a monster is what we like with Ellen Digital yes we just recognized again yes we were like we were head of the curve again we want to put her own horns here but we were ahead of the curve and we were like okay she's a horrible person

and it's fascinating that she's still on television and then she had her own comic book which was again part of this this comic book brand. Her comic didn't seem to be very interesting, so I didn't talk about it. Yeah.

So, as you pretty much suggested, what started off was just kind of, like, let's see what insane, you know, here's a bunch of comics written about celebrities, like, who's buying this, who's reading these, like, what's the quality of these? It kind of turned into, like, the more we started reading about it, the more, like, bizarre it was getting.

So... What's the quality of these? I think we know. Yeah, indeed. So let's just get out the gates and immediately talk about it. Title Wave Productions is the name of the company, formerly known as Blue Water Productions, formerly known as Stormfront Media and Publishing,

and formerly known as Storm Entertainment. They have had a lot of different iterations on the name. They are based on 40. So you know that whenever a company has to change their name four or five times during the run as a company, that it can only be for like legitimate reasons and not shady business practices at all. We're not even necessarily shady business practices, just not successful business practices, I would also say. Over here, I want to use this as an example real quick, but over here in the United States of the Kingdom,

we had this delivery service that was called Hermes. You know, it's like delivery service. and it was notoriously terrible. If you got your order delivered by Hermes, it would be late, or it wouldn't turn up, or we get lost, or they wouldn't deliver it properly. There's always a lot of problems with it. And then they changed their name, but didn't tell anybody. They changed their name to every.

And so now everybody's like, oh, I fucking hate this, every company, because they didn't change the way they did business at all. No. But they just changed their name. Slapping. It could have been on it. Exactly. they're like, oh, it's a different company.

Better than that Hermes fucking thing. It's the same company with a different name. And I suspect that this company had to do that a lot where they're like, oh, no, we're not storefront, we're, you know. And then you're like, okay, but you're in the same building with the same people.

You're the same company. Your logo is slightly different. You know? So this company, Title Wave is based out of Portland, Oregon. And their main production output is they publish biographical comics, adaptations from movies, and original titles with self-created characters. Brief History, the company first started in 2001 as a production studio of Image Comics, where their signature series were Tenth Muse and the legend of ISIS. This came to an end when the company declared bankruptcy two years later in 2003. the company was then revived again as Blue Water Productions in 2007 with the signature series Ray Harryhausen presents, which they made in conjunction with Ray Harryhausen, who, if you're familiar with Ray Harryhausen, the old Clash of the Titans, the dude was a master of, like, claymation and stop motion film.

So they were taking a lot of like his story beats, his character designs and whatnot and just making stories out of it. them. Other signature series, Vincent Price presents, which was made in conjunction with Vincent Price's daughter, and William Shatner presents, which was made in conjunction with William Shatner. They signed a deal in 2009 to republish rock and roll comics from a defunct publisher called Revolutionary Comics. That dealing in 2013 with seven volumes of the eight left unpublished. So they only put out one in four years. They did the collaboration with the graphic club. classroom was announced

2011 which resulted in the company creating free lesson plans to tie in with the series of biographical comics. They became a pioneer in digital first publishing in January 2012 with a release of Gabby Gifford in Mitt Romney's bio-comics on the Nook and the Kindle prior

to their print versions. So before Marvel and DC were putting out comics digitally first, Blue Water got there first. Can you imagine like getting ahead of the company and you're like, I'm more going to get a head of everybody, but putting our comics digitally. We've got to make a really good first step.

What are we going to put out first? It's really going to put us on the map because we'll be the first guys to do it. I know. Comic about Mitt Romney. And Gabby Gifford. Two American politicians. They ended their distribution deal with Diamond Comics in 2012. Diamond, by the way, recently declared bankruptcy not that long ago.

So I guess Blue Water gets the last laugh. But anyway, they ended their deal with Diamond in 2012. after several their titles were canceled for not meeting sales benchmarks. So, Diamond will not ship your stuff unless there is a demand for it, and there just was not really a demand for it. I think it's a fair compromise, isn't it? Yeah, that's fair.

So their distribution was taken over by Comic Flea Market, which operates a print-on-demand service. Following this, Arcana Studio bought up a majority of the company's non-biographical original comment, including 10th Muse and Legend of Isis. They changed the name to Stormfront Media, and publishing in 2015, with a TV production deal for their property

Insane Jane, which required the company to differentiate itself from another production company of the same name. A second name changed to Storm Entertainment later that year was undertaken in order to end in any confusion with a company of the controversial Stormfront message forum.

Stormfront being a racial hate website. So, you want to make sure your name is not that, huh? This rebranding conceded with a change to a digital-centric business plan. The company regained its original name title wave productions in 2016, as has been publishing through Ingram and various other distributors.

They continue to produce the following titles. Female Force. Stormy Daniels Space Force. Force of the Trojans. Soldier of Fortune, Juliette, Doreen Gray, political power, among other titles, and they are represented by the Bohemia Group in Los Angeles. So before we get any further, we got to talk about the man behind Blue Water, Tidal Wave, Stormfront,

what have you, and that is Darren G. Davis. Are you familiar with who Darren G. Javis is? No, but I have in the process of researching some of the comics for this show come across that name. Okay. So this is where it, like, took a turn for me when I was researching a lot of this stuff. And it's because I was astounded by the fact that this is not just some guy. So Darren began his career, doing marketing for

e-entertainment television, the USA Network, and Lionsgate Entertainment. He then entered the comic publishing working for Jim Lee at Wildstorm, which was then acquired by DC Comics, and he also was the president of Beyond Entertainment.

