Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Rob: Welcome to Dear Watchers, a comic Book Omniverse podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.
Guido: We are traveling through the stories and the worlds that inspire and make up all of the universes we love. And you're watchers on this journey are.
Rob: Me, Guido, and me, Rob, and an extra very special guest member of the Council of Watchers, writer editor, comic book historian, publishing expert, cults connoisseur, and fans of all things tattooing, Randall Lotowitz.
Rob: Hi, Randall.
Randall Lotowycz: Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me on.
Guido: Hi.
Rob: Thank you for being here. And before we dive into a deeper conversation, Guito is going to tell our listeners a little bit more about you.
Guido: All right, so in no particular order, but just a list of the incredible stuff that you do, Randall, that Rob and I both love. The superhero playbook Lessons in Life from your favorite Superheroes from a few years back, which I have a lot of questions about, particularly in my other job as a health teacher. I love this book, but most recently, you did the DC Book of Lists, a multiverse of legacies histories and hierarchies with running press. But you've done the DC Comics Superheroes and Villains fandex. You did the back latter pages for Convergence, which are very cool DC Comics backups to Michael Recycle from IDW. You republished a series of early 80s books on cult films in ebook format that we want to know more about. You wrote a book of mini darts games calendars that you have written or edited, doing your job as marketing and sales director for a publisher. You relaunched a blog called Ink and Code with lots of histories of movies and their universes. And there's uh a Terminator, time travel explainer, and a breakdown of the Halloween universe. And then you love tattoos, and it seems like you love cats. And so there's a lot for us to dig into, but we're just so excited that you're here.
Randall Lotowycz: Oh, wow. Yeah, you just covered it all.
Rob: This must be like when someone dies and they say their life flashes before your eyes just was crap.
Randall Lotowycz: Yeah.
Rob: Well, we're super excited to dive deeper into all those amazing things that Guitar mentioned, especially comic book stuff. So today we are going to break down this conversation into three sections. Origins of the Story, exploring Multiversity and pondering possibilities. And while we normally explore an alternate universe with these, we are thrilled to speak with expert taxonomist of world and comic book data. Randall Lotowitz through each of these sections. So with that Dear Watchers, welcome to episode 48. And let's take a deep dive through the Omniverse with author Landl. Randall Lotowitz. Awesome. And I called you Landel.
Randall Lotowycz: First letter.
Rob: Of your one name. Okay, well, we got that.
Randall Lotowycz: Yeah, it works exactly.
Rob: So for the origins of the story, we want your origin, Randall. So we have a few questions to kick us off.
Guido: So how did you tell us about your comic book origin story. So where did your personal um fandom begin? And then tell us a bit about how you got into the work of building reference guides and taxonomies and all of that.
Randall Lotowycz: Okay, the comic origin is pretty straightforward. Someone in fifth uh grade and someone told me that in the comics, Superman died, and I was never really a huge comic book fan. I maybe owned two or three at that point. And I mean, Superman for me was Christopher Reeve. And I was just like, oh, wow, uh that's interesting. I didn't think that they did things like that. I went out and bought that trade paperback of uh the Deaths, as well as they make these collectors editions and sealed in a black bag. I need this, too. And all of a sudden I just became a comic book person. And there was an ad in the one saying that Batman is getting his back broken and this is nuts again, trying not to use words like nuts anymore, but uh it's like all of a sudden I had this concept of these characters who never change. And it touched me at this age where all these interesting things are happening, these characters, and I just had to read about them all. So uh then it was Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, and also I was hooked. I was a DC fan from beginning. I read Marvel, too, but definitely it was hooked with DC.
Rob: What was it about DC as opposed to Marvel that hooked you?
Randall Lotowycz: Mostly uh just the characters, because I got there first, maybe a year or two later. Then stuff was happening with Xmen, and X Men was my gateway to Marvel, but uh Wolverine is getting his out of mantium ripped out, and all of a sudden um I was just excited by these new forms of stories.
Guido: And so then, did your fandom ever cease? Did you ever take a break or has it just continued since then?
Randall Lotowycz: It's been a 30 year thing ever since both dropped off. There's certainly a period where when I stopped going every Wednesday to the shop and start switching more to waiting uh for the trades, there's uh a period where I went heavy into comics ology, but then I kind of missed the tactile thing and went back to collecting the print editions. So, yeah, um no, it never really dropped.
Rob: Mhm yeah. I feel like anyone who references and catalogs things for a living like you do through your books, must love the tactile, physical copy element of it, rather than the dispersed in the cloud version.
Randall Lotowycz: It's exactly what I want, but also it feels like a burden at times. Right now, most of it is in storage. And I tell you, I do have dreams where I'm traveling or moving. And for some reason, I brought my entire comet collection to some European country, and I don't know why, but now the stress of the dream is getting it back to the United States. These are the things that go on in my head.
Rob: Oh, yeah, totally.
