Is there, do you think there's benefits on being consistent with your, with your talent? I'm not saying you specifically, but like just in general, there's consistency and just persisting in like what you know is true instead of, just adapting to what is currently a quote-unquote a thing nowadays?

I feel like that's certainly a philosophy I hold to, but I can certainly understand where everybody taking the same approach isn't going to be rewarded the same.

So it's been true for others making that adaptation save them for a period of time where they were getting new work.

Actually, I can think of an example for you if you might like this, and you can cut it out if it runs too long.

Of course.

But like, say, Mike Diodato...

Back way, way, way at the start of when I first got in the business, we were both coming in as painters in the late eighties.

i think that's only two pages and you already got the origin story nowadays people would need to do like what one two three issues just to tell an origin story you did it in two pages this is literally how superman's origin was in 1938 one page that's it that's all you need to know planet blow up he go fly fly that's it yeah I mean, I want to ask, are part of that just because you already know the story? This is just a recap? Well, it's itself a reaction

So, um, you know, yes, a little, a little, uh, meta kind of a Easter egg there in the, in the midst of this story.

It's a very meta Easter egg, and it was something that was driving me all the way through wanting to tell this story.

Maybe not the overriding drive for the whole thing, but it was something I wanted to get in there as best I could.

Because apparently, as I was told some years ago when I first got in this business 30 years ago, It's something that apparently happened to Jack Kirby, where he got a phone call from a young upstart editor in the mid-70s who didn't just privately do this, but apparently had witnesses, including maybe an assistant editor or some other people in the room who were overhearing him basically giving Jack this horrendous critique, basically knocking the poor guy down, when I wonder what Jack was at the time.

If he was around my age or a little older, but, you know, just kind of really...

there was not a lot of support editorially for what Jack was bringing back to Marvel when he returned.

This is well talked about.

Do we want to reveal the story that this kind of is a continuation of, that original Lee Kirby story? Yeah, there's no

Uncle Sam, of course

...

Uncle Sam.

Yeah.

So I mean, Uncle Sam is one of my, uh...

To me, that's sort of a set of like, if I could have people pay attention to any of the things I worked on, they clearly have noted when I worked on Marvels and when I worked on Kingdom Come.

And then the next thing I did was Uncle Sam.

Right

Jesus, off the bat, I'm screwing up.

Oh, no, no, it's okay.

I mean, technically, I've done a book that was called Revelation, which was the first collection of Kingdom Come, had this whole sort of Bible-like packaging thing.

It was done by Graffiti Designs, and there was an additional book, which was all the extras, the character designs and behind-the-scenes stuff, that was itself called Revelation, because if you're coming from that background, you know it's the book of Revelation.

So, although, wait a minute, we did call ours Revelations because that we knew the difference.

But anyway, so point is, is that I have a book that you can get confused with called Revelations.

So that's fair, fair game.

in a sense?

So we were just talking a little bit off air about it, but, uh, for, for those that haven't met you, how did you get into hockey, and how did you hear about the AIHL?

So in terms of hockey, that's a bit of a funny story really.

So as part of the Slapshot Syndicate, one of my co-hosts, Brad, um, I've been friends with him since we were early school years.

Um, he a- and a couple of friends had told me about ice hockey in Hull.

I'd never heard of ice hockey before.

I was...

I can't believe it now, but yeah, I'd never, I never watched ice hockey.

Right

But yeah, tell, you know, just your thoughts on Batman.

Batman.Something that, since you're reflecting upon the Batman: Black and White story, what, one thing that comes up that I haven't necessarily talked about in any public, uh, forum is it was our reaction to the kind of characterization of the Joker as who he really was, who he could have likely have been, and Paul putting out his version, which he had originally intended for an episode of the Batman animated series.

And when he explained the story to me, I thought, "Oh my God, we should do that," and I had just been given the opportunity to do a story for Batman: Black and White.

So we put out our kind of rebuke of the idea of him actually being a crazy guy who had lost his mind, but he was always, in fact, this criminal who had a certain leaning that was already, he was a bad egg.

And, uh, and that the whole nuts angle was just something that kind of kept him from going to the electric chair.

[laughs] So, uh, in, in our own way, that was a rejection of the version that was classically accepted about who the Joker was, but also the Alan Moore Killing Joke version where he made him this hapless, uh, you know, failed comedian who then, you know, has one really bad day and all that stuff, as I assume most people listening to this probably, uh, you know, they know their Killing Joke.

Um, and, and the thing is, I love that seri- or I love that one shot in terms of the art of it and the striking nature of how bold and, and violent the story was, but I ultimately hated what it did to continuity and I hated the, um, the sort of the general idea of that character being nuts.

And I, and I wish that version was still around as a, as another character.