He then founded Tideaway Productions in 2000. So he has history in the industry, I mean, working under Jim Lee, working at Wildstorm, before making that jump over. So he is also one of the main contributors to this company. 10th Muse was his story. Other titles that he has had as Legend of Isis, Orion the Hunter,

Judo Girl, the Blackbeard Legacy, Victoria's Secret Service and the Misadventures of Adam West. Victoria's Secret Service is terrible. A terrible, terrible fun. So anyway, yes. Darren also has been HIV positive since 1999 and he uses his platform to educate and reduce stigma on HIV great stuff there he works with various different charitable organizations

to bring awareness and raise money for HIV and AIDS research awesome work there the only other thing I will point out is when he married his husband they were walked down the aisle by pop star Debbie Gibson Do you know who Debbie Gibson is? I do. Isn't that, that's the part that I was like, all right, that came out of the left fucking field. Okay.

Yeah, I was like... Did she have a comic room? I don't think she does. I don't think so. I don't think she does. I don't think she does. That's got to sting. We got to sing a little bit.

David Beckham's got a comic and she doesn't? So, um, it wasn't even at the wedding. So pretty much like, they caught fire doing these biography comics, um, very quickly. Uh, to kind of jump back into just going through the, here's the fun thing. Wikipedia is a valid source because their sources are cited. If you're going to quote Wikipedia, though, actually quote the sources itself. For the sake of our, uh, recording and to keep things at a nice and tight, uh, hour long if possible.

I'm just going to be reading from the Wikipedia. So there is your asterisk for all of the English professors out there who will critique me for not properly citing sources. Anyway. I think an R is pretty wishful thinking. Honestly, I was surprised that it did not feel like it, but that Charles Xavier

recording was two hours. I was like, well, that went by quick. So anyway. It did. Well, we had a lot of jokes to make about him. And killing babies. It's been. It was a sister. All right. In 2009, the company ventured

into biographical comics with female force, a series celebrating influential women in society and popular culture. In the subsequent years, Blue Water Productions filled their growing biography comics niche with other titles profiling popular figures in politics, entertainment, literature, and others.

Less than half of Blue Water production publications are biography. I know it's cited. I have a hard time believing that. I also don't believe that. Because when you go and you find the information, you go to Comic Vine, most of the content that you see is of the biographical comics.

But anyway, Blue Water Production... Can I tell you? Yes, go ahead. I had a big list of some of the celebrities that I wrote down and I find very notable. Shall I do that now, or should we do that after you finish? Let me get through this, and then we'll jump right into it. I just want to get all the history stuff out of the way before we dive.

Quote, Blue Water Productions attempts to utilize the power of celebrity to broaden comic distribution. We tried something different to get new readers in the comic book stores, and it is working. We get a lot of flack from the true comic book fans thinking that we're ruining the industry, but we're doing our part to help it. Fame, Justin Bieber, was initially distributed exclusively at Walmart, for example. Although many of the biography comics are unauthorized, the company does reach out to most of its subjects to participate. In 2010, they put out female filth.

force Charlene Harris, which is the first authorized female force biography comic. She did interviews with the writer so that they would get a lot of information correctly. Bluewater has donated profits made off of the biography comics to charities of the subject's choice, as was the case with fame Ellen DeGeneres. Criticism surrounds a potentially exploitative nature of biography comics. Response from Blue Water highlights positive aspects of potentially expanding comic readership. Furthermore, the company defends its right to provide timely coverage that its audience demands. According to Davis, speaking about the upcoming infamous Charlie Sheen comic,

quote, there are those who are going to complain that we're exploiting Charlie Sheen. But honestly, this is no different than People Magazine devoting most of an issue to a story or TMZ or Slate or the general media's constant coverage of breaking developments. If Charlie Sheen contacted us right now and want us to donate some of the potential profits to a charity of his choosing, we would happily do so. In addition to... Can I just say... I really quickly just say To use the defense Some people might call this

exploitation but this is no different from all the other people that exploit him Is it interesting defense? It is. It's a choice. In addition to female force The company publishes the biography comic lines Political Power, Fame and also famous authors

In 2009 Blue Water announced it would be reprinting Defung Publisher Revolutionary Comics We mentioned that they did not manage to do that. And yeah, so that is pretty much the history of that. That's why they got into it. I will say, saying that we're doing this to broaden the comic book readership, while also earlier in the article pointing out how diamonds stopped working with them

because they weren't selling enough comics, feels like you're not hitting your mark. suspicious, isn't it? A little bit. Yeah. And again, this is, by the way, we are not making any sort of accusations or anything about it. There's just a lot here that I was not able to find out some certain information. And now reading that Diamond stopped publishing for them or stop sending out comics for them,

that makes a lot more sense why I was not able to, because Diamond was always the gold standard. of determining sales and profitability. You know, there was always that saying that unless a comic book was in the top 20 or it was breaking this many numbers, it was always going to be subject for cancellation. So if you're getting, if Diamond distribution was like,

hey, we can't do this for you anymore, that's a good sign to me that you are not being profitable. Right, right. It's very suspicious. Yes. I think, that we couldn't find any concrete sales numbers of any of their comics. Now, it also could be, and I don't know for sure, Title Wave Productions might be a private company,

and they would not be subject to making that information public to begin with. So there's that as well. They do not have to. There is. No. And that's... But it would be nice if they did. Yes.

