Speaker 1: Hello, Well, yeah, I forgot spoilers. We don't have to,
Speaker 1: there's no spoilers. I'll just do it anyway though, warning
Speaker 1: this episode contains no spoilers.
Speaker 2: That's it. Hello.
Speaker 3: My name is Jason.
Speaker 1: Concepcion and on Thursday night, and welcome back to the
Speaker 1: x Ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep to your.
Speaker 3: Favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture coming from.
Speaker 4: Our broadcasts broadcasts proadcasting. We're bringing you three one, two,
Speaker 4: three Monday, well, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Speaker 1: Maybe episodes a week Baby Tuesday, Thursday for sure, and
Speaker 1: then the third episode anywhere from Wednesday to Saturday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Saturday's news. If you want to know what's guid
Speaker 2: on you