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EP38: Ben Grimm and The Thing About Skin
NYT bestselling author Jonathan Maberry joins us to explore the handwavium, biology, and symbolism behind strong skin—from the Thing’s rocky dermis to memory tattoos and the scars that shape identity.

Transcript:

joe: [00:00:00] Hey,
welcome to the Rabbit Hole of Research. We’re down here in the basement studio with another exciting episode in our Fantastic four
series. We’ll be focusing
a little bit on the thing and
all things strong, tough skin. As usual, we have the whole crewhere. You have me, Joe, you got
geo: Nick, we’ve gotNick and Georgia.
joe: We’ve got Georgia.
geo: And
joe: have a specialguest with us.
geo: And for our
joe: we
geo: let the guestsintroduce themselves.
joe: Please.
Jonathan: Hi, I’mJonathan Mayberry. I’m a New York Times bestselling author. Multiple genres. Iwrite horror, science fiction, fantasy, whatever. And also a comic book writerwrote for Marvel for a bunch of years, dark Horse, IDW doing some freelanceprojects. Now they’re a lot of fun. I also edit Weird Tales magazine and keepmy myself pretty immersed in the pop culture world, which is my home space.
My, that’s my comfort zone.
joe: Yeah. Awesome. No,it should be fun. Hopefully we can fit [00:01:00]you, fit right in here with our witty banter at times. I don’t know. So you
nick: I do have tosay that I’ve read a lot of your stuff that I did not realize was yours untilabout a month ago. I was like, I read that. Oh wait, I know his stuff. It wasjust
Jonathan: get a lotof that from folks at events too. And that, that’s cool. It’s always a readingthis stuff that’s what matters most, but. When I was at the the world premiereevent for the Black Panther, Wakanda forever I not only did were peoplesurprised that I had written anything that became part of that movie.
Everybody there was surprised I was white including RyanCoogler. Ryan Coogler had came up to me in the, at the after party. He, you’rewhite. I’m like, I am. Oh my God. He had no idea. He thought I was black. Interms of talking about skin, that’s interesting.
joe: Yeah.
geo: There you go.That’s a great segue.
nick: Yeah. Sousually
joe: I
geo: have
joe: a definition thatget us grounded and I have a
geo: list
joe: so I’ll do thedefinition what is skin. [00:02:00] But I dohave a special list for Jonathan because I know he likes facts and he alwayshas posts on social media.
If you follow him on all the different flavors of social media,he has. Tell me something new or something. I don’t know. So
nick: I have
geo: a list and
joe: I’ll see how manyof those facts, but I’ll
geo: start with thedefinition to get us started. What is skin? Skin is biological armor.
joe: It’s a sensorinterface, a site of cultural
geo: inscription
joe: and a metaphor foridentity.
It’s the most visible and tactile representation of self and infiction, a canvas onto which transformation, trauma and power are projected. SoI think that’s
Jonathan: Wow. Nicelyphrased. I like that.
joe: you.
nick: Yeah. And so wewere,
geo: as I said,talking
joe: the FantasticFour.
geo: And,
joe: We already had thefirst episode on a Fantastic four come out.
And but just a recap. It’s a fictional
superhero team uh, by Marvel,
created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first appeared in Fantasticfour, number 1, 19 61 Marvel
comics. [00:03:00] consideredMarvel’s first superhero team, or the
first family and helped establish a more human,
flawed,
family driven style that defined Marvel storytelling.
Ben was one of the members of that team. He was Reed Richard’scollege roommate and former football star.
Jonathan: Yep.
joe: And Ben had he, hewas
geo: after a
joe: trip
illegal
and or
A unscripted trip into space they
were bombarded by
cosmic rays Ben got disfigured and he was given this kind ofrocky, orange,
scaly skin
that was superhuman strength impenetrable and had all thesekind of nearly imper impervious to damage and things like that.
So yeah, that’s the character.
nick: Yeah. So I dohave to say that it is always so interesting seeing him in the comics becausethey tend to show the strength of his skin. ’cause are, [00:04:00] we’re considering it skin. Yes. I would
geo: consider
joe: skin. Yes. As the,
probably the
outer later the dermis was modified in some way, but,
nick: Yeah. And it’salways so fascinating ’cause I was reading an issue I’ll have to put it in theshow notes where they it was they were pulling him apart and like you just sawall of his skin. It looked like a gum being pulled. And it was just like, whoa.Like the amount of pain that has to be, I’m assuming it’s like a scab thatwould just be like.
Jonathan: Yeah. One,one that’s not ready to fall off, but they’re trying to pull it.
nick: exactly. Andthen I told him, I’m like, oh it’s, yeah. Fantastic. I love that.
Jonathan: And Ialways loved when Kirby would show me him getting a really hard impact. One ofthe ways they would use to emphasize the impact is pieces of rock would beflying off of him.
joe: Yeah.
geo: another
Jonathan: would beblood from a, a busted nose. But for him it was always pieces of rock fallingoff and that kind of defined how hard he was being hit because he’s impervious.
But somebody could [00:05:00]do that, at least to him,
joe: and knock off bitsof skin and or his outer structure, which is interesting. And thinking abouthow that would actually form I think NICU hit on it with and scar tissue wasone that, that immediately came to my mind that as he was bombarded was, wasthat now some scarification and you have this kind of, , in terms of scars, youget fibrous tissue that forms as you get the scar. So is that now
geo: been
joe: modified as DNA?And so you get this kind of overgrowth and then calcification and then almostkind of mineralization there that would form this kind of outer exterior.
then
as you as you were just pointing out, Jonathan, that as it getsdamaged, bits gets knocked off, but presumably is regenerated.
And so that means this is some
geo: active
joe: process thathappens.
Jonathan: And hisskin would have to be, his rock skin would have to have to be at least porousor something. Otherwise he would,
nick: Thanks.
Jonathan: the theskin’s the most important breathing apparatus next to our lungs. And [00:06:00] so he would need that. And funny ’causeI’ve had a conversation about this with Stan Lee years ago at the Houston ComicPalooza, I think it was.
And buttress, we’re talking about different characters and howthe, somehow the conversation come up is how they would get medical treatment.
nick: Oh,
Jonathan: Ben Grimmhad beautiful white teeth. how dentist worked on. Were his teeth set in gums orwere they set in
joe: Rock.
Jonathan: A couple ofus were asking questions of Lee and he is we didn’t think that far.
joe: I mean, Nails,Nonas fingernails.
Yeah. I mean you, you have all of those external
besides breathing and pores, you also have tactile sensation. Askin is our communication to our environment.
So if you lose that you lose a major sense. It’s almost likebeing blind or deaf or any losing any other senses. So that is something that Idon’t know if they cover that in any comic line or,
Jonathan: they touchon it because there are times, even though when he, especially in the earlyFantastic four comics, he and Johnny were always in a a baiting war. They’realways trying to get [00:07:00] you right intoeach other. And sometimes Johnny would try to scorch him and he would, he wouldact, he would run away, he would react to it so he could feel pain, feelpressure but his skin.
It was like being on the other side of a fireproof garment. Youfeel the heat, you just don’t get the actual firm. So that might be where theywere going with it if they even thought that far. But, because presuming thathe, he, something like that could exist.
And the version of it we’re seeing in the most recent trailersfits the old Ben Graham a little more.
How I envision him. He’s more fluid, he is more flexible. It’sless like a rock man trying to move than a man who made a malleable rock. Andit must be malleable.
If he’s going to reach
joe: right?
geo: Yeah.
nick: Be able to grabthings.
joe: Yeah. You have tobe flexible still. And that’s part of it, that when this transformationhappened, when
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: theflexibility can’t just be the subdermal layer because if he was stretching, youwould see gaps as, so it must be the rock itself rocket [00:08:00] that is stretching like an alligator skin and so on,which looks armored, but it still has a degree of flexibility. ’cause otherwisethe thing couldn’t operate couldn’t swim or anything else.
nick: that’s actuallya really good point. Like putting it towards like an alligator skin. I wouldn’thave even thought of that.
Jonathan: Actuallywhere I’ve always gone with the things skin because it has to move and know.You mentioned that I’m a research or knowledge junkie. I am a knowledge junk. Iwas a kid I, that’s what I was trying to figure out how he did that, where theHulk got his extra mass from, because Bruce was maybe 150 pounds and the Hulk.
So there, I knew just enough about science even as a kid. Tohave questions. And some of those I did get to ask, Stan, because I got to knowhim pretty well last few years of his life. And also some of the other folkswho worked on Fantastic Four. I had conversations with John Byrne about it.
J Byrne was more of the, everything’s elastic, just reallytough thing. And I mentioned to him about I called it crocodile skin, but thesame alligator skin, same thing. [00:09:00] Andhe said that, that’s probably exactly what it’s like that just thicker.
joe: Yeah.
nick: A
joe: more adorable or
geo: yeah,
joe: Or calcified insome way.
So you would have that, some combination, maybe armadilloscaling also would, it has some level of flexibility in It’s the way it’sjoined. And
geo: also
Jonathan: he smiles,he laughs, he frowns. All of those require elastic skin of the facial musclesand skin.
joe: And a muscle.Yeah. You, the muscle control of all that’s just not you.
You still have to maintain that. Yeah. Yeah. That
Jonathan: I.
nick: Yeah.
Jonathan: like thataspect of the thing of that, that concept of the thing being more elastic,more, it makes him more human and also makes him more of a scarified victim ofwhat’s going on, rather than a transformed into a monster thing. Because I, hewas always about the monster and he wasn’t a monster.
He was a victim of a reaction, a mutated skin reaction tosomething, it’s a cosmic race. It’s unfair and sad that he became, the [00:10:00] ugly one.
nick: I think you hiton a good thing right there where he does get identified as a monster and seenpeople with different deformities do get, back then people were like, oh,they’re either had a curse put on them or something.
It was just always, this is a monster.
Jonathan: yeah. Andthen we’re leaning in a little bit to the paranoia that was pretty common inthe fifties and sixties, anyone who wasn’t us. That, that other thing, plus,it’s the beginning of the civil rights era. Era, so you have a lot of that,it’s not us thing but that’s also, again, Kirby and Lee leaning into, justbecause it looks different, doesn’t make it not human.
I think there was a little bit of that in there too, which theyexplored with the X-Men and some other things. But I love the fact that BenGrimm is a good guy and I hated the fact that, and so many of the early comics,he’d be walking on the street maybe with a slouch hat and a car up.
Somebody would see him and it would be terrified. First off,why about issue two? They should know he exists.
geo: Right
Jonathan: It, they,Lee and Kurt kept wanting to make the point. And it’s funny [00:11:00] because the point they were making is whatwe in, in, in the novel trade it’s one of the rookie mistakes of assuming thereader doesn’t remember from the last episode to detail play down and keepsneeding to be reinforced.
I can understand it in Fantastic Four ’cause it was the firstMarvel comic, but they kept it going well into I think the forties issue,forties and in that
Still regarded as a monster. And I think even I, I’m Monster Ithink was maybe one of the titles or this man, this monster that was the
So that he’s still trying to get back to being human ’cause hestill is has now bought into the, people see me as a monster, therefore I amone.
geo: Yeah. That
Jonathan: It’s a sad
joe: and that, thatseemed like some of that storyline, if we think about just his identity, thathe was just sweet, caring person, but then he had this external kind of, it wasthis play maybe oversimplification
of these, traits that he had.
And you get that [00:12:00] andI you brought up. Just to segue a little bit to the civil rights movement thingis Luke Cage then in the, who came out, who also then was given tough skinunder different circumstances, this coerced, experimental activity. And thenthe racist the warden or police officer screwed with the
instrumentation.
then he was given, the super strong literally impenetrable kindof skin. So this very tough skin. And so that was a very different. So he wasvery normal on the outside, but society, at, seen him as a monster. So it’sthis this area.
Jonathan: also do youguys, guys know who John Lewis was, right?
nick: Yeah.
geo: Yeah. Yeah.
joe: yes.
Jonathan: So he did acomic called a March for IDW. We did a signing, together at one of, at ComicConone year. And we were talking, and Luke Cage was I think just coming on TV atthe time somewhere around the the Luke Cage era on Netflix.
And we were talking, and he’s in his theory on the, you LukeCage having the armored skin, is that black men, [00:13:00]black people had to be so bulletproof in terms of their reactions to what isbeing
About. That, what they did to Luke, what Luke represented was,no matter what you say, you can’t hurt me.
Was that kind of an approach that was at least John Lewis’stake, and I valid one
joe: Yeah. No, I,
geo: But
Jonathan: but again,I don’t know if the creators had that specifically in mind. It’s like withGeorge Romero in Night of Living Dead. I just wanna jump
A second, because in Ge Night of Living Dead, you had a blackman who was the only strong, intelligent
geo: right.
joe: And
Jonathan: and all thereviewers said, my God, this was this incredible civil rights movie.
It’s about racism. It wasn’t, he was the only good actor whoauditioned.
joe: Yeah,
Jonathan: right,George Romero saw those reactions and from then on leaned into that as theinterpretation of even that first movie. I think I would agree Marvel may becounting its own design aesthetic when, they gave some of these characters,these qualities.
I think they [00:14:00] may,I’m hoping at least on some subliminal level, they were trying to make thatkind of of equitable statement, about just because we are different does notmean we are bad or wrong or evil or monsters or anything. And, Marvel had themore progressive vibe than DC anyway, so I think that may have been, aningredient in the soup at least.
joe: Yeah. No, yeah, Ithink I totally agree with that and see that from that perspective especiallygrowing up in, in America as a a. Person of color, a black man that, that it issomething that you go out in the world and you have to be
as
good or better than your white counterparts at times.
And sometimes you’re the only, and so then you have that weightgoing out into the world, so that, that is also, both. And Luke Cage’scharacter was a large man, almost a John Henry kind of figure. So it wasn’tlike they took a skinny, black man and said, okay you’re now
nick: but superskinny.[00:15:00]
joe: he was
geo: a right,
joe: He was really a,he was
nick: intimidatingfigure. Yeah, that’s
joe: right. For, so
geo: and it wasliterally having tough skin. Literally
joe: skin. And,
geo: And, being ableto deal with
joe: right. And
geo: All, and skin,and
joe: Touch upon it alittle bit. But, enslaved people were used in experiments on skin andparticularly testing of thick skin.
So there was this
geo: theory
joe: that, theseenslaved people didn’t feel pain because they had thicker hides like animals.And so you had
geo: a
joe: number of slaveowners who would do these experiments and torturous experiments and go throughit. So that was it. And those myths persist even today.
That, with pain medication and thing that, that black peopledon’t need, as much, or can tolerate more pain because of these these kind ofracist ideals that, that were put out
nick: and that havecontinued,
joe: has continued.Yeah.
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: there,there was a a poem that may Angelou read at Temple University years ago, [00:16:00] and one of the lines in it, and I’ve triedto find this online, is just because I survived being whipped didn’t mean Iliked it.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: That andthat
geo: kind
Jonathan: speaks alittle bit to this, just because they survived the things that people put themthrough, didn’t mean they were invulnerable.
It meant they, they were committed to survival
It should have been admired rather than looked at as a freak ofnature, thing. But,
joe: No, definitely.Yep. No.
Jonathan: I just
wanna say one more thing about Fantastic Four. I don’t know ifyou know this story, Joe, but that comic first of off, it was my favorite comicand this was the very first comic I ever
joe: Wow. There it is.
nick: Oh damn.
geo: Oh wow.
Jonathan: Bought thatwhen I was a kid.
I was nine years old.
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: The thingabout Fantastic Four is I, my background had a lot to do with skin in thisregard. My father, who was a terrible human being, ran the local chapter of theKKK. So I grew up in a household dominated by racism in a neighborhood inPhiladelphia that was known as White Town, USA.
That was the [00:17:00]nickname of my neighborhood. It’s still rated as the worst neighborhood inPhiladelphia, even, it’s yay team. And it was
joe: which neighborhooddid you grow up in? Kente. Okay. I was gonna try to guess, but I didn’t
Jonathan: never beenthere. If a black family would move in the neighborhood, their house would befirebombed,
joe: Yeah. Wow.