It is absolutely their right to keep that information private. That is their prerogative. That is their business. But in that, it's also our right to ruthlessly make fun of them. Well, I mean, that's, you know, we're not known for our hard-hitting journalism. We are known for finding silly things and poking fun at them. We are well known for making fun of stuff, correct. Now that we have given you a crash course into what is blue water, tidal waves, stormfront, stormwatch, stormagedon,

Stormy Daniels. Stormy Daniels, Space Force. We'll get to that. Dylan, do you want to read through your list of titles that you found very interesting? And then we can start looking at some of these things. So before we started recording, me and Corey, we're going through a, very quickly named a couple of their original IPs. One of which was Bartholome of the Scissaries, which I was like, what the fuck does that mean? And you named a couple of other original IPs as well, of which I think we got to, I'm going to say five, right?

We did not name a whole lot of original IPs. Yes. However, the information on the biographical side of things much more lucrative, which we think throws shade to their claim that they say 40% of their stuff was biographical. than half, yeah, they said less than half, which you could, I mean, you could be theoretically right and say 49.9. Yeah, so I want to say that since we can only really find information on less than 10 of their urgent IPs, but we did notice that they made comics about Ellen DeGeneres, Dirk Benedict, Kim Kardashian, Katie Perry, Mark Zuckerberg, the women in politics, female force, but also female force outside of women in politics. Betty White, Justin Bieber, David Beckham, Adam West, we mentioned Adam West,

Bill Hicks, the 70s, just all of the 70s, Oprah Winfrey, Joe Biden, O. Obama, Barack Obama's dog. Barack Obama got one as well, but the dog got one. Robert Walters, Michael Jackson, Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, Sarah Palin, the Beatles, JK Rowling, or jay k rowling i wouldn't want to offend her that's that's like a cursory glance at their website give me information to all of those right there's a lot more than that yeah and uh i i'm going to go into the details of some of them at some point um during the course of this show but it's just

it's that's a that's a big random list of celebrities to just be like i think i think i think to broaden people's um horizons we need to make a comic book about ted kennedy you know what I mean? Like do we? So we need that. So real quick, female force, this is the description of female force. Female force offers a broad

examination of strong and influential women who are shaping modern history and culture. Other prominent and influential female authors, business executives, entertainers, journalists, politicians, and activists are currently in development. The biographical comic series has drawn a firestorm of media attention

in the past month, including features on live with Regis and Kelly, CNN, MSNBC, and Fives. news and in People magazine Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and thousands of blogs and other media outlets. Quote, it's great they're doing these comics,

stated CNN. The comic books are in print at Amazon.com, Powell's and Barnes & Noble. Also, you can download the comic to your e-reader from iTunes, Kindle, Comicsology, Drive-Thru Comics, Google Play, Made Fire, Overdry, Ivers, Biblioboard, FlipCart, Axis 360, Epic,

Blio, and title, Comicblender.com, Indie Comic Tracker, Wheeler, Scoop, Nook, Kobo, and wherever e-books are sold. Over 60 of the Female Force Comics are available worldwide digitally. So, for all intents and purposes, this is a comic book publisher that is putting the onus of actually publishing on you to buy the book, because they are print on demand by the sound of it. But also, I think it's really important to say this, right? so earlier we established that we couldn't find their

publishing numbers possibly because they have the right to hold that information possibly because it's questionable and you're telling me that guys who have had their comic books mentioned publicized on at least five different

television channels in the United States and thousands of blogs on the internet and their sales figures are still questionable

like I'm going to say if I had that kind of publicity about my comic book I would hope somebody bought it you know I mean here's the thing do you ever

did you ever see like the the Jay Leno jaywalking whatever the funny news headlines bits that he would do some of those mentions could have just been something simple as that like oh do you do you hear about that today

oh yeah there's a comic about Nancy Pelosi, isn't that funny? And they're like, got to mention, put it on the site. The thousands is what's throw me off. I don't believe that number. It's true. How do they find that? How do you know that it's more than 1,000?

What I would probably do. It's like we Google, female blog. Look how many hits came up. Clearly, they're talking about us. I would hope it's more than a thousand. what you're Googling. So anyway, here's some examples of female force. I would share the screen with you, by the way,

because I am on the Title Wave Productions website, but it would be fruitless because the images on the site are broken. So you would only be seeing little windows that have a question mark in them because the graphic is a broken link. By the way, if you want me to stop, I can read you the description of the book, because all of these have their little elevator pitch in them. Barbara Walters, Cher, Nancy Pelosi, Anne Rice,

Silver Screen Legends, Chelsea Handler, Women of Europe, Gloria Steinem, Women in the Media, Lady Almana, who I guess is the real woman that they based Downton Abbey on. Downtown Abbey. Madonna, Hillary Clinton, the graphic novel. Anne Rand, Mother Teresa. Nancy Reagan. Women of comedy.

Paula Dean. Kylie Mingle. Oprah Winfrey. Queen Elizabeth II. Melinda Gates. Margaret Thatcher. Hillary Clinton, rode to the White House. Cheryl Sandberg.