Guido: Did you see Multiverse of Madness, by any chance?
Randall Lotowycz: Oh, yeah.
Guido: So that dream must be a reality somewhere else, right? There's another Randall who did move to Europe and is now struggling with the comic collection to get back.
Randall Lotowycz: Yes, that's correct. I feel bad for him.
Rob: Yeah. It was just like, I think last week, Guitar's um 18,000 or 20,000 comic book issue collection, 22,000 issue comic book collection is in our attic. And sure enough, we were not home and our smoke alarm went off in our attic and we had to send our neighbor next door neighbor over because Guido's life work would have been it was just a false alarm, luckily. But that terror that you're kind of describing was happening in very real time.
Randall Lotowycz: Yeah, funny mention. There was one time uh a few years ago, um my neighbor texted me that my front door was open. I'm like, oh, maybe I got robbed. And I'm going through all these emotions, and first I'm like, that would be terrible. Like all the stuff I've had. And then the next emotion, I was like, well, I don't have to worry about that stuff anymore. Excellent. No one's going to be carting out hundreds and hundreds of comic books. They'll be there by the time I get home.
Guido: So then professionally, what was your entry into you worked in publishing, I think first, and then how did comics become a part of that work?
Randall Lotowycz: Just by chance, really. It uh all started with the DC Comics uh Fandex I did about ten or twelve years ago, and I was working in editorial and publishing, and Fandex was an established format that worked in publishing had been doing uh for years. It was mostly, like, more educational. So it'd be Fandex trees and be every type of tree with these Diecut shapes of the trees or the president's heads. And the uh editor was really keen on doing one for Star Wars because she was in love with Star Wars. And so she went and made that happen, and it was a big success. So she was trying to do another one with and uh she grew up as a Marvel person, so she wants to do a Marvel one, and it never quite worked out. And I kept saying, Raquel, let's do a DC one. And if we do it, I want to write it. Fortunately, DC had seen the Star Wars one, and they're like, oh, yeah, we'd love to do this with you. And so it just sort of happened. And then all of a sudden I found myself writing it, and after that just really made a lot of friends and kind of kept it up. I'm not a person who's ever made writing my full time job, and I've kind of just taken passion projects as they've come up and as they've interested me. And so I've been kind of really privileged in that. But mostly when you do things on time and you're polite uh want to work with you again. So that's how these projects keep coming up a few years.
Guido: That's very cool.
Rob: Yeah. When I was growing up, I was a comic book reader, but the thing I really loved, which is so nerdy of me, was I love DC. Who's who's. I love the Guide to the uh Marvel Universe and also the Star Wars reference books as well, where they have the blueprints of vehicles. Your work really seems like it is the current version of a lot of that. Were you reading those kind of books too, growing up?
Randall Lotowycz: Yeah. Who's who, without a doubt. And uh I had a few. I wasn't huge into them, but whenever there was this DC visual libraries or I can't remember some of the other ones, but Who's Who was kind of like a dream. It was just amazing to be able to flip through or the Marvel Universe one. I had a few of those, yeah.
Rob: What I was saying before we jumped on the microphones, too, uh that I think the thing for me with those kind of books was it also felt like it was Canon. And I think some of the things that we get lost in the internet ages, everyone can contribute, and you're often reading incorrect things. So what I love about your work and those earlier books is, okay, this is something that is coming from a singular voice, someone who has done the research and it's not someone who's contributing anonymously to a website. And then that somehow becomes the truth, even though it's actually not real.
Randall Lotowycz: I agree with you. But also, this book is licensed from DC. They blessed it, they copy edit it. But at the end of the day, sometimes I'm making my own HeadCAN and work. I definitely Tweet Mongol to uh fit my own narrative because it just wasn't there in the comics where I wanted the original Superman Exile uh storyline to be the first time Superman met him, but also had to keep for the man who has everything. So I changed the order of it just because it didn't exist at the time. It's fine. This is my perspective. I mean, I try to stick to what's been shown on the page, but if I can have creative liberties, I'll take it. Someone on a Legion of superheroes um Facebook forum commented on something in the DC book A list, and they're like, I don't think that's actually been put towards this way before. I guess it's Canada now. I'm like, yeah, I guess it's Canada.
Guido: So you're a stealth world builder. I love it. And so, going back to the fandex, uh how does that work? How did research work where you granted access to anything in the DC archives? Or were you sort of on your own? Did you talk to people? How did that work?
Randall Lotowycz: Mostly that one was done entirely from my own collection and just what's been in my head. I visited the DC library when it was in New York multiple times. I became good friends with the person who became the librarian there while they were in New York. And it was helpful, but really just kind of just winged it, which was great. I'm going to check my sources, but I had everything I needed for that one. The first time I really had some help. And I don't know how much DC wants me talking about this part, but the person who provided this is no longer there, so it's fine. When I was doing the convergence backups where they came to me and said, every one of these books is set in a different era. We want to encapsulate what was going on in that era. And they had uh a hard drive of just reference of every comic book ever published. And they loaned me the hard drive for my research. That was great to have. And I missed that mhm same thing with DC book A list for the most part. First, I just kind of came up with a bunch of lists, wondering if it's going to work and then dived into it and obviously needed to go with the collection as much as I could. I bought other reference guides for that. So that was the first time I was leaning on other people's published work and then Internet research so that I could then turn back and verify. Uh very cool.
