comic book club
written by Ken Carlson
(Jul/Aug 07)
I wandered over to West 29th Street recently on a muggy evening to the People’s Improv Theatre. The next day was trash day so this particular street was not exactly dressed in its Sunday best. I was there to see a show that’s getting a lot of attention in the small club scene since it started last winter among fans of comedy and those who have come to terms that Captain America is dead. (Sorry to break the news to the rest of you.) It’s the Comic Book Club, a talk show about comic books with comedians and musicians and industry people as guests.
The weekly show is hosted by Pete LePage, Justin Tyler, and Alex Zalben. Justin was absent from the show the evening I was there (earnestly completing important comic book tasks, I suppose). Their guests that evening were Jen Grunwald (Associate Editor of Marvel Trades), Michael Avon Oeming (Powers, Red Sonja, Omega Flight), and Kimmy Gatewood who reveled as her role as the outsider and brought the crowd to their feet with her freshly written Comic Book Club theme song.
I had a chance to sit down with Pete and Alex during their pre-show meeting. Star Wars was playing on the 10” TV screen in the lobby at the PIT as the co-hosts debated which comic books they would cover in the show and why. I spoke with a couple of audience members who were hanging out to find who goes to a live talk show about comic books? These audience members are at an age that says the 80’s were something that happened to their parents.
James Shafie, 20, was attending the show for the 8th time. “It’s really, really funny. I’m into comic books. Aside from my friends, there’s no real outlet, except for the internet, which can be really lame at times. These guys, not only are they really smart, but they’re also really funny. The three guys who host it, they like their certain things. You almost always agree with one of them. Everybody’s there because they like comics. They’re not going to fight about it. My favorite comic right now is an independent called Ex Machina. It’s set in New York. It has to do with post 9/11 and super heroes. It’s absolutely the best drawing I’ve ever seen. ”
Alan Starzinski was a CBC rookie, “I come to the PIT often: stand-up, open mics, and stuff. I’m really into comics books and have been since I was a kid. I love hearing humor about comic books. It sounded like a pretty good thing to come to. A good book that’s written well that no one gives any credit to, is Robin. It’s always been really good. He’s like a mini-Batman. Before, they wouldn’t even deal with that. They show how he’s had to deal with his secret life.”
At this talk show, the gravity in which the critical issues are discussed lie somewhere between Meet the Press and Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I know very little about comic books. Most of what I glean is from the original Batman movie (note the pictures shot at an angle to depict the evil doer’s hideout). Without any frame of reference, there were moments of drifting into minutiae where I was completely lost. There was a little too much razzing from audience about inside jokes of the industry and quizzes regarding what super power one would want. What helped was to treat it as an intellectual exerciseIt’s a hang out for the geeks and the ultra-geeks who have transformed into cool.
Here are some outtakes from the evening to give you a flavor of the discourse:
– In case you don’t know, The Incredible Hulk was sent to a gladiator planet. Now he’s back and kicking ass.
– If Batman’s confused, I’m confused.
– Wolverine’s the go-to guy to talk shit out with? What the fuck?
The hosts for the show have similar backgrounds, have been doing improv for some time, and appreciate the buzz they’re receiving for this new show. Alex (see picture on the left) is the bookish looking fellow in the glasses. No, the one on the right with the air of authority like Peabody from the Bullwinkle cartoons. “I’ve been doing sketch comedy mainly for 12 years now. Acting, writing, producing,” he said. “I’ve studied improv and done short films. For about a year and a half I was artistic director of the PIT.
“I started doing improv in high school,” Pete said, “because I couldn’t sing or dance in the plays. Then I got into stand-up comedy and sketch. My love for comic books brought me here.”
Alex recalled how the idea came about, “I’d been thinking about the idea for about a year. A comic books talk show. That was it. I like comic books and I like comedy. I couldn’t figure out how to get them together, to figure a way how to make it work.”
“He busted on me one day for reading comic books in the lobby”, Pete said. “He told me about his idea and I thought it was fantastic. We enjoy talking about comic books so much, it became a thing. It’s such a niche audience, would it work? But, we’re outgoing and made it universal so you don’t have to be a comic book nerd to enjoy what we’re saying. We talk about comic books and you might learn something. It’s not like we’re in our grandmother’s basement.”
Alex continued, “Justin was talking to Pete, a hilarious guy. They love comic books and I trust them as producers. Between the three of us, I think we can do it. We sat down and started talking about it. We decided to just do it. Within a month, it was up. It’s a talk show. It wouldn’t work as well without the guests or live audience. If it was just me, Pete, and Justin, we might as well just hang out in the lobby and talk.”
Obviously, the challenge for a show like this is excite the comic junkies and the industry people, of which there are many in this town, without alienating or boring those who don’t know who Rogue is and think the Hood Series is distributed by a milk company from New England. As someone from this latter category, I believe the show accomplishes that with their knowledge of the genre, their humorous bickering and talented guests. What brings it together, is the small club improv setting. It invokes the same imagination and infatuation with “play” that individuals associate with long form improv and eclectic entertainment.
And how do these hosts judge a comic book? “As long as the writing is good,” Alex responded, “it doesn’t matter. It’s like any piece of fantasy or science fiction. We’ve called out plenty of writers for having a character do something out of character. Somebody will say it’s ridiculous. Someone else will say, ‘You know you’re reading a comic book, don’t you?’ It plays by certain rules. We don’t want to be negative comedians. We love comic books. If anything, we want to tell the people good things about them, things they may not know. There’s a series called Hackslash. It’s awesome and I passed it to Pete. He thought it was awesome. And we found things we could talk about it with an audience.”
Pete continued, “In the Superman Movie, when Superman pulls the ‘S’ off his chest and it becomes a plastic cage. What is that? How is that possible? I know you can fly and see through things. You’re the man of steel and I’m on board. But, don’t make it goofy. If we like a book, we won’t talk about it. We’d say, ‘What do you think? It’s great.’ Next book. But, if we find something we want to say, we can say it’s disappointing or this sucks. It changes. We want to have something to talk about.”
“One of the concerns in the industry,” Alex maintained, “is that the median age is older now. When I go to the comic book store on Wednesdays, there’s a lot of kids there. Mothers and fathers bringing them in. Mostly though, it’s guys in their 20’s and 30’s. I don’t know if that’s because it’s Manhattan.”
“Comic books are funny. They started as funny books. Especially with mainstream comic books, they take themselves so seriously most of the time. To us as comedians, it’s hilarious. We’re really into it and we get into the minute of this crisis and that civil war, but it’s also ridiculous. That’s part of what’s funny about our show.”
One thing that the crowd picks up on is the preparation these guys put into the show. “Somewhere between 30 and 40 dollars a week for me,” Pete claims he spends on comic books.
“I’m trying to cut it down, Alex replied. “Most weeks it’s 20 bucks. Then some weeks, I figure, oh crap – I just spent 75 dollars!”
That commitment is taking them on the road for a show at the San Diego Comicon, “The Super Bowl of Comic Books,” according to Alex. “It’s not even about the books anymore. It’s about the studios. We’re going to do the show there and just have a lot of fun with it.”
Pete summed up what CBC has meant, “I’ve been doing comedy for so many years. Something that was a love of mine, something so easy. All of a sudden, we’re getting attention from that. It’s crazy to me.”
For scheduled show times of the Comic Book Club, visit thepit-nyc.com