Women in the 80s. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State. Conservative women of politics. Martha Stewart. Gabrielle Giffords. Wonder Woman. I'm curious. So the book,

is about William Marston. It is not about Wonder Woman. You can write a comic about William Marston. You cannot write a comic about Wonder Woman. Well, they already have. Well, yeah, they're doing the history of William Martin and his, you know, his kinky self that came up with Wonder Woman. Just saying, if you want to read a book about Wonder Woman,

that's literally the reason she exists. Sarah Palin, the sequel, Women in Politics, Rosie O'Donnell. we got your goat on that one, bud the sequel The sequel, yeah Rosie O'Donnell Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's coming here a couple of times Condoleza Rice Barbara Streisand Stephanie Meyer Tina Faye Sarah Palin The graphic novel Kathy Griffin

Michelle Obama Meredith Vieira Ruth Handler creator of Barbie Laura Ingraham More women in politics Ellen DeGeneris Carla Bruni

Princess Diana RuPaul Sharon Osborne Julia Child Olivia Newton-John Michelle Obama Year 1 like Batman

Year 1 but it's the former first lady Charlaine Harris Carolyn Kennedy Carrie Fisher Marianna Huffington or Ariana Huffington

Liza Minnelli Betty White J.K. Rowling Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Martha Stewart, special edition, Anne Rice Bonus Edition, Laura Ingram, another Sarah Pollan book, Activists, Angelina Joe Lee. So those are the ones they have listed on their website. Okay.

So that's female for us. That's their first one. That's what got them out on the gates of like, hey, these are bestsellers for us. The other series is fame. So these are the two big ones, because there's also infamous, which they mentioned with the Charlie Sheen thing. Infamous only put out two books under that brand. That was Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen. And I feel like perhaps it was just a situation of not all publicity is good publicity, and they nipped it in the bud.

But regardless, fame. Fame focuses on culturally relevant celebrities and other pop culture icons, issues feature such personalities as Robert Pattinson, 50 Cent, Kristen Stewart, David Beckham to Taylor Swift. Fame gives us the ability to tell more interesting stories about a wider variety of notable personalities. Conversely, it allows us to focus the scope on our other biography titles, like Female Force and Political Power,

to more socially and politically important figures. The new comic series have been featured on Rolling Stone, E. Entertainment Television, New York Times, and hundreds of other media outlets. Quote, the comic book Every Child Should Own, was quoted by BuzzFeed, it's great they're doing these comics, which is the same quote they did from CNN.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I would think, if you're using a BuzzFeed quote as one of your positive spins and very few other ones, I'm going to say that I'm going to call the legitimacy of this as the question. I do not believe that BuzzFeed is a very retribal organization.

So I think that, remember how we mentioned that like oh the guy who runs it is obviously very well connected because he worked for e-intertainment in their marketing department I'm wondering of how some of these blurbs are getting out is because he just he knows people in the business well also you said he's very well known for working in marketing you can see why a lot of these blurbs are the way they're written because they sound impressive until you spend two seconds thinking about it

and then you're like, no, this is all just like buzzwords and spin and puff pieces and it's not really I mean like you said you know, oh hundreds of publications talked about it but how many those publications are like seen this shit? Do you mean? We might be on that list next. There's going to be

a quote that Dylan is like, can you believe they're making these? Listen, if I end up picking another five with BuzzFeed I'm happy and that's publicity for us. People will listen to the show and then we can go, we see that? We picked the fight with BuzzFeed. Fuck BuzzFeed. So here's the examples of comics that are under the fame in print.

Russell Wilson. Do you know who Russell Wilson is? No. All right, famous athlete in America. Not a very good athlete in America these days, but he's old. Jennifer Lawrence, David Bowie, Brittany, which is Britney Spears, yeah. Beyonce, the black-eyed peas, big-time rush,

Alex Rodriguez Adele 50 cent Bon Jovi Dylan fellow countryman Bono Danica Patrick

Carrie Underwood Cody Simpson Jackie Robinson David Letterman Conan O'Brien David Beckham The Cast of Twilight Drake

Ian Summerholder The cast of Glee Issue 1 and issue 2 Demi Lovato Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga 2, Kristen Stewart, Katie Perry, Lady Gaga 3. Justin Bieber? Chris Stewart. Oh, go ahead.

Chris Stewart and also a separate, the people from Twilight. Yes. Okay. Justin Bieber, the Lady Gaga omnibus. Lady Gaga, the graphic novel. Miley Cyrus, One Direction, One Direction 2. Nicky Minaj, Nick Jonas. The One Direction Omnibus.

Fun fact here, this one's probably going to need to rewrite Neil Gaiman. They have to write in a whole new section of that one, huh? Yeah, a new chapter. Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, Tiger Woods, Tom Daly, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne. That's the second Sharon Osbourne comic. Tyler Perry, Tyler Lautner, Victoria Justice, Suzanne Collins, the creator of the Hunger Games. Selina Gomez.

Pop Stars, one. Korean rapper Sye Prince Robbie Williams Robert Pattinson The Glee Yearbook Ryan Reynolds Taylor Swift Bonus

Pop Stars 2 Pop Stars 3 That's just a small sample of fame Just a smidge of fame Tiny bit Yeah Just a little bit Dylan

They also make comics About comedians didn't they They did they have made some comics a bite so yes they made some comics about some comedians should I read the ones

we saw earlier by all means okay so we talked about Bill Hicks so there's a Bill Hicks comic where do they write the list oh my God where do they put that list they're rid of the list oh no

oh wait wait there it is Unprofessional of me. Wait, did I get rid of the list? Fuck. No, okay. Sorry. Cut that bad.

So, we had the Bill Hicks comic that we talked about. It also made, or intended to make comics about George Carlin, Lucille Ball, three stooges, Saturday. Saturday. I'm unfamiliar with what that means. WKRP Cincinnati was a comedy, a sitcom in the 70s. Okay. So that's some of the comedians that they were going to make comics.

