Wine and...Comics: The Adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot

OR, for additional bonus content, articles, interactive chats, polls, and the fully UNCUT version of this episode (22 more minutes of discussion!) join us on our Substack at: https://wineand.substack.com

Follow all things Bryan Talbot at:
https://www.bryan-talbot.com

You can download Bryan's very first Luther Arkwright short comic and many other rare, OOP Talbot comics at:
https://www.bryan-talbot.com/arkwright/the-papist-affair.php

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright can be purchased on Amazon in multiple formats:
BOTH the first (Adventures) and second series (Heart of Empire) have been collected together in a single volume:
https://www.amazon.com/Luther-Arkwright-Bryan-Talbot/dp/1506717713

And the brand new third series (Legacy of Luther Arkwright):
https://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-of-Luther-Arkwright/dp/1787332322

Listen to the audiobook starring David Tennant here (also available on Spotify and iTunes):
https://www.amazon.com/The-Adventures-of-Luther-Arkwright/dp/B01N53Y8B9

THE WINES
Dave's Wine
M. Chapoutier 2012 Banyuls Traditionnel
Grenache-based Ruby Port-style wine from the Southern Roussillon region in the Rhone. 8% residual sugar, fortified with brandy for a 16% ABV.  Medium-intense notes of black plum, currant and cherry with supporting tones of wood spice and fudge. Tannins have mellowed considerably in this 2012 vintage, with full black-fruit flavors that linger long on the close.

Back-up Wine:
La Vielle Ferme Red 2021
GSM/Rhone style blend but Cinsault and Carignan heavy, rather than Grenache, so it's merely labeled a red wine of France. Light on its feet with plenty of fruit flavors and layers of fresh green herbs.

Dallas' Wine
Denny Bini Frizzante dell'Emilia Buzza
Made from the Spergola and Malvasia di Candia Aromatica grapes, Spergola carries historical reference as the choice bev of powerful noblewomen during the High and Late Middle Ages. Centuries later, it has captured the hearts and minds of Emilia’s bottle-fermented wine pundits and is championed by Denny Bini.

Direct press and fermented in stainless steel tanks, without temperature control. The second fermentation happens in the bottle in the spring and it takes place within 30 to 60 days and adding must from the same vintage.

Chapters

• 8:09 From Jerry Cornelius to Luther Arkwright
• 19:55 Our Personal Histories with the Book
• 26:56 Act 1: Rat Trap
• 30:33 Luther Arkwright vs. The Invisibles (Talbot vs. Morrison)
• 37:35 Act 2: Transfiguration
• 45:57 Act 3: Götterdämmerung
• 54:16 Dave's Wine Pairing
• 1:05:13 Dallas' Wine Pairing

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;31;22
Unknown
Welcome everybody to wine and the show where we pair wine with movies, TV, music, books and comics because we think everyone should consume some of all of the above on a daily basis. Well, barring health concerns, and wine, as much as we love it, it is an ethanol product and that is not the best for everyone. But as you've noticed with some of our guests that have been on in previous episodes, they don't always pair it with a wine.

00;00;31;22 - 00;00;51;11
Unknown
They don't always pair it with an alcoholic beverage. Have fun with the beverage and entertainment pairing shtick. if it's soda that you love, if it's seltzer water, or if it's come booch, whatever it is you're into tea, coffee, single varietal coffees. Oh, my God, like a single varietal. They don't really call it that. Do they? for the single origin.

00;00;51;11 - 00;01;12;13
Unknown
Or if you're in, if you're into coffees, do that. But then, and also on the subject of health concerns, for fuck's sake, get outdoors. Don't only watch movies, read books, read comics. Listen, if you're listening to music, take a run or take a long walk. Right. You know, don't, doesn't have to be super, extreme. Just get a little health in your life.

00;01;12;16 - 00;01;30;28
Unknown
if you drink, drink in moderation. I think this is always a very important PSA to make at the beginning of these episodes. Not going to do it at the beginning of every episode, but sometimes, and today we are. It's just me and Dallas. There is no guest, so we're just going to kind of wing it. We're just going to be kind of chit chatting.

00;01;31;00 - 00;01;52;09
Unknown
just the two of us. One of us will be, we'll actually be drinking them, and one of us will actually be talking about health concerns, someone who probably has not been outside yet today. I don't I'm going to I'm going to guess. so yeah, get outside, do drink, but drink in moderation. Dallas is on the East coast, so it is a bit later in the day.

00;01;52;09 - 00;02;20;26
Unknown
It is way too early for me to drink. It's a little early for now, but not really. it's much, much more much judgy. Much. So look, for now, we're going to talk about. So we are here to talk about our very first comic book on this podcast. And this is kind of a big line in the sand for us, because to cross, because we came from all comics, we were we had a legacy show called the One and Comics Pairing Show where we only paired one with comics.

00;02;20;26 - 00;02;37;19
Unknown
We've been doing that for over a year. And when we started the podcast, one I think we needed to break from comics. So we just focusing on other things. We were also putting the legacy show to bed. So while we were recording our first episodes, we were still doing the final shows of the comics show. So all the comics were going into that show.

00;02;37;19 - 00;03;04;15
Unknown
They weren't here on the podcast, but here we are. We have arrived. Let the comics begin, along with the movies and the music. Our first TV show is coming up very, very soon. A recording that just another couple of days, and our first book, our first novel is coming up as well. So we are finally expanding beyond just movies and music, in case after, 4 or 5, I think you're going to go, yeah, five episodes before you get your first something new kind of interject it in there.

00;03;04;15 - 00;03;23;11
Unknown
So, look for look for all of the above. We aren't lying when we say that we pair wine with all of these things. And that's right, movies and music. so, first, of course, the announcements at the very top, we're going to talk about the comic in just a moment. But first, if you like what you hear, please make sure to follow us.

00;03;23;11 - 00;03;41;21
Unknown
Hit that follow or subscribe button. It helps the podcast grow. It helps us reach new listeners. We definitely want that because we we love doing this and we want to keep doing it. And we would love to have just to know, you know, there's no number in my head. I don't know how many listeners it's going to take for me to feel like, hey, this is worthwhile.

00;03;41;25 - 00;03;59;20
Unknown
We're pro, we're going to do it just because we love doing it. But you also, you just want to know that someone's appreciating it, someone's listening to it. You're not just doing it in a void. So that's always, a very nice feeling. So if you love us, please leave that a review. Leave five stars, because the algorithm does care whether it's 4.5 or 5.

00;03;59;20 - 00;04;17;08
Unknown
So that's five. Don't quibble. Don't don't don't get this. well have to be true to myself. And it's not a perfect show. It's like, you know, tip the wait staff don't don't wait for exceptional service. Just give them a goddamn tip. But, they're making sub minimum wage, so you need to give them that tip we make.

00;04;17;10 - 00;04;35;10
Unknown
We also make up minimum wage. We make nothing. So, give us a tip. Give us a five star review, and if you don't love us, if you're like, fuck this show. I hate this show. What is this show? All right, fine. But, you know, send us a message that's. Send us a message. wine? The letter N pod.

00;04;35;10 - 00;04;59;05
Unknown
Pod for podcast wine n pod at gmail.com. Send us an email. We take all feedback seriously or and forget the review. No. No star reviews. No reviews. Right? Unless you want us to disappear and you don't want other people listening to us, you're like this show. Oh, not so bad. Don't tell me what is. Come on. It is bringing down the entire pod of sphere.

00;04;59;08 - 00;05;19;09
Unknown
We've got to get rid of this show. but if you're on your phone, you can also send us a text, quote unquote. You'll find a clickable link at the beginning of the description of this episode. It doesn't work as an active link on every platform, but it does on most. So if you see that on whatever platform you're consuming this on as a clickable link, just click that which opens up your text app on your phone.

00;05;19;09 - 00;05;35;05
Unknown
And I should say I should have started this. If you're on your phone and you're listening to this was your most of us kind of are then click that. It will open up your text app, send us a direct message via that it shows up on our buzzsprout inbox. Does not show us your full phone number. Never fear.

00;05;35;08 - 00;05;51;03
Unknown
it only shows us your final four digits. Kind of like how a credit card shows up on a receipt. It's just a right here, right now, quick and easy way. Send us a quick note, especially if it's a note of appreciation. We love that. But if it's a note of feedback like guys, guys, guys, tune it too much intro.

00;05;51;05 - 00;06;06;01
Unknown
hate your music, hate your choice in comics and music and movies. Send it to us. We want to hear. Or if you're like, you know, when you talk about movies, when you talk about music, I would love to hear more about Blanc or how you pair the wine with them. I would love to hear more about Blanc.