Guido: And before we get deeper into the list that you made, I do want to take a detour to the superhero playbook. As I said, I think this book is extraordinary. I really do. I'm a health teacher, and I teach in middle school, and I love this book. I want to use it in every class every day. So I want to know how this book came about. And then also, I'm curious how you picked the traits. So for listeners who aren't familiar, it's an extraordinary book that goes through the origin of different characters across Marvel and DC, but identifies a character trait from the character that is something to build on as a young person growing up or really as an adult. We can all do. And I love you have Ms. Marvel's trait as flexibility, sort of building from her ambiguing and her stretching, being open to new experiences or Cyborg as an opportunity to talk about body image. So how did this project come about and how did you do all that work?
Randall Lotowycz: Yes, at the end of the day, that's the book I'm most proud of. I've loved everything I've been able to do with DC, but that superhero playbook is definitely what I've been most proud of. Again, it came about because at this point in my professional career, I was a sales director in publishing. I bounced around a bit. And running press or not, that wasn't running Press. That was Duo Press. They were a distribution client that my company rehandled. And I got along well with the publisher and he kind of saw all the random things I was doing. And there was one time we were at a lunch, and he said, you should write a book for Duo Press. I'm like, okay, let's write a book. And he's like, I'll come with some ideas. You come with some ideas, and we'll talk. I came up with three different pitches. He came up with three. And really the one we settled on was I want to do the superhero playbook. And my intention was twofold. One. I was just recently getting into being a father and a stepfather at that. Peter was, I want to uh say five or six at the time. And so I want to introduce them to the superheroes I love. Also, I wanted to kind of show him what they could be and what it could be more than just their costumes and their powers and then the other end of it. And this is the perfect place to talk about it because I feel I couldn't talk about it in parenting groups, but uh because it'd be too much to explain everything with comics, Gate and the Gatekeeping and the really toxic fan culture. And there were pieces by Brian Michael Bendis and Greg Rucka on how can you read a Captain America comic and say you love it and then go bully someone on a Web forum? It's just the disconnect between what these grown ups read and how they act like they're taking nothing from these characters. And I'm like, well, they're kind of hopeless. But maybe with a new generation of kids discovering all the Marvel movies, maybe we can get them young where like, oh, you can actually learn a crap load from these characters. And so that's where it was. I'm like, I'm going to take everything I want to teach Peter, and I want to take all my moral grandstanding or whatever and just put it all together in a fun little book. Mhm i want to say, for the most part, it was all there. Like, I didn't have to get stretched. No pun intended. With Miss Mark have to look too hard. When you read the original new team Titans, Cyborg was dealing with body issues, and Superman is uh a role model. It's always there. Uh as you might have noticed, like, in the book, uh the DC characters are very much their comic incarnations, and the Marvel characters are very much their movie incarnations. Like, does a little bit show mhm where my interest lies with both mediums, but it's just like, you can't watch that first Captain America movie without thinking. I was talking about, I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from. And so it just lent itself to it. A couple of them, I had to kind of um try to think outside the box. And I would say Ms. Marvel, with flexibility and adaptability, it's a little bit of a reach. But also, I didn't think so. And I thought it was a good lesson for a good Avenue for talking about mental health and not stretching yourself too thin and all that stuff.
Guido: Well, that's what I think is mhm so amazing about it is you talk about all of these emotions in complicated, nuanced ways, which I think is so important for educating everyone about character. So I'm thinking about how you offer sort of the pros and cons of responsibility or flexibility. And then there's other characters where I feel like you really hit on something that is not apparent at first, like Catwoman, you talk a little bit about being caught in a loop. That is something I deal with kids all the time. Or Catwoman as thinking about her through the lens of integrity. I mean, it's really extraordinary. I love it.
Randall Lotowycz: Thank you. I would love if that book was out there more in the world.
Guido: Me, too.
Randall Lotowycz: It's done. Okay. But, yeah, Duo Press is a uh small company. We did what we could, but it's my favorite book. It's one I'm most proud of, and that was one where I'm like, okay, if that's the last one. I do. I'm good.
Guido: Well, everyone should get a copy, and I'll be bringing it to the school I work in, without a doubt. I love it.
Rob: Yeah. I think all three of us are around the same age. And it feels like when we were growing up, too, you were really stuck into if you were a young white boy, you were expected to like the other white male superheroes. And now we have a friend whose young son will dress up as Carol Danvers. And it just seems like through your work, like your book, and I think through a general emphasis on diversity in general, in comics, I think you're seeing those kind of lines blur a lot more with the younger generations.