Jonathan: terribleplace.
So when an issue, was it 52 that black Panther showed up? Whenthat character f because I’ve been, even though this was the first, fantasy 466 was the first comic I bought. I’ve been reading comics since I was a littlekid. My brother gave me all his comics before he went off to Vietnam.
So I had, fantasy four, going back to issue two and issue 52 ofFantasy four introduced a black character who was nobody’s sidekick. He was no,he was not comic relief. He was not a start to, he was the king of his ownnation. He was a scientist and he was a superhero. And of course, my fatherwould see that comic, he’d rip it up.
And, I would always rebuy them. And then later on in seventhgrade, I actually went to a, my middle school librarian and brought a co [00:18:00] one of the copies one of the comics in andsaid my father, she knew who my father was. Everybody did, my father hates thiscomic. I don’t really know why.
’cause I was, I hadn’t met any people of color up until seventhgrade. My neighbor was white. And she looked at the issue and said thatparticular, she was about apartheid. I’m like, what? What is that? And sheexplained it and she said do you know about the Jim Crow laws? I’m like, no.
And she said, do you know who Martin Luther King was? I said,yeah, he was this, and unfortunately, I used a racial epithet because that’swhat we were trained to use. I said, he was a bad guy who was killed my father,had to throw a party. And she said, sit down. For two and a half hours.
She gave me a crash course in what intolerance and racism areall about.
nick: the
Jonathan: And theissue that I brought in was interesting because it speaks to the topic hereabout skin. It was the issue where Tal is arrested in the Marvel universeversion of South Africa. I forget what the, what they used to call it in thecomics, but he was arrested, he was in prison.
And Ben and Johnny go to [00:19:00]break him out. Ben is orange, brown, Johnny when he is a is red a brown man anda red man helped a black man out of a prison. That is not an accident. EvenSue. Nowhere in sight.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: And it flewright over the head of a lot of people. But, my my librarian, she said, this islike very clear.
It’s, this is about, the races who have to stick togetherbecause they have a greater enemy. But they’re still people and they should bere regarded based on their actions and, content of their soul or quality ofsoul. But it was so interesting that they had, I think it was Ro Roy Thomasmaybe wrote that episode over that issue, but it was so clear, brown, red andblack.
joe: Wow.
geo: Yeah.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: threedifferent skin tones that were really politically charged at the time, withthat 1971 or so. And it, because it could, they could float it by people in acomic, because you could talk about different skin colors, different skin typesin comics because they’re superheroes or super villain.
geo: Right?
Jonathan: But therewas a group, [00:20:00] there was a percentageof the fan base that was getting it.
joe: Yeah. That’s good.I know
Jonathan: I got ahint of it there. And from then on my views and my father’s views split justsay on an epic level.
geo: wow.
joe: Yes. No,
nick: So I have toask how.
joe: how.
nick: Did he knowthat you wrote for Black Panther and all this? He
Jonathan: He was, hedied before that. But had started studying martial arts on the sly when I wassick because, it was a very bad household to grow up. And my four sisters and Iwere pretty badly, abused. And when I was 14, he and I had it out. We had afight. And from that point on he just say there were no more meetings of theKKK in our house.
And he did not make any statements or put his hands on anyone.But
He did not live long enough to see my Marvel comic stays. SoI’m hoping that he’s in his graves spinning it about war. None. Not only did Iwrite Black Panther, I wrote Black Panther, but the female lead, so I wrote afeminist Black
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: probablyhis bones have probably exploded.[00:21:00]
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: I’m okaywith that.
joe: Yeah.
nick: That is sointeresting to hear like that Is your upbringing like being able to come fromthat kind of background to writing some fantastic stories about minority leadsthat, that’s so in
Jonathan: of thatstory. I got the job at Marvel for this particular thing ’cause Reggie Hu,who’d been writing Black Panther. I was already done. I had done a MarvelZombies, I did a Punisher on Wolverine thing, for Marvel by that point. Andthey were Reggie was thinking of stepping down.
He had been the writer for Black Panther. And they were lookingfor someone to replace him. And the assumption was they would, he would pick ablack writer which makes perfect sense. But he heard me talk on the radio,talking about my childhood and how the Black Panther was the pivotal momentwhere my life began splitting away from my father’s racism.
So he went to bat for me at Marvel and got me the gig. And alsobecause I had spent 35 years of my adult life teaching women’s self-defense, hedecided to [00:22:00] give me an extra littlebonus. He said, look, the last six issues of my run, we’re gonna turn Sureyinto the panther. Why don’t you come and post, write that storyline.
I’ll do the maid storyline, but major storyline. But you do theSurey storyline, so you’ll be the first person to put her in the armor and thenyou’ll pick up the comic after that. That’s what we did.
geo: Wow, that’samazing.
Jonathan: I’m still,I, Reggie was also at the Black Panther, Wakanda forever and we were joking.
He said, that radio, if you hadn’t done that radio interview, alot of this wouldn’t be happening right now. But, it was so surreal.
joe: Yeah,
geo: Wow. So
joe: I do want to touchon one of your characters who has skin
as part of their storyline, and that’s Monk and that,
geo: yeah.
nick: You had to
geo: know that wascoming.
Jonathan: actually, Ididn’t I didn’t, but I’m glad you brought up. Monk is one of my favorite
geo: It’s, I love himso much. Glip is like, one of my all time favorite novels. Yeah.
joe: Georgia had, she
geo: and that’sprobably why I
joe: on our chalk boardin our kitchen, and she
geo: Did you, Ialready read
joe: book. And I wasI’ve [00:23:00] been reading your stuff for awhile. And Georgia picked up that book ’cause it was just laying in, in thehouse. And then she was like, oh, this is did you read this line?
I was like, I read the whole book. Yes, I
geo: know.
Jonathan: Monkappears in two other novels and in a short story collection. He’s in Inc.
joe: Yep. Yeah, sure.
Jonathan: BurnedShine, the latest Joe Ledger
joe: Yep.
nick: If you can seethey geeked out and had all your
Jonathan: yeah, thereyou go. And of course, monk Addison’s
geo: That’s right.Yeah.
Jonathan: But hestarted off as a comic book character.
Actually.
geo: Oh, wow.
Jonathan: at onepoint IDW was going to do a shared horror universe, kinda like the DC and theMarvels with the a shared, so it was gonna be Steve Niles Joe Hill, myself, oneor two other guys. We were gonna create monsters that lived in the same world,but were also like heroic monsters.
And we were all ready to go. And then there was a managementchange at Marvel at the IDW rather than never happened. So I took the characterback and I decided to make a short story out of him. And it intended to be aone-off. But as soon as I start writing, I just love the concept of someone whois [00:24:00] haunted by what he does and bythe, the faces of dead people on his
And their ghosts never leave him,
joe: and
Jonathan: are we’regetting a little bit of interest in for film. VIN Diesels reading Ink rightnow.
nick: Oh,
joe: That would be,that, that would be incredible. I can
nick: totally see.That’s really cool.
geo: Oh
joe: and to folks whoare listening you should go read one of the, we’ll put in the show notes, oneof the many stories that Monk is in, but he’s a, an a private
Jonathan: I couldBrenda, he’s a former special ops soldier who then became a private militarycontractor, burned out, went on the pilgrims road to find who he was. And hefound out like he got a tattoo at one point. And he realized that when thetattoo was completed, it was a face of someone.
He was able to then relive their death. And there, there was alittle girl that was murdered and he is able not only relive her death, but seewhat she saw when she was dying, which gave him clues to be able to go out andfind the killers. And that became his road to, it’s hard to call it salvation’cause he isn’t going out killing people.
But at the [00:25:00] samepoint, he’s, it’s a, he’s doing something that is a redemption story, not areligious story, but a redemption
And he has all faces all over him of all these murder victims.And when the tattoo is completed, he, relieves the death, goes finds the killerand if he can stop this person, not as revenge, but to prevent the person fromdoing more killing, and he takes the guy off the board, but the ghost that kindof hired him to do this is always with him.
So he’s surrounded by all the ghosts of the people that he’s,that were murdered and he killed their killers, but they’re always with himlike 24 7. And it, it’s a tough life, but he’s one of my favorite characters.There’s a lot of the thing in him in that with the thing. You always know wherehis moral compass is pointing. He’s not a conflicted character. He is notreally a gray area of character. Reed gets real gray at times. The thing, if hehas your back’s covered. Monk is the same way. Monk’s a dangerous guy. He’s notnecessarily [00:26:00] friendly, he’s not, I’mnot even sure he is likable, for the people who know him. But if he has yourback,
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: You’reokay. You’re gonna be okay. He will not ever hurt the innocent. And that’sthere’s, so there’s a little bit of Ben Grimm in him for sure.
joe: yeah,
geo: Wow.
joe: it’s That ideathat the tattoos are speaking through him, to him, I was looking up some stufffor this episode and preparing is the Skin Ego it’s this kind of theory Dieter,I. And Zoey and suggests that the skin serves as a metaphorical container for theego and provides a sense of boundary and containment for psychic content. TheSkin Ego is like the physical skin, and it’s the boundary that separatesindividual from the external world and also holds to psychic apparatus togetherbody boundaries reflecting kind of psychological boundaries. So it, it was indigging around I was, trying to make the science of monk work a little.
nick: bit.
geo: So I,
Jonathan: Yeah,actually I need to find that thing you were talking about, I [00:27:00] needed to read that. It sounds like it’sreally the right thing for me because if we’re gonna be pitching Monk for filmor tv, I want to be able to build a pitch that really digs deep into thispsychology of it. Most people don’t know this, but Vin Diesel’s an actuallyreally well read individual.
nick: Oh yeah,
joe: Yeah,
Jonathan: He doesn’talways play those types of characters. Unlike Johnny Bernthal plays ThePunisher, the two of them look like together. Based on some of the charactersthey played looks like together, they, collectively of the IQ of about 60. Butin reality, both really good, down to earth nice guys.
Some of the press isn’t always this. I think the press defines’em by their characters more than by them.
But
joe: VIN Diesel, beforethe Fast
geo: Series,
joe: was in BoilerRoom, which I thought was just an incredible movie where it wasn’t Muscle andBraun. It was a very, it was a, a. Thinking movie, I guess if we’re gonnaclassify
nick: Guns
geo: versus,
joe: Yeah.
But I, that was some of his early stuff before he got into theaction. And he found this stride [00:28:00]and, I think that happens. Like he’s a beefy dude and he plays those rolesreally well, but Yeah.
Jonathan: hilariousthough that he’s a DD dungeon master, though.
geo: Yep.
joe: Oh yeah.
nick: Yeah. And he’sa giant nerd.
geo: Oh, wow. Yeah,
Jonathan: actuallyhas a cloak with the hood when he plays
geo: wow.
joe: Wow.
nick: I’ve read that
Jonathan: Becausehe’s one and Henry CA’s one too, and you got these two guys who are, they’redefined a lot by their ability to punch things
Yet, they’re both book nerds, fantasy nerds, pop culture nerdsmakes me like them a lot more,
geo: I think that’sperfect for playing Monk. Because he is such a tough guy, but is introspectiveand do you know what I mean? So that just Yeah.
Jonathan: Sure. Andmonk is trying to find, there, there’s a, I have a long game with the characterof Monk. He’s trying to find his way to the fire zone, which is referenced in acouple different works. And it’s a book I will be actually writing called TheFire Zone that, that kind of TERs together.
But he, he wants peace,
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: he’s doneso much harm in his life. As a, first not asking questions, who he [00:29:00] has to shoot when he was wearing a uniformand asking even fewer questions when he was a private military contractor, hehas, to quote black Widow a lot of red in his ledger and he
And, that isn’t usually done by doing pretty stuff. But alsohe’s good at it and he knows he’s good at it. And there’s a burden there too.When somebody is good at something, even if it’s something that hurts them, butit benefits other people. It’s hard to lay down your sword and shield on thatone.
nick: Yeah,
joe: No, that’s good.Now,
geo: monk also, it’snot just about getting the tattoos and having the ghosts, it’s also what’s inthe, it’s the actual blood, right?
Of,
Jonathan: Yeah. Bloodis mixed with holy water and tattoo ink to create these these tattoos. And hisbest friend Patty Cakes is the tattoo artist. It was her daughter that wasmurdered and that was his first, first of these tattoos. It’s,
joe: I think I thinkonly one of it I, as I’ve heard you talk about this and you do not have atattoo, Jonathan, is that right? Or do you, okay.
geo: Yeah.
joe: You’re like me.
geo: I don’t have,but
Jonathan: We’re lessthan a month [00:30:00] away from me being agrandfather
nick:congratulations.
geo: Oh, wow.
Jonathan: thanks. My,my son and his fiance are, are expecting and the baby’s gonna be named Orion,
geo: Oh, nice.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: so afterthe baby’s born and healthy and mama’s healthy and everything else. Sam, my sonand I are gonna go out and get Orion constellation tattoos.
joe: Awesome.
nick: cool. Verycool. Honestly, it just feels like a cat scratch.
joe: So I
nick: was gonna say,Nick has, I have multiple, yeah. It, oh, you got that thick skin right here.
joe: Oh boy.
nick: There,
joe: now
Jonathan: it’s beenpunctured enough times. I used to be a bodyguard, so I had been stabbed withice pick screwdrivers, knives chopped in the shoulder with a meat cleaver andet.
nick: o yeah.
joe: Yeah. So
nick: So
joe: I,
Jonathan: I have, myskin is not impervious Wish. It was really
joe: If
geo: it was, you wentto get medical
joe: That’s always init. You
nick: brought that upearlier
joe: how do you get,how do you get treated if you need
geo: someone
nick: needs to goinside of
geo: you to
joe: fix something.That’s
Jonathan: I thinkthat’s a missed opportunity for Marvel to do a TV series about, ’cause theyhave [00:31:00] damage control and they had thenight nurse. But I think a clinic for superheroes would be
joe: Yeah.
geo: In Luke Cage,they tried to, they were trying to Netflix. They got
joe: shot with thebullet
nick: that
joe: the kind ofexploding drill tip.
geo: And then she wastrying to get,
joe: she took ’em backto the
geo: original Right.
joe: and cooked them inthe,
geo: there was a,
joe: whole clam.
And it’s interesting ’cause mollus
geo: actually, thereare
joe: that have ironkind of formation in their foot. So in the, so they can scrape algae off ofrocks and fer those out there, mullis are like octopuses cuttlefish clams.Those are classified as mollus.
And they have
geo: shell
joe: they have a footthat can come out and they. They can do work. And so that’s one. And then theyhave, there’s another mole that has like teeth, like kind of iron teeth tocrack shells and things like that. So it is a,
Are some real world. And so that was the idea there that,that’s, and the show, they played on that, that’s what was in this soup.
And they were gonna heat ’em up and then that would [00:32:00] loosen the structure, the molecularstructure, which a
nick: little, a lotof hand waving
joe: as a, so
nick: I was like, oh,
joe: does this work?
geo: But yeah,
joe: it was they didcover
geo: that. At leastthey, at least they tried to cover it. Yeah. Tried attempt to
joe: explain it.
But,
Jonathan: Yeah. Andthey used the night nurse character, I’m forgetting her, Claire, they usedClaire as,
joe: Yep. Yep.
Jonathan: as thego-to person for Daredevil and so
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: I wouldlove to have seen that become a secret department within the hospital sheworked
I might pitch it to Marvel
joe: yeah.
geo: I like that.
Jonathan: doctorfriends. We could some people who would advise me, so
nick: that would be areally cool, like just medical series. Yes. Yeah,
joe: if you’re lookingfor a writer, then, happy to write something for you.
geo: Nonetheless
nick: the other thingI was
joe: say about thetattoos and you, another thing I was looking up was all of the kind of dermalsensors.
I, I didn’t really know a lot about that till I was looking itup, but the MIT had a project where they were using bio sensitive inks in therethat was a reactive to glucose, pH, sodium kind of to monitor [00:33:00] health . And so this tattoo ink was biowas actually bio censored.
And so you have this kind of.