I was very confused about this because I don't understand how you could talk about the world of Bill Hicks in comic form. I don't know why comics would be the most riveting way to enjoy Bill Hicks. You know what you mean? I feel like there's a preferred method if you want to enjoy Bill Hicks. There seems to be an obvious way to do it. I would argue for a lot of these comedians, for example, if you wanted to witness the Three Stooges, I would argue, and I'm an old soul here, but I would suggest the optimal way to enjoy the Three Stooges might be through a video format. And then you'll learn all you need to learn about the Three Stooges.

Now, my question is... And if you want to learn more about the Three Stooges themselves, you could watch a video biography on the Three Stooges that would... Probably has their relatives. Yeah. But even then, you could read a book about the Three Stooges. Very rarely, are you like, I need this to be illustrated and have a lot of the text cut out.

I know what they look like. Yeah, I know what they look like. I want to see what they look like as comic books. And also, I don't want... There's too much text in this. autobiography book, I want, like, just word bubbles to understand the three stooges correctly. That's what I need. The point is, it seems weird, and not just for the comedians, but for a lot of these people,

it seems odd that they would make comic books by a lot of these characters, so you'd think, I don't know if comics is the most optimal way to represent a lot of these people. Do you think that comics is the best way to really represent, you know, Mark Zuckerberg or Ronald Reagan. You know, it's, these are, they don't seem like visually appealing things to read about, which is part of the joy of comics is the visuals that go along with the text. I can't imagine a whole lot of people, for example, you could argue that a lot of the political ones are there to teach children about politics, but I can't imagine a whole lot of those young children going,

oh hell yeah another Hillary Clinton comic sign me up like you know that's not going to get them into politics I don't think it's not going to explain anything to them and it makes you question who these comics are being aimed at the same of the comedians

seven year old is not going to know who bill Hicks is so why would they want to pick up and also a seven year old shouldn't know who Bill Hicks is it's not his audience so why would you make a comic designed for Bill Hicks unless you're aiming at adults and if it's aimed at adults, like we said,

wouldn't adults have other means of looking up Bill Hicks material? Now, do you think maybe it's like they're trying to appeal to the collector's market? Like, there's the sort of people out there that would buy anything with, like, Elvis Presley's face on it because they just love Elvis. So do you think it's maybe an element of that maybe? They're like, we, you know, maybe there's some people out there who just really like Bill Hicks and we'll buy anything that Bill Hicks is on? Well, surely that that is exactly what their argument is.

the reason that they made so many comic books about celebrity people that they probably shouldn't be making comic books legally is that they're trying to leach up and already establish fan base, which means they don't have to do any of themselves. They're directly hoping that they can get some guaranteed sales based on the good name that somebody else has already spent their entire life making for themselves. Exactly. It seems like a very shitty business practices to make what is an incredibly extensive line of comics based on other people who have done all of the legwork for you already.

Doesn't it? Yeah. So, I mean, because ultimately that kind of, you know, comes back down to like, I mean, the question to every answer ever will always, the answer to every question ever will always be money. It is, why did this thing happen?

why did this get canceled? Why did this get made? Money is usually always going to be the answer. And it's just like, when you look at this, you wonder like, yeah, but like how much exactly? Like, how is this profitable? Because you do have to pay the artist. You have to pay the anchor. You have to pay the letterer. You have to pay the actual writer.

And these people are credited. And it just, again, makes you wonder, like, are you getting, are these people? people getting paid adequately or are they doing the old like this is a foot in the door kind of deal i don't know i don't want to say and i don't want to speculate because again it's the quickest way to get a cease and desist in the mail it's a very odd situation unless you said part of it feels a little bit like they are writing these books and bringing it to like a publisher with the intent of going oh this will probably sell because it's based on an established name and then

because we talked about I don't know if you said this on the show yet we find that article about that was it Diamond Publishing Yes where

they were doing comic books and Diamond Publishing were like we did mention this yeah yeah yeah but they said we're not going to continue to publish your comics

because they're not selling very well but it meant that they were making the comics and then bringing it to the publisher as opposed to the publisher as opposed to the publisher saying we want comics based on Bill Hicks.

I feel like that's probably a very similar model that they're doing. They're making comics and then bringing it to a... When you said that earlier, you said that, you know, where they make the comics where they print on demand, that suggests that there isn't already an established need for these comics. They're making these comics and then putting them out there and seeing which ones sell and which ones don't sell. But they're doing that in the safety of the...

buy on demand, print on demand thing, means that they're not really waste a whole lot of publishing. You're not wasting materials. You're not sitting on a bunch of backstock. No, it does, once again, rea's that question of, well, if you're making these things first and then publishing them without a direct audience,

how are you getting paid for these things when you don't have a guarantee that there's going to be, especially for like the artist, there's no guarantee at all that you will get any money from this whatsoever. Yeah, yeah. If this indeed is the way that this establishment seems to be running, it seems like there will be no guarantee for you at all that you will get paid for this. So what other than you get in the foot in the door,

what is the incentive for you to make these, unless you really, really, really like Bill Hicks? I just really wanted to draw a comic about Nancy Pelosi. I just think I could get that. I just think I could get that cryptkeeper-esque smile down better than anyone else in the industry. The only person I want to draw is Betty White. It's the only person I could draw. I have to draw a comic about air.

You know, like... You know, and then what we also mentioned earlier, we talked about, like, the Vincent Price presents, the William Shatter presents, the Stormy Daniels thing. Those are not biography comics, obviously. These are like... No. These are established personas

giving their name and likeness towards something for the sake of either, like, they either got paid to do it, or it's just another run. Like, for example, the Vincent Price comics are basically like the old EC, you know, EC comics, where it was just like horror comics. But it's Vincent Price presents it. And they probably have, like, panels of Vincent Price introducing the next short story a la the cryptkeeper. Which is second Cripkeeper reference of the episode, which is surprising that he's coming up so often.