Randall Lotowycz: Yeah. And it's exciting when you hit on diversity. It was superhero playbook. I wanted to diversify the children in it since we weren't actually showing the superheroes, the children acting like them. It was an interesting balance mhm because I wanted a person of color for Cyborg, but I didn't necessarily want a white person for Captain America. And I felt that I really wanted to reflect kids today.
Guido: Yeah, that's amazing. So moving into the most recent project of yours, the DC Book of Lists, which you've mentioned a few times, I'm curious about how you decided on the list to include.
Randall Lotowycz: Well, start coming uh up with some. I was approached by Running Press, um and they were referred to me by someone uh else, and they're like, we're thinking about doing this format. This is the first book we're going to do in this format. What would you envision it as? I just went for broke with it, and I started with what I know. So it'd be really funny to do all the cats in the DC universe, and it would be really funny to do one on tattooed characters and then making sense of the Legion of superheroes, which I love the Legion, but uh they're so convoluted. It was just that just having kind of like what would amuse me and then anything where I knew I could really verify it. I was like, yeah, there's enough out there where it'd be a funny list of who trained Batman. That one would not be funny. That's more fascinating. Or the Suicide squad members killed in action, but then deciding how to sublist it, where it's like killed in the mission, killed by one of their teammates. Or when you talk about Canon, I look at the robots, androids and metal men, the chronological look at AI. I thought it would be really interesting to look at every time period that DC is presented and what a I look like in that time period. It sort of makes sense. It doesn't matter how many reboots, how many different worlds and multiverse, it kind of does have this interesting through line.
Guido: Well, that's one of the cool things in the forward you mentioned because you described taking a holistic approach, examining the entire colorful tapestry of DC free of the confines of continuity and reboot. So it is cool that you can include everything since you are just listing. You have to restrict yourself to one error or one continuity through line or anything like that.
Randall Lotowycz: This book actually got delayed because of the state of the world and supply chain issues. It was originally supposed to come out last September and it was actually printed and on a boat in September, but it didn't get out in time. But I'm not going to lie, that introduction was everything how I uh approach appreciating comics, but it was exactly also what Scott Schneider was doing with Death Metal and it was going to be so perfect where the last issue of Death Metal was going to come out uh with Wonder Woman, restarting the multiverse as this holistic approach. Exactly. When I'm releasing this uh book, which is the timing didn't completely work out well.
Guido: It works for me because I have been doing a reread of every DC crisis and I am actually right now up to Death Metal. So this is perfect timing because I've been rereading Scott Snyder's Justice League run with one of my best friends and now I love looking at this and seeing uh you have like all the multiversal forces and the quintessence and uh all these elements of the cosmic mythos that was um building toward what has really broken the DC Universe open over the last year.
Randall Lotowycz: And so that's very cool that's the joy and downside of comics being continuous medium like this book is dated before it already stands. Obviously the DC Universe just keeps expanding, but I did my best to make it a piece that has a timeless element, despite the fact that there's always going to be more things that could be added to each list.
Rob: And speaking of those lists, mhm was mhm there a list or a trend that you saw once you started diving deeper, that really surprised you. And I'm thinking, like, Dark Side showing up in people's apartments, like, how random is that? But was that a surprise to you when you discovered it?
Randall Lotowycz: That one in particular? I feel like it's always been in the back of my head. I've seen it so many times. So that was honestly one of the ones where I'm like, I'm putting this down. And uh if the running press editor um doesn't say we're not doing it, then DC is going to say we're not doing it. And everyone's just like, oh, that's good. Yeah. Obviously that uh in itself, though. I mean, it speaks to this weird community that exists over time, everyone's referencing someone else. And it does go back to Jack Kirby doing it, but I sort of just love that there's so many people over so many decades. I want to do my take on Dark Side just sitting in a chair and someone walking in um the room.
Guido: Yeah, it's incredible. But what's so cool and you mentioned the art taking a large chunk of time is that you now have a place where I can go see the panel that everyone is doing, those references. And so that's the other extraordinary thing about this book. To the extent that obviously you're going to share how the uh sausage gets made. How was it working with DC in that way? Were they totally open? Did you ever have any notes or things that you couldn't do that you wanted to do? How was the art process?