00;06;06;02 - 00;06;29;13
Unknown
If you have ideas, or if you think this show could be better in some way. Honestly, we are brand new. I would love to hear it add guys about. Yeah. And guys, we are collectively and actively building a list, so if you have recommendations or things you might be interested in us covering comic books, movies, albums, songs, just any sort of media or experience, we will consider it.

00;06;29;14 - 00;06;42;08
Unknown
We may not get to it, but we'll look at it, we might engage with you, and it might make you feel like you're part of this little, corner of the world. This little crazy corner of the world that we are sort of building out organically, trying to grow. I hate the word organic. Don't hold it against me.

00;06;42;08 - 00;07;04;16
Unknown
I will probably say something rather rude, inappropriate about the terms like organic in the future. but, in general, when you drop by and hit us up, leave us a five star review and maybe a recommendation. There you go and get that. Do you still hate the word organic when it's, in the context of wine? Immensely, no, I love the word again.

00;07;04;18 - 00;07;25;25
Unknown
No, no, of course I love the word organic when it comes to the context of why? Because it's such an open ended kind of term. It allows for interpretation and opinion and conjecture. And that's the space where we live. so yeah. You know, it allows a bunch of talking heads to talk. And that is, that's our bread and butter.

00;07;25;28 - 00;07;50;27
Unknown
and on Dallas's point, if you'd like to interact with us and feel like a part of this family, we are most active and most interactive with our fans on Substack. So wine and.substack.com, that is where we live. And if you become a paid member on Substack, you can get uncut versions of these episodes, which usually add anywhere from 10 to 30 additional minutes to the episode.

00;07;50;29 - 00;08;06;19
Unknown
and that is where if you have suggestions, if you want to talk about, we're going to have polls in the future to where you can do between a short list of things that we're going to cover next. so that is where to do it is at our Substack. All right. And there will be a link down here in the description of this episode.

00;08;06;19 - 00;08;21;00
Unknown
So you can click that and head over to the Substack when you're ready. All right. So today, our very first comic book, one of the reasons it took us a little while to get to a comic book, not just that we were putting to bed our legacy show, and we needed to break, and we were just very excited.

00;08;21;00 - 00;08;43;03
Unknown
And of course, our I think our guests too. We kept reaching out to guests and they were like, I can talk about a movie or talk about an album, and it's like, okay, okay. There are other things too, you guys. There are other things too. but I also was kind of an asshole, and I picked for our first comic a very dense, a very chewy, a very, this is not a comic.

00;08;43;04 - 00;09;02;24
Unknown
You sit, you read overnight and then talk about the next day. This was something I was like, you know what? I want to revisit Dallas. And I sent them a link, and I was like, okay, when do you think we can get to it? I thought we'd get to it in like a week. even with everything else we had going on in the other things we were trying to review and prepare a podcast for.

00;09;02;27 - 00;09;30;04
Unknown
No, no, this is, we are here today to talk about the adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot, considered to be the first British graphic novel. So this was a graphic novel that took ten years of Bryan Talbot's life to create. And this is book one, mind you. not that he had planned that. It was only book one at the time.

00;09;30;07 - 00;09;46;13
Unknown
at the time. This is a complete graphic novel. He came back, with a sequel, many years later. And we, I one of the reasons I wanted to revisit this graphic novel, I'm going to start this because we always like to start with, like, what are what's your history with these works and what are your memories of it?

00;09;46;13 - 00;10;06;07
Unknown
So mine, the reason I wanted to do this, I read this back in high school days. This is a comic that, it took it has a very, staggered publishing history between the UK and the U.S in the UK it took not only did it take him ten years to finish the thing, but it went through multiple publishers.

00;10;06;07 - 00;10;28;23
Unknown
He actually published this as three smaller graphic novels originally, because it was just taking him like years and years to make each smaller was that was about three. yes. Yeah. And multiple it wasn't just Valkyrie. So actually, let's start here before I get into my own personal. So The Adventures of Luther Arkwright very start and stop.

00;10;28;23 - 00;10;50;02
Unknown
Publication history. it started, now Bryan Talbot started doing short stories in some anthologies and and this, this. Yes. This was during a time in Bryan Talbot's own words, in a recent interview, he basically said that Britain was in a recession at the time. There was no work to be found anywhere. So he wasn't looking to become a comic artist.

00;10;50;02 - 00;11;11;06
Unknown
He didn't think that's what he wanted to do. but he couldn't find any work. And then, a friend of his basically was like, well, hey, look, I'm starting up this publication, this anthology. Do you want. And you're an artist. Do you want to contribute to it? And he had nothing better to do. So he was like, okay, and contributed to this at the time.

00;11;11;09 - 00;11;37;23
Unknown
Luther Arkwright is a comic that is heavily influenced by Michael Moore. Cox, Jerry Cornelius stories, and I don't know how much Michael Moorcock anyone has read. I have read a pretty much all of Michael Moorcock. I'm not kidding. I've read all 15 series of The Eternal Champion. Okay. All right. No, Jerry Cornelius being one of them. So two things that Moorcock did here.

00;11;37;25 - 00;11;58;22
Unknown
On the one hand, Jerry Cornelius, he kind of came out and he made it free for any other author to use. Jerry Cornelius and he was like, anybody can write Jerry Cornelius stories. I want this to be a shared, character concept and all these different iterations across the multiverse. I want people to be able to do this.

00;11;58;25 - 00;12;23;28
Unknown
more. Cox. Jerry Cornelius was very experimental compared to his other Eternal Champion books, which were much more streamlined, much more straightforward sci fi fantasy. And Jerry Cornelius was kind of batshit. it was very psychedelic. It was very of its time. But at the same time, even to this day, I read Jerry Cornelius and it's it's not the it's like reading, Burroughs like Naked Lunch or something like that.

00;12;23;28 - 00;12;41;24
Unknown
Like there is something that's very literary in the way that it's playing with the literary form and doing things that are not perfectly straight forward, not perfectly linear or narrative. And it's they can they can be a tough read. They can be hard to be like, what am I reading? What is happening here? And you can see this.

00;12;41;24 - 00;13;09;04
Unknown
And Luther Arkwright, at least initially, this was Talbot. He was coming off of reading Moorcock and being inspired by that. So when he started the Jerry Cornelius character, he, he freely admits he's like it was heavily inspired by that character. He was kind of doing his own version originally on that. Now he did Luther Arkwright as short stories and anthologies first, and kind of really honed in on what this character was going to be before he started the series in earnest.

00;13;09;10 - 00;13;43;06
Unknown
So it already was more its own beast. But we are talking about parallel universes. We are talking about a figure that swings between these different parallels in ways that can be very confusing, and ways that are, but are very cool, are very, what's the word? Very modest, like Mod Squad, you know, kind of a thing very of its time, but very cool, very, very counterculture, very, it has these flavors of what was going on with the youth in Britain at the time, of which Talbot was one of them.

00;13;43;08 - 00;14;08;25
Unknown
And it really comes into its own as the series goes on. But it does very much start there. So with that said, Luther Arkwright was first published his short stories in a couple of different anthologies, and when he finally got serious, he published most of the what became book one rattrap of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. So one third of what the final adventures Luther Arkwright graphic novel would become.

00;14;09;02 - 00;14;36;06
Unknown
He did publish that in chapters throughout, an anthology and then between and this started. Oh gosh. Yeah. Between 78 and 80. It was a five part serial. and then the story continued in a comics anthology called An Exclamation Point, in 1982, which was a very bit like that anthology had a lot of the bigs that would become huge.

00;14;36;06 - 00;14;58;23
Unknown
Like, I think that, had stories by Grant Morrison. I want to say Garth Ennis. I could be wrong about that. But a lot of names that became huge in the British comics scene at the time. So this was like the beginning of what we now know as the British comic scene, sort of this weird golden period from the late 70s into the 90s that America basically picked up.

00;14;58;23 - 00;15;28;01
Unknown
And like, we basically carried them into Vertigo over at DC and gave them all careers over here because they were so electric and so amazing. And actually, I want to step back real quick here. the first appearance guys of Luther arc, right. The character is in the PayPal affair. it is but, that's funny because the it's is but the, version at the New York Public Library, there are two versus page, one is PayPal and one is, Pappas.

00;15;28;01 - 00;15;55;06
Unknown
So, I think I think, yeah, for longevity. Like, now when you look at the, the book, because I was able to download Brian Talbot actually has that short story as a free download on the website. Yeah. So and it's Pappas is sort of like what it's become if it was ever PayPal and, that but, I went to the, to the Lions, the, main branch of the New York Public Library and checked out, that original piece, and it is fantastic.