Jonathan: They’reworking on diabetics to be able to like literally flash a little warning when,things like that. Cancer sensors and other things. And also the, one of thethings they’re, they’ve been talking about, I don’t know if they’ve gottenthere quite yet, is an implant that will sense the onset of seizures of onekind or another, and then transmit immediately to 9 1
Or to the, the contact person for, care. It’s a great idea. Andthat’s the kind of body mods I’m okay with. I’m not a big fan of body mod forthe most part, but that one, those sort of things, when science is used for theright thing,
Right? I’m
joe: Yep.
Jonathan: doing upone of my upcoming Joe Ledger novels is going to deal with cybernetics and allof its different good and bad phases.
And I started doing some research and man, it’s amazing what’sunder RD right now. And it’s freaky that we’re so much further along than Ithought we were. A lot of the stuff is there, it’s just a matter of getting theright funding, right grants and [00:34:00]getting it past people who don’t want that kind of thing attached to them.
They’ll find with going out and getting a barcode or a QR codetattooed on them, not something, that’s not stylish, but their health.
joe: Yeah. I think theso at the University of Chicago where I do research at and work I’m part of thethe cube, which is a quantum NSF funded facility where they’re
geo: where they’re
joe: trying to developquantum sensors for biological applications like that. And so that is, it’sreally, so I was just in a meeting because I’m a biologist, so I go and try tointerface with the physicist and chemists talk about applications.
So that’s where. I come in,
geo: I know
joe: enough to talkabout qubits and, how entanglement works, but I’m not, that is not myexpertise. But and going over how these sensors can work to report informationout is super important. So yeah it’s a fascinating as I got into that and hearabout some of the things and, ’cause it’s like, how do we get this
geo: thing that
joe: in cells on aPetri dish now into a body or what’s the [00:35:00]mechanism?
And, it’s
geo: the, you’reright
joe: it is
geo: some of the
joe: stuff that’s insci-fi and, it’s now making its way and it’s that’s more real than you think,
Jonathan: sciencefiction has always been one of the reasons they called it speculative fictionor, it’s a lot of people looking forward. The cell phones, we’re clearlyinspired by the communicators on Star Trek, but we do more, much more now. Thecell’s far more, it’s like the communicator, the tri-quarter, about 15 otherthings.
In our phone now, but that’s where the idea came from for itsstructure. And a lot of other things, what I grew up reading, the reprints, theban of reprints of the old doc Savage novels, man of bronze, if you’ve everread any of those. They published 175 of them published in the thirties andforties.
And he always had advanced technology that he developed and alot of it’s stuff we have now.
geo: Wow. Yeah.Contact
Jonathan: lensesanswering machines, planes that, this is 1934 planes that flew 500 mile anhour.
Have that. All so many of the things that, that Lester Dent,who wrote most of the novels, put in the stories for [00:36:00]things that people were just saying, wouldn’t it be cool if
writers threw that stuff into fiction and some of the peoplereading that fiction grew up three scientists.
joe: Yes. That’s theway it works sometimes.
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: one of mybest friends, one of my best friends, Ronald Coleman, who’s now actually acharacter, ongoing character in my Joe Ledger stories.
But he’s a molecular biologist, stem cell scientist. And I’mconstantly talking to him about wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this?
And sometimes he’s yeah we did that in
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: Or we’reall come up with, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this? Would this even bepossible? He is not yet, but maybe by the time the book is out, because I knowworking on grants for that, I love science and I love the fact that keepsmoving forward.
What I don’t like is that there are groups that, that aretaking this science, and of course the biggest funding is for DARPA and thingslike that. The military research,
nick: Yeah.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: I’ve talkedto those guys a bunch of times and yeah, some scary nerds.
joe: right?
nick: The best kind,scary nerds. So I do have a question, Joe. How likely is it to have [00:37:00] skin? Like the thing, because I know thereis that syndrome where
joe: yeah,
nick: guy had thetree skin,
joe: Your skin can cal,calcification of skin and I’m trying to think of the disorders.
Like FFAP, FOP or something
nick: I think it’ssomething around there. Yeah. And so
geo: your,
joe: yeah, you justhave this kind of all your fibrous tissues begin to calcify and over calcifyinto bony structures. The problem with that, you’d have to make this next leapbecause as we talked about earlier, how do you make that flexible, right?
Because those folks usually are fairly, they come very stiff intheir structure and they, and rigid. So you need to, now how do you make that.So almost, it can’t be an internal structure. It has to be external in terms ofthe way you would form it. So that would have to be either a new fourth skinlayers
nick: created
geo: that
joe: then give you thisextra properties and or your dermis would now excrete something some material, [00:38:00] either, one of these iron
geo: sulfide kind of
joe: compounds or couldbe even calcified.
We talked about diatoms in I think the plant episode. And sowhere they produce silicate or coral, they produce a calcium kind of deposit.So there are organisms that do excrete these materials. And you could havethese snails That’s right, snail shells, right? So there are these bio your
nick: teeth
joe: a biomaterial,right?
And so there’s a lot of folks Working on that. I know some ofthose folks, and it’s fascinating because the interface between biology and,this kind of this biomaterial is unique and, difficult to reproduce. That’s whyyou go in for dental work or implants stay, they don’t stay all the time orthey, it’s a interesting field there.
But yeah I
Jonathan: One of theconceits within comics though on that topic though, is that when, they neverconsidered that a lot of these mu mutations would be detrimental to
joe: Yes. Yep. Yes.
Jonathan: withinskin, the [00:39:00] way it is, he would be a,a patient in a hospital somewhere. He would be walking around punching the.
nick: Yes. When wetalked about
joe: the cosmic rays inthemselves would be pretty damaging, so you would have to be a mutant alreadyto tolerate the cosmic race from not just being a cancer patient. You’re right.He would be in those the, instead of tough skin, it would just have tumors allover him and, a ruined thyroid because he’s been,
geo: On your chest,
joe: You’re now beendevastated by cosmic race unshielded and exposed to cosmic race.
Which, you know, so Yeah. It you’re right. About that.
nick: Yeah, so
joe: And so
geo: it
Jonathan: It doescreate a, an opening though for stories to be told that would explain it. Andjust like there have been a lot of folks that come along and tried to explainthe physics of Star Trek or Star
geo: right.
Jonathan: On thephysics of Superman. There are plenty of books out there where, scientists likeyourself are trying to say, okay, if that is
joe: right. That’sright
Jonathan: then how.
I played with this, actually not on, on the skin subject, but Idid a book called Zombie, CSU, where I [00:40:00]interviewed a couple hundred people in the real world about what would happenif zombies were real. If zombies were here, inarguably here, I would beresearch, react, respond, whatever. And, talked to scientists, talk to, all thedifferent types of scientists military and everyone else, everyone has atheory, but it would be, it would need to be a new there wouldn’t have to bethere.
Somebody have to be, throw a hell of a lot of money intoresearch to finding out how these people are not dying as a result of thesechanges. And I think that opens up a lot of storytelling possibility for comicstoo. But I would love to do an anthology, a prose anthology where scientistswrite superhero stories that explain the superheroes.
joe: Yeah.
geo: No.
nick: there you
geo: there you go.No,
Jonathan: I do know abunch of scientists, writers.
joe: Yeah.
geo: Yeah,
joe: Yeah. right. Yes.
Jonathan: Some inthis room.
geo: that’s
nick: That’s what
joe: that’s what we tryto do on the podcast. Nick could throw me that question. I
geo: know. Yeah, it’s
joe: I
geo: do think,
joe: and you talk aboutsome of those things, like you have other heroes Colossus who has, he puts themetal armor on and you talk about your skin [00:41:00]breathing, he’d have to take that off pretty quick and, or is there some othermechanism that he’s using to actually dissipate heat and things like that.
So you do have these kind of these characters who have thisthese abilities. And then to form a metallic skin and then take it away alsorequire some level of. Rapid metabolism. And on this, on the podcast, we alwaystry to explain things in terms of how many Big Macs would you have to eat tocompensate for the caloric load of doing some of these modifications quickly.
Jonathan: Yeah.
joe: that’s right.Yeah.
geo: Which no talks
joe: the calories, sothat’s why
Jonathan: Yeah withColossus, it would make a little more sense if instead of it just being steel,it was plates that,
joe: Yes.
Jonathan: Under whichair could get through
joe: Yes.
Jonathan: Evaporationhappen and so on. But again, the comic book writers are not scientists. We’rein the 21st century. We’re 25 years into century.
It’s time to level up and let the nerds come out to play andmake the comics make sense, which I think would bring [00:42:00]in whole group of readers because a lot of people dismiss comics foolishly assaying that they’re not literature, they’re not good, but they are, they’rereally
geo: Absolutely.
Jonathan: if, youcould use comics as a way to teach stem, STEM
joe: I agree.
geo: Definitely
Jonathan: much,there’s a lot of good science there.
But there’s also what if science and what if science is whatdrives science forward?
joe: We talk aboutzombies. That was so that how I got into, I always wanted to do science,education and outreach. And I realized a lot of adults don’t know anythingabout science. And I had a friend who was doing these art and science talks,and he approached me with this idea and he said, oh, I’m doing these talks, butno one shows up to hear about the science lectures.
And I was like, oh. So this was some years ago. And it’s how Idiscovered your view because I was I said I’m a big zombie fan and that’s kindsof zombies and how it works. So I started reading everyone at, had the zombiestuff and kind of where they’re at. Where’s the literature at? All the [00:43:00] movies.
And so I pitched to my friend, I said, Hey, we should do theart and science to science of zombies. And he looks at me and who, and he ofthe sciences also, he goes, but no one does research on zombies.
geo: I go, I know,but if you want people to show up, then
joe: talk aboutsomething that’s super fun and then we’ll sneak science in on em.
And I’m a cell biologist, so we’ll do all cell biology and kindof talk. And it was, we filled this art gallery up with people. It was standingroom only. And he was like, wow, this really worked. And so now as he does it Ithink he’s stopped or taking a pause, but every time he does it, he has somelittle hook like that now.
And I’m like, yeah, let’s keeping going. And so that was then,how we arrived to this podcast was at that idea, but that was the start of it.Zombies was the the fun and figuring out how you would get the infection eventand then what would happen after that. In fast zombies.
nick: you love fastzombies.
Jonathan: yeah. In mydead at night series, I worked with scientists to come up with a parasitedriven one. Toxic plasma, green jewel wasp, whole bunch of other
And
joe: sometimes[00:44:00]
geo: you,
Jonathan: You can geta certain distance toward doability, toward, actual rea realizing it for some,if you talk to the right scientist and get them to really, put their mind toit, you get a lot further and closer to it than is comfortable sometimes.
But you’re talking
geo: right
Jonathan: the artgallery thing here in San Diego. We have the Fleet Center, which is a sciencecenter attached to the the astronomy center. And I was on a panel there. Theyhad also been trying to do panels and nobody was showing up to them. So becauseComic-Con is in San Diego, they decided to start bringing in comics people totalk to scientists.
The very first panel where I met the scientist I mentionedearlier, Dr. Ronald Coleman. It was Kevin Eastman, the artist who co-createdthe Ninja Turtles and myself. We were comic creators. And then the two, therewas a var Virologist who’s sadly named, I’m blanking on Nancy something, Ican’t remember her last name.
And Ronald Coleman, who’s, said a stem cell scientist. And wewere asking them questions and they were, they they were asking us questions.The [00:45:00] audience was asking questions.Kevin, the artist from Ninja Turtles, he wa he was like, goo or whatever. So wejust, we need, we needed a thing.
We just call it that. That’s total there. Or my V wars thing, Iwanted it to be a genetic disorder that was latent. And, as melting polar rice,softened permafrost, all diseases were. And I, that’s an idea I had before thatactually started happening, by
geo: Oh boy.
Jonathan: Before wegot to the popular press I subscribed to some science newsletters and I read anarticle back in 2010 about melting rice, releasing old bacteria and possiblyviruses.
And I’m like. That’s scary as hell. Let me write a book,
geo: right?
Jonathan: not the TVwars,
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: But
joe: yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: thezombies, the fun thing about zombies is, each individual thing it does, can beexplained by nature. Like the fact that it has a lower metabolism be, so itdoesn’t rot as much. There are animals, the ground squirrel the, I forget thename of the frog, that, that freezes solid every year and then falls, withoutthe tissue damage because of the way [00:46:00]the sugars,
That exists.
The if the motor cortex was working. Or even on a minimallevel, the zombie could walk, bite, chew, swallow. Without the motor of cortex,it couldn’t, unless there’s respiration, a zombie couldn’t moan. And we knowzombies moan. You can make an argument that zombies are not dead, they’re notalive, they’re living dead.
A third state of existence based on a great a rate ofmetabolism so greatly reduced that they appear dead to the point where theirouter tissues become necrotic, but they’re still not actually dead.
joe: It’s
geo: yeah, I hadthought
joe: In my own head andwe’re getting off, I gonna get back to skin ’cause we’re gonna have to closethe episode a little bit.
But yeah I had a dual infection event. One of the mind, butalso, people forget about the second brain and that’s our gut, which is justfilled with bacteria.
So as our control systems, entropy starts to take over, thenthat would be your driving force. And those bacteria then would have somepreservation of [00:47:00] self. Especially ifthe brain was now infected by something else, it might not have as tight ofcontrol over the system, so you can then have this dual function.
That also explains why in movies you have this, not everyone’sinfected by a splatter of blood or something like that, because you need bothparts to become infected. And so you could
geo: be primed.
joe: And then onceyou’re primed and maybe you have a death event,
geo: and now
joe: the brain parasitecan take over, and then the gut ones can now go, oh, you know what?
There’s no more control. Everything’s leaky, leaky gutsyndrome. We
geo: can get inthere, we can now invade.
joe: And we now we canhave this kind of two brain system in control. And hence why, your movementsare shambling and things like that. Not necessarily because your coronation isbad, but because you your, you have two.
Competing entities in inside one, one body. But
geo: That’s
nick: Anotherepisode, another rabbit
geo: hole.
joe: But
Jonathan: That one
nick: you’re in,
joe: you’re in,
nick: so I do wanna,
geo: I’m gonna touchon my
joe: [00:48:00] fun fact list. I promise a list and I’dlike to deliver,
geo: but
nick: There’s awebsite
joe: maybe you’refamiliar with it. I just learned about it. It’s called bio numbers.
geo: and it’s this
joe: fun website, atleast I think it’s
geo: fun where
nick: you
joe: search fordifferent topics and it will give you these kind of biology relevant numbers.
And so how many proteins are inside of a cell or
nick: how,
geo: so
joe: I put in, aboutskin and then it has the paper reference, which then I clicked on links becausethat’s what I do. And
nick: So it was just
geo: fun. Things
joe: and it saved mesome time on this weight
geo: of skin.
joe: On average isabout nine pounds or 4.1 kilograms for the folks who wanna go to metric.
The
nick: number of
joe: skin cells, about1 billion on average number of bacteria in skin, about 1 trillion. So that’s alot of bacteria, which we didn’t even talk about. The skin kind of, how wouldbend skin the bacterial that keeps that, that
geo: are very
joe: and beneficial?How are they living?
How are they getting along?
nick: Do you think hehas to [00:49:00] moisturize?
geo: when he gets
joe: fungal infection,like ringworm underneath those
geo: rocks. Yeah.What kind of lotion does he use?
nick: foot, athlete’sfoot there?
Jonathan: a story.Somebody needs to write that story.
nick: Yeah. I wouldjust assume the human torch is just Hey, I’ll get that. Hold on.
geo: 90% of the humanbody
joe: covered in hair. Ididn’t realize that, but that was
geo: how much? 90%.90%.
nick: Is that it?Density of
joe: procars, soprocars are bacteria. So these are organisms without a nucleus versuseukaryotes, which we are ourselves are eukaryotic.
The density of procars in the skin of humans. And this is cellsper centimeter squared. It’s about a thousand to 10,000 and you’re growing andunder your arm, it’s about a million. Per centimeter, per centimeter squared,or that’s about 0.78 inches squared for those who think in inches.