Randall Lotowycz: How is all of that pretty wonderful? I don't have a bad thing to say about it. The art process on DC's end is pretty simple. You tell them what you want and they're going to pull the files for you every now and then. You've got to get a little bit creative where they might only have something available. You're going to have to tell them, well, it was in this trade, so it wasn't Action Comics issue 23, page two, where they might not have an electronic file for that, but they'll have Superman Chronicles, vine three page 200, and the same images there. Sometimes you'd have to get a little bit creative, or certain times they might only have the black and white art. So you can't use that. Well, you could, but I wanted the color art. They don't have anything with um separate layers prior to the early two thousand s. O. If it's before that, you're going to have to have the caption in it. And that was something I ran into when I was doing the convergence backups, where if I wanted something without the text and captions, it would be fine for anything past, like 2005, but before then it had to have it. So therefore, if I'm showing, like, a single panel, though, I got to find something that you can look at and still glean everything, even though it's part of a larger page. And the dialogue and everything is going through it. So it provides unique challenges, but that in and of itself is fine. The one thing it was kind of funny, but I get it was DC didn't want to show any characters smoking in the book, so it doesn't matter smoke in the comics, they didn't want them smoking here. So it was getting an image of Commissioner Gordon without a cigarette, which is actually harder than you'd think. Director Bones without a cigar. But other than that, um there's definitely some stuff I won't talk about because I'm maintaining a good relationship with them. We mutually agreed on one. Uh this was poorly conceived from the beginning, but I was doing an entry on the Justice League census, uh and I was looking at the demographics of the various Justice League teams over time and was to show progress and how it was uh just all white guys to begin with. And then now it's more diverse, but it almost just read as offensive in a way. And I wrote it, and I had a note by the header like, I think we should cut this. This does not work. And then someone at DC wrote, agreed, this does not uh work. And I could be offensive. I'm like, all right, I was treating like Martians as a race along with uh Earth races, and it didn't work. Yeah, we chopped uh it.
Guido: The other cool thing is how long the book is. Sometimes I feel like books like this, as amazing as they are, are just the tip of the iceberg. And this seems pretty thorough. How easy was it to come up with 240 pages of lists? Are there more? Could there ever be a volume, too? Did you have to really bleed a stone to get here or how was that?
Randall Lotowycz: I definitely think it was close to bleeding a stone. There are few of these in there. I'm not going to say which ones. There's a few I would shop. I would actually make it to order. And at one point, we're worried about length because from a word count perspective, I wrote more than I was supposed to. And so there was a question, and I did do some cutting, but not full entries, just text here and there. But I was fully prepared. I had a few in the final version of the manuscript, I was flagging to the editor, like, we're worried about space. Cut this entry, cut this entry, cut this entry. And then she writes back, she's like, oh, great news. Our designer made it all work. I'm like, Damn it. I don't know. I don't have a part two in me. Sure. All right. There's a few errors in this uh all happened at the last minute. We were rushing to get it to the printer because we saw the supply chain issues coming, and then the supply chain issues screwed us over with the release date. But, yeah, in the last round of corrections, uh a few errors were actually made. And so I want to get those corrected in a reprint. So it needs to sell out. But already I have one note of something I want to add, which technically you're not supposed to do with Reprints. Like, corrections are one thing, but actual content changes or not, but there's at least one thing I'm going to try to sneak in. Wow.
Guido: All right, so everyone go get it out.
Rob: Exactly. Well, Randall, you only had your one book in this universe, but in other universes, Randalls have written 52 different books of lists. They have come up with so many to let us explore the Multiversity a bit. For our exploration of Multiversity, we want to get a little bit more into your ideas about multiple universes.
Guido: So before we get into some of the way, I think your projects have a lot to say about the multiverse. We're curious what your experience with alternate universes in storytelling are. And are you a fan of any particular multiverses or else worlds?
Randall Lotowycz: As a DC fan, I mean, something I've always loved about DC, especially the Lworld brand. Again, they sort of started really going into that right around the time I was getting into comics. So it was exciting that the Batman Speeding bullet or that year all their annuals were else worlds. I loved the One Dystopian one that actually was a two parter between an Adventures of Superman annual and a Superboy annual, and the idea that you can just twist things and make them a little bit different. I was a big fan of that TV show sliders when it came out. There's always something appealing about this or that concept of what you're dreaming is another reality. Yeah, it makes anything possible. Also. Wow. Did you ever see the movie Slacker? Richard Link Ladders movie first seen. He's talking about how every thought you have goes off and creates its own reality. And like, that stuck with me when I saw it at eleven. And it's still here later. As a reader and someone who's always kind of endlessly curious, once I started getting into Death of Superman, Batman Nightfall, then I started going back and everything in wizard or reference things pre crisis, post crisis. So I'm like, what's that? And the whole multiverse concept. Just like candy to a curious kid. And so exciting. Uh i didn't know I was a list making person at that age, but like, okay, well, this is Superman from Earth Two, and this is Super Boy Prime, and it was fun. And all of sudden a I'm cataloging all this stuff in my head, and I felt, despite the fact that thousands of copies were printed and all these people were reading it, it was just for me, and that made me happy.
Guido: That's very cool. Um so with all of your research in the fandex, trying to build a cohesive succinct history of characters and then with convergence, trying to build a cohesive through line of story. And then, of course, with the Book of Lists, where you just brought in all the different versions, what do you feel like you now know about multiple universes and multiverse storytelling that you didn't know before?
