Hello, people of Earth and welcome to the world's
greatest book club. I am Paul Scheer.
This is episode four, and let me tell
you, if this the first time you're watching our show,
well, welcome, welcome.
We are in a weird time right now,
and we're looking for things to distract us,
to keep us interested.
And what we're trying to do here is create a book club,
a book club where you can go back into the rich history
of Marvel, and read books that you might have forgotten about,
books that you've never read, or maybe just
revisit some classics.
But first, I wanted to check in with our man
on the street to see what books people are reading.
So take it away, Paul.
Hey, Paul.
Well, yeah, I was going to ask people what they're--
what Marvel books they're reading,
but there's no one on the street.
#StayHome is working.
Yeah, I'm not even sure I should be out here.
I don't think this is essential work.
Not good for the bit, but I appreciate it.
I am, as always, joined by Mr. Steve Wacker.
How are you, Steve?
Good.
Over the course of this show, we have talked
about so many great books.
Blow my mind.
Who is a Marvel character that I don't know about?
I guess, if I had to put my finger on the most obscure
and probably most surprising, I'd
have to go right to the pride and joy of Marvel publishing,
Billy Ray Cyrus number one.
Whoa, wait.
Number-- Billy Ray Cyrus is a Marvel character?
Billy Ray Cyrus is a Marvel comic published--
OK.
This is probably--
probably early '90s.
We had a sub imprint called Marvel Music.
This is from going back almost 30 years now.
This is the "Achy Breaky Heart" time.
Wow.
Does he have any superpowers?
He's a knight.
PAUL SCHEER: A knight?
STEVE WACKER: Yeah, I haven't read it in a while.
I think there's some time travel aspects to the story.
Oh, no.
That's--
Here's a shot of him singing live in concert.
PAUL SCHEER: If you can't make the concert,
you can at least make the comic rendering of the concert.
For those of us trapped in places that Billy wasn't
coming around to, this was our one chance
to experience Billy live.
PAUL SCHEER: Wow.
Call up your local comic book shop, and be a real big weirdo,
and ask for the Billy Ray Cyrus comic like you got any--
you got any back issues of the Billy Ray Cyrus book?
If we could make this a nationwide trend,
everyone call a comic shop and ask for this.
PAUL SCHEER: I want to see-- you know,
I want to see him join up.
Like, he could be--
I don't know-- a Great Lakes Avenger, maybe.
Yeah, I mean, I suspect Billy Ray
would probably be more of Oklahoma
Avenger, a Tulsa Avenger.
I have no idea where Billy Ray Cyrus is from.
PAUL SCHEER: All right, so, Steve, our guest today
is someone who is just a hilarious person,
an amazing writer, a director.
Been behind things like MTV's Clone High,
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,
The LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street, and, of course, Spider-Man--
Into the Spider-Verse.
Please welcome Phil Lord.
Phil, how have you been doing?
You know, for a writer, you know,
I was sort of built for this.
So--
Yeah.
You know, like it's springtime for introverts.
And my poor girlfriend, she's used to,
like, being friends with people, and going into the world,
and talking to her friends and stuff.
But this is like I've been training
for this my whole life.
So I want to know a little bit about your, like,
comic origin story.
Like, how did you get involved in comics?
Like, what brought you in?
My dad ran a dance company, and he decided
he wanted to do a dance that he choreographed
with the Mad magazine cartoonist Don Martin.
Whoa.
PHIL LORD: And they had, like, part of the dancer where
like these two-- this couple was getting divorced,
and they were fighting over custody,
and then they ripped the baby in half.
And, like, stage blood, like, went all over the--
and I'm like seven.
PAUL SCHEER: Right.
Oh my god.
PHIL LORD: And so-- and then Don Martin came to my house
and did, like, a drawing on a napkin for me, and I-- like,
my head exploded.
What?
That is the dream.
It's still in my house-- my parent's house.
Wow.
PHIL LORD: So I was, like, reading "Captain Klutz,"
and then also I had all of the first-- the-- like, the Ditko
and Lee run of Doctor Strange.
This Ditko Doctor Strange is actually
really interesting to me.
So it really opens up Doctor Strange
into this beautiful world.
Like, the art in there becomes so engaging.
I mean, I think, like, probably the easiest
used word is it becomes, like, trippy and stuff.
Like, you're just seeing fangs out in space.
I mean, it seems like, if you're that young, was that,
like-- was that kind of blowing your mind, then, to see that?
Yeah, it's psychedelia for children, right?
PHIL LORD: Yeah.
And-- and Chris and I-- we more or less
make psychedelia for children.
PAUL SCHEER: [LAUGHS]
PHIL LORD: So a lot of that's very formative for me.
The way I always felt about all the artwork
is that it represented the universe of a person's heart,
right?
I think that's why it appealed to me.
I think appeals to a lot of people--
is, like, we all kind of feel like there's
a universe in your head that nobody can see.
Well, Steve, talk to me a little bit about how
that came to be, because I know that Ditko went to Stan Lee,
right?
To kind of pitch out Doctor Strange.