So that was and
geo: and this allcame from that one website,
joe: website. The
geo: term of
joe: in your entireepidermis is about 26 to [00:50:00] 27 days. Soyou got, so yeah, so you,
nick: it’s
geo: oh, all that,
nick: that dried dead
joe: skin you’regenerating, that’s you’re danner.
So that’s another for Ben. How’s he dealing with
nick: I thought itwould just be rock dust. No, that’s
geo: to us. That’s
Jonathan: that when,I wish that when skin generated, it would take scars away. ’cause I got
geo: yeah. So
joe: that was those aresome fun. And then I, the concentration on microbes in human gut, I just hadgot, I, that one was there and that’s in the tens of billions of cells and,number of human cells.
’cause it, this was something I always think about are we morebacteria than than human? But the number of total number of human cells in yourbody is about 10 to 30 trillion. So you’re, so you got about hundreds ofbillions of. Bacteria on you, in you, but you still are a little more human.
Just,
nick: Slightly morehuman than bacteria.
geo: Yeah.
nick: I don’t,
Jonathan: quitehuman. But
joe: yeah, that’sright.
geo: So there you go.There’s
Jonathan: I thinkthey’re more bacteria,
joe: so those are somefun, just some fun skin facts and others,
geo: But yeah, bio
joe: I can,
Jonathan: Oh, I’mdefinitely gonna be hitting that. I wrote [00:51:00]it down.
joe: yeah. Yeah.
geo: It’s a fun,
joe: and when I learnedof it, I was in a lecture and someone had these cool numbers and I went, I waslike, how do you get these, did you just guess at this stuff?
And they were like, no, there’s this website, bio numbers. Andthe first thing I did when I got back to my office pile numbers,
Jonathan: I love thatthere is nerd porn for scientists too.
nick: it exists.
joe: Like we, we keepit secret. It’s our
nick: own little
Jonathan: Like nerdporn for writers is the TV troops website. If you ever been to TV troops,
geo: oh,
Jonathan: that, allof the tropes of everything and a
joe: in there.
nick: Interesting.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: days on it.I,
joe: Wow.
Jonathan: So much ofmy stuff’s on there and I, somebody said, oh, you’re on, I saw you on TV trope.
I’m like. TV tropes when there’s a whole bunch of my stuff andthey’re breaking witch tropes and which variations of tropes are used and soon. But I love the, that’s fun. I gotta grab that because, sometimes when ascientist in a story wants to, as Bob, that sort of thing when they’re infodumpy moment, you do want your details.
My science guy I normally go to, he [00:52:00]actually does work a day job. But so I have to catch him when he’s available.
geo: Yeah,
joe: you go. You canhave some numbers to throw out there
geo: and the paperreferences so
joe: you can look it upand see where to get the numbers. ’cause it is it was interesting. So there wasa lot of cool things in there, but yeah.
There you go. Yeah. So I
Jonathan: I knowwe’ve just about run outta time, but is there one, was there another topic onskin that we need to go back to that we didn’t cover?
geo: I
joe: do you guys,unless
geo: you havesomething
joe: you want to do,
nick: please. I havea whole list of
Jonathan: the
geo: We have another,yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. Youmentioned the human torch
joe: Yep.
nick: yep.
Jonathan: how thehell does he not dehydrate? Like
joe: That’s right.
geo: So we’ll have,
joe: we’re gonna do anepisode on all the Fantastic Fours.
Jonathan: Okay.
joe: have,
geo: we actually
joe: are gonna have aDr. David Pincus from University of Chicago on for that episode. And so hejoined us for actually the permafrost episode,
geo: Was
nick: which was
joe: of the funniest
geo: episodes.
joe: yeah he kind ofstudies, the impact of environmental changes on organisms short term and longterm.
And one of the things [00:53:00]is heat stress and heat shock. So I think it, I
geo: so that’ll be agreat question for him.
joe: it would be. Yeah.We’ll pose that to
geo: him.
Jonathan: Ice Man.Ice Man
nick: Iceman. Yeah,that’s
joe: right now,
geo: Man. Oh yeah.
joe: Yes. So how doeshe live in that ice state? That’s a whole nother, that’s another episode Ithink.
nick: And movingthose arms with ice on him.
joe: without cracking.Yes.
geo: How’s he stayflexible?
Jonathan: I have, Ijust have this idea that somewhere there’s a DARPA lab where a couple of guysare trying to figure out how to make the sup, make the Fantastic Four
nick: Right.
joe: Yes.
nick: I’m in
geo: Cosmic Rays
joe: is not the answer.I’m gonna go right there.
geo: That’s,
nick: We can’t rollthat out yet, Joe. I will.
Jonathan: actually,one of the funny things is guys have seen Night of Living Dead, right? The
joe: yes.
nick: Yes, of course.
Jonathan: So one, oneof the conceits there is that the major theory in the first film is thatradiation from returning space probe. George Romero was a huge fan of theFantastic Four, and that was his nod to the
joe: interesting. Wow.
Jonathan: though onespace probe returning does not explain global, I [00:54:00]busted George a lot on this because,
geo: Neither livingDead. Was
joe: it truly global orwas it local? Just in Western Pennsylvania, because that was that clear
Jonathan: wanted itto be global because people were talking about it in Washington and other
joe: Okay. Yeah. Imight’ve been on the radio. Yep.
Jonathan: clearlywas, but the first one, he was the first one he actually expected it to be,defeated.
It was never intent to be a series, but he immediately, decidedto go further with it. His next film actually explored another aspect of it,the Crazies,
nick: Oh yeah. Of
joe: the
geo: I love thecrazies.
Jonathan: rage
joe: Yeah. That’sright.
Jonathan: That wewouldn’t have 28 weeks, 28 days
joe: That’s right. No,that’s exactly right.
Jonathan: genres,
joe: Yes. The crazieswas it. Yeah. Yeah. But
Jonathan: but Iactually wrote dead of Night because I wanted to as a, like a thank you note toGeorge Romero, how he and I became friends.
Actually, he read the book and loved it. We became friends. Wedid an anthology together. But I couldn’t stand that. The science made no sensein the book, in the movie. It me, 10 years old, it bugged me.
geo: right? Yeah.
Jonathan: The thing,the thing, his skin the [00:55:00] Hulk, hismass Reed Richards, every bodily function when he’s stretching.
joe: right. We have,we’re gonna have a MD on to Maria do at Northwestern University is gonna be onthat episode. So yeah, we’re gonna have, we’re gonna get into a little bit morescience. So the first. Was it Sue, we had a comic critic in review to open up theseries and now we’ve, we have you, Jonathan, on skin and yeah.
Then we have a couple scientists and a MD coming in to, toround out the fences of force. Yeah. So we’ll
Jonathan: befollowing these episodes. This is speaking to my nerdvana
geo: Yeah.
joe: yeah. No
geo: Science forweirdos.
joe: Science forweirdos is what someone told me. We, someone, we were out and someone said, oh,
geo: you do that
joe: And they go, yeah.It’s like we, I’ve been listening to it, it’s like science for weirdos andthat’s my thing, and
nick: I’m like,
joe: oh, I kinda likethat.
geo: It’s
nick: I
Jonathan: I, I thinkthat is dead on. Yeah. That’s, yeah.
geo: yeah. It’s beenjust
joe: a greatconversation
nick: thank you somuch for joining us.
geo: Go ahead and [00:56:00] plugs
joe: anything? You havesome new stuff coming out. I know for sure. So it’s,
Jonathan: yeah, I gotI, I’m, I got a lot of stuff going. I always have a lot of stuff coming out. Iwrote
geo: I saw your lastpost that you were outta
Jonathan: novel everythree minutes. Yeah.
joe: it said
geo: your brain wasoutta words.
nick: Yeah.
Jonathan: was, butI’ve already started the next novel.
nick: Novel,
joe: Congratulations.That’s awesome. Your inspiration to us young novelists
Jonathan: am I have agraphic novel coming out in June Joe Ledger and Violin Hearts and Minds, whichis a comic original story. Ba is set in my Joe Ledger world. Crystal lake isputting that out. And last year I had a really fun one was Godzilla versusKullu Comic.
geo: Oh, wow.
joe: Yep.
Jonathan: Comic orcome on games. But next up for me is the next Necro tech book deep Space Book,crafting Horror.
And we are in discussions with an anime company in Japan
joe: Cool.
Jonathan: based onthat series. Giant Me, mech Robots that Are Shape-Shifting piloted by the Ghostof Dead Pilots.
nick: Oh, damn.
joe: Yeah.
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: [00:57:00] the book that I just finished the otherday was the third in that series.
joe: That’s cool.
Jonathan: I love thefact I’m leaning more and more into science fiction these days.
I’ve got two different science fiction series running now. I.And it’s fun because, and this is one little thing I wanna just throw in beforeI skedaddle, is that one of the reasons I love working with scientists, talkingto experts in various fields for my books, there’s an old calm man saying, usenine truths to sell one lie that really applies great to any kind of fiction.
Because if you can build your fiction on a structure ofplausibility, it makes it so much easier for suspension of disbelief and alsothe trust when they know you’re stepping off that the top of that scaffold intofiction, they know that you’ve done your homework. So the fiction is gonna be areasonable extension of the non of the nonfiction, and they’ll go with you forthat.
But if you’re just making shit up so that you can tell ascience fiction story, there’s no structural basis to it, you’re only going toget the people who don’t know science. And that’s an increasingly small [00:58:00] number, I hope, because there’s a lot ofanti-science going on right now.
geo: right.
Jonathan: But
nick: Fingers
Jonathan: yourfingers crossed there are still people who want it to believe in it. They wantto believe that we can have superheroes. They want to believe that people cando this, that people will become stronger, that maybe somehow we’ll be able tosurvive a polluted planet and get wise enough to fix the planet.
So I love doing that. I love working with scientists. It’s fun.It’s so much fun for me to be on a podcast with people who understand scienceuntil I, that, that
joe: Thank
nick: you
geo: coming on andus. Yeah,
nick: What,
joe: Nick and Jordan
Jonathan: Nerds getit by extension. I’m not a scientist either, but all my science addictedfriends, we all love the fact that’s, that there’s real scientists out there
geo: right?
Jonathan: manyscientists are actually in the nerd
joe: Yeah.
nick: Oh, a hundred
joe: And I
geo: want,
joe: Jonathan, youdidn’t mention it, but we have some, I’m sure there’s some writer friends thatlisten, but you do a great masterclass series and so on different topics in thewriting, both [00:59:00] writing the art ofwriting, but also the business side of writing.
And, I’ve attended several
geo: of them
Jonathan: and they’refundraisers.
nick: And
joe: They’re alsofundraisers, right? The money goes to the no kill shelter or the
Jonathan: kill animalshelters, women’s shelters, homeless shelters. And these are programs thatprovide meals for children in, areas where they’re not getting it, family don’tenough income and 50 cents can buy a whole meal. I do a hundred percent of themoney from my workshops goes there.
It does a lot of good. And also, I hope people can use materialto get into the writing business because it’s more fun when there are more kidsin the playground.
nick: Definitely.
joe: No, so check itout, you writers out there,
nick: One lastquestion for you, if you don’t mind. Who is your favorite? Unbreakable skincharacter.
geo: Oh.
joe: oh,
geo: Oh, the
Jonathan: Oh, theHulk. I’m sorry.
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: Sorry. Thething has always been my favorite unbreakable character because of the factthat he’s the hu the Hulk I liked, but the Hulk was Jekyll and Hyde with,dipped and green. The, it’s that, but the thing [01:00:00]he was always leaning into his humanism, An empathetic character and empath,when you have a character who looks like basically a big rock monster, butempathy is his trues super strength, man.
I gotta love a character like
nick: I’m so glad wehave you on this episode, because he is your favorite,
Jonathan: yeah. Andvery first comic I ever bought has him on the cover of it,
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: 4 66.Believe that’s 1967. Good lord.
geo: That’s it.
joe: Awesome. Thanksagain for joining us. It was a lot of fun. And yeah, just a lot of cool nerdingout in pop culture,
nick: very much
Jonathan: and thanksfor inviting me on too. I had a lot of fun. I wish I had a little time rightnow, but I hope you guys will invite me back ’cause I’ll
joe: I will do. Yeah,no, definitely. No you already brought up several topics that we will have tohave you on now for, and, you know
nick: wait, are yougonna be the fourth rabbit in the hole?
joe: right.
Jonathan: And also I,with one of my upcoming classes, we haven’t set the date yet, but my, mymolecular biologist friend is going [01:01:00]to co-teach a class with me on working with
joe: Cool. That’d beawesome.
geo: That’s
Jonathan: be a lot offun too, ’cause a lot of writers don’t know how to ask the right questions andthey don’t know how to follow it down that rabbit hole into.
A plausible story and having a scientist on there would be fun.And if I’ll give you a free pass of that one, Joe, so you can join theconversation
joe: be fun. Yeah, no,
geo: and also theother way too, scientists don’t always know how to translate. That’s right.Their science communication is big,
joe: right?
That’s right. Yeah. And
geo: so they can use
A writer or they can use someone that the, the scientist just
joe: did a piece andthey, I was interviewed for, it was oh, it was like speculative fiction in, Howspeculative fiction and bench science kind of merge. And so they
Jonathan: that arecent
joe: of us.
It was, it came out last month. I can send you a link to it.Yeah, it was a fun, it was a few of us in it.
Jonathan: get thatand read it. I need to renew my subscription to the Scientist
joe: yeah. Yeah, no, itwas a fun article and had a couple quotes in there. So I was happy that [01:02:00] something came outta my interview.
Jonathan: I might betapping some information too. Getting a walk on in something.
geo: anytime, man,anytime I’ve helped
joe: other people ortried to help. ’cause sometimes people, you’re right they call and then they’relike, I wanna do this thing with this equipment. And I’m like, you can’t dothat thing with that equipment. Or there’s practical reasons why you won’t getthe image you think you’ll get, it’ll charge, it’ll look bad.
geo: And they go
joe: I need this is ifI can’t do it with that piece of equipment then my story fails. And I’m like
geo: you need,
Jonathan: story
nick: I’m like, weneed
geo: to, let’s have alonger conversation
joe: and figure thisout. And and some I, we did, it was like, you need this piece of equipment. Butthey’re like, but that’s not in that room.
And I’m like you need to have this scene happen in this roomnow because, so yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. I’veactually had to repl whole novels because I talked to a scientist and found outthat my assumption, like writers, we have a lot of information in our head.Doesn’t mean we’re experts on it, but it’s enough to get us into trouble orhopefully to ask the right questions.
And I had this really great idea for something and I asked to acouple people who were into [01:03:00] nuclearscience, power plants and so on. My idea made no sense. It was laughably naive.I was like, oh shit. Glad I didn’t write the book. ’cause my editor didn’t knowit was a bad idea
Working with scientists, big important thing.
geo: Yeah, no.
joe: And experts andthings like that. No, it’s awesome.
geo: I’m
Jonathan: I’m theexpert that a lot of my friends tap for
geo: Martial arts.
nick: know. Yeah. I
joe: I was that’sawesome. I have a a friend, I don’t know if he joined the last one, I told himhe should get on, but I know he has a lot of action and fighting scenes and hedid wrestling and jiujitsu, so I was like, oh, you should jump on, becauseJonathan, he’s, that’s his background, especially writing those scenes andgetting it across.
Jonathan: Years now.
joe: yeah. Yeah.
geo: Cool. I
joe: know you need torun and so
Jonathan: stuff, sothanks. This guy, guys. I can hang with you
geo: I
nick: know. Yeah. I’mlike, Hey,
joe: That’s why I’mlike, Hey,
Jonathan: I will behappy to come back and and nerd out with you guys again.
nick: Absolutely.Anytime. Thank you.
geo: Thank you. Havea good night. Cheers.
nick: Thank you.
Jonathan: bye.
geo: Bye.
joe: you have me, Joe.
geo: We got Nick. Wegot
joe: Nick, we’ve got
geo: Georgia.
Georgia,
joe: and we’ve
nick: gone down some[01:04:00]
geo: holes,
joe: some tough skin
nick: tough skin.
joe: I dunno.
nick: Bye-bye.
joe: Hey, you stay safeout there. Stay strong.