But he's there to present that. I don't know what the William Shatner thing is. but I mean I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the same deal well I did some research on a couple of these comics for the benefit of this podcast and so I have a couple that I took notes for so I have notes for the Kitty Perry one obviously and the Mark Zuckerberg one

and they are just rough biographies of the comics but the Stormy Daniels one real quick though to level set Dylan would you like to educate our listeners on who's Stormy Daniels is. Well, yes, I would. Stormy Daniels was a former porn star.

I believe she's retired from the business. She's retired from the industry. At some point, what she's going into the comics. Hung up the boots. Hung up the boots. She gained fame, infamy? She could be one of those infamy comic characters. Notaryity.

Because a few years ago, I want to say roughly 2016-ish Around the time, around that time. Let's say she became infamous for having

slapped with a pretty important character around 2016 Donald Trump. She fucked the president and got hush money for it, essentially is what happened. Yes.

Well, she fucked him before he was the president, and she stopped getting hush money for it, is where it came from. Yes. And she had a lot to say about that. Yes. And so then she seized naturally making comics. It's a seamless transition, tale as old as time.

What I was going to say was, so the Mark Zuckerberg and Kitty Perry ones were autobiographical, biography, whereas the Stormy Donovan, Space Force and the Dirk Benedict comic which I had the pleasure of reading a few pages of Can you also real quick

Can you also give it to tell us real quick who's Dirk Benedict? Dirk Benedict was one of the members of the A team I believe he was face Okay He was the handsome one Ladies Man He was in a bunch of other stuff as well

But I've made Those two comics were co-written by the people who star in the comics And I think that's very interesting. Stormy Daniels co-wrote the Stormy Daniels book and Dirk Benedict co-wrote the Dirk Benedict book and

that's, to me, it's much more interesting. For a few of the comics, they were able to reach out to the celebrities involved and got them so involved that they were like, we have to write our own comic book. And it's fascinating to see what they ended up writing their comic book about.

I have information about the Stormy Daniels one. We're going to go into that. I have a little bit of information about the Dirk Benedict one as well. Okay. So it's interesting. The guys involved with writing their own comics, you're like, no, no, let me tell it my way. And their way is, yeah, I would say the word interesting

is the best way to put it. The Dirk Benedict one, if you can look it up, there was a chance to read like two or three pages of it online before you had to pay for it. So I did, and it was mystifying. It was very strange. I didn't understand. It's called Dirk Benedict in the 25th century.

every time he is what so it is a so it is a so these are obviously not autobiographical if it's a fantasy-esque setting yes much like the stormy daniels one um every time you see dirk benedict in the comic he has a cigar in his mind no he wrote this so he probably wrote that into the book i i don't know because if you remember in the A team, Derek Benedict was not the guy that had the cigar. Do you remember the A team at all? Well, yeah, I remember the A team because that was Hannibal who had the cigar.

Hannibal had the cigar. Face never had the cigar. So do you think this little bit of, like, wishful thinking on his part? He's like, oh, I wish I was a cigar guy. And now that he has control of his own destiny, he's like, I'm fucking, I can finally meet a cigar guy. I'm a cigar guy, no. I'm a cigar guy, no.

So, it was written by, Dirk Benedict, Scott Phillips, and Leon McKenzie, I believe. So that's interesting. Somebody called T. Warren Montgomery was the colorist letter, the production character, and also is credited for Other. Okay? I want you to remember that by the time we get into the Kitty Perry book. Okay.

But one of their credits is just for Other. You're like, okay, cool. So the Dark Benedict book starts off with him in space, flying a spaceship that I assume is the 25th century. And then he makes some kind of wisecrack. And then it cuts back to like present day where he's at like a Comic-Con doing a signing. And then this mad professor turns up, I'm like, I've got to find somebody that can travel with me back into the future what I call the present to fight space aliens. I need to find somebody here that has been part of a team and has. also fought space aliens and robots and stuff.

And one of the guys at the Comic Con is like, oh, Derek Benedict over there, he was part of a very famous team, and he fought aliens at a different show or whatever. I don't remember what he did where he fought aliens. Balsar Galactica. Alistar Galactica. So the

scientist in the future takes us literally and goes, oh, you fought aliens and robots? You're the perfect guy for me. And Derek Benedict makes a couple, this is in the comic. Derek Benedict makes a couple of funny wise cracks that don't make any sense, and that's where the comic cuts off. You get about three pages.

And again, I'm like, interesting that you had control of this comic and this is the way you decided to write A, the comic, and B, yourself. Have you ever seen the movie Galaxy Quest? No, but I'm aware of it.

This is the plot of Galaxy Quest. A bunch of actors that were on a televised science fiction show get approached aliens at a comic convention they think the aliens just want to film like a fan film

and they'll do it for the money because they're broke but in reality gets sent up into space and have to help them like fight a great space evil that is that is the plot of Galaxy Quest and then can I also point out that three people wrote this comic

it took three people were the people who wrote the script for Galaxy Quest they're like well we got to give him credit potentially potentially so that's the the dirk beneday comic can I really quickly

go into the kitty peri comic as well oh by all means I'm going to go back into stormy Daniels at the end but remember that I said T. Warren Montgomery was the colorist letter production staff and other on the Dirk Benedict

in the 25th century comic the Kitty Perry comic is just one of those it was one of those fame comics It's supposed to be about your life. I believe 11 people were credited. I think it was comic vine. That was the resource you have.