00;15;55;06 - 00;16;20;00
Unknown
It's black and white and it's it's got these crazy nuns in it. It's kind of a kick ass sort of, sort of launch for a character, guys. and curiously enough, curiously enough, I will say that the character, the sort of Luther Arkwright in that original piece is much more interesting than the Luther, our great character in the, broader, piece.

00;16;20;00 - 00;16;33;13
Unknown
I will say I'm going to disagree with that. I'm gonna say that with that. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's just sort of a very compressed kind of, you know, that that short piece is very compressed. So the character is a bit more dynamic. And, you know, in the broader because we'll get to it.

00;16;33;13 - 00;16;53;22
Unknown
But in the broader piece, you know, arc rex fun. But, you know, go on, go on. Yeah. I don't like the short piece. Oh, I love it. So there I mean, it's a pun like, ooh, yeah, this raw and also this was Talbot. Like, there is so much more interesting things he's doing in the final piece.

00;16;53;22 - 00;17;14;19
Unknown
In the final. Oh, yeah. Of course. Adventures of Luther are great, but this first one feels a little almost mad magazine like it's very, or like the comics you used to see in, like, things like Playboy or something like that. Or it's like, it's got this ludicrousness to it. Very extreme, very violent, very sexy, but very. But all the extremes.

00;17;14;19 - 00;17;35;05
Unknown
Yes. In this and even his art style is mimicking this almost mad magazine ish, like in a way that's dialed way down. And he, he, he, evolved his style into something fairly different for what he finally did with Luther Arkwright. Whereas here he's going for this rump of a comic. Exactly. exactly. It's around. It is absolutely around.

00;17;35;06 - 00;17;54;06
Unknown
It is. But I. Yeah. Not my thing. Not my thing. I was a little like, It's gratuitous. It's gratuitous love is. And, Yeah. Wasn't was not my job theater. but it was very interesting to see that this was like, you know, kind of his first. Yeah. You got his. Everyone start somewhere. And I feel like that was him mimicking what he thought.

00;17;54;06 - 00;18;14;25
Unknown
On the one hand, he was part of an era and a culture at a generation that was wanted comics to do more and do it in different ways. But of course, you still have to start somewhere. You're still, I don't know, enough about late 60s to early 70s comics to know if this was a this probably was maybe pushing some boundaries already.

00;18;14;27 - 00;18;34;29
Unknown
even though I look at it and I'm like, oh, come on, Guy, you can do better than this. but for that era, that might have been, a real border pusher, but, so yeah, it was that first one. All those, chapters that were serialized were finally collected into The Adventures of Luther, Ark. Right? Book one, Rat trap.

00;18;35;02 - 00;18;55;06
Unknown
Nobody look up these titles. These are all long gone. No one needs you. These have all been collected into single volumes. Now, but originally it was that adventures with our great book, One Rat Trap. Yeah. Then between 87 and 89, Talbot completed the story, which was published as a series of nine standard comic books by Valkyrie. Right.

00;18;55;08 - 00;19;21;27
Unknown
but Serge, of seven, if I'm pronouncing his last name right and I'm probably not, Or Sergei. Sergei by Sylvain, paid for the printing of the Valkyrie Press trade paperback. The Adventures of Luther, Ark. Right. Book two Transfiguration. And then in 83, under the publisher name, Prout changed it. he finally, published the final trade book three Götterdammerung.

00;19;21;29 - 00;19;45;11
Unknown
or the, that's that's vulgarian. What does that always mean? The twilight of the gods, right. Twilight of the gods, I think. Yeah. So very, very near. And and you know, that is apropos. It's a very Wagnerian ending, to the whole thing. It's it's it's hugely melodramatic, hugely big. I think what we should do is talk about this complete graphic novel in the those three acts.

00;19;45;15 - 00;20;08;23
Unknown
Nevertheless, because I feel like they are fairly distinct, they are in how he grew as as both an artist and a writer, especially, and how that he told the story. So, and then later in America, of course, Dark Horse Comics published the entire thing as nine issues, and then collected them into trade format. I must have read I did not read them as single issues when I was young.

00;20;08;26 - 00;20;34;03
Unknown
so I it was a trade paperback collection by Dark Horse. I'm almost positive. I remember reading this book. it had to have been my high school years. I'm shocked because reading it now, in preparation for this podcast, I remember loving this book. I was blown away. I thought it was amazing and reading it now I'm like, I understood this fucking book in high school.

00;20;34;03 - 00;20;54;14
Unknown
How I'm like, this is so complicated. and I'm, I, I'm patting my my high school self on the back on this one because I'm like, Holy shit, high school, Dave. Good job. Because I feel like me now. I was struggling through the first act a little bit and trying to get into it. act one is definitely a lot of webbing.

00;20;54;14 - 00;21;13;06
Unknown
There's a lot of webbing happening and I've gotten soft, man. I'm like, I've got I've kicked back and not challenged myself enough because my brain must have been more adroit when I am, which most people are when they're young. Let's face it, plastic. Much more plastic. Yes. Yeah. So I've calcified a bit and I was like, damn, this is hard.

00;21;13;13 - 00;21;31;26
Unknown
And I remember it and I chose this book. The reason I suggested it to Dallas was my memory of how much I loved it, but how long it's been since I've revisited it. And I had even bought a used trade paperback, one of the the, more recent additions in black and white, that was on my shelf and I saw it, and I was like, you know what?

00;21;32;04 - 00;21;49;01
Unknown
It's time. I need to reread this. I remember reading this. I did collect the sequel, Heart of Empire in single issues when it was coming out. I was collecting at that time, I was old enough. it was a mature readers only comic, but I was able to get it at that point, and I would not have been old enough to have gotten the single issues when they were coming on.

00;21;49;05 - 00;22;06;11
Unknown
I'm not even sure if they're if they they must have been, mature readers, but oh yeah, me on that. I'm not sure what caused did that. and I know I was into, but and I did not get the single issues because when Dark Horse was publishing the single issues, I don't think I was into Dark Horse yet.

00;22;06;11 - 00;22;27;07
Unknown
That came later with like Frank Miller's Sin City and Dark Horse had this Dark Horse Comics, Greatest World Comics Greatest World, which was their own superhero line, which we'll, we'll have to cover. They're superhero line one of these days. Dallas because, man, that isn't a bad idea. I have a I have a memory of and I'm like, that was something else, I feel.

00;22;27;07 - 00;22;49;05
Unknown
And there were some gems in there that are totally worth revisiting. but that came later. Right now, Dark Horse was predominantly licensed characters. They were doing the aliens, the predator, the Terminator, the RoboCop. they even had that Walter Simons and Frank Miller, incredible. Terminator versus RoboCop or RoboCop for Terminator. I forget which order it came in.

00;22;49;07 - 00;23;10;21
Unknown
but that series is still one of the best things I think comics has ever done in the world, like in history. It's okay. That's big, that's big, it's big, it's big and no license or weird, you know, the something versus something. Yeah. There were two series that did it so impeccably. Well, the very first aliens versus predator.

00;23;10;23 - 00;23;38;22
Unknown
There's a reason that has become such a cultural, like it's stuck to the cultures because it's the first series was nuts. Good. That's true. And then this RoboCop versus Terminator, which is, if memory serves, they did the story where the technology of RoboCop becomes a thing that, like Skynet is after, or it was part of what becomes Skynet in that world, in RoboCop world, something like that.

00;23;38;22 - 00;24;00;10
Unknown
But they tethered it together really brilliantly. Well. And then the story and the action in it is just gods level. It's like you could not make a better crossover than it is. Not paint by numbers. No one was dialing this shit. All right, that goes to the top of our crossover special edition mini mini arc. All right, there you go.

00;24;00;13 - 00;24;22;08
Unknown
There you go. All right, but getting back to Luther arc, right? So I read this in high school. I remembered loving it. I really wanted to revisit it. And especially because we should mention the third book is actually landing, I believe it's been released in Britain already, but it has not been released in America yet. I preordered it, it is dropping soon.

00;24;22;10 - 00;24;42;13
Unknown
also, you can go to the New York Public Library and, and it's already there. lovely, lovely gilded printing of it. Fantastic. Yes, it is already been released in Britain, so it's obviously already finished. Yeah. And apparently Dallas is on the East Coast. He found that I have to wait for my copy to come in, but we hope to cover this the in a later episode.