Transcript:

joe: [00:00:00] Hey,
welcome to the Rabbit Hole of Research. We’re down here in the basement studio with another exciting episode in our Fantastic four
series. We’ll be focusing
a little bit on the thing and
all things strong, tough skin. As usual, we have the whole crewhere. You have me, Joe, you got
geo: Nick, we’ve gotNick and Georgia.
joe: We’ve got Georgia.
geo: And
joe: have a specialguest with us.
geo: And for our
joe: we
geo: let the guestsintroduce themselves.
joe: Please.
Jonathan: Hi, I’mJonathan Mayberry. I’m a New York Times bestselling author. Multiple genres. Iwrite horror, science fiction, fantasy, whatever. And also a comic book writerwrote for Marvel for a bunch of years, dark Horse, IDW doing some freelanceprojects. Now they’re a lot of fun. I also edit Weird Tales magazine and keepmy myself pretty immersed in the pop culture world, which is my home space.
My, that’s my comfort zone.
joe: Yeah. Awesome. No,it should be fun. Hopefully we can fit [00:01:00]you, fit right in here with our witty banter at times. I don’t know. So you
nick: I do have tosay that I’ve read a lot of your stuff that I did not realize was yours untilabout a month ago. I was like, I read that. Oh wait, I know his stuff. It wasjust
Jonathan: get a lotof that from folks at events too. And that, that’s cool. It’s always a readingthis stuff that’s what matters most, but. When I was at the the world premiereevent for the Black Panther, Wakanda forever I not only did were peoplesurprised that I had written anything that became part of that movie.
Everybody there was surprised I was white including RyanCoogler. Ryan Coogler had came up to me in the, at the after party. He, you’rewhite. I’m like, I am. Oh my God. He had no idea. He thought I was black. Interms of talking about skin, that’s interesting.
joe: Yeah.
geo: There you go.That’s a great segue.
nick: Yeah. Sousually
joe: I
geo: have
joe: a definition thatget us grounded and I have a
geo: list
joe: so I’ll do thedefinition what is skin. [00:02:00] But I dohave a special list for Jonathan because I know he likes facts and he alwayshas posts on social media.
If you follow him on all the different flavors of social media,he has. Tell me something new or something. I don’t know. So
nick: I have
geo: a list and
joe: I’ll see how manyof those facts, but I’ll
geo: start with thedefinition to get us started. What is skin? Skin is biological armor.
joe: It’s a sensorinterface, a site of cultural
geo: inscription
joe: and a metaphor foridentity.
It’s the most visible and tactile representation of self and infiction, a canvas onto which transformation, trauma and power are projected. SoI think that’s
Jonathan: Wow. Nicelyphrased. I like that.
joe: you.
nick: Yeah. And so wewere,
geo: as I said,talking
joe: the FantasticFour.
geo: And,
joe: We already had thefirst episode on a Fantastic four come out.
And but just a recap. It’s a fictional
superhero team uh, by Marvel,
created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first appeared in Fantasticfour, number 1, 19 61 Marvel
comics. [00:03:00] consideredMarvel’s first superhero team, or the
first family and helped establish a more human,
flawed,
family driven style that defined Marvel storytelling.
Ben was one of the members of that team. He was Reed Richard’scollege roommate and former football star.
Jonathan: Yep.
joe: And Ben had he, hewas
geo: after a
joe: trip
illegal
and or
A unscripted trip into space they
were bombarded by
cosmic rays Ben got disfigured and he was given this kind ofrocky, orange,
scaly skin
that was superhuman strength impenetrable and had all thesekind of nearly imper impervious to damage and things like that.
So yeah, that’s the character.
nick: Yeah. So I dohave to say that it is always so interesting seeing him in the comics becausethey tend to show the strength of his skin. ’cause are, [00:04:00] we’re considering it skin. Yes. I would
geo: consider
joe: skin. Yes. As the,
probably the
outer later the dermis was modified in some way, but,
nick: Yeah. And it’salways so fascinating ’cause I was reading an issue I’ll have to put it in theshow notes where they it was they were pulling him apart and like you just sawall of his skin. It looked like a gum being pulled. And it was just like, whoa.Like the amount of pain that has to be, I’m assuming it’s like a scab thatwould just be like.
Jonathan: Yeah. One,one that’s not ready to fall off, but they’re trying to pull it.
nick: exactly. Andthen I told him, I’m like, oh it’s, yeah. Fantastic. I love that.
Jonathan: And Ialways loved when Kirby would show me him getting a really hard impact. One ofthe ways they would use to emphasize the impact is pieces of rock would beflying off of him.
joe: Yeah.
geo: another
Jonathan: would beblood from a, a busted nose. But for him it was always pieces of rock fallingoff and that kind of defined how hard he was being hit because he’s impervious.
But somebody could [00:05:00]do that, at least to him,
joe: and knock off bitsof skin and or his outer structure, which is interesting. And thinking abouthow that would actually form I think NICU hit on it with and scar tissue wasone that, that immediately came to my mind that as he was bombarded was, wasthat now some scarification and you have this kind of, , in terms of scars, youget fibrous tissue that forms as you get the scar. So is that now
geo: been
joe: modified as DNA?And so you get this kind of overgrowth and then calcification and then almostkind of mineralization there that would form this kind of outer exterior.
then
as you as you were just pointing out, Jonathan, that as it getsdamaged, bits gets knocked off, but presumably is regenerated.
And so that means this is some
geo: active
joe: process thathappens.
Jonathan: And hisskin would have to be, his rock skin would have to have to be at least porousor something. Otherwise he would,
nick: Thanks.
Jonathan: the theskin’s the most important breathing apparatus next to our lungs. And [00:06:00] so he would need that. And funny ’causeI’ve had a conversation about this with Stan Lee years ago at the Houston ComicPalooza, I think it was.
And buttress, we’re talking about different characters and howthe, somehow the conversation come up is how they would get medical treatment.
nick: Oh,
Jonathan: Ben Grimmhad beautiful white teeth. how dentist worked on. Were his teeth set in gums orwere they set in
joe: Rock.
Jonathan: A couple ofus were asking questions of Lee and he is we didn’t think that far.
joe: I mean, Nails,Nonas fingernails.
Yeah. I mean you, you have all of those external
besides breathing and pores, you also have tactile sensation. Askin is our communication to our environment.
So if you lose that you lose a major sense. It’s almost likebeing blind or deaf or any losing any other senses. So that is something that Idon’t know if they cover that in any comic line or,
Jonathan: they touchon it because there are times, even though when he, especially in the earlyFantastic four comics, he and Johnny were always in a a baiting war. They’realways trying to get [00:07:00] you right intoeach other. And sometimes Johnny would try to scorch him and he would, he wouldact, he would run away, he would react to it so he could feel pain, feelpressure but his skin.
It was like being on the other side of a fireproof garment. Youfeel the heat, you just don’t get the actual firm. So that might be where theywere going with it if they even thought that far. But, because presuming thathe, he, something like that could exist.
And the version of it we’re seeing in the most recent trailersfits the old Ben Graham a little more.
How I envision him. He’s more fluid, he is more flexible. It’sless like a rock man trying to move than a man who made a malleable rock. Andit must be malleable.
If he’s going to reach
joe: right?
geo: Yeah.
nick: Be able to grabthings.
joe: Yeah. You have tobe flexible still. And that’s part of it, that when this transformationhappened, when
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: theflexibility can’t just be the subdermal layer because if he was stretching, youwould see gaps as, so it must be the rock itself rocket [00:08:00] that is stretching like an alligator skin and so on,which looks armored, but it still has a degree of flexibility. ’cause otherwisethe thing couldn’t operate couldn’t swim or anything else.
nick: that’s actuallya really good point. Like putting it towards like an alligator skin. I wouldn’thave even thought of that.
Jonathan: Actuallywhere I’ve always gone with the things skin because it has to move and know.You mentioned that I’m a research or knowledge junkie. I am a knowledge junk. Iwas a kid I, that’s what I was trying to figure out how he did that, where theHulk got his extra mass from, because Bruce was maybe 150 pounds and the Hulk.
So there, I knew just enough about science even as a kid. Tohave questions. And some of those I did get to ask, Stan, because I got to knowhim pretty well last few years of his life. And also some of the other folkswho worked on Fantastic Four. I had conversations with John Byrne about it.
J Byrne was more of the, everything’s elastic, just reallytough thing. And I mentioned to him about I called it crocodile skin, but thesame alligator skin, same thing. [00:09:00] Andhe said that, that’s probably exactly what it’s like that just thicker.
joe: Yeah.
nick: A
joe: more adorable or
geo: yeah,
joe: Or calcified insome way.
So you would have that, some combination, maybe armadilloscaling also would, it has some level of flexibility in It’s the way it’sjoined. And
geo: also
Jonathan: he smiles,he laughs, he frowns. All of those require elastic skin of the facial musclesand skin.
joe: And a muscle.Yeah. You, the muscle control of all that’s just not you.
You still have to maintain that. Yeah. Yeah. That
Jonathan: I.
nick: Yeah.
Jonathan: like thataspect of the thing of that, that concept of the thing being more elastic,more, it makes him more human and also makes him more of a scarified victim ofwhat’s going on, rather than a transformed into a monster thing. Because I, hewas always about the monster and he wasn’t a monster.
He was a victim of a reaction, a mutated skin reaction tosomething, it’s a cosmic race. It’s unfair and sad that he became, the [00:10:00] ugly one.
nick: I think you hiton a good thing right there where he does get identified as a monster and seenpeople with different deformities do get, back then people were like, oh,they’re either had a curse put on them or something.
It was just always, this is a monster.
Jonathan: yeah. Andthen we’re leaning in a little bit to the paranoia that was pretty common inthe fifties and sixties, anyone who wasn’t us. That, that other thing, plus,it’s the beginning of the civil rights era. Era, so you have a lot of that,it’s not us thing but that’s also, again, Kirby and Lee leaning into, justbecause it looks different, doesn’t make it not human.
I think there was a little bit of that in there too, which theyexplored with the X-Men and some other things. But I love the fact that BenGrimm is a good guy and I hated the fact that, and so many of the early comics,he’d be walking on the street maybe with a slouch hat and a car up.
Somebody would see him and it would be terrified. First off,why about issue two? They should know he exists.
geo: Right
Jonathan: It, they,Lee and Kurt kept wanting to make the point. And it’s funny [00:11:00] because the point they were making is whatwe in, in, in the novel trade it’s one of the rookie mistakes of assuming thereader doesn’t remember from the last episode to detail play down and keepsneeding to be reinforced.
I can understand it in Fantastic Four ’cause it was the firstMarvel comic, but they kept it going well into I think the forties issue,forties and in that
Still regarded as a monster. And I think even I, I’m Monster Ithink was maybe one of the titles or this man, this monster that was the
So that he’s still trying to get back to being human ’cause hestill is has now bought into the, people see me as a monster, therefore I amone.
geo: Yeah. That
Jonathan: It’s a sad
joe: and that, thatseemed like some of that storyline, if we think about just his identity, thathe was just sweet, caring person, but then he had this external kind of, it wasthis play maybe oversimplification
of these, traits that he had.
And you get that [00:12:00] andI you brought up. Just to segue a little bit to the civil rights movement thingis Luke Cage then in the, who came out, who also then was given tough skinunder different circumstances, this coerced, experimental activity. And thenthe racist the warden or police officer screwed with the
instrumentation.
then he was given, the super strong literally impenetrable kindof skin. So this very tough skin. And so that was a very different. So he wasvery normal on the outside, but society, at, seen him as a monster. So it’sthis this area.
Jonathan: also do youguys, guys know who John Lewis was, right?
nick: Yeah.
geo: Yeah. Yeah.
joe: yes.
Jonathan: So he did acomic called a March for IDW. We did a signing, together at one of, at ComicConone year. And we were talking, and Luke Cage was I think just coming on TV atthe time somewhere around the the Luke Cage era on Netflix.
And we were talking, and he’s in his theory on the, you LukeCage having the armored skin, is that black men, [00:13:00]black people had to be so bulletproof in terms of their reactions to what isbeing
About. That, what they did to Luke, what Luke represented was,no matter what you say, you can’t hurt me.
Was that kind of an approach that was at least John Lewis’stake, and I valid one
joe: Yeah. No, I,
geo: But
Jonathan: but again,I don’t know if the creators had that specifically in mind. It’s like withGeorge Romero in Night of Living Dead. I just wanna jump
A second, because in Ge Night of Living Dead, you had a blackman who was the only strong, intelligent
geo: right.
joe: And
Jonathan: and all thereviewers said, my God, this was this incredible civil rights movie.
It’s about racism. It wasn’t, he was the only good actor whoauditioned.
joe: Yeah,
Jonathan: right,George Romero saw those reactions and from then on leaned into that as theinterpretation of even that first movie. I think I would agree Marvel may becounting its own design aesthetic when, they gave some of these characters,these qualities.
I think they [00:14:00] may,I’m hoping at least on some subliminal level, they were trying to make thatkind of of equitable statement, about just because we are different does notmean we are bad or wrong or evil or monsters or anything. And, Marvel had themore progressive vibe than DC anyway, so I think that may have been, aningredient in the soup at least.
joe: Yeah. No, yeah, Ithink I totally agree with that and see that from that perspective especiallygrowing up in, in America as a a. Person of color, a black man that, that it issomething that you go out in the world and you have to be
as
good or better than your white counterparts at times.
And sometimes you’re the only, and so then you have that weightgoing out into the world, so that, that is also, both. And Luke Cage’scharacter was a large man, almost a John Henry kind of figure. So it wasn’tlike they took a skinny, black man and said, okay you’re now
nick: but superskinny.[00:15:00]
joe: he was
geo: a right,
joe: He was really a,he was
nick: intimidatingfigure. Yeah, that’s
joe: right. For, so
geo: and it wasliterally having tough skin. Literally
joe: skin. And,
geo: And, being ableto deal with
joe: right. And
geo: All, and skin,and
joe: Touch upon it alittle bit. But, enslaved people were used in experiments on skin andparticularly testing of thick skin.
So there was this
geo: theory
joe: that, theseenslaved people didn’t feel pain because they had thicker hides like animals.And so you had
geo: a
joe: number of slaveowners who would do these experiments and torturous experiments and go throughit. So that was it. And those myths persist even today.
That, with pain medication and thing that, that black peopledon’t need, as much, or can tolerate more pain because of these these kind ofracist ideals that, that were put out
nick: and that havecontinued,
joe: has continued.Yeah.
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: there,there was a a poem that may Angelou read at Temple University years ago, [00:16:00] and one of the lines in it, and I’ve triedto find this online, is just because I survived being whipped didn’t mean Iliked it.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: That andthat
geo: kind
Jonathan: speaks alittle bit to this, just because they survived the things that people put themthrough, didn’t mean they were invulnerable.
It meant they, they were committed to survival
It should have been admired rather than looked at as a freak ofnature, thing. But,
joe: No, definitely.Yep. No.
Jonathan: I just
wanna say one more thing about Fantastic Four. I don’t know ifyou know this story, Joe, but that comic first of off, it was my favorite comicand this was the very first comic I ever
joe: Wow. There it is.
nick: Oh damn.
geo: Oh wow.
Jonathan: Bought thatwhen I was a kid.
I was nine years old.
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: The thingabout Fantastic Four is I, my background had a lot to do with skin in thisregard. My father, who was a terrible human being, ran the local chapter of theKKK. So I grew up in a household dominated by racism in a neighborhood inPhiladelphia that was known as White Town, USA.
That was the [00:17:00]nickname of my neighborhood. It’s still rated as the worst neighborhood inPhiladelphia, even, it’s yay team. And it was
joe: which neighborhooddid you grow up in? Kente. Okay. I was gonna try to guess, but I didn’t
Jonathan: never beenthere. If a black family would move in the neighborhood, their house would befirebombed,
joe: Yeah. Wow.
Jonathan: terribleplace.