Randall Lotowycz: I guess the only thing I know is I'm excited by the prospect that it's so deeply ingrained in DC now that it's part of the storytelling in itself. Whereas Crisis was supposed to reset things to make it for clearer, more succinct storylines, but now these reboots are part of the narrative and it expands the possibilities. But also in a weird way. Definitely, I think always going to make things a little bit more inaccessible to the casual fan. I don't know. I guess getting older, I start looking at the business side of it. How sustainable is this? And then maybe Dandelion was right with his 5G think that he didn't get to execute. It was just time to jump forward and do something new. Yeah, definitely doing this, um I'm like, well, this is amazing. And there's always going to be an opportunity to catalog and list and build and compare. I'm like, wow, this could also just really become this oral borough, snake eating its own table, trying to make this sustainable business.
Rob: Uh on that point, do you think it would have been more difficult mhm for you to do a Marvel version of this book where you're telling one more or less continuous timeline instead of all these alternate universe and resets?
Randall Lotowycz: Personally, I'm not the one to write the Marvel one. I just don't have the knowledge. But I don't know. There's still lists to be had, and there's still different approaches trying to explain Scott Summers and his family tree. That would be a fun list if that ever happened. So there's always going to be lists to have. You go to Comic Book Resources everyday. They're doing this. That was my big thing. I want to make this a little bit more fun. And not that what Comic Book Resources is doing bad, but I wanted to take that, put it through my filter, and make it worth being printed on the page.
Rob: Yeah. And I think one fun thing about mhm this book is that DC does have 20 plus years on Marvel. So I think some of the really fun lists that you pull uh from pull from those Golden Age or Silver Age books, the whole two page spread of Jimmy Olsen alone. I mean, Jimmy, all the Superman pal, Jimmy Olsen and all those things. And I'm curious what your thoughts are. Obviously, there's still a lot of fun in comics, and you have a great couple of pages on Grant Morrison's villains and Doom Patrol, which are all wacky. But there's also a little bit more seriousness in comics now, a lot more continuity consciousness. Do you think something's been lost in having books be maybe on a whole bit more serious than they were in the Silver Age Golden Age?
Randall Lotowycz: I don't know if it's been lost because it's also just because it's still there. I think the uh end of the day tastes change. Uh uh I love a Moody Batman. I also love a silly Batman, but I can sit and read like 90s Batman uh completely through like 50 volumes in a row where I'll read two Silver Age stories and be like, I've had enough for now and I'll come back to it later. I can't really um read particularly Golden Age more than a few issues at a time, whereas I could lose a day reading it from a different era. Uh i like the fact that it continues to change. I kind of hope there's always just like an openness that there's room for all of it and one is never the correct one is kind of how I look at it. I don't want to be like, this is the Batman that exists and he's the only Batman who exists and the others shouldn't, because there should be every type. I want a bright and silly Batman movie. I appreciate it, but I wasn't a biggest fan of the Batman because I've seen this a lot. Now give me something else.
Speaker UNK: Yeah.
Guido: I imagine you're reading DC's output now and it feels like that's happening now in the comics. I mean, you have not just Black Label, you have a whole host of miniseries. You have ImBatman running concurrent to Batman and obviously Detective comics. But you then also do have Batman and Catwoman. And you do have like, they're just okay with many versions of characters showing up, some future, most else worlds, some seemingly like a retcon story from the past that's supposed to fit in. And it feels very open. It's so hard for me. I think probably like you to know if it's accessible from the outside, but it feels like this would actually be that more accessible version of things. And maybe this will one day translate into like movies and TV and we'll get just different versions. They're doing it, obviously they did it with a Joker.
Randall Lotowycz: There's Keaton Batman's coming back. They're definitely doing it now. But also the Ya in the middle grade stuff DC puts out is uh pretty wonderful too. Technically isn't officially um in Canon, but I'm quoting for the people who can't seem to put their quotes the Green Lantern from Green Lantern legacy. I wanted to uh put in this brand new kid who's a Green Lantern, but he's not in the comments. He had one cameo in Grant Morrison, The Green Lantern, but DC's even their note to me on the page was he's not officially in Canada. And I'm like, yeah, but he's getting included. But yeah, they are producing some really wonderful stuff for different audiences. I love some of the Black Label stuff. Some of it's not for me, but absolutely the multiverse being open um and just saying like, yeah, we're going to put out the best story first. Continuity be damned in a way is kind of how I like it.
Guido: Yeah, I agree. And it's funny because I didn't think I would like it as a more Marvel person than DC. I've always appreciated the sacred timeline, the single timeline of Canon. But the last year and a half, I think DC is just blowing me away. And I'm appreciating it most of the time, more than Marvel, which is hard for me to say. Well, let's jump into the future of.
Rob: Your work, talk about the future with some pondering possibilities.
Speaker UNK: Okay.