00;24;42;13 - 00;25;03;00
Unknown
We will cover the sequel, Heart of Empire. And in time for the American release of the third, which, by the way, this is the Adventures of Luther arc, right? The second heart of Empire is aka the Legacy of Luther arc. Right? And then the third book is The Legend of Luther arc. Right. so we're going to hit all three in order and as time.

00;25;03;00 - 00;25;20;16
Unknown
But today it's event year with their arc, right? Dallas, had you even heard of this book before I threw it at you? I had so here's what's crazy. when we started the agency way back in the I don't even know what year it was, I forgot, I don't know, Jesus Christ. Like, we're going to say 2009.

00;25;20;16 - 00;25;47;11
Unknown
We'll go with that. Nine or something like that. I had my own list of things that, okay, I've been collecting, you know, sort of the sort of seminal works when it kind of wade through that I had. And by that point, and this was on the list, and I had a copy of it, started reading it, got through the first three, and it was sort of like, okay, it's just this guy's laying the groundwork.

00;25;47;14 - 00;26;05;18
Unknown
I don't know if I'm to stick around for the rest of this. I'll come back to the future, and I never got around to it. So this was one of those occasions when I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. Shit. That's right, I remember this. So yeah, it's But you're right. You know, everyone I'd ever really known who was who had a sort of an academic sort of approach to comic books or graphic novels.

00;26;05;25 - 00;26;48;15
Unknown
They understood where it fit in the lineage, how important it was in terms of European and British, comics and graphic novels and just how it just was sort of the, the benchmark for a lot of the guys who came afterwards. and also the idea of the multiverse cannot be understood because what they're doing in this sucker, anyone who's ever and what he's doing in this circle, anyone who's ever tried to weave, a a large story and roll it out in chapters, you should probably take a look at this, because it is a roadmap of how to eventually land the plane, stick the landing.

00;26;48;17 - 00;27;12;18
Unknown
Yeah, eventually he sticks the landing. But that first third man, it is all over the runway. let's actually let's talk about that. So first third, which was initially published. So this is roughly the first three issues as they were published as single full sized issues. and the graphic novel or the act is called book one, Rat Trap.

00;27;12;20 - 00;27;38;27
Unknown
This is the introduction of Luther Arkwright as a, multiversal, a multiverse hopping. So universe universe, let's call it. They call it parallel universes. Let's just call it a parallel universe hopping. what do we even call me? Sort of a jack of all trades, devil may care adventurer or, it's a mercenary adventurer, you know, kind of.

00;27;39;00 - 00;28;09;24
Unknown
Yeah. It's a. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's so one of the things that makes these are journey birds. He's a journeyman trickster. Yeah. Okay. Journeyman, journeyman. But he is also so this is something that the character shares with the with Michael Moore Cox Jerry Cornelius a little bit is that each iteration or from the way in which the characters presented, they're not a specific something very somebody they're not a specific something.

00;28;09;26 - 00;28;29;23
Unknown
And that gets very you as the reader get a little lost with your bearings with them. They made Jerry Cornelius movie adaptations where they just straight up made him a secret agent like, you know, very, very Austin Powers desk, where it's sort of like it's from that time period, very, like I said, Mod Squad ish, kind of a thing.

00;28;29;23 - 00;28;51;03
Unknown
You're hip, you're cool, you're young, you're you're you're, you get the soundtrack of all, like, what the, what the kids were listening to at the time. And then you dress well, you got a gun, and you do daring deeds and go on adventures and try and stop sort of nefarious things from happening. and Michael Moorcock hated, hates the movies.

00;28;51;03 - 00;29;11;20
Unknown
He's always he looks at the movies and he's on record as saying, like cherry, Cornelius was never a secret agent or a super spy or anything like that. That was never anything. He was never anything, that he did. And Luther Arkwright, in this first act suffers the same issue, though, where you have a really hard time calling him anything else.

00;29;11;22 - 00;29;43;24
Unknown
And so you're just like, what if he's not? But he's kind of not, but he kind of is, but he's kind of not. But he kind of is. You know what he really is doing. He's he's of course playing God. And he's walking through your imagination and just dropping little sort of, vignettes and images and important sort of set pieces that will become important in the future, giving you sort of, you know, even context, giving you sort of visuals into parallel universes, into sort of what's happening, what happened in the past, and these things kind of seem isolated and disjointed.

00;29;43;27 - 00;30;01;23
Unknown
and a lot of them kind of are, but as I said, that's why I use the term webbing. It's sort of like when a spider builds a web, if you watch it, it moves at a glacial space and there's no real context or, you know, skeletal structure that you can recognize. And that's what's happening in this first third.

00;30;01;23 - 00;30;21;27
Unknown
And it is act. Yeah. Yeah. fair. Yeah. It is just a, not an uphill battle. But you do have to remind yourself. Oh, okay. I'm, I'm, I'm climbing a mountain here. I'm just climbing the mountain here. And as long as you tuck in for that, you know, it'll pay off eventually. but you know, you're right. He does kind of just try.

00;30;21;27 - 00;30;41;22
Unknown
And it feels like he's kind of just trundling through and dropping these boulders and sort of images and, you know, you're just like, okay, bro, where are we going? Where are we going here. Where we going? Right, right. You. And you know, I don't think. Dallas, have you ever read Grant Morrison's The Invisibles? another one I started and never finished.

00;30;41;25 - 00;31;05;24
Unknown
Yeah, okay, I can I could say that I was talking too much judgment. A lot of people nowadays have not read The Invisibles. They know of it. They know it's a it's a cornerstone of Grant Morrison's over. But oeuvre. Well, how are you? How would you say that? but but, so I collected invisibles issue by issue from beginning to bitter.

00;31;05;24 - 00;31;28;20
Unknown
Bitter end. Yeah. Back in the day, it was well after I had read Luther Arkwright, so I never connected the two. But looking back and Luther arc right predates The Invisibles completely. Entirely from, you know, it was well over before issue one of Invisibles. ever saw the light of day? Yeah, it it was shocking to me how much this was a blueprint for Grant Morrison.

00;31;28;26 - 00;31;52;23
Unknown
It feels it. Especially this opening now, Morris. And even the way in which goes from, the Invisibles suffered a little bit of the same thing where, you know, in fact, I have a I have a I have a quote I'm going to give about, The Invisibles and how it connects or how readers might connect it to Luther Kemp.

00;31;52;25 - 00;32;18;21
Unknown
Right. I'm going to go look up that article. I didn't have it ready. I'm going to go look that up while you're, talking about something. So since I'm talking right now, I won't do it quite yet. But I will say it still struck me how much this did it first. And Invisibles, not only is Luther arc right about these, mysterious groups of intelligent beings usually called something in Luther arc, right?

00;32;18;21 - 00;32;58;09
Unknown
They're called the disruptors. They disrupt and they are above, you know, the Earth. Yeah. They are. They are not of the the one universe. And they're and they're they're in the fabric. We don't see. Yeah. Right. And they are, manipulating everything. And we are fighting against that manipulation and even the way in which Talbot in this first act, tries to lay that groundwork and show you how we're working against them, but how they're working against us and how we have our own secret organizations like The Invisibles, where, you know, we're trying to fight back in these in these ways that even the way the invisible showed it, because The Invisibles did this fun thing

00;32;58;14 - 00;33;27;00
Unknown
like Jerry Cornelius, like Luther arc. Right? That, sometimes it's very straightforward and sometimes it's like, now we're super spies in this very retro way. Now we're in super, like, whatever the moment calls for. Yeah, yeah, right. We can do it. and yeah, Luther Arkwright in only nine issues did with The Invisibles, took, it was something like 60 issues to do or 50 ish issues to do.

00;33;27;07 - 00;33;46;22
Unknown
And Luther Arkwright does it in just nine, and it's everything The Invisibles did for the most part. And I'm impressed as all fuck. and this one would be my preferred invisibles is something. I'm so glad I read it. I read it once. I maybe for this podcast we will revisit that. That's actually a good idea. I should yeah, that's a good idea.

00;33;46;22 - 00;34;16;01
Unknown
We'll do a little. We will try. But at the same time, you know, Luther Arkwright is very much the far more focused, far more, compressed guy. And at the same time, I feel like Talbot in this first act, he's trying to do what Morrison stuck to his guns doing throughout The Invisibles in its entirety. And I think Talbot, after this first act, was like, okay, okay, I'm finding my sea legs as a writer.

00;34;16;03 - 00;34;34;05
Unknown
I think there's a better way to do this. And he does do it. I think from a reader perspective, he does it better in acts two and three and brings in, as Daniel said, he brings it home. He sticks the landing in a way that Morrison does not in that Invisibles series. I know a lot of people will say bullshit.