So when an issue, was it 52 that black Panther showed up? Whenthat character f because I’ve been, even though this was the first, fantasy 466 was the first comic I bought. I’ve been reading comics since I was a littlekid. My brother gave me all his comics before he went off to Vietnam.
So I had, fantasy four, going back to issue two and issue 52 ofFantasy four introduced a black character who was nobody’s sidekick. He was no,he was not comic relief. He was not a start to, he was the king of his ownnation. He was a scientist and he was a superhero. And of course, my fatherwould see that comic, he’d rip it up.
And, I would always rebuy them. And then later on in seventhgrade, I actually went to a, my middle school librarian and brought a co [00:18:00] one of the copies one of the comics in andsaid my father, she knew who my father was. Everybody did, my father hates thiscomic. I don’t really know why.
’cause I was, I hadn’t met any people of color up until seventhgrade. My neighbor was white. And she looked at the issue and said thatparticular, she was about apartheid. I’m like, what? What is that? And sheexplained it and she said do you know about the Jim Crow laws? I’m like, no.
And she said, do you know who Martin Luther King was? I said,yeah, he was this, and unfortunately, I used a racial epithet because that’swhat we were trained to use. I said, he was a bad guy who was killed my father,had to throw a party. And she said, sit down. For two and a half hours.
She gave me a crash course in what intolerance and racism areall about.
nick: the
Jonathan: And theissue that I brought in was interesting because it speaks to the topic hereabout skin. It was the issue where Tal is arrested in the Marvel universeversion of South Africa. I forget what the, what they used to call it in thecomics, but he was arrested, he was in prison.
And Ben and Johnny go to [00:19:00]break him out. Ben is orange, brown, Johnny when he is a is red a brown man anda red man helped a black man out of a prison. That is not an accident. EvenSue. Nowhere in sight.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: And it flewright over the head of a lot of people. But, my my librarian, she said, this islike very clear.
It’s, this is about, the races who have to stick togetherbecause they have a greater enemy. But they’re still people and they should bere regarded based on their actions and, content of their soul or quality ofsoul. But it was so interesting that they had, I think it was Ro Roy Thomasmaybe wrote that episode over that issue, but it was so clear, brown, red andblack.
joe: Wow.
geo: Yeah.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: threedifferent skin tones that were really politically charged at the time, withthat 1971 or so. And it, because it could, they could float it by people in acomic, because you could talk about different skin colors, different skin typesin comics because they’re superheroes or super villain.
geo: Right?
Jonathan: But therewas a group, [00:20:00] there was a percentageof the fan base that was getting it.
joe: Yeah. That’s good.I know
Jonathan: I got ahint of it there. And from then on my views and my father’s views split justsay on an epic level.
geo: wow.
joe: Yes. No,
nick: So I have toask how.
joe: how.
nick: Did he knowthat you wrote for Black Panther and all this? He
Jonathan: He was, hedied before that. But had started studying martial arts on the sly when I wassick because, it was a very bad household to grow up. And my four sisters and Iwere pretty badly, abused. And when I was 14, he and I had it out. We had afight. And from that point on he just say there were no more meetings of theKKK in our house.
And he did not make any statements or put his hands on anyone.But
He did not live long enough to see my Marvel comic stays. SoI’m hoping that he’s in his graves spinning it about war. None. Not only did Iwrite Black Panther, I wrote Black Panther, but the female lead, so I wrote afeminist Black
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: probablyhis bones have probably exploded.[00:21:00]
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: I’m okaywith that.
joe: Yeah.
nick: That is sointeresting to hear like that Is your upbringing like being able to come fromthat kind of background to writing some fantastic stories about minority leadsthat, that’s so in
Jonathan: of thatstory. I got the job at Marvel for this particular thing ’cause Reggie Hu,who’d been writing Black Panther. I was already done. I had done a MarvelZombies, I did a Punisher on Wolverine thing, for Marvel by that point. Andthey were Reggie was thinking of stepping down.
He had been the writer for Black Panther. And they were lookingfor someone to replace him. And the assumption was they would, he would pick ablack writer which makes perfect sense. But he heard me talk on the radio,talking about my childhood and how the Black Panther was the pivotal momentwhere my life began splitting away from my father’s racism.
So he went to bat for me at Marvel and got me the gig. And alsobecause I had spent 35 years of my adult life teaching women’s self-defense, hedecided to [00:22:00] give me an extra littlebonus. He said, look, the last six issues of my run, we’re gonna turn Sureyinto the panther. Why don’t you come and post, write that storyline.
I’ll do the maid storyline, but major storyline. But you do theSurey storyline, so you’ll be the first person to put her in the armor and thenyou’ll pick up the comic after that. That’s what we did.
geo: Wow, that’samazing.
Jonathan: I’m still,I, Reggie was also at the Black Panther, Wakanda forever and we were joking.
He said, that radio, if you hadn’t done that radio interview, alot of this wouldn’t be happening right now. But, it was so surreal.
joe: Yeah,
geo: Wow. So
joe: I do want to touchon one of your characters who has skin
as part of their storyline, and that’s Monk and that,
geo: yeah.
nick: You had to
geo: know that wascoming.
Jonathan: actually, Ididn’t I didn’t, but I’m glad you brought up. Monk is one of my favorite
geo: It’s, I love himso much. Glip is like, one of my all time favorite novels. Yeah.
joe: Georgia had, she
geo: and that’sprobably why I
joe: on our chalk boardin our kitchen, and she
geo: Did you, Ialready read
joe: book. And I wasI’ve [00:23:00] been reading your stuff for awhile. And Georgia picked up that book ’cause it was just laying in, in thehouse. And then she was like, oh, this is did you read this line?
I was like, I read the whole book. Yes, I
geo: know.
Jonathan: Monkappears in two other novels and in a short story collection. He’s in Inc.
joe: Yep. Yeah, sure.
Jonathan: BurnedShine, the latest Joe Ledger
joe: Yep.
nick: If you can seethey geeked out and had all your
Jonathan: yeah, thereyou go. And of course, monk Addison’s
geo: That’s right.Yeah.
Jonathan: But hestarted off as a comic book character.
Actually.
geo: Oh, wow.
Jonathan: at onepoint IDW was going to do a shared horror universe, kinda like the DC and theMarvels with the a shared, so it was gonna be Steve Niles Joe Hill, myself, oneor two other guys. We were gonna create monsters that lived in the same world,but were also like heroic monsters.
And we were all ready to go. And then there was a managementchange at Marvel at the IDW rather than never happened. So I took the characterback and I decided to make a short story out of him. And it intended to be aone-off. But as soon as I start writing, I just love the concept of someone whois [00:24:00] haunted by what he does and bythe, the faces of dead people on his
And their ghosts never leave him,
joe: and
Jonathan: are we’regetting a little bit of interest in for film. VIN Diesels reading Ink rightnow.
nick: Oh,
joe: That would be,that, that would be incredible. I can
nick: totally see.That’s really cool.
geo: Oh
joe: and to folks whoare listening you should go read one of the, we’ll put in the show notes, oneof the many stories that Monk is in, but he’s a, an a private
Jonathan: I couldBrenda, he’s a former special ops soldier who then became a private militarycontractor, burned out, went on the pilgrims road to find who he was. And hefound out like he got a tattoo at one point. And he realized that when thetattoo was completed, it was a face of someone.
He was able to then relive their death. And there, there was alittle girl that was murdered and he is able not only relive her death, but seewhat she saw when she was dying, which gave him clues to be able to go out andfind the killers. And that became his road to, it’s hard to call it salvation’cause he isn’t going out killing people.
But at the [00:25:00] samepoint, he’s, it’s a, he’s doing something that is a redemption story, not areligious story, but a redemption
And he has all faces all over him of all these murder victims.And when the tattoo is completed, he, relieves the death, goes finds the killerand if he can stop this person, not as revenge, but to prevent the person fromdoing more killing, and he takes the guy off the board, but the ghost that kindof hired him to do this is always with him.
So he’s surrounded by all the ghosts of the people that he’s,that were murdered and he killed their killers, but they’re always with himlike 24 7. And it, it’s a tough life, but he’s one of my favorite characters.There’s a lot of the thing in him in that with the thing. You always know wherehis moral compass is pointing. He’s not a conflicted character. He is notreally a gray area of character. Reed gets real gray at times. The thing, if hehas your back’s covered. Monk is the same way. Monk’s a dangerous guy. He’s notnecessarily [00:26:00] friendly, he’s not, I’mnot even sure he is likable, for the people who know him. But if he has yourback,
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: You’reokay. You’re gonna be okay. He will not ever hurt the innocent. And that’sthere’s, so there’s a little bit of Ben Grimm in him for sure.
joe: yeah,
geo: Wow.
joe: it’s That ideathat the tattoos are speaking through him, to him, I was looking up some stufffor this episode and preparing is the Skin Ego it’s this kind of theory Dieter,I. And Zoey and suggests that the skin serves as a metaphorical container for theego and provides a sense of boundary and containment for psychic content. TheSkin Ego is like the physical skin, and it’s the boundary that separatesindividual from the external world and also holds to psychic apparatus togetherbody boundaries reflecting kind of psychological boundaries. So it, it was indigging around I was, trying to make the science of monk work a little.
nick: bit.
geo: So I,
Jonathan: Yeah,actually I need to find that thing you were talking about, I [00:27:00] needed to read that. It sounds like it’sreally the right thing for me because if we’re gonna be pitching Monk for filmor tv, I want to be able to build a pitch that really digs deep into thispsychology of it. Most people don’t know this, but Vin Diesel’s an actuallyreally well read individual.
nick: Oh yeah,
joe: Yeah,
Jonathan: He doesn’talways play those types of characters. Unlike Johnny Bernthal plays ThePunisher, the two of them look like together. Based on some of the charactersthey played looks like together, they, collectively of the IQ of about 60. Butin reality, both really good, down to earth nice guys.
Some of the press isn’t always this. I think the press defines’em by their characters more than by them.
But
joe: VIN Diesel, beforethe Fast
geo: Series,
joe: was in BoilerRoom, which I thought was just an incredible movie where it wasn’t Muscle andBraun. It was a very, it was a, a. Thinking movie, I guess if we’re gonnaclassify
nick: Guns
geo: versus,
joe: Yeah.
But I, that was some of his early stuff before he got into theaction. And he found this stride [00:28:00]and, I think that happens. Like he’s a beefy dude and he plays those rolesreally well, but Yeah.
Jonathan: hilariousthough that he’s a DD dungeon master, though.
geo: Yep.
joe: Oh yeah.
nick: Yeah. And he’sa giant nerd.
geo: Oh, wow. Yeah,
Jonathan: actuallyhas a cloak with the hood when he plays
geo: wow.
joe: Wow.
nick: I’ve read that
Jonathan: Becausehe’s one and Henry CA’s one too, and you got these two guys who are, they’redefined a lot by their ability to punch things
Yet, they’re both book nerds, fantasy nerds, pop culture nerdsmakes me like them a lot more,
geo: I think that’sperfect for playing Monk. Because he is such a tough guy, but is introspectiveand do you know what I mean? So that just Yeah.
Jonathan: Sure. Andmonk is trying to find, there, there’s a, I have a long game with the characterof Monk. He’s trying to find his way to the fire zone, which is referenced in acouple different works. And it’s a book I will be actually writing called TheFire Zone that, that kind of TERs together.
But he, he wants peace,
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: he’s doneso much harm in his life. As a, first not asking questions, who he [00:29:00] has to shoot when he was wearing a uniformand asking even fewer questions when he was a private military contractor, hehas, to quote black Widow a lot of red in his ledger and he
And, that isn’t usually done by doing pretty stuff. But alsohe’s good at it and he knows he’s good at it. And there’s a burden there too.When somebody is good at something, even if it’s something that hurts them, butit benefits other people. It’s hard to lay down your sword and shield on thatone.
nick: Yeah,
joe: No, that’s good.Now,
geo: monk also, it’snot just about getting the tattoos and having the ghosts, it’s also what’s inthe, it’s the actual blood, right?
Of,
Jonathan: Yeah. Bloodis mixed with holy water and tattoo ink to create these these tattoos. And hisbest friend Patty Cakes is the tattoo artist. It was her daughter that wasmurdered and that was his first, first of these tattoos. It’s,
joe: I think I thinkonly one of it I, as I’ve heard you talk about this and you do not have atattoo, Jonathan, is that right? Or do you, okay.
geo: Yeah.
joe: You’re like me.
geo: I don’t have,but
Jonathan: We’re lessthan a month [00:30:00] away from me being agrandfather
nick:congratulations.
geo: Oh, wow.
Jonathan: thanks. My,my son and his fiance are, are expecting and the baby’s gonna be named Orion,
geo: Oh, nice.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: so afterthe baby’s born and healthy and mama’s healthy and everything else. Sam, my sonand I are gonna go out and get Orion constellation tattoos.
joe: Awesome.
nick: cool. Verycool. Honestly, it just feels like a cat scratch.
joe: So I
nick: was gonna say,Nick has, I have multiple, yeah. It, oh, you got that thick skin right here.
joe: Oh boy.
nick: There,
joe: now
Jonathan: it’s beenpunctured enough times. I used to be a bodyguard, so I had been stabbed withice pick screwdrivers, knives chopped in the shoulder with a meat cleaver andet.
nick: o yeah.
joe: Yeah. So
nick: So
joe: I,
Jonathan: I have, myskin is not impervious Wish. It was really
joe: If
geo: it was, you wentto get medical
joe: That’s always init. You
nick: brought that upearlier
joe: how do you get,how do you get treated if you need
geo: someone
nick: needs to goinside of
geo: you to
joe: fix something.That’s
Jonathan: I thinkthat’s a missed opportunity for Marvel to do a TV series about, ’cause theyhave [00:31:00] damage control and they had thenight nurse. But I think a clinic for superheroes would be
joe: Yeah.
geo: In Luke Cage,they tried to, they were trying to Netflix. They got
joe: shot with thebullet
nick: that
joe: the kind ofexploding drill tip.
geo: And then she wastrying to get,
joe: she took ’em backto the
geo: original Right.
joe: and cooked them inthe,
geo: there was a,
joe: whole clam.
And it’s interesting ’cause mollus
geo: actually, thereare
joe: that have ironkind of formation in their foot. So in the, so they can scrape algae off ofrocks and fer those out there, mullis are like octopuses cuttlefish clams.Those are classified as mollus.
And they have
geo: shell
joe: they have a footthat can come out and they. They can do work. And so that’s one. And then theyhave, there’s another mole that has like teeth, like kind of iron teeth tocrack shells and things like that. So it is a,
Are some real world. And so that was the idea there that,that’s, and the show, they played on that, that’s what was in this soup.
And they were gonna heat ’em up and then that would [00:32:00] loosen the structure, the molecularstructure, which a
nick: little, a lotof hand waving
joe: as a, so
nick: I was like, oh,
joe: does this work?
geo: But yeah,
joe: it was they didcover
geo: that. At leastthey, at least they tried to cover it. Yeah. Tried attempt to
joe: explain it.
But,
Jonathan: Yeah. Andthey used the night nurse character, I’m forgetting her, Claire, they usedClaire as,
joe: Yep. Yep.
Jonathan: as thego-to person for Daredevil and so
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: I wouldlove to have seen that become a secret department within the hospital sheworked
I might pitch it to Marvel
joe: yeah.
geo: I like that.
Jonathan: doctorfriends. We could some people who would advise me, so
nick: that would be areally cool, like just medical series. Yes. Yeah,
joe: if you’re lookingfor a writer, then, happy to write something for you.
geo: Nonetheless
nick: the other thingI was
joe: say about thetattoos and you, another thing I was looking up was all of the kind of dermalsensors.
I, I didn’t really know a lot about that till I was looking itup, but the MIT had a project where they were using bio sensitive inks in therethat was a reactive to glucose, pH, sodium kind of to monitor [00:33:00] health . And so this tattoo ink was biowas actually bio censored.
And so you have this kind of.