Rob: So as we ponder possibilities, we want to talk about your future storytelling and what you think the future of your stories might be.
Guido: So before we get into your work, I'd say, what do you hope people get out of your work? Like, how do you characterize all these very different projects you've done? And maybe you even can include some of the noncomics related projects and what your goal is. I mean, you really spearheaded the cult movies sort of reboot, and we haven't talked about that. So you can talk about that now. And uh maybe there's a link or maybe there's not. But we're both fans of cult movies, too.
Randall Lotowycz: Again, it was just an opportunity and saying, yes, in a way Workman publishing new Danny Perry, who wrote uh these books back in the people love these books, and Danny wanted to republish them in some way because he had the rights. And through a brainstorming session, they're like, well, why don't we try them as ebook only and let's break them up by theme? Maybe I got a call and they're like, Would you want to spearhead this? Do you want to just figure out how to make them work as ebooks? And I said, sure, and went from there. I'm critical of that project a little bit. I kind of wish we either stuck to the original book format or made an entire omnibus out of all three of the books, rather than trying to do these categories, because we didn't get to put all the material back out there again. And it was going to be like, Obese did well enough. Then we'll do the next category. So, yeah, we started with Sci-fi. Well, Sci-fi was just a sampler that was a free promo, Horror, Crime and Midnight. And we figured if those did well enough, we'll do the rest. And we didn't get to do the rest. But I would love to get Danny Perry's all his essays back in print at some point. But, yeah, when you look at everything I've done, between the comic book stuff, the cold movie stuff, the magnetic dartboard calendar, bad cat jokes, it's the end of the day. It's just me getting to share who I am with a lot of people and also just I do feel that you could take away like, oh, I kind uh of get this guy. I think I know what he's all about. But at the same time, I'm just trying to say I get to do what I love very often. Everyone should try. Sorry, I'm losing my voice a little bit, but that's where um it comes down to. Obviously, I'm going to use the word privilege again. I've had these opportunities where I've gotten to say yes. I've definitely feel like I've earned everyone. When running press says, what would you think a DC book of list would be? And I would say, It's this, and the book you hold in your hands is very much what I told them it was going to be and thought it would be, and I feel I backed it up. But I've always been lucky with getting some opportunities where I have the chance to say yes, improve it.
Guido: Well, we're lucky that you've shared this part of you with all mhm of us. From what I know about you, I think probably the only thing missing is a book of tattoos, and maybe it's on the horizon, but I would love to see a book of comic book inspired tattoos out there. I'm sure there's going to be complex licensing stuff with that.
Randall Lotowycz: I've never been able to solve a tattoo project. It's definitely been talked about years ago. We're trying to think of how to make a calendar out of it, but yeah, it's like you either work with one artist or it's a nightmare working with hundreds of artists. You get into the compensation issue because every artist would need to be compensated for their work rightfully, but also makes the book unaffordable. Yeah. Maybe you uh get one artist to do, like, a book of superhero flash sheets so everyone can flash being the tattoo term. Not the superhero term, but, yeah, just superhero tattoo designs. I could see that working maybe one day.
Guido: Yeah, well, this is hot off the press that you have a new project. I'm sure you can't tell us anything about it. Is there anything you can tease us.
Randall Lotowycz: About it it's a project that I think if you guys enjoy talking to me, you'd want to maybe have me on again for that's. Cool. All right.
Guido: Yeah, it's a date. So we're holding you to that?
Randall Lotowycz: Yeah. Nothing. A scale of DC Booker lists uh it's with a publisher I haven't worked with before. Uh it's going to come together quickly, but I'm excited for it. And if I wasn't excited, I wouldn't do it. But um again, do you think you could do this and do this by this date? First I'm like, no, I'll die. And then um I get over that. I'm like, oh, yeah, I can do that. If I did this for a playbook or in so many months, or if I did DC book lists in three months at the start of the pandemic, on top of a full time job. Yeah, I can do this.
Rob: You need all the use and the other multiverses to be working on images and send them all into you at the same time.
Randall Lotowycz: Yeah. It's not everywhere. All at once technique.
Rob: Exactly. Only one of them would be like the Bizarro U. So it would just be very stilted language the entire time. All the letters are backwards.
Randall Lotowycz: That's what I'm most excited, obviously. Most excited for. But also the great thing about the DC book, A list that I can say uh that no other book has given me was a new career, or in this case, like kind of an old career. I had such great experience working with the people at Running Press on this book. I was like, well, do you ever have an opening? I wouldn't mind just saying goodbye to my current career and going back to being an editor. And they were like, well, we'd love to have you. We have nothing right now. And then a few months later, I was like, hey, so you have a listing. And they're like, let's talk. And so now I'm an editor at Running Chris, making books like this, and Congratulations, something signed up that's going to come out next year. I'm uh more excited about than my own future book. I think you both are going to love it. When you see the talent involved, it's um going to be really impressive. That's my really big vague tease. Is there's a book coming out next year that I'm editing. So I'm looking forward to that.
Guido: That's two teases. We have your book to look um forward to and the project you really are editing to look forward to. That's very cool.
Rob: Going back to the book. A list, too. Randall. I was wondering, was there a character that kind of jumped out at you, a hero or villain or a team or anything that you think has really been unsung that you would love to see return to the comics or maybe show up in a movie or anything like that?
Randall Lotowycz: Reminded my love of Frankenstein. I wish there was more Frankenstein comics. I uh started to fall in love with the Westerns a little bit. I feel like that's just been under certain. I love Jonah Hex series with Justin Gray. My Citizens of the Old West entry was basically a love letter to that. There's flipping through the book. There's probably something on every page. Um i would love some more weirdness when you talk about the light heartedness of the Silver Age, but when Alfred turned uh into Outsider, just the way the Legion resurrected Lightning Lad, like one of them had to die holding up. I kind of want that wackiness to a degree. It doesn't have to be the prevailing thing or anytime the Wahhaha era can come back. It's such a soft spot for me. So whenever Keith Gift puts out something new, that's what I get excited for. I love what Mark Russell is doing. A lot of his story goes there. I haven't read One Star Squadron.
Guido: One Star Squadron. I just finished it this week. I think you'll really appreciate it. Oh, my gosh.
Randall Lotowycz: I loved the most recent Jimmy Olsen series. So I um want more of that.
Guido: And how about that Perry White that got Solicited, Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen's boss. Perry White.
Randall Lotowycz: Although phone to pick. I'm like, this is amazing. But wait, isn't Jimmy Perry's boss now? Didn't Jimmy buy the Planet? Don't be that person.
Guido: It's a multiverse. It doesn't matter.
Speaker UNK: Exactly.
Guido: Well, before we wrap up and before you tell people how to find you, is there anything else we didn't get to talk about, about your work that you want to share?
Randall Lotowycz: No, I mean, that covers it. I'm thankful to have an opportunity to be talking about this book, and I love that certain people are excited about it. I've had a really great response to this and there was a nervousness where I'm like, oh my God, did I just go too far? Is anyone going to just look at this and be like, what the hell is he thinking? So I'm happy and I'm feeling good about it and I love just getting to talk about these things so that's it really nothing if people have questions uh about the book, if they have bones to pick with me errors, because there definitely probably might be a few more. Only one factual error. The other things are literally production stuff. Like something was supposed to be deleted and it wasn't something out of line to where it should be. But there was one proper error that someone caught and I'm like, oh my God, that's embarrassing. I welcome other uh people's. Well, then also argue with me because this is not definitive lists, even though one. Like I said, it's out of date the moment it hits the stands. But also, I'm sure there are other cats in the DC universe, but I picked the ones that I wanted to include. There's more apes in the DC universe, but I wanted with it.
Rob: There's a lot of apes, though. I was very surprised how many apes there were, including Giganta's backstory, which was totally new to me. Both her backstories as an ape. Um yeah. But what's so fun too, I think about this is uh that I think so many times when we see lists today in our internet culture, it's like, okay, here's the best and here's the worst. Or here's my opinion of this. So I just love this as just a stats nerd that here are the facts and they might be through your prism, but they're not just like, oh, here's the best, here's the worst. And we're criticizing these characters. You are showing it through a more objective lens, which I think is great.
Randall Lotowycz: I hope so. Yeah. I definitely want to make people smile with this book. I don't want to piss off people. So if someone is annoyed about anything, we'll deal with it. But this was celebrating everything I love about comics, and I'm hoping that that's what people are going to see it and get it when they read it like, oh yeah, this is why I like comics and these comic books are kind of absurd and they're kind of just bright and colorful and weird and uh how it should be.
Guido: Agreed. Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been amazing and I've been.
Rob: Guido and I have been Robin. That's a wrap. Dear watchers, thank you so much for listening and of course, our biggest thanks to our special guest, Randall Lotowycz. Pleased to tell everyone where they can find you and why they should find you.
Randall Lotowycz: I mean, why and if you want to chat.
Rob: If they have a bone to pick, as you said.
Randall Lotowycz: If you just want to talk comics, movies, anything, Twitter or Instagram, I'm on all of them. If you can figure out how to spell my last name, you can find me. Uh it's L-O-T-Y CZ. Somehow people find my email every now and then which is weird uh but it's also not too hard to figure out if you know my name. So there we go. Just look for me on Twitter or Instagram.
Guido: Great. And we're going to put links to all of Randall's work in our show notes. Please go out there and buy superhero playbook, buy the DC book of lists, relieve reviews wherever you bought them and you can also always follow us on Twitter at Deer watchers and leave a.
Rob: Review for us too. Wherever you listen to podcasts, we'll send you a sticker, send you a keychain, lots of great stuff and will be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.
Guido: In the meantime, in the words of Uatu, keep pondering the possibilities.