00;34;34;05 - 00;35;02;01
Unknown
Morrison totally stuck the landing. You just you gotta read between. And I'm like, look, I know it makes quote unquote sense. I know there is a book out there that is a guide to the Invisibles series. That is panel by panel throughout the entire know, not the entire series. and I'm like, and it's not written by Morrison, it's someone else who went panel by panel through the series and gives you an entire reading guide to it.

00;35;02;04 - 00;35;21;12
Unknown
All right. We have fun at work for a future episode. And let me tell you something. I think that book is probably necessary to fully understand The Invisibles. I believe probably as I read, I owned it at one point. I think I sold it, and I read about half of it, and I was like, you know what? This is this all everything this guy is writing about makes sense.

00;35;21;12 - 00;35;45;09
Unknown
He really is breaking all the stuff down. but it is if you I think you need a book like that to fully understand and appreciate everything in the Invincibles. And if you do, did Morrison succeed as a storyteller? If, like, you have to be in his head and be as in control of the story as he is, as was it successful?

00;35;45;10 - 00;36;04;09
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Right. As a writer, did you truly do your job? If someone requires a panel by panel? Cliff note guy who? Wow, fucking did hot tech. don't, make sure you guys, when you call in and write in with your complaints and gripes and yells and curse words, make sure you put the recipient up that way.

00;36;04;16 - 00;36;32;24
Unknown
My take on act one is it's very tantalizing. It's very, like you get. It's interesting, it's new. It's doing a lot in a very short amount of space, but to the point where it is almost opaque. One thing that it did free him up to do, though, and I will say this is the one kudo I give beyond just how interesting that first act is, and how daring and groundbreaking it was, because it was all of those things for that time.

00;36;32;26 - 00;36;52;11
Unknown
But the other, the kudo I can give him for any time is that he read. We talk, we keep saying how dense it is, and it is so dense. It lays so much groundwork. It really does free him in the next to act absolutely to just go, go, go, run, run, run. You don't really need to lay any more ground.

00;36;52;13 - 00;37;09;24
Unknown
It's all you don't realize how much has been laid until you get to those acts, and you realize how quickly he just bam, bam, bam. It just advances. That plot starts ramping up and you're like, Holy shit, it is not slow. And and it makes sense because he's done these, delayed all the ground stunt, all the work. It's pure action.

00;37;09;24 - 00;37;28;21
Unknown
It's pure knocking into the next point. You know, for those second at least definitely for the third act. But for act two as well, it's just sort of that potential energy turning into that kinetic energy. and, you know, those last two acts are bad. They're all kinetic. They're going. Yes. yeah. So act two, let's talk about that.

00;37;28;21 - 00;38;05;29
Unknown
Act two Transfiguration. This is as much as we say, act two and three, because there is an evolution. And I will say act two is kind of a halfway point between act one and act three. Like how clear and and chugging forward act three is because act three is all climax. It is crazy climax, whereas act two, there's still is some like we need to lay, as much as I just said, you don't need delay anymore, there's at least some repeating right of some of the things he laid in act one more clearly than he did in act one, so that you grasp what's going on.

00;38;06;01 - 00;38;32;18
Unknown
a little bit better so that by the time he gets to act three, I think you're so on board. And so, like, oh, I get the stakes. And that's something that was missing a little bit from act one. It's so nebulous. It's so the threats are so ephemeral and so high, big and the, the ideas are so big and amorphous that you almost don't quite grasp what it's like.

00;38;32;18 - 00;38;58;19
Unknown
So it's all concept. Yeah. Exact one is all concept, right? The universe is at stake. But like, what does it mean really? Right, right. And act two starts to pull it back a little bit and be like, okay, this is at least for the players here. Yeah. Let's just focus on a few worlds. A few of our big players, focus a little more on who Luther is and what he's trying to accomplish here so that you understand that as well.

00;38;58;22 - 00;39;24;16
Unknown
And then let's boil this down so that the stakes are a bit more focused, a bit more brought down to earth. And act three kind of takes those stakes back up a notch where it's like, okay, we we fooled you into thinking it was very earthbound, but now let's look at the earthbound and the high end ephemeral, universal and and multiversal, even though and let's tether them together because that's what's happening here.

00;39;24;19 - 00;39;44;22
Unknown
which I think he does brilliantly. But act two, you're meeting more of the supporting cast as well, in ways where they're not in act one, all supporting characters are almost weirdly transitory. They're, they're they're gone. They have a name. They the he draws them and you're like, who was that? Yeah, I don't understand. Like, I guess I'll see that guy later.

00;39;44;22 - 00;40;10;19
Unknown
Maybe. Yeah. Right. Who are any of these people? It's two ephemeral. It's two. Yeah. That's big. And then here in act two, you really start to meet the supporting cast as real supporting cast, and you start to get a sense of real drama, real narrative through line. Like, this is where it all starts to, to, sing. And as the reader, you become locked in to the narrative.

00;40;10;19 - 00;40;33;03
Unknown
You really want to see what happens next. Now, not just out of an intellectual exercise. You're not just curious as to where this weird comic guy who came out of fucking nowhere and is doing things you've never seen before, what he does with this. Yeah, because yes, you're intrigued by that. But here the narrative actually counts. I will say, you know, that character, just some background to some of the characters, guys.

00;40;33;06 - 00;40;55;17
Unknown
there's of course, Luther arc, right? Who, you know, he's got this sort of transformation coming, won't give away too much. He is sort of part James Bond, part, you know, he's he's a womanizer in his own way. He's got a woman in every port, you know, that works. Yeah. You know, he's got a lot with every port.

00;40;55;19 - 00;41;26;09
Unknown
you know, he becomes a sort of messianic kind of, character. And we start to see that taking shape and act two. you've got rows and rows. you might saying. Yeah. Rose, you know, she's able to kind of be a tether into all these different worlds for him without giving too much away. you know, Cromwell will sort of see, develop now, I will say, in terms of the art, what he does with this Cromwell character, we're in we're in act two now, right?

00;41;26;09 - 00;42;05;12
Unknown
Yeah. So we've seen. Yeah, we've seen Cromwell. Oh, yeah. we technically see you see him all right. Now, we don't know who they are, right? We see them all. but what he does, I think it's on page, like one of five or 1 to 7. But he does this thing where this Cromwell character, you can see his sort of syphilitic sores on his mouth because, you know, part of this is set in this sort of Cromwell in Britain kind of parallel, you know, alternate universe.

00;42;05;12 - 00;42;24;20
Unknown
We want alternate histories they don't like to use. We don't like to use the term, I guess, alternate histories. But this Cromwell thing, there's a great page where you see the source, or the on his fucking mouth and his face. it just some of the characters just kind of fantastic. I love Cromwell, love Rose.

00;42;24;23 - 00;42;48;14
Unknown
you know, like I was telling Dave earlier, I think Luther for me, is kind of one of the least interesting characters. Yes. Well, I know because you said you liked this short story better, and I kind of understand that, but I, I kind of disagree only because I feel like Luther is. Yes, he's a cipher. He's absolutely up to that point.

00;42;48;17 - 00;43;12;08
Unknown
But I feel like he finds his own humanity in this story. Like that's his arc that is just find his place with the rest of the world and like who he is and what he is. because he is the one thing you know upfront about Luther crisis is not a spoiler in any way, is he is one of the he can traverse the parallel worlds at will, which no one else can do.

00;43;12;11 - 00;43;34;17
Unknown
And the reason or the the ostensibly the reason, what you're told at the beginning is because he is a a unique, one of a kind person. So he doesn't have any other versions of himself in these other parallel worlds. We don't know why. We don't know what makes him special. And these two ways. He just is special in those two ways.

00;43;34;20 - 00;43;59;28
Unknown
Yeah, and good and good on, and good on Brian for just establishing a character as special and then not really giving any context for that specialness until like, act three. Really. So. Right. That's been fantastic. Right. And he does you know, Luther changes like I I'm this is why I can see Talbot as a creator just evolve with his character.

00;44;00;02 - 00;44;19;05
Unknown
where you know, at first he's trying to do things with the medium and so he's not really focusing on character. Right, right. I think it gets a little lost in that act one even the art is so hyper realistic to me. I think of it as hyper realism. And there are some pages. There are some pages that actually look computer generated that they're so stark.

00;44;19;05 - 00;44;52;16
Unknown
The linework is so specific that I had a difficult time believing this book written in, you know, 79 or 80 wasn't done on a fucking Mac book in 2006 like it was. There was a moment I was like, wow, okay. This is he's like, really good at this. Yeah. Yes. And I think giving Luther more of a character and then even, you know, even his powers like evolve over time, like how much he wants Luther to do and how he wants to do it.