We could see all the people who worked on the comics, right? So I think it was 11 people were credited for this comic. So Howard Gensler was a writer. Luciano Cars did the cover art. Eduardo Bazum was a penciler. Herman Cabr was a colorist. Then T. Warren Montgomery, worked on Derek Benedict,

was a letter and production guy. He's in both comics. And then Darren G. Davis, Jackie Stickley, Jared Weisfield, Jason Schultz, James Reed, Haley Marsh, Maggie Jessup,

and Nikki Borrow's are all credited as Other. Yeah, that's interesting. isn't it so the guy who works for the company and a bunch of other people just have credits for

something now what I also really quickly want to say that the comic stars Katie Perry understandable Timothy Leary and Jimmy Hendricks okay

sure unauthorized biography yeah All right, so I thought that was worth noting. Yeah. So I mentioned Stormy Daniels Space Force. Yes. Written with Stormy Daniels, Andrew Sheaed, Darren G. Davis, Michael L. Fritzel, Pablo Martina area was the artist and the cover artist.

So, Darren G. Davis, working his ass off here. Man of many hats. Stormy Daniels. Captain Stormy Daniels commands the United Republic of Republic of Congress. Earth ship called the Helix, led by Ordon, a self-reclamed, very stable genius and ruler for infinity, the United Republic of Earth seek to exploit the galaxy's untapped riches with little regard for who or what is out there. This is all very familiar. On a mission to rescue a scientist responsible for the creation of a devastating weapon capable of destroying the Earth,

the URE's flagship is captured by the maniacal Red Queen. Only Captain Daniel, her second in command, Dax, her droids, and the mysterious alien called Munch can save us. It's Barbarella meets Star Trek meets Striporella in a comedy and action and adventure series starring Stormy Daniels. The thing I just described you, what of that sounds like comedy? Honestly, it sounds, on paper it sounds really boring. Right. a little bit too close to your life. They did make a political power issue for Stormy Daniels,

and I'm going to guess it is about... Yep, it's a comic about the hush money that she received from Donald Trump. I feel like you said, we're going to go back and talk about wrestling comics at some point because there's a whole lot of... Tons of wrestling comics. Yeah, this turned out more serious than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I think John will be surprised.

I think he was just like, I left Dylan and Corey together. They're going to make a bunch of dick jokes. Don't you think it's funny, though, when you and me are left to her own devices, we come up with a very well-informed podcast that skirts on legitimate journalism. And when me and John are left her own devices,

Hot Dogs and Katie Perry. Hot Dogs, Katie Perry. But, I mean, it led to, it did lead to this. we can't fault it. Maybe John is like our news. Like we need John around because John's an inspiration to us. Like the Greek poets.

Yeah. He he's what gets us out of bed in the morning. It gets you back into bed at night. Absolutely. Hard to get out of bed without guy. All right. So we're going to do something a little

unusual because normally this is where we would cut to John to talk about, like, oh, what movies have you seen, John? But instead, we're going to have a bit of a cliffhanger in a weird way, kind of. So we had this idea last week when we were talking about all of those bizarre Aquaman villains. And like I said, Aquaman has a lot of villains. Some of them are really good, compelling villains. And a lot of them, though, especially in the early days, were garbage. And that's what we were looking at.

We're all the garbage Aquaman villains. So they got us thinking about what other garbage villains are there And then they got us thinking of like What if we fixed a garbage villain And then that got us thinking of What if we don't have a choice as to what garbage villain we have to fix And wouldn't you know what we did one of our favorite things in the world to do And that's we made a wheel

And the wheel Yep So I went to John and Dylan and I say Hey give me five terrible villains We're going to put it on the wheel we're going to spin the wheel six times, no, nine times so that all of us get

three villains, and our next episode that we record, we are going to present how we will have improved this villain. If we have time, we'll do all three each. If we don't have time, we'll just do two. But that is the assignment.

So John does not get to be here to see who he gets to pull. We'll inform him later once he's done with whatever nefarious things that John does when he's left to his own devices. Yeah. But... We know what he does.

We know what he does. So I'm going to go ahead and cut to the wheel here in just a moment. Okay. All right, let me know when you can see the wheel. Dylan? Okay. I'm in mode. Can you see the wheel?

Yes, they can see the wheel. Okay. So, as you can tell, we have 16 names here. We originally had 15, but then someone thought of a really good one, so we threw it on there anyway, and fuck it. So, our choices are jester, Dr. Bong, Black Box, Zebra Man, Water Wizard, The Swarm, the Squid, the Spook, the Hippo, the Grizzly. Now, I've noticed something. If your name starts with the and you're a villain, chances are you're not, there's a real strong chance you might not be a good villain. Stilt Man.

It's also a good chance that you're going to be an animal. Yes. stilt man pigeon person paper doll metal head leap frog and the king of cats

so how many times would you like us to shuffle the wheel Dylan five one two

three four five now do we want to do this alphabetically to determine you know it would go you, me, and then John, and these would be our first entries,

or do you want to do it in some other fashion? I was going to say alphabetically. I would imagine if you do it alphabetically that you would go first. Oh, that's right. American education system. You don't spell your name with a silent A at the beginning?

Your name's not Adelaan? No. Okay. Wow. It could be. Could be. All right, so this will be my very first villain. Here we go.

I'm going to write them all down so we keep track of them. All right, and my first assignment is... Oh, how do you fix perfection? I've got the Nazi scientist made up of bees, the swarm. John will be devastated. So jealous. Devastated. What's he going to do?

