Episode 265 of the Letters Page - Writers' Room: The Guise Book #22

This episode sucks

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The “because an 8-year-old in Nevada demanded it…” on the cover is a reference to a thing from Wizard magazine that Christopher and Adam mentioned (regarding a Dracula vs. Zorro comic) back in the Shear Force episode. Scans of Wizard are up on the Internet Archive, but I’ve been unable to find any such thing while paging through issues in the vicinity of the October-November 1993 publication date of the 2-part series.

That was painfully unfunny considering they don’t seem to have been trying to write a deliberately hackneyed holiday story. And it’s not like the material was hopeless to work with. Green Grosser is inherently absurdist already, and that makes the idea of vegetable vampires a decent fit for him - they’re so obviously unworkable (plants need sunlight, vampires need not-sunlight, and if they did work they should be looking for sap to suck, not blood) they’re a comedy “threat” to begin with.

And frankly, a cartoony joke hero in a story with vampires that doesn’t refer to the Transylvania 6-5000 Bugs Bunny short is a wasted opportunity. “Hocus Kadabra. Abra Ka-pocus. Newport News. Walla. Walla. Washington.”

And what happened to not referring other folks’ IPs by their proper name, eg Shmuffy the Vampire Slayer rather than Buffy? That rule seems to have fallen by the wayside throughout, which I don’t think they’ve done before.

I’ve been highly amused myself by the story. As for their self censoring that has come and gone at times. I feel within the past year or so it’s mostly letter writers who do it.

Love a good, stupid opening bit. Especially when it makes them laugh, too.

Christopher really likes that line, huh? XD Admittedly, it’s pretty good.

Ooh, background sounds! Love it.

Always naked. Always Guise.

Okay, now I get what they meant by “Draculas”. This is fun.

Pink eyes, purple holes, yellow sheet… Green clovers?

…Is it Grimm?

The back and forth is really good on this one, but you can tell they aren’t used to writing for Guise like this. Clearly, we need to give them more Guise topics so they can practice.

Okay, best idea for a final boss ever XD

Green Grosser? What the hell? lmfao

Oh yeah, Dracula-Dracula is kind of actually real in Sentinel Comics, isn’t he?

I do like when a letter writer addresses C&A in ways that confuse them.

I like to think that Guise’s organs all come with the signs labelling what they are, too.

So Guise ends up being the rare example of a “”""“villain”"""" (very minor antagonist) becoming a “hero” (moron but not an idiot). Interesting!

I am exceedingly pleased by the reading of my letter and am only encouraged to write more. :3 Though I have definitely been out-90s’ed by Clive, I can admit when I’m beat.

The real question now is which was worse: the Burger King Kids’ Club Virtuosos, or Sk8blayd’s proposed gritty all-X-Games hero team?

He’s Darren’s OC? XD God, I love Sk8blayd so much.

Aw man, that means he never would have reciprocated what’s-her-name! Marina?

Did not expect to get a free ghost creative process in this episode!

“He’s in Vengeance.”

That checks out! Excited to see him in the next box!

If Sk8blayde had a super team, I think it would consist of:

• Wheelie, his second in command, expert with anything on two wheels
• Grind, the only woman on the team and their engineer/general techie
• Deck and Truck, a pair of more or less interchangeable Liefeldian slabs of muscle who are into snowboarding and motorsports respectively, but both like to punch things really hard

They all partake of all EXTREME sports, naturally, just have a particular expertise.

One of these days, I will write a letter where they don’t have to look up pronunciation.

But not this time.

Your full name, with online handle in the middle, can be sung to the tune of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

My own feeling is that it was kind of unfunny, but it was one, also exactly the sort of story I’d expect Guise’s book to have before he started being semi-serious, two, it probably was the type of comic where the comedy came from actually seeing all the wacky pop culture Draculas and so loses something in pure writing format.

As for proper vegetable vampires, you can’t top Count Duckula in that department anyway, so it’s for the best.

And as for the wacky naming, my take has always been that the wacky naming is best when they come up with actual wacky alt-names like Toditos or Pouch Beasts, and the shm-thing has overstayed its welcome.

A lot of stuff uses that.