00;44;52;18 - 00;45;24;20
Unknown
you can just see Talbot finding himself and this character and this story. Yeah, yeah, like he is. I'm sure he had, like an outline for it and whatnot. Or just like, copious notes, some notebooks and notebooks filled with, like, ideas and sketchbooks, of course, like filled with, like, all these characters and ideas. Right. But as he goes, he really cements himself as just he's a rare artist that is at this level of artistry that is also become like one of the great, like, narrative storytellers, like writers.

00;45;24;26 - 00;45;46;16
Unknown
And I think there are only a handful out there that can claim the same thing, Walter Simonsson being one of them, where his art style good company, something that, you know, everyone can, can just like, worship at the altar. It's a reference for just about everyone. Yeah, right. And he can write. He can write and not even be the artist on something like Talbot can do as well.

00;45;46;16 - 00;46;08;05
Unknown
And like, it's an amazing story. Like he became a great writer on top of being a great artist. And there aren't that many, that have pulled that off. And Talbot is definitely one of them. By the end of the series, he has become a great writer. Oh yeah. the end of this series, the final act of the series is just a masterclass in how you climax an epic storyline.

00;46;08;05 - 00;46;30;25
Unknown
I'm telling you, he will wait. He brings it home and he lands this fucking flight, which initially was going on on the runway level, which this lands it with every concept. I mean, you're just like how? Dude, that was amazing. it. Oh yeah. There's so, so yes, to your point, he definitely evolves and I'm I want to believe that this was an organic evolution.

00;46;30;25 - 00;46;53;15
Unknown
But then there's a part of me that thinks this comes together so seamlessly that it feels like he had every note planned out from the beginning. So I am while you know, all that sort of artist, you know, in me wants to believe. Yes, there is an evolution here. And it was organically evolved with the story, with the character and changed and Clary plotted as he went.

00;46;53;15 - 00;47;13;05
Unknown
But there's also a part of me that is like, what if this guy had this planned out like this from the beginning? Because it just comes together so seamlessly? so yeah, maybe I'll maybe I'll ask him one day. I mean, is he still around? And, by the way, I looked at that article about The Invisibles and Luther arc.

00;47;13;09 - 00;47;37;03
Unknown
Yeah. So I did want to read this one little quote. I think this is the quote right here. So this is, to give credit where it's due. I found this online. This is a guy, just Arthur. That's all I know. that's what he signs off on. but fake geek boy dot WordPress.com. And even though it's WordPress.com, this is only from 2021, it's not too old.

00;47;37;05 - 00;47;42;02
Unknown
so this is. Damn Arthur.

00;47;42;04 - 00;48;07;04
Unknown
From February 15th, 2021, Puritans, purges and parallel worlds. and I maybe. Maybe. So I did want to read Brian Talbot's The Adventures of Luther, Ark. Right. Began in 1978, in the pages of the short lived Near Myths, a short lived attempt at a more adult sort of British sci fi comic, which was also the home to some early work by Grant Morrison.

00;48;07;11 - 00;48;37;11
Unknown
Morrison's own, later the Invisibles and The Filth, would later take a certain amount of inspiration from Luther Arkwright with their mashup of high technology, a cultism ranging from earthy hedge magic to erudite mysticism as a lens for interpreting psionic capabilities and metaphysical truths, sexy espionage shenanigans and counter-cultural fashion ability. Yeah, that was it. That about covers? Yes, about covers and that that's the thing.

00;48;37;11 - 00;49;05;06
Unknown
So much of the flavors and the esthetics of Luther Arkwright and even what they're doing with those is exactly what The Invisibles did later. And I'm like reading this now, having read The Invisible Sense, it was a little eye opening. I was like, damn, Grant, that is. And apparently to, like Talbot is very on record how much he was inspired by Jerry Cornelius and he's like, look, okay, initially he was a Jerry Cornelius ripoff, almost like I wanted to do my version, which Moorcock was even allowed.

00;49;05;06 - 00;49;33;11
Unknown
He's like, yeah, everyone do their version of Jerry Cornelius. a lot of people don't know that, one of the artists, Mobius, or Mobius, depending on how you like to pounce at the French artist. his Airtight Garage, which is considered his masterpiece, is a Jerry Cornelius story. It was him doing a Jerry alias story, which he later took the name Jerry Cornelius out of the graphic novel, thinking that Michael Moorcock didn't like the story.

00;49;33;17 - 00;49;51;15
Unknown
So later editions didn't have it. Apparently that was a miscommunication. Moorcock simply read it and he's like, I love the story. He he was kind of like, it's not really a Jerry. I think in passing, he once told to like a third party. Like, I love the story. It's not a Jerry Cornelius story, though. And then Mobius was like, oh God, no.

00;49;51;22 - 00;50;14;21
Unknown
Oh, you got me hates it. He hates it. He took it out. I'm a that. I was like, yeah, no, you can use it. I just I don't think it's Jerry Cornelius story, but it's yours. So you do what you want with it. But apparently Moorcock has always been a little, more dismissive of Morrison and Invisibles and things like that, because I think Morrison never fully admitted the Jerry Cornelius connection to The Invisibles.

00;50;14;21 - 00;50;33;06
Unknown
Which, motherfucker? There's so much Jericho, Cornelius. I mean, that's not even funny. Whereas Talbot has always been very open about that. And he and Moorcock are very close to this day, whereas I think Moorcock and Morrison are not this if you love Morrison, if you love Invisibles, if you love even if you love his Batman stuff, read this first.

00;50;33;06 - 00;51;02;16
Unknown
Luther Brown, because it is so much of what Morrison later introduced to the wider world of comics readers, and I don't think enough people have ever, deep, deep diving deep, deep, deep, deep deep dive deep. Yes. Dive deeply. We'll go with that. Dive deeply into you, into Luther. Deeply, I don't know. So I don't think enough people have taken that plunge into Luther art.

00;51;02;16 - 00;51;25;14
Unknown
Right. And you should, because it is so much of a precursor and honestly, in some ways, like a shocking map of what Morrison later became while sticking the landing as mean Dallas of both agreed on signals landing in ways that that a lot of Morrison's long form work doesn't do or doesn't bother to do like I do think he he doesn't bother to do it.

00;51;25;14 - 00;51;40;17
Unknown
I think that's a choice. Maybe that maybe actually, I didn't consider that. Maybe it's just, a conscious choice to not land in that sort of distinct way. Of course it is. I just I just don't like it. So I'm not gonna that I'm not going to get I'm not going to give it a high score. I'm like, it's a choice.

00;51;40;17 - 00;52;18;05
Unknown
But it's a personally for me too. I think from a theoretical standpoint, it's a lazy choice because it's hard to do something groundbreaking and experimental and interesting and thematically interesting and on point and stick. The landing narratively and satisfy your get strip. Yes, that is the very true elite, package. And if you so the complete package will always just, be on a higher level on that hierarchy than not the complete package, even if sure, we don't we don't want every not everything should be the complete package either, because that could become formulaic in its way.

00;52;18;05 - 00;52;36;01
Unknown
And you don't want that either. Everything is that. But when someone comes out the gate, does something wildly different and sticks out like an they are the complete package. I got to give them kudos for that. I got to give them that higher rung on the ladder because of that. So what are we pairing with this? actually, hold on one second.

00;52;36;01 - 00;52;54;27
Unknown
Let's see. Oh, yeah. Make sure I got through all the notes. Hold on here. Oh, by the way, guys, after reading this and I read through this twice, which is one of the reasons this was our recording was held out, but I also came across a radio drama. Oh, yeah, of this on Spotify. It's it's actually on Spotify and Audible.

00;52;55;00 - 00;53;18;07
Unknown
it's all right. sorry, David Tennant, which is, the, as doctor, I think they're AAC, right. as AAC. Right. and it is actually a great little compendium, companion to, this I will say it's it's a lot of fun, as a sort of secondary material here. I get through all the notes that we get through all the notes, and we get through all the notes.

00;53;18;07 - 00;53;42;06
Unknown
Yeah. Oh, by the way, Princess Diana and the royal family does, do make appearances, in, this little piece here. So if you enjoy a little 20th century pop culture. Yeah, a few references, you will see some of that. You get, Crown World, Cromwell's Britain, which is sort of turned on its ear. yeah, it's kind of fun.