Jonathan: They’reworking on diabetics to be able to like literally flash a little warning when,things like that. Cancer sensors and other things. And also the, one of thethings they’re, they’ve been talking about, I don’t know if they’ve gottenthere quite yet, is an implant that will sense the onset of seizures of onekind or another, and then transmit immediately to 9 1
Or to the, the contact person for, care. It’s a great idea. Andthat’s the kind of body mods I’m okay with. I’m not a big fan of body mod forthe most part, but that one, those sort of things, when science is used for theright thing,
Right? I’m
joe: Yep.
Jonathan: doing upone of my upcoming Joe Ledger novels is going to deal with cybernetics and allof its different good and bad phases.
And I started doing some research and man, it’s amazing what’sunder RD right now. And it’s freaky that we’re so much further along than Ithought we were. A lot of the stuff is there, it’s just a matter of getting theright funding, right grants and [00:34:00]getting it past people who don’t want that kind of thing attached to them.
They’ll find with going out and getting a barcode or a QR codetattooed on them, not something, that’s not stylish, but their health.
joe: Yeah. I think theso at the University of Chicago where I do research at and work I’m part of thethe cube, which is a quantum NSF funded facility where they’re
geo: where they’re
joe: trying to developquantum sensors for biological applications like that. And so that is, it’sreally, so I was just in a meeting because I’m a biologist, so I go and try tointerface with the physicist and chemists talk about applications.
So that’s where. I come in,
geo: I know
joe: enough to talkabout qubits and, how entanglement works, but I’m not, that is not myexpertise. But and going over how these sensors can work to report informationout is super important. So yeah it’s a fascinating as I got into that and hearabout some of the things and, ’cause it’s like, how do we get this
geo: thing that
joe: in cells on aPetri dish now into a body or what’s the [00:35:00]mechanism?
And, it’s
geo: the, you’reright
joe: it is
geo: some of the
joe: stuff that’s insci-fi and, it’s now making its way and it’s that’s more real than you think,
Jonathan: sciencefiction has always been one of the reasons they called it speculative fictionor, it’s a lot of people looking forward. The cell phones, we’re clearlyinspired by the communicators on Star Trek, but we do more, much more now. Thecell’s far more, it’s like the communicator, the tri-quarter, about 15 otherthings.
In our phone now, but that’s where the idea came from for itsstructure. And a lot of other things, what I grew up reading, the reprints, theban of reprints of the old doc Savage novels, man of bronze, if you’ve everread any of those. They published 175 of them published in the thirties andforties.
And he always had advanced technology that he developed and alot of it’s stuff we have now.
geo: Wow. Yeah.Contact
Jonathan: lensesanswering machines, planes that, this is 1934 planes that flew 500 mile anhour.
Have that. All so many of the things that, that Lester Dent,who wrote most of the novels, put in the stories for [00:36:00]things that people were just saying, wouldn’t it be cool if
writers threw that stuff into fiction and some of the peoplereading that fiction grew up three scientists.
joe: Yes. That’s theway it works sometimes.
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: one of mybest friends, one of my best friends, Ronald Coleman, who’s now actually acharacter, ongoing character in my Joe Ledger stories.
But he’s a molecular biologist, stem cell scientist. And I’mconstantly talking to him about wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this?
And sometimes he’s yeah we did that in
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: Or we’reall come up with, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this? Would this even bepossible? He is not yet, but maybe by the time the book is out, because I knowworking on grants for that, I love science and I love the fact that keepsmoving forward.
What I don’t like is that there are groups that, that aretaking this science, and of course the biggest funding is for DARPA and thingslike that. The military research,
nick: Yeah.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: I’ve talkedto those guys a bunch of times and yeah, some scary nerds.
joe: right?
nick: The best kind,scary nerds. So I do have a question, Joe. How likely is it to have [00:37:00] skin? Like the thing, because I know thereis that syndrome where
joe: yeah,
nick: guy had thetree skin,
joe: Your skin can cal,calcification of skin and I’m trying to think of the disorders.
Like FFAP, FOP or something
nick: I think it’ssomething around there. Yeah. And so
geo: your,
joe: yeah, you justhave this kind of all your fibrous tissues begin to calcify and over calcifyinto bony structures. The problem with that, you’d have to make this next leapbecause as we talked about earlier, how do you make that flexible, right?
Because those folks usually are fairly, they come very stiff intheir structure and they, and rigid. So you need to, now how do you make that.So almost, it can’t be an internal structure. It has to be external in terms ofthe way you would form it. So that would have to be either a new fourth skinlayers
nick: created
geo: that
joe: then give you thisextra properties and or your dermis would now excrete something some material, [00:38:00] either, one of these iron
geo: sulfide kind of
joe: compounds or couldbe even calcified.
We talked about diatoms in I think the plant episode. And sowhere they produce silicate or coral, they produce a calcium kind of deposit.So there are organisms that do excrete these materials. And you could havethese snails That’s right, snail shells, right? So there are these bio your
nick: teeth
joe: a biomaterial,right?
And so there’s a lot of folks Working on that. I know some ofthose folks, and it’s fascinating because the interface between biology and,this kind of this biomaterial is unique and, difficult to reproduce. That’s whyyou go in for dental work or implants stay, they don’t stay all the time orthey, it’s a interesting field there.
But yeah I
Jonathan: One of theconceits within comics though on that topic though, is that when, they neverconsidered that a lot of these mu mutations would be detrimental to
joe: Yes. Yep. Yes.
Jonathan: withinskin, the [00:39:00] way it is, he would be a,a patient in a hospital somewhere. He would be walking around punching the.
nick: Yes. When wetalked about
joe: the cosmic rays inthemselves would be pretty damaging, so you would have to be a mutant alreadyto tolerate the cosmic race from not just being a cancer patient. You’re right.He would be in those the, instead of tough skin, it would just have tumors allover him and, a ruined thyroid because he’s been,
geo: On your chest,
joe: You’re now beendevastated by cosmic race unshielded and exposed to cosmic race.
Which, you know, so Yeah. It you’re right. About that.
nick: Yeah, so
joe: And so
geo: it
Jonathan: It doescreate a, an opening though for stories to be told that would explain it. Andjust like there have been a lot of folks that come along and tried to explainthe physics of Star Trek or Star
geo: right.
Jonathan: On thephysics of Superman. There are plenty of books out there where, scientists likeyourself are trying to say, okay, if that is
joe: right. That’sright
Jonathan: then how.
I played with this, actually not on, on the skin subject, but Idid a book called Zombie, CSU, where I [00:40:00]interviewed a couple hundred people in the real world about what would happenif zombies were real. If zombies were here, inarguably here, I would beresearch, react, respond, whatever. And, talked to scientists, talk to, all thedifferent types of scientists military and everyone else, everyone has atheory, but it would be, it would need to be a new there wouldn’t have to bethere.
Somebody have to be, throw a hell of a lot of money intoresearch to finding out how these people are not dying as a result of thesechanges. And I think that opens up a lot of storytelling possibility for comicstoo. But I would love to do an anthology, a prose anthology where scientistswrite superhero stories that explain the superheroes.
joe: Yeah.
geo: No.
nick: there you
geo: there you go.No,
Jonathan: I do know abunch of scientists, writers.
joe: Yeah.
geo: Yeah,
joe: Yeah. right. Yes.
Jonathan: Some inthis room.
geo: that’s
nick: That’s what
joe: that’s what we tryto do on the podcast. Nick could throw me that question. I
geo: know. Yeah, it’s
joe: I
geo: do think,
joe: and you talk aboutsome of those things, like you have other heroes Colossus who has, he puts themetal armor on and you talk about your skin [00:41:00]breathing, he’d have to take that off pretty quick and, or is there some othermechanism that he’s using to actually dissipate heat and things like that.
So you do have these kind of these characters who have thisthese abilities. And then to form a metallic skin and then take it away alsorequire some level of. Rapid metabolism. And on this, on the podcast, we alwaystry to explain things in terms of how many Big Macs would you have to eat tocompensate for the caloric load of doing some of these modifications quickly.
Jonathan: Yeah.
joe: that’s right.Yeah.
geo: Which no talks
joe: the calories, sothat’s why
Jonathan: Yeah withColossus, it would make a little more sense if instead of it just being steel,it was plates that,
joe: Yes.
Jonathan: Under whichair could get through
joe: Yes.
Jonathan: Evaporationhappen and so on. But again, the comic book writers are not scientists. We’rein the 21st century. We’re 25 years into century.
It’s time to level up and let the nerds come out to play andmake the comics make sense, which I think would bring [00:42:00]in whole group of readers because a lot of people dismiss comics foolishly assaying that they’re not literature, they’re not good, but they are, they’rereally
geo: Absolutely.
Jonathan: if, youcould use comics as a way to teach stem, STEM
joe: I agree.
geo: Definitely
Jonathan: much,there’s a lot of good science there.
But there’s also what if science and what if science is whatdrives science forward?
joe: We talk aboutzombies. That was so that how I got into, I always wanted to do science,education and outreach. And I realized a lot of adults don’t know anythingabout science. And I had a friend who was doing these art and science talks,and he approached me with this idea and he said, oh, I’m doing these talks, butno one shows up to hear about the science lectures.
And I was like, oh. So this was some years ago. And it’s how Idiscovered your view because I was I said I’m a big zombie fan and that’s kindsof zombies and how it works. So I started reading everyone at, had the zombiestuff and kind of where they’re at. Where’s the literature at? All the [00:43:00] movies.
And so I pitched to my friend, I said, Hey, we should do theart and science to science of zombies. And he looks at me and who, and he ofthe sciences also, he goes, but no one does research on zombies.
geo: I go, I know,but if you want people to show up, then
joe: talk aboutsomething that’s super fun and then we’ll sneak science in on em.
And I’m a cell biologist, so we’ll do all cell biology and kindof talk. And it was, we filled this art gallery up with people. It was standingroom only. And he was like, wow, this really worked. And so now as he does it Ithink he’s stopped or taking a pause, but every time he does it, he has somelittle hook like that now.
And I’m like, yeah, let’s keeping going. And so that was then,how we arrived to this podcast was at that idea, but that was the start of it.Zombies was the the fun and figuring out how you would get the infection eventand then what would happen after that. In fast zombies.
nick: you love fastzombies.
Jonathan: yeah. In mydead at night series, I worked with scientists to come up with a parasitedriven one. Toxic plasma, green jewel wasp, whole bunch of other
And
joe: sometimes[00:44:00]
geo: you,
Jonathan: You can geta certain distance toward doability, toward, actual rea realizing it for some,if you talk to the right scientist and get them to really, put their mind toit, you get a lot further and closer to it than is comfortable sometimes.
But you’re talking
geo: right
Jonathan: the artgallery thing here in San Diego. We have the Fleet Center, which is a sciencecenter attached to the the astronomy center. And I was on a panel there. Theyhad also been trying to do panels and nobody was showing up to them. So becauseComic-Con is in San Diego, they decided to start bringing in comics people totalk to scientists.
The very first panel where I met the scientist I mentionedearlier, Dr. Ronald Coleman. It was Kevin Eastman, the artist who co-createdthe Ninja Turtles and myself. We were comic creators. And then the two, therewas a var Virologist who’s sadly named, I’m blanking on Nancy something, Ican’t remember her last name.
And Ronald Coleman, who’s, said a stem cell scientist. And wewere asking them questions and they were, they they were asking us questions.The [00:45:00] audience was asking questions.Kevin, the artist from Ninja Turtles, he wa he was like, goo or whatever. So wejust, we need, we needed a thing.
We just call it that. That’s total there. Or my V wars thing, Iwanted it to be a genetic disorder that was latent. And, as melting polar rice,softened permafrost, all diseases were. And I, that’s an idea I had before thatactually started happening, by
geo: Oh boy.
Jonathan: Before wegot to the popular press I subscribed to some science newsletters and I read anarticle back in 2010 about melting rice, releasing old bacteria and possiblyviruses.
And I’m like. That’s scary as hell. Let me write a book,
geo: right?
Jonathan: not the TVwars,
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: But
joe: yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: thezombies, the fun thing about zombies is, each individual thing it does, can beexplained by nature. Like the fact that it has a lower metabolism be, so itdoesn’t rot as much. There are animals, the ground squirrel the, I forget thename of the frog, that, that freezes solid every year and then falls, withoutthe tissue damage because of the way [00:46:00]the sugars,
That exists.
The if the motor cortex was working. Or even on a minimallevel, the zombie could walk, bite, chew, swallow. Without the motor of cortex,it couldn’t, unless there’s respiration, a zombie couldn’t moan. And we knowzombies moan. You can make an argument that zombies are not dead, they’re notalive, they’re living dead.
A third state of existence based on a great a rate ofmetabolism so greatly reduced that they appear dead to the point where theirouter tissues become necrotic, but they’re still not actually dead.
joe: It’s
geo: yeah, I hadthought
joe: In my own head andwe’re getting off, I gonna get back to skin ’cause we’re gonna have to closethe episode a little bit.
But yeah I had a dual infection event. One of the mind, butalso, people forget about the second brain and that’s our gut, which is justfilled with bacteria.
So as our control systems, entropy starts to take over, thenthat would be your driving force. And those bacteria then would have somepreservation of [00:47:00] self. Especially ifthe brain was now infected by something else, it might not have as tight ofcontrol over the system, so you can then have this dual function.
That also explains why in movies you have this, not everyone’sinfected by a splatter of blood or something like that, because you need bothparts to become infected. And so you could
geo: be primed.
joe: And then onceyou’re primed and maybe you have a death event,
geo: and now
joe: the brain parasitecan take over, and then the gut ones can now go, oh, you know what?
There’s no more control. Everything’s leaky, leaky gutsyndrome. We
geo: can get inthere, we can now invade.
joe: And we now we canhave this kind of two brain system in control. And hence why, your movementsare shambling and things like that. Not necessarily because your coronation isbad, but because you your, you have two.
Competing entities in inside one, one body. But
geo: That’s
nick: Anotherepisode, another rabbit
geo: hole.
joe: But
Jonathan: That one
nick: you’re in,
joe: you’re in,
nick: so I do wanna,
geo: I’m gonna touchon my
joe: [00:48:00] fun fact list. I promise a list and I’dlike to deliver,
geo: but
nick: There’s awebsite
joe: maybe you’refamiliar with it. I just learned about it. It’s called bio numbers.
geo: and it’s this
joe: fun website, atleast I think it’s
geo: fun where
nick: you
joe: search fordifferent topics and it will give you these kind of biology relevant numbers.
And so how many proteins are inside of a cell or
nick: how,
geo: so
joe: I put in, aboutskin and then it has the paper reference, which then I clicked on links becausethat’s what I do. And
nick: So it was just
geo: fun. Things
joe: and it saved mesome time on this weight
geo: of skin.
joe: On average isabout nine pounds or 4.1 kilograms for the folks who wanna go to metric.
The
nick: number of
joe: skin cells, about1 billion on average number of bacteria in skin, about 1 trillion. So that’s alot of bacteria, which we didn’t even talk about. The skin kind of, how wouldbend skin the bacterial that keeps that, that
geo: are very
joe: and beneficial?How are they living?
How are they getting along?
nick: Do you think hehas to [00:49:00] moisturize?
geo: when he gets
joe: fungal infection,like ringworm underneath those
geo: rocks. Yeah.What kind of lotion does he use?
nick: foot, athlete’sfoot there?
Jonathan: a story.Somebody needs to write that story.
nick: Yeah. I wouldjust assume the human torch is just Hey, I’ll get that. Hold on.
geo: 90% of the humanbody
joe: covered in hair. Ididn’t realize that, but that was
geo: how much? 90%.90%.
nick: Is that it?Density of
joe: procars, soprocars are bacteria. So these are organisms without a nucleus versuseukaryotes, which we are ourselves are eukaryotic.
The density of procars in the skin of humans. And this is cellsper centimeter squared. It’s about a thousand to 10,000 and you’re growing andunder your arm, it’s about a million. Per centimeter, per centimeter squared,or that’s about 0.78 inches squared for those who think in inches.
So that was and
geo: and this allcame from that one website,
joe: website. The
geo: term of
joe: in your entireepidermis is about 26 to [00:50:00] 27 days. Soyou got, so yeah, so you,
nick: it’s
geo: oh, all that,
nick: that dried dead
joe: skin you’regenerating, that’s you’re danner.
