Chat over calamari with Megaton Man creator Don Simpson as we discuss why he splurged on a special issue of Captain Marvel at the Baltimore Comic-Con, how the business practices of comics affect the artistic side, the way two early visits with artist Keith Pollard taught him he didn't want to be a Marvel Comics penciller after all, where he feels the Silver Age ended and the Bronze Age truly began, how classic cinema and the auteur theory influenced his creative choices, the lessons he learned from the first few issues of Love & Rockets vs. the unfortunate expectations set up by the first few issues of Megaton Man, how working on DC's anthology title Wasteland caused him to reinvent himself, what path his publishing life would have taken had Megaton Man been only a one-shot as originally planned, the career differences between Basil Wolverton and Will Eisner, why he's able to let others play with his characters without feeling proprietary, the alternate universe in which he would have been a Crusty Bunker or one of Romita's Raiders, how 9/11 caused him to head back to school for a PhD, why he wrote a Ms. Megaton Man prose novel, whether he already knows the final chapter to his comics universe, and much more.

Polish off cryptid pizza with Andy Duncan as we discuss how his titles are often born decades before the stories to which they're eventually attached, how his research into Criswell's predictions "ethically stymied" him, why the way he creates stories isn't a way he'd encourage anyone else to follow, the epiphany which caused him to realize a perceived bug in his story was actually a feature, what he hoped sending his story through the Sycamore Hill Writing Workshop would unlock, why he's willing to publicly read aloud sections of stories he hasn't completed, the essential exclamation point suggested by John Kessel, at what stage in the revision process specific details of setting get added, whether the story would have taken even longer to complete without the eventual pressure of a deadline, what about the story made it fitting for a Tanith Lee tribute anthology, the editorial acumen of Gardner Dozois, and much more.

Dish over dumplings with George Gene Gustines as we discuss the reason what he's pulled off would have been impossible a generation ago, why he calls himself "the Forrest Gump of the New York Times," how he determines which potential articles are right for the paper and which are too inside baseball, what moved him to write his first letter to a comics editor (and his secret to getting them published frequently), why he loves superhero team books, the grace of George Perez, what defines a fan, the story he regrets being the first to report, what he does when not writing about comics, who he wishes he could have interviewed before they passed, what it takes to get an idea approved by his editors, when he rather than another writer gets to write comic book obituaries, his upcoming autobiographical graphic novel about how comics changed his life, the voicemail Stan Lee left which matches what you'd imagine "The Man" might say, how he intends to reach his goal of 1,000 bylines, and much more.