00;53;42;06 - 00;54;13;26
Unknown
You get, and curiously enough, Cromwell, the character is weirdly, Trump, period. I will say Trumpian or Trump. Perry I like Trump. Yeah. so if that is something you'd like to see kind of personified and, exaggerated, I recommend this book. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Also, you get some tantric sex. there's a great character called Harry Fairfax.

00;54;13;28 - 00;54;30;17
Unknown
anyway, all right, all the good stuff. All the good stuff? Yes. So, Perry, you go first. Dave, I went first last time. I'm curious. you did, you did, you did. How did you know this? This will be coming out in reverse order. So we go first. Last time. but you didn't write your whole yesterday.

00;54;30;17 - 00;54;50;04
Unknown
That's right. We just had the one we recorded yesterday. He did go for it. So I'll. I'll go first this time. but this one's actually I think this one's going to drop next week. Oh, yeah. I want something in between the album. So it's like bam right away. Right. so this anyway, so, couple ideas I had with this one.

00;54;50;06 - 00;55;13;05
Unknown
I did think I tried a couple of things too. I definitely this is so dense, of a read. Even when it gets even when you get to the climax, even when it's like go, go, go, go, go, you are sometimes looking at, like, 15 panels on a page. Yeah. it's so much has happened, but, I mean, your eyes, there's very little text sometimes.

00;55;13;05 - 00;55;33;19
Unknown
So you're just like, go, go, go, like paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle. And it's all like building up and just like, so you feel like this good chugging just I mean, the book just erupts in the final third, but at the same time, it never stops being dense visually. It never stops. I mean, that art is absolutely incredible.

00;55;33;19 - 00;55;54;13
Unknown
Can't recommend the art enough. Guys go. It's kind of unreal for its time and for what he did, for how dense it is. The output little but God yes. Yes, It's incredible. And then, of course, the writing, especially when you're starting on this, you know, there's so much to take in, so much to read. I highly, if you're young, get it in print.

00;55;54;15 - 00;56;14;14
Unknown
Definitely. If you're old, get it in digital so you can pinch zoom. Oh, because there's so much text by the way Dave. Sorry, a note I want to say. so the original run of this didn't come in our American sort of, aspects. It was sort of the size of, actual periodical magazines, and vinyl records.

00;56;14;14 - 00;56;32;22
Unknown
So, which, you know, one of the things about reading it is that the text can be a little difficult to see right, in the secondary runs and printings because the I was in high school, I right when I was in high school, I read the American version had no problem. So I know when you're young, it's not a problem.

00;56;32;23 - 00;56;55;17
Unknown
I mean, I pulled the physical copy of the American version off my shelf open, got to like page three and was like, nope. I, I was like, not happening. put it down, downloaded it. I kind ended up on my phone and pinch zoomed through the whole fucking thing. Oh, time is a bitch. Yep, yep, and I do.

00;56;55;17 - 00;57;10;27
Unknown
I need to go see an eye doctor someday just to get some reading glasses. I think it's finally time. I don't need it in, like, life. Life? Like, when I'm looking at my computer, I'm fine. But for a little tiny text, like, I'm like, it's time now because it looks like a little tiny text. Now it does.

00;57;10;28 - 00;57;36;24
Unknown
Yeah. It's, it's time. but yeah, it's dense. And when he crams text onto these pages, he crams images under these pages. So I thought the first thing I thought I knew I wanted a I had to stick to read. Oh, I could not. I thought of something right and airy and it could work. But perfect match for me.

00;57;36;24 - 00;58;07;23
Unknown
No, it needed it needed it needed something that had layers and density like this book. I wanted to match that. Now, on the other hand, recently we did something. Oh, yeah. I think it was, the first album we did for Cannes. when I went with a Gruner Veltliner. Yeah. To keep it lean and linear and simple in its way, to not distract me from how dense the music was and how weird the music was in its way.

00;58;07;26 - 00;58;28;09
Unknown
So yeah, I could I can see someone needing that for me. I decided the way in which I needed that was I needed something I only wanted to sip once in a while. Okay, so you take a sip, you put it down and you're not looking back up at that glass for at least ten more pages,

00;58;28;12 - 00;59;01;04
Unknown
You know, and you just don't need anything else. So I went with the dessert wine on this, and I did. Now, one thing that did almost work, I try to read. I tried your basic coat drone, GM, GSM style blend. So, I actually first got this, I have this, and I want to shout this out. It's a really great, budget wine, but I got this, La Ville firm French.

00;59;01;06 - 00;59;22;21
Unknown
this is a it breaks the rules of the Rhone a little bit because it's not Grenache heavy. it does have. It's Grenache Syrah, but it's led by Senso and Karen. Corinthian. Okay, are the two predominant grapes, and you're not. You're not allowed to call it a Rhone. If Grenache is not at least 48%. So, this does not have enough Grenache in it to be that.

00;59;22;21 - 00;59;45;29
Unknown
So they had to just it's just a product of France red wine, you know, kind of a thing. But 899 and Whole Foods right now. Okay. And, it's part of the Famille Perrin, group of wines. So the guys who do do that, the Co Tyrone, they are currently have a 799 proper Cote du Rhone at Trader Joe's that they're selling.

00;59;45;29 - 01;00;12;00
Unknown
That is very good, very delicious. Totally worth 799. This is totally worth 899. This was a little lighter on its feet because it's got that Karen Johnson so and less Grenache. It's not as dark and brooding as a Rhone or like a Chateauneuf du pop would be. this this winds up being a bit more ruby, a bit a bit redder, a bit more ruby, bit more transparent and lighter in body, but really delicious.

01;00;12;02 - 01;00;35;08
Unknown
wonderful. Or and red fruit flavors in there. So this was almost gentle enough and yet layered in its, in its flavors that I was like, this is pleasant, but it's not a perfect match. I it still wasn't quite matching what I was looking for. So when I thought of a dessert wine, I thought of a port. Okay, I thought of something like a saw turn.

01;00;35;11 - 01;00;59;14
Unknown
I thought of just like a late harvest white or a late harvest red. And what that would do. And I sent you a photo of this last night. That was that. I had a bottle of Daniels. Oh, yeah. That I had never opened. Oh, yeah. And I've never tried it before. they're not the easiest thing to find in the wild to go into a store.

01;00;59;22 - 01;01;23;08
Unknown
I think if you go to a wine shop, wine shop? Like proper wine shop, they might have a banyan is a wine. It's it's port like. It's it's like a ruby port is probably the thing that you can compare it closest to. it is made out of Grenache. Grenache, heavy, or made entirely out of Grenache, and it's made in a, southern part of France.

01;01;23;15 - 01;01;45;17
Unknown
The territory is, Let's see, I believe Daniels is the southeastern corner of Russian. Well, so which is not, a region I'm particularly familiar with either. and but Daniels is one of those. I was I always heard about. And it is, it's kind of ruby port. It's red. It's redder. I thought it would be browner.

01;01;45;22 - 01;02;00;23
Unknown
And when I opened it, maybe it's just because of that Daniels name with the B in it, and I'm like, oh, it's going to be like Brown, Daniels, Brown. And something about the sound of that word, I'm like, this is going to be like a tawny port or like a rich, oxidized kind of of sherry wine, like sweet sherry or something.

01;02;00;28 - 01;02;20;20
Unknown
No, it's red. It's nice and bright red. It's got acidity to it, which was surprising. more acidity than a port. It is fortified like a port. So it's got that higher alcohol, but a little less than a port. So it's like 16% is your average for a whereas port is usually around 20. in terms of alcohol.

01;02;20;22 - 01;02;47;24
Unknown
And it is surprisingly fruity. It's nice. Well, having like when it is fortified. So the first sip I took, I was like, whew, that's got a kick. It's nice. but it's sweet. Probably around. I think this one, I think the average for Daniels is 8% residual sugar. So you're usually looking at around like 6 to 8% is what you're going to get.

01;02;47;27 - 01;03;14;02
Unknown
which is sweet, but not like cloyingly sweet. It's just nicely sweet. And there's something about sipping this. I was reading the climax while I was sipping this last night and yeah, okay, you take a sip and you're just like, oh, it's rich, but not too rich. It's decadent, it's layered, it has some complex flavors are going on in there.

01;03;14;02 - 01;03;37;10
Unknown
You know, it's got it's got an earthiness to it. Even though it's not brown. There is this little bit of, Greek. Right. What they call that thing. Like you've got this sort of like slightly or spaciousness almost to a point of minty menthol quality to it. Definitely lots of dark chocolate in there, along with like this sort of stewed like Grenache is really going to give you these strawberry flavors.