So that’s another for Ben. How’s he dealing with
nick: I thought itwould just be rock dust. No, that’s
geo: to us. That’s
Jonathan: that when,I wish that when skin generated, it would take scars away. ’cause I got
geo: yeah. So
joe: that was those aresome fun. And then I, the concentration on microbes in human gut, I just hadgot, I, that one was there and that’s in the tens of billions of cells and,number of human cells.
’cause it, this was something I always think about are we morebacteria than than human? But the number of total number of human cells in yourbody is about 10 to 30 trillion. So you’re, so you got about hundreds ofbillions of. Bacteria on you, in you, but you still are a little more human.
Just,
nick: Slightly morehuman than bacteria.
geo: Yeah.
nick: I don’t,
Jonathan: quitehuman. But
joe: yeah, that’sright.
geo: So there you go.There’s
Jonathan: I thinkthey’re more bacteria,
joe: so those are somefun, just some fun skin facts and others,
geo: But yeah, bio
joe: I can,
Jonathan: Oh, I’mdefinitely gonna be hitting that. I wrote [00:51:00]it down.
joe: yeah. Yeah.
geo: It’s a fun,
joe: and when I learnedof it, I was in a lecture and someone had these cool numbers and I went, I waslike, how do you get these, did you just guess at this stuff?
And they were like, no, there’s this website, bio numbers. Andthe first thing I did when I got back to my office pile numbers,
Jonathan: I love thatthere is nerd porn for scientists too.
nick: it exists.
joe: Like we, we keepit secret. It’s our
nick: own little
Jonathan: Like nerdporn for writers is the TV troops website. If you ever been to TV troops,
geo: oh,
Jonathan: that, allof the tropes of everything and a
joe: in there.
nick: Interesting.
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: days on it.I,
joe: Wow.
Jonathan: So much ofmy stuff’s on there and I, somebody said, oh, you’re on, I saw you on TV trope.
I’m like. TV tropes when there’s a whole bunch of my stuff andthey’re breaking witch tropes and which variations of tropes are used and soon. But I love the, that’s fun. I gotta grab that because, sometimes when ascientist in a story wants to, as Bob, that sort of thing when they’re infodumpy moment, you do want your details.
My science guy I normally go to, he [00:52:00]actually does work a day job. But so I have to catch him when he’s available.
geo: Yeah,
joe: you go. You canhave some numbers to throw out there
geo: and the paperreferences so
joe: you can look it upand see where to get the numbers. ’cause it is it was interesting. So there wasa lot of cool things in there, but yeah.
There you go. Yeah. So I
Jonathan: I knowwe’ve just about run outta time, but is there one, was there another topic onskin that we need to go back to that we didn’t cover?
geo: I
joe: do you guys,unless
geo: you havesomething
joe: you want to do,
nick: please. I havea whole list of
Jonathan: the
geo: We have another,yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. Youmentioned the human torch
joe: Yep.
nick: yep.
Jonathan: how thehell does he not dehydrate? Like
joe: That’s right.
geo: So we’ll have,
joe: we’re gonna do anepisode on all the Fantastic Fours.
Jonathan: Okay.
joe: have,
geo: we actually
joe: are gonna have aDr. David Pincus from University of Chicago on for that episode. And so hejoined us for actually the permafrost episode,
geo: Was
nick: which was
joe: of the funniest
geo: episodes.
joe: yeah he kind ofstudies, the impact of environmental changes on organisms short term and longterm.
And one of the things [00:53:00]is heat stress and heat shock. So I think it, I
geo: so that’ll be agreat question for him.
joe: it would be. Yeah.We’ll pose that to
geo: him.
Jonathan: Ice Man.Ice Man
nick: Iceman. Yeah,that’s
joe: right now,
geo: Man. Oh yeah.
joe: Yes. So how doeshe live in that ice state? That’s a whole nother, that’s another episode Ithink.
nick: And movingthose arms with ice on him.
joe: without cracking.Yes.
geo: How’s he stayflexible?
Jonathan: I have, Ijust have this idea that somewhere there’s a DARPA lab where a couple of guysare trying to figure out how to make the sup, make the Fantastic Four
nick: Right.
joe: Yes.
nick: I’m in
geo: Cosmic Rays
joe: is not the answer.I’m gonna go right there.
geo: That’s,
nick: We can’t rollthat out yet, Joe. I will.
Jonathan: actually,one of the funny things is guys have seen Night of Living Dead, right? The
joe: yes.
nick: Yes, of course.
Jonathan: So one, oneof the conceits there is that the major theory in the first film is thatradiation from returning space probe. George Romero was a huge fan of theFantastic Four, and that was his nod to the
joe: interesting. Wow.
Jonathan: though onespace probe returning does not explain global, I [00:54:00]busted George a lot on this because,
geo: Neither livingDead. Was
joe: it truly global orwas it local? Just in Western Pennsylvania, because that was that clear
Jonathan: wanted itto be global because people were talking about it in Washington and other
joe: Okay. Yeah. Imight’ve been on the radio. Yep.
Jonathan: clearlywas, but the first one, he was the first one he actually expected it to be,defeated.
It was never intent to be a series, but he immediately, decidedto go further with it. His next film actually explored another aspect of it,the Crazies,
nick: Oh yeah. Of
joe: the
geo: I love thecrazies.
Jonathan: rage
joe: Yeah. That’sright.
Jonathan: That wewouldn’t have 28 weeks, 28 days
joe: That’s right. No,that’s exactly right.
Jonathan: genres,
joe: Yes. The crazieswas it. Yeah. Yeah. But
Jonathan: but Iactually wrote dead of Night because I wanted to as a, like a thank you note toGeorge Romero, how he and I became friends.
Actually, he read the book and loved it. We became friends. Wedid an anthology together. But I couldn’t stand that. The science made no sensein the book, in the movie. It me, 10 years old, it bugged me.
geo: right? Yeah.
Jonathan: The thing,the thing, his skin the [00:55:00] Hulk, hismass Reed Richards, every bodily function when he’s stretching.
joe: right. We have,we’re gonna have a MD on to Maria do at Northwestern University is gonna be onthat episode. So yeah, we’re gonna have, we’re gonna get into a little bit morescience. So the first. Was it Sue, we had a comic critic in review to open up theseries and now we’ve, we have you, Jonathan, on skin and yeah.
Then we have a couple scientists and a MD coming in to, toround out the fences of force. Yeah. So we’ll
Jonathan: befollowing these episodes. This is speaking to my nerdvana
geo: Yeah.
joe: yeah. No
geo: Science forweirdos.
joe: Science forweirdos is what someone told me. We, someone, we were out and someone said, oh,
geo: you do that
joe: And they go, yeah.It’s like we, I’ve been listening to it, it’s like science for weirdos andthat’s my thing, and
nick: I’m like,
joe: oh, I kinda likethat.
geo: It’s
nick: I
Jonathan: I, I thinkthat is dead on. Yeah. That’s, yeah.
geo: yeah. It’s beenjust
joe: a greatconversation
nick: thank you somuch for joining us.
geo: Go ahead and [00:56:00] plugs
joe: anything? You havesome new stuff coming out. I know for sure. So it’s,
Jonathan: yeah, I gotI, I’m, I got a lot of stuff going. I always have a lot of stuff coming out. Iwrote
geo: I saw your lastpost that you were outta
Jonathan: novel everythree minutes. Yeah.
joe: it said
geo: your brain wasoutta words.
nick: Yeah.
Jonathan: was, butI’ve already started the next novel.
nick: Novel,
joe: Congratulations.That’s awesome. Your inspiration to us young novelists
Jonathan: am I have agraphic novel coming out in June Joe Ledger and Violin Hearts and Minds, whichis a comic original story. Ba is set in my Joe Ledger world. Crystal lake isputting that out. And last year I had a really fun one was Godzilla versusKullu Comic.
geo: Oh, wow.
joe: Yep.
Jonathan: Comic orcome on games. But next up for me is the next Necro tech book deep Space Book,crafting Horror.
And we are in discussions with an anime company in Japan
joe: Cool.
Jonathan: based onthat series. Giant Me, mech Robots that Are Shape-Shifting piloted by the Ghostof Dead Pilots.
nick: Oh, damn.
joe: Yeah.
geo: Wow.
Jonathan: [00:57:00] the book that I just finished the otherday was the third in that series.
joe: That’s cool.
Jonathan: I love thefact I’m leaning more and more into science fiction these days.
I’ve got two different science fiction series running now. I.And it’s fun because, and this is one little thing I wanna just throw in beforeI skedaddle, is that one of the reasons I love working with scientists, talkingto experts in various fields for my books, there’s an old calm man saying, usenine truths to sell one lie that really applies great to any kind of fiction.
Because if you can build your fiction on a structure ofplausibility, it makes it so much easier for suspension of disbelief and alsothe trust when they know you’re stepping off that the top of that scaffold intofiction, they know that you’ve done your homework. So the fiction is gonna be areasonable extension of the non of the nonfiction, and they’ll go with you forthat.
But if you’re just making shit up so that you can tell ascience fiction story, there’s no structural basis to it, you’re only going toget the people who don’t know science. And that’s an increasingly small [00:58:00] number, I hope, because there’s a lot ofanti-science going on right now.
geo: right.
Jonathan: But
nick: Fingers
Jonathan: yourfingers crossed there are still people who want it to believe in it. They wantto believe that we can have superheroes. They want to believe that people cando this, that people will become stronger, that maybe somehow we’ll be able tosurvive a polluted planet and get wise enough to fix the planet.
So I love doing that. I love working with scientists. It’s fun.It’s so much fun for me to be on a podcast with people who understand scienceuntil I, that, that
joe: Thank
nick: you
geo: coming on andus. Yeah,
nick: What,
joe: Nick and Jordan
Jonathan: Nerds getit by extension. I’m not a scientist either, but all my science addictedfriends, we all love the fact that’s, that there’s real scientists out there
geo: right?
Jonathan: manyscientists are actually in the nerd
joe: Yeah.
nick: Oh, a hundred
joe: And I
geo: want,
joe: Jonathan, youdidn’t mention it, but we have some, I’m sure there’s some writer friends thatlisten, but you do a great masterclass series and so on different topics in thewriting, both [00:59:00] writing the art ofwriting, but also the business side of writing.
And, I’ve attended several
geo: of them
Jonathan: and they’refundraisers.
nick: And
joe: They’re alsofundraisers, right? The money goes to the no kill shelter or the
Jonathan: kill animalshelters, women’s shelters, homeless shelters. And these are programs thatprovide meals for children in, areas where they’re not getting it, family don’tenough income and 50 cents can buy a whole meal. I do a hundred percent of themoney from my workshops goes there.
It does a lot of good. And also, I hope people can use materialto get into the writing business because it’s more fun when there are more kidsin the playground.
nick: Definitely.
joe: No, so check itout, you writers out there,
nick: One lastquestion for you, if you don’t mind. Who is your favorite? Unbreakable skincharacter.
geo: Oh.
joe: oh,
geo: Oh, the
Jonathan: Oh, theHulk. I’m sorry.
geo: Yeah.
Jonathan: Sorry. Thething has always been my favorite unbreakable character because of the factthat he’s the hu the Hulk I liked, but the Hulk was Jekyll and Hyde with,dipped and green. The, it’s that, but the thing [01:00:00]he was always leaning into his humanism, An empathetic character and empath,when you have a character who looks like basically a big rock monster, butempathy is his trues super strength, man.
I gotta love a character like
nick: I’m so glad wehave you on this episode, because he is your favorite,
Jonathan: yeah. Andvery first comic I ever bought has him on the cover of it,
joe: Yeah.
Jonathan: 4 66.Believe that’s 1967. Good lord.
geo: That’s it.
joe: Awesome. Thanksagain for joining us. It was a lot of fun. And yeah, just a lot of cool nerdingout in pop culture,
nick: very much
Jonathan: and thanksfor inviting me on too. I had a lot of fun. I wish I had a little time rightnow, but I hope you guys will invite me back ’cause I’ll
joe: I will do. Yeah,no, definitely. No you already brought up several topics that we will have tohave you on now for, and, you know
nick: wait, are yougonna be the fourth rabbit in the hole?
joe: right.
Jonathan: And also I,with one of my upcoming classes, we haven’t set the date yet, but my, mymolecular biologist friend is going [01:01:00]to co-teach a class with me on working with
joe: Cool. That’d beawesome.
geo: That’s
Jonathan: be a lot offun too, ’cause a lot of writers don’t know how to ask the right questions andthey don’t know how to follow it down that rabbit hole into.
A plausible story and having a scientist on there would be fun.And if I’ll give you a free pass of that one, Joe, so you can join theconversation
joe: be fun. Yeah, no,
geo: and also theother way too, scientists don’t always know how to translate. That’s right.Their science communication is big,
joe: right?
That’s right. Yeah. And
geo: so they can use
A writer or they can use someone that the, the scientist just
joe: did a piece andthey, I was interviewed for, it was oh, it was like speculative fiction in, Howspeculative fiction and bench science kind of merge. And so they
Jonathan: that arecent
joe: of us.
It was, it came out last month. I can send you a link to it.Yeah, it was a fun, it was a few of us in it.
Jonathan: get thatand read it. I need to renew my subscription to the Scientist
joe: yeah. Yeah, no, itwas a fun article and had a couple quotes in there. So I was happy that [01:02:00] something came outta my interview.
Jonathan: I might betapping some information too. Getting a walk on in something.
geo: anytime, man,anytime I’ve helped
joe: other people ortried to help. ’cause sometimes people, you’re right they call and then they’relike, I wanna do this thing with this equipment. And I’m like, you can’t dothat thing with that equipment. Or there’s practical reasons why you won’t getthe image you think you’ll get, it’ll charge, it’ll look bad.
geo: And they go
joe: I need this is ifI can’t do it with that piece of equipment then my story fails. And I’m like
geo: you need,
Jonathan: story
nick: I’m like, weneed
geo: to, let’s have alonger conversation
joe: and figure thisout. And and some I, we did, it was like, you need this piece of equipment. Butthey’re like, but that’s not in that room.
And I’m like you need to have this scene happen in this roomnow because, so yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. I’veactually had to repl whole novels because I talked to a scientist and found outthat my assumption, like writers, we have a lot of information in our head.Doesn’t mean we’re experts on it, but it’s enough to get us into trouble orhopefully to ask the right questions.
And I had this really great idea for something and I asked to acouple people who were into [01:03:00] nuclearscience, power plants and so on. My idea made no sense. It was laughably naive.I was like, oh shit. Glad I didn’t write the book. ’cause my editor didn’t knowit was a bad idea
Working with scientists, big important thing.
geo: Yeah, no.
joe: And experts andthings like that. No, it’s awesome.
geo: I’m
Jonathan: I’m theexpert that a lot of my friends tap for
geo: Martial arts.
nick: know. Yeah. I
joe: I was that’sawesome. I have a a friend, I don’t know if he joined the last one, I told himhe should get on, but I know he has a lot of action and fighting scenes and hedid wrestling and jiujitsu, so I was like, oh, you should jump on, becauseJonathan, he’s, that’s his background, especially writing those scenes andgetting it across.
Jonathan: Years now.
joe: yeah. Yeah.
geo: Cool. I
joe: know you need torun and so
Jonathan: stuff, sothanks. This guy, guys. I can hang with you
geo: I
nick: know. Yeah. I’mlike, Hey,
joe: That’s why I’mlike, Hey,
Jonathan: I will behappy to come back and and nerd out with you guys again.
nick: Absolutely.Anytime. Thank you.
geo: Thank you. Havea good night. Cheers.
nick: Thank you.
Jonathan: bye.
geo: Bye.
joe: you have me, Joe.
geo: We got Nick. Wegot
joe: Nick, we’ve got
geo: Georgia.
Georgia,
joe: and we’ve
nick: gone down some[01:04:00]
geo: holes,
joe: some tough skin
nick: tough skin.
joe: I dunno.
nick: Bye-bye.
joe: Hey, you stay safeout there. Stay strong.