Artist Mike Perkins returns to Word Balloon to talk about The Bat-Man: Second Knight, now available in graphic novel format. Mike breaks down the visual approach behind this 2nd series set in 1939, collaborating with writer Dan Jurgens, and the challenge of capturing a dark pulp-era Gotham through his detailed painted style. We also discuss Mike’s artistic process, from layouts and reference work to balancing mood, storytelling, and page design.

Plus, Mike gives a preview of his upcoming new Vertigo project with Ram V. 

The conversation also dives into Mike’s lifelong love of Marvel UK, and 2000 AD, growing up on British comics, and what it meant to finally draw Judge Dredd in collaboration with legendary creator John Wagner.

Today on Word Balloon, we welcome writer Steve Darnall to talk about his new prose adaptation of Marvels, the landmark series created by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross that redefined how readers looked at the Marvel Universe. The new novel with new cover and illustrations by Alex  is out in the next 2 weeks from Abrahms. 

Steve has a long history with Alex Ross, including their acclaimed collaboration on DC's Uncle Sam, and he also played an important role in the original Marvels project itself, co-writing the Marvels #0 story that explored the origin of Human Torch, the Golden Age android hero Jim Hammond. 

We talk about translating Ross’s iconic painted imagery and Busiek’s emotional storytelling into prose form, revisiting the history of the Marvel Universe through the eyes of ordinary people, and what it was like working alongside Ross during the formative years of some of his most celebrated projects. It’s a great conversation about comics history, superhero mythology, and the lasting influence of Marvels.

It's a very special Scene Missing as Actress and stunt performer Tatiana Neva joins Word Balloon to talk about her new espionage thriller Prey Of Wrath, now streaming free on XUMO, alongside martial arts legend Cynthia Rothrock.

Neva discusses the physical and emotional challenges of making the indie action thriller, balancing fight choreography with character work, and what it takes to bring intensity to a modern spy story on a tight schedule. 

We also talk about her wide-ranging career in television and genre entertainment, including appearances on The Mindy Project and her many turns portraying comic book characters like Catwoman, Domino, and Black Widow in various film projects. It’s a fun conversation about action filmmaking, stunt work, superhero fandom, and building a career across indie film and pop culture entertainment.

To celebrate the milestone, I asked my computer to whip up questions for us , in some of the categories I love, comics star trek, spy tv shows, and 40's mystery films. 

This is like when Gary Kasperov played Deep Blue in chess. I'm happy to say our AI orverlords still don't get everything right. 

Thanks for all the support all this time since may 10th, 2005.

Jackson L Star Trek Comnzing and Colin Kelly, the Hivemind writer team is back to chek in mid-story on ths epic IDW Tek Comic, that takes place 100 years before Discovery jumped to the future. How did Starfleet try to solve the problem> Could ressurected Jim Kirk save the day?

In addition, we  discuss their epic Captain America Sentinel Of Liberty 18 issue sage with Marvel, and a lot more.

In our first talk from 2007 Dave talks about beaking into comics, writing The Unknown Soldier, Runs on Superman and Spider-Man. The Iron Man "Demon In A Bottle" saga, and of course The creation of Venom

It's David Lloyd's Birthday week, bor on ay 5th . Grab some tomato juice and aspirin, and enjoy this 2019 chat

In case you haven't noticed, David Lloyd isn't drawing comic books any more. He's still very much involved in the medium creating the digital comic anthology Aces Weekly, a weekly digital only comic featuring serialized stories in genres from humor to crime adventure and sci-fi. David's current creativity is pointed at publishing this digital only comic. He's stopped drawing to concentrate on this effort. He talks about his view on the current comics market and looks back at V For Vendetta, his war comics with Garth Ennis and his crime graphic novel Kickback

Welcome to a brand new Fortress of Word Balloon, where the mic gets handed over to the League of Word Balloon Listeners, straight from patreon.com/wordballoon.

Coming to you from my secret headquarters, and this one’s a freewheeling hang with the smartest fans in comics as we bounce from comics to TV to film, hitting everything we love . And along the way, I dig into the Word Balloon vault to share some behind-the-scenes stories from the last 20 years, the guests, the moments, and the surprises that helped shape the show.

Scott Larson, the creator of the supernatural commic Visitations talks about his mentor Len Strazewski, co-creator of Jesse Quick for DC, Prime for Malibu and so much more.

Len also did 17 ssiues of The Fly for Impact Comics, and wrote 10 issues of Jstice Society in 1992

On this episode, we go back to 2009 for a great conversation with Gerry Conway, a writer whose career has taken some fascinating turns across comics and television. We talk about why Gerry stepped away from a successful run in TV, writing shows like Law & Order and Diagnosis: Murder, to return to DC Comics for a surprising and, frankly, underappreciated project, The Last Days of Animal Man.

That decision ends up sparking what you could call a full third act comeback in comics, leading him back into the Marvel universe and onto Spider-Man once again.

Along the way, we dig into some of Gerry’s most iconic work, from the still controversial and era defining “death of Gwen Stacy” in The Amazing Spider-Man to the massive, history making 1976 Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man treasury edition.