Also, not good with handles and using them exclusively like a lot of y’all, so… By the time I was writing in, felt like just using the handle was intruding.

I mean, when I was first writing in I wasn’t sure exactly what tone they’d be taking to answering the letters, so I used my real name solely so if I sounded like an idiot I could proverbially whistle nonchalantly and sweep it under the rug. Now you all know why I chose to confuse everybody, because I am a socially awkward coward.

Like Adam throwing out Sorcerer magazine off-the-cuff and making Christopher crack up? Sounds like it’s canon to the Metaverse now.

When they were scrambling to figure out how to resolve “exploding greenhouse” in a Guise way, I for sure expected them to end on a splash page of GuiseBat being blown out into the sky like a bat out of hell. Green Grocer in his bat feet to show he survived, etc.

This one for me was hard to follow as there was a lot of back and forth - I guess that’s how creative processes go at times. Still confused about the whole plant Dracula plot though. They were plants but they actually tried to suck Guise’s blood, right? And had the ability to shapechange as well?

I was also under the impression that people in comics survived explosions all the time, so it was surprising to hear that it was such a big deal here. Did I get it completely wrong?

You can do that, but you can also fight! Just think - what would Sk8blayd do??!

The most important reveal in this episode was of course that Night Snake’s ghost would not have legs. This changes nothing, but thanks for giving us Ghost Snake (not to be confused with Ghost Viper who doesn’t even like snakes).

Happy Halloween, everybody!

It depends.

If you are able to walk away unflinchingly while looking badass, you definitely will survive.

Otherwise it’s a 50/50 if you die or you survive but look like Red Skull afterwards.

Also, oooh! More fanarts?

uhhhh p sure he would fucen die lol :V

I read a few of these comments before listening to the episode, and honestly I thought it was pretty great! Definitely would be better to actually read the comic, but that’s true of basically every Writer’s Room episode.

And I particularly enjoyed the idea of Count Von Count being the final boss fight, because honestly if you’re going to have a big fight in a Guise story, fighting a Muppet is absolutely the way to go!

The only way it could have been better is if it was obvious Guise was the one wearing the puppet.

Absolutely. It should be a knock-down, drag-out fight with camera angles that never quite show the Count’s feet or that he’s ever not right next to Guise. Then when Guise stakes him, the Count disintegrates and reveals that Guise just staked his own hand.

Hey, I thought Adam typically grabbed three random names from his cover livestream to appear on the cover… but this one has Badell, Rebottaro, Bender. Is this the first time post-DE that the real trio got credits on a cover? I wonder why this one.

It’s not the first time. There have been others like a lot of the Volume 2 Disparation issues they’ve done episodes done, Alpha Vol 3 Issue 12, and plenty of others. I don’t know offhand what makes Adam choose their names.

https://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Podcasts#tab=Comic_Covers

Looking at the gallery, the majority of the ones with any credits list the “real peeps”.

The only names that are definitely canonical are ones he’s done for DE or the RPG (or the History, but we haven’t seen many covers from that yet). Some of the Writers’ Room covers may be accurate as well, but not guaranteed.

I don’t think any of them are random. They’ve codified a whole list in the History of Sentinel Comics book. There are several appearances by people who backed old projects at high levels, to get their names added to canon. I think C&A have some friends in there, too. Obviously I don’t know many of them, but longtime Letters Page listeners will be able to pick some out.

On the art stream the other day, Adam basically said that once the History is finished and they have writers assigned to everything they need to go back and correct the existing Writers’ Room covers. He didn’t outright say thus how he assigns credits for now, but I get the feeling it’s “whatever he feels like at the moment”.

That’s really super cool to see them all spread out like that!

https://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Category:Comic_Covers

In that case, you might want a gander at the setup of every single cover laid out.

Note that WT uploaded the Definitive Edition covers too, so extra treats now.

I’m really hoping one day we can get high-rez versions. I’d love to replace all the original and EE prints on my office walls with framed cover arts.

I wonder if Adam still wants that in-character vampire podcast. I’d do it, if I knew he’d listen!

I like how Guise’s defcon system upgrades from “weird”, which barely even registers, to “odd” when he still isn’t taking it seriously.

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