Okay, People
Just going to put this out there again. Colorado! I will be in your state at The Boulder Theater on July 24th and at The Paramount Theatre in Denver on July 25th. I haven’t been to Denver in a bit and I’m not sure I’ve been to Boulder in recent years. Or ever, actually. I’m bringing Dean Delray. These will be killer shows. Come out if you can.
Flying back from Portland as I write this. We had great shows up there. The two venues, The Aladdin Theater and Revolution Hall, are really unique and cozy theaters for their size. The crowds were sweet. Thanks for coming out. I also got the opportunity to work with some local artists. The wizard that is Aaron Draplin designed the posters and Brian Jones was hocking the famous hand thrown WTF mugs. We sold out of everything. It was great. You might be able to pick the poster up at Draplin.com and the mugs at brianrjones.com.
Also, the signed hardback editions of my book ‘Attempting Normal’ are flying off the shelf. There are some left at wtfpod.com/merch. Help move these. I have no more room. Also, check out all the tour posters from The Maronation Tour.
Enough business. I have some really creative people on the show this week. Today I talk to Robert Kirkman who created The Walking Dead with Tony Moore. As most of you know it was originally a comic book. I had long given up reading comics by the time they came out. I was never really a ‘comic book’ guy. I dabbled. I didn’t get strung out. I came to it late. I’m not really susceptible to the powers of superheroes, so comics weren’t part of my youth. I did like dirty comics and would read them whenever I could get my hands on them. The first time I ever saw what sex looked like was in a Zap comic. Always loved R. Crumb as far back as I can remember. I didn’t really venture much into mainstream comics until the late eighties. I only went a few flights down the rabbit hole with a few titles.
Hellblazer was the gateway, to a depth I don’t really like admitting. John Constantine, the main character, was sort of an inter-mystical plane magician and troubleshooter. He moved through the reality we perceive and the dimensions of good and evil that we can't perceive. He was tapped in to the big mysteries. The reason I took to him was because at that time I could relate. I was still shaking some cocaine psychosis from my stint in Hollywood and I was pretty sure I was tapped in to voices and movements of the unseen forces. So, I saw ‘Hellblazer’ as a kind of tutorial. I was out there.
From there I got to ‘Swamp Thing’ and ‘Sandman.’ Allan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Genius stuff. I read a fair amount of graphic novels and expanded out to other titles. Alt-presses. Off the grid stuff. Got hip to Clowes, Burns and Bagge but eventually petered out. I’m not sure why. I think it may have been a good thing at the time.
Anyway, you'll hear me and Kirkman talk about comics and lots more today.
Vince Gilligan created one of the greatest television series ever, ‘Breaking Bad.’ He talks about that, working in film and his new show, ‘Better Call Saul.’ Great guy. Loved talking to him. You can hear that on Thursday.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron
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