01;03;37;10 - 01;03;56;24
Unknown
So like the stewed strawberry or cherry flavors. And then this acidity that keeps it weirdly light, even though you've got that sweetness in there and every sip is such a nice full round sip that a you sip it, you put it down and you would go like at least five, ten pages, and then you're like, oh yeah, I could use another sip.

01;03;56;27 - 01;04;20;18
Unknown
And that keeps you in the book and what you're reading. It's matching that density. The sweetness takes a little bit of that heaviness away, even where you're just sort of like, I think this book is heavy themed. It's dark, there's a lot of death. There's a lot of destruction. There is the, whatever triumph there is at the end is, it's war time victory.

01;04;20;25 - 01;04;50;22
Unknown
It's it's a victory. But there's a lot of, No one's happy they had to go through what they went through to get there, right? It's not it's not just victory. We won. You know, it's like there's a lot of sadness. There's a lot of tragedy. There's. There's triumph, but tons of tragedy. I found the sweetness was something that kept me and that kept me elevated, kept me in the right, pleasant mindset with the wine while being something I only needed a sip now and again.

01;04;50;22 - 01;05;11;10
Unknown
So dessert wine. If you can't find a band, you'll go for a ruby port. I think that's also something that's fruity. Sweet has a nice kick of alcohol. You only need to sip it once in a while. that's my pairing. I'd go dessert wine all the way. I thought the is a slight, slightly more complex than your standard ruby port, so I would go with that to match the complexity of the comic.

01;05;11;10 - 01;05;39;13
Unknown
But otherwise, yeah, dessert wine all the way. All right. Which got, curiously enough, I sort of ventured, toward those. I veered toward those, dessert wines as well. I thought a port, maybe even, a white port. yeah. You know, something that had a sweetness that kind of countered the kind of darkness and grimness of this really unsettling kind of world.

01;05;39;16 - 01;06;07;28
Unknown
that was really sort of acrid and and acidic, but then I decided I needed something with the complexity of a red, you know, just because the book is so sort of dynamic. I then thought I couldn't imagine drinking a red for this ride. I just couldn't imagine drinking a red for this red because it's already so dark.

01;06;07;28 - 01;06;26;10
Unknown
And even the world is sort of cloying, you know, not to use, the, you know, the wiper, but the world is sort of like. And so I started thinking, well, what's sort of the halfway point between those two maybe. And, you know, was like, okay, what about the white world? What about the white grapes? and, you know, white.

01;06;26;10 - 01;06;57;25
Unknown
Definitely not. but then I veered into the orange realm, right? I was like, okay, maybe there's there's a space here that is, that has the depth of a red, but also has the buoyancy of, a, a dessert wine. So I started thinking a, sparkling orange y, and it came to. Okay. Yeah, a sparkling orange wine.

01;06;57;27 - 01;07;23;06
Unknown
it, you know, it's the spergel a great, which is a white wine variety from northern Italy. Not very well known. It, you know, can it's been displaced by the Pinot Grigio. Sure, sure. Things just have gone cellblocks blancs. But, in this particular treatment, it, it kind of shows wines because the fermentation process is, of course, direct press.

01;07;23;09 - 01;07;47;04
Unknown
it's done in steel tanks. there's temperature control. And that kind of echoes. What, Talbot's done with this piece here. It is kind of temperature controlled because he's kind of controlling, even though it seems like chaos. He's controlling every page. He really is. And every piece he drops has a reason, for being there. there's a malolactic fermentation here.

01;07;47;04 - 01;08;17;26
Unknown
It is again, the sparkling grape and the Malvasia, aromatic. So, it is an Italian. It's aged in a clay and silt. it is going to go kind of. It's it's juicy. Right. It's very juicy. very aromatic. it flexes so, you know, the first glass is one thing. The second glass feels completely different. glass three feels completely different.

01;08;17;28 - 01;08;40;11
Unknown
and, you know, I got the interesting. That's what you flexes. So what do you mean by flexes when you say that it changes? Yeah. So, you know, when you there's certain wines, certain grapes, that when you eat them with food, depending on the acidity level of the food or whatever it is, it will it sort of changes fully on the palate, like, and flexes like with a person.

01;08;40;11 - 01;09;00;04
Unknown
You're like, they flex and it's like, so it's strong, like, you know, they're, they're, when you flex, whether you're strong or not, you're like trying to come across as strong. And it was like it was I think, I think I packed or something a slightly different, connotation. I never heard the word flexing meaning, changes, sort of.

01;09;00;04 - 01;09;19;23
Unknown
It flexes, it shifts the changes rather than sort of. Yeah. I've just never heard flexing used in that connotation. Yeah, that threw me. Well, there you go. Okay. add it to your list of new context. so we've got the, it's, from Danny. Benny is the, vineyard here? It is. The there Bosa bianco del.

01;09;19;26 - 01;09;38;08
Unknown
Amelia. it is, as you've seen, this is the second bottle I've gone through. I really like it. And again, I'm an orange guy who, you know, when it comes to orange wines, I enjoy a glass. I enjoy a glass. But after that, I'm going to need something else to kind of, compliment it, change it.

01;09;38;10 - 01;10;12;00
Unknown
this actually just opens up on its own. And again, this is a sparkling orange, Italian, which is, sort of anchored by these regular grape, in terms of price point, you're looking at probably 25 bucks, at your better, sort of wine, stores, and 11% alcohol, you know, if that's a, consideration for you, but, although I it would, you know, I thought you needed low alcohol for me.

01;10;12;00 - 01;10;28;19
Unknown
I went with the high alcohol dessert wine, but you sip it very slow. Right. So it hits you very slowly because you need, you got to keep your wits about you on this. Yeah. There you go. You can't it the moment you start to lose it a little bit even just in the tipsy. You ain't falling shit right on that page.

01;10;28;21 - 01;10;49;15
Unknown
so you, you need to keep your wits a fair bit about you on this. So. Yeah. Do something that you sip slow or have like that. Did, low alcohol to begin with. Yeah. Fluctuate. Fluctuate. Might have been. no, that's what you mean by flakes, but. Yeah. Yeah, no, I never it's okay. All right. flex, you got a new word.

01;10;49;16 - 01;11;10;00
Unknown
New context. I suppose I don't know if I'll ever use it that way. I gotta I gotta look up the Urban Dictionary and see you actually been using it that way. Or if this is like your own creation, which I'm cool with, but I feel like it's your own creation connotation. And the invitation. You got, the invitations you got, primary connotations and secondary connotations, interstellar connotations.

01;11;10;03 - 01;11;29;26
Unknown
Yeah. This is one of those cases. If you're the only one poetically using it in this way, I'm like, I mean, I guess it's what it looks like. Sort of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Sweet. Good Irish folks. Good episode. That is Luther Arkwright. The Adventures of Luther Arkwright was the actual full book. One book two heart of Empire, aka The Legacy of Luther Arkwright.

01;11;29;26 - 01;11;48;09
Unknown
We will hit in a future episode. all in preparation of that third book, The Legacy of Luther Arkwright, which is up for preorder on Amazon, or elsewhere. Some I know there are some bookstores, Shakespeare and Co, Barnes Noble, things like that you can all preorder from as well. And your local coffee shop, of course you can go preorder it from there.

01;11;48;09 - 01;12;06;27
Unknown
It has been lost and diamond, I ordered it from Golden Apple Comics, here in LA. So go if you have never read and you, Luther Arkwright, you absolutely have to. You cannot call yourself a comics. Yeah. And and check out the other not. Yeah. And check out the audiobook. the audiobook is on Spotify. I have already followed it.

01;12;06;27 - 01;12;28;14
Unknown
I haven't tried it yet, but the cast is kind of stunning. Apparently. David Tennant recorded this right before he got cast in Doctor Who, so it was like he did this and then became like a mega star immediately after. but but they got him for this right before that happened, so. But he's at his peak. even then, he's downgraded this guy.

01;12;28;17 - 01;12;48;19
Unknown
so, yeah, take a listen, but read the comic first if you can. I feel like the audiobook might absolutely come across better. Yeah. Read definitely read. Read the book first for sure. Yeah. All right, guys, this was our first comic. We'll be back for another one soon. I am sure we will definitely do something different before we do the second book with our art, right?

01;12;48;19 - 01;13;21;04
Unknown
So keep our eye out for that. But once again, this has been wine. And I and Dave Baxter with me has been the host. I've also Dallas and we will be back next week for another wine and entertainment Berry for extra entertaining. Buh buh. Thanks guys. So this. Is a friend of.

01;13;21;06 - 01;13;26;14
Unknown
My. For the benefit of.

01;13;26;16 - 01;13;35;17
Unknown
DC.