That's the way I've always heard the story-- that he--
that this was an idea Steve had.
It played into a lot of the philosophical themes
that Steve chased in his works.
I think trippy is the right word.
Those Ditko Doctor Strange comics
are just incredible to read.
You fall right into them.
They feel three dimensional.
It's amazing, though, his grasp on culture, because,
like, in 1965, like Jefferson Airplane did
a concert for Doctor Strange.
Like this-- like, you know, like,
to see, like, a band being like, yeah, like, this is our thing--
What's great about that is that really brings,
Paul, your two interests into one live arena.
Finally.
STEVE WACKER: You know, when Marvel in the '60s
started breaking out in college campuses,
I think you can look at Silver Surfer and Doctor Strange
as two of the characters that really
sort of broke into that angsty 18, 19-year-old world.
You can read an issue of that early Doctor Strange
and get the munchies out of it.
Yeah.
I just think that Doctor Strange as a character
is kind of interesting, too, because you can make the point
that Doctor Strange has this whole character
arc in his origin story.
He's egotistical.
He becomes a hero, and then he's just sort of like, no,
I got it.
I'm switched.
Let's go.
PHIL LORD: As you say, like, he goes through his journey
pretty quickly, and then he has, like, this stoic veneer.
But underneath it, I feel like there's
this roiling personality that some of my favorite stories
are when just trying to wrestle with the more
corporeal things of his life.
Like, can he find love?
And how that's a conflict with being that,
like, spiritual zen guy.
We were talking before about how, you know,
the movies and shows that you work on have this kind
of interesting mix of being, like, psychedelia for children,
but, I mean, everything you guys do has a really--
an interesting slant to it.
And I think one of the characters
that people really jumped on from Spider-Verse
was Spider-Ham.
And you actually co-authored your first comic book, so tell
me a little bit about that.
PHIL LORD: Yeah, so we got to know Jason Latour, who's
one of the guys who created Spider-Gwen,
and-- and one night he texts me.
He's like, I'm doing a thing.
I need, like, six extra pages in this Spider-Ham special
that I'm gonna do, and do you guys want to help me write it?
We just started texting back and forth,
like, philosophical things of, like, how Ham must feel.
And Jason's thing was like, people don't know how to handle
a comic character who's serious, but also
silly at the same time.
PAUL SCHEER: Yeah, I mean, like, I've
written a handful of comics.
There is--
We know.
We know, Paul.
PAUL SCHEER: Buy 'em!
So there is just this excitement in doing it,
and I always kind of describe it as
like you're writing, directing, and acting
all at the same time.
I mean, I guess you're familiar with that just in the animation
space, but it's unlike any other process
I've ever done in writing.
You know, in animation, you just revise things so often,
and then you write something, and you think it's--
works.
And then you see it with images, and you're--
and you hate everything you wrote.
You know, like, these drawings are so much better,
but then you're kind of going like,
man, there's just too many words.
STEVE WACKER: That's-- yeah.
How do we get the damn words off the page?
You'll pull out words.
You see that the images do so much work for you.
And I know, Steve, you were working in that space,
obviously, editing so many books.
Like, was that something that you
always were coming up against?
Like, kind of like trimming it down,
smoothing out the dialogue?
You know, the classic Marvel method is what Stan created
of where he would just write the outline of the story,
and then let the artist go to town.
But it is the ultimate, I think, way to write the comics.
You let the story tell the-- tell the art
and add words as you need them.
And in that sense, it's similar to animation.
The editor is always mad at us at Marvel,
because we'd always be, like, tweaking little things
the whole way through.
But now that I know, Steve, that it's industry standard,
I'm going to fight my editor.
Thank-- thank you for that.
Thank you for letting me know.
Phil, it's been so great chatting with you.
We talked a little bit about your comic book experience
as a kid.
Now, there is a place in Miami kind of near where you lived.
It's called Korka Comics.
So that's what a K.
And Korka Comics is--
right now, while the doors are closed,
doing a lot of mail order.
So you can request these things, but I think it's so important,
as we say in every episode, to support
these local small businesses, because they were there.
They were there for all of us, and they
gave us a place to hang out.
And we want to be able to have that kind of continue on.
You know, my friends and I in elementary school--
it was a different time.
So they would let us go on our BMX bikes wherever,
and we basically spent every Saturday
going down to the comics shop and, you know,
reading a bunch of stuff.
And we became friends with the-- this guy,
Steve, who was the owner.
And we spent enough time down there that my dad went down
to talk to Steve, and, like, just sort of,
like, poke around, and make sure it was all Jake.
Yeah, they didn't-- they didn't want you
to get into, like, a different strokes
bicycle repairman situation.
STEVE WACKER: I've only seen the beginning.
What happens?
[LAUGHS]
Phil, thank you for being here.
Thanks for talking comments with us.
We really appreciate it, and remember,
support your local small comic book shops.
They need you more than ever.
This is the link you can go to to find them in your area.
And thank you, Phil.
PHIL LORD: This was a joy. PAUL SCHEER: Bye bye.
Thanks, guys.
Bye.