I don't know. All right, next up, though, will be your first villain, Dylan. And you have drawn. Oh, you're going to get one of yours. Dylan, you get the water wizard. I really wanted the King of the Cats. All right, so next up is John, and then we'll move on to our second round. If he gets King of the Cats, can I treat it?

I'll let you guys negotiate that. John is going to get Dr. Bong. Excellent choice. Excellent. All right, so those are our first order of business. the swarm, you have water wizard, John has Dr. Bong. This will be my second villain that I have to improve upon. And I am getting the hippo. All right, so I've got the hippo. Dylan, this is your second pick. Yes, please. And you're going to get... Oh, it's going to be close. Do you get your

You get another one of your picks, you get the jester. So close. All right. Unfair. John will get... I should get the King of the Cats because I can't keep all of my own picks. That's not fair. John gets one of his picks is Stilt Man.

Yeah. All right, so that's our second round. We've got one more round to go, and so far, none of the ones that I put on the board have been picked. Mine have been very popular. You have, yeah, yeah. Alright, so this will be my last one. Odds are I should get one of mine based off of just math, but we'll see. Metalhead, okay, so I do get metalhead.

All right, Dylan, this is your second one, or your third one. If this is King of the Cats, I'm switching to my register. Nope. You get the Grizzly. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I hope John gets a really bad one. He's got Dr. Bong and Stilt. He gets Dr. Bong and Stiltman.

I mean, he's starting off with a lot of personality. All right, this will be John's final pick. I think all of yours have been picked so far, Dylan. Very popular. Oh, yes. Thank you. Nobody got King of the Cats. John got Zebra Man.

Okay. So, oh boy. Man, I will tell you, I'm a little disappointed. Some of the ones that were left on the border were ones I wanted. I really wanted squid. I really wanted King of the Cats. I really wanted Paper Doll. I felt like those were three I could have had some real fun with.

Well, hang on. Let's write those signs. Okay? Because that was three. Squid, Paper Doll? Paper Doll. And King of the Cats. Let's see them for some other time. Okay. Also, Pitchin. I'm sure we could all do something with them.

Yeah, I mean, we got Pigeon Person, Black Box, and the Spook, and leap frog as well. Those are our other friends that are left on the board. I reckon the squid, paper doll, king of the cats, and pigeon person. We can see that for later. Those three or four could be used for something. They're pretty quality. They're pretty quality.

Yeah. That was fun. All right. So Dylan, you want to give a rundown of who we have for our homework? So you have to do Swarm, the Hippo, and Metalhead. Okay. I have to do Water Wizard, Jester, and the Green. brisly.

To honestly, Dr. Bong, Stiltman, and Zebra Man, or Zebra Man, as normal people say. Swarm, Hippo. Metalhead. Metalhead. Writing mine down because, to break the K-Fave of this, we do not have a full week to come up with these ideas. We have a couple of days before we record next. But, yeah, Dylan, real quick, do you want to tell everybody what you're up to? one night a week from 9 to 11

I watch movies I'm up to 7,486 movies this year I don't know how you find the time I mean neither and I only do it one day a week as well how about that but what I'm not doing that I have my own radio show

that I do on line you can listen to it online www.bounce digital radio dot code of UK there'll be a link in the description in YouTube I don't know what's Spotify you can listen It's on Spotify.

It's on Spotify. So I do show UK time from 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock on Monday nights. It's a lot of rock music. I usually play. Here's some stuff I played recently. Queens of Stone Age, Pearl Jam, Primus, Xie's, Assistant for Down.

That's some of the stuff I played recently. There's loads of other stuff coming up as well. Blur. Elyneafarm. Moontooth, Megadeth, Everclear. Mars Valda. So, Nip of Pilots. Jeff Buckley, Kate Bush.

There you go. If you like any of those artists, or if you just want to hear me talk more about hot dogs, you should tune into the show. If you check out the Bounce Digital Radio website, it should tell you when I'm coming on. If you live in part of the world where you don't know what 9 to 11 UK time is,

just go to the website and check it out of it. Yeah, go to Google, it'll tell you. Yeah, you'll figure it out of. Yeah. Aside from Dylan, I have another show called Large Old Cup. It's once a week, about 29-ish minutes. We just talk about whatever is going on. And we have a Song of the Week recommendation. I actually put together a Song of the Week playlist that I've been collecting all of those various songs of the week for Spotify.

And I've been listening to it a lot lately, and I'm surprised at how well it flows together, to be frank. What's your song of the week this time? Well, I can't tell you that because we tape... Large Old Cup is the second it's done recording, I posted immediately. without editing it. Whereas this, I think this episode will air in the beginning of July.

So it's got a hard to, I can't tell you what it'll be in the beginning of July. I can tell you... Just tell me one, the recent one. The most recent one was a song called

My Head is Fucked Again by a Scottish punk band called The Murder Burgers. Good. But yeah. I have the damned on there, I think like twice. I've got the cramps.

I've got pup. It's nice and varied. Good. But aside from that, I think we can go ahead and put a pen into this. Maybe we'll revisit the world of biography comics again someday.

Remember in December when we reread Clause and then a book review on Clause? Like the first trade of it? Maybe we do Starry Daniels Space Force. Yeah, I think we should. It's a Christmas gift that keeps on given.

yeah we should totally read it all right well until then we'll see you guys later tune in next week as we try to fix a bunch of bad villains it's gonna be really good or bad you have to find out all right goodbye everybody bye

and then added in a clip of John saying goodbye from like an old episode is that John that's him