This is Comic Geek Speak, episode 66.

Welcome to Comic Geek Speak, brought to you in conjunction with world famous comics.com.

I'm Brian Deamer. I'm Kevin Moyer. I'm St. Kelly. world famouscomcom. I'm Brian Deemer.

I'm Kevin Moyer.

I'm Shane Kelly.

I'm Jamie D.

I'm Peter Rios.

We are sexy bitches, yeah.

Welcome to the show.

Peter.

You did all the homework on this one, so you want to tell people what's coming?

Well, today we bring you an interview with publisher of Image Comics, Eric Larson. We already

recorded the interview. So what I'm going to do real quick is about a week and a half ago.

He has an article at ComicBook Resources.com called OneFans Opinion. And he put out an open letter that pretty much set the, you know, a few people on fire. So I'm just going to read part of it so you know what we're talking about in the interview. All right. It says an open letter to comic book creators everywhere. Is that... Oh, by the way, I should say there is some language in here, so cover yours.

Is that all you got? Really? Because if it is, that's pretty fucking sad.

Look what Stanley and Jack Kirby contributed to the comic book field.

The Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Thor, and a mess of incredible heroes and villains.

Jack tossed in Captain America, New Gods, Devil Dinosaur, Commandi, the dingbats of Danger Street, and a dozens of others on his own. Steve Ditko, aided by others at times, I'll grant you, gave us the modern blue beetle, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, the creeper, speedball, shade the changing man, and all of Spider-Man's cool villains. Other creators have brought

a Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman. The list goes on and on. And you've given us what? You've

contributed? What exactly? A few pretty pictures, some fill-in issues, a cool cover or two,

an impressive run on a title which you didn't create? That's it. That's your legacy. If you died tomorrow, you'd be fine with that? That's pathetic. What have you done, which is really yours? What characters will you leave behind? What can you point to as being something near and dear to your heart? What work are you most proud of? Now, I'm not saying that Savage Dragon is the greatest creation in the history of contemporary pictorial literature, but at least it's something I did. It's something where I can say, I did this run on my book, and it was all me and nobody else, and it's something which I own. It's all mine. And I understand the desire to clutch on to the security of a guaranteed page rate, and I understand the attraction of working on characters that you grew up with. But at what point are you going to grow up? When are you going to stop sucking on the corporate tit? When are you going to gasp? Take a risk. Do you think the guy working for McDonald's really has a better chance for success than the guy opening up his own restaurant? Sure, McDonald's employee 1-2-8-76 is getting paid a regular paycheck. "'Sure the guy going out on his own is taking a real risk. "'Thousands of restaurants go belly up every year, and there's no guarantee of success. "'But shouldn't there be more to life than slapping together somebody else's hamburgers? "'Are you really going to feel as though you've lived a full life having spent it churning out more Big Macs? better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. What's the matter?

Chicken? a full life having spent it churning out more big max better of better to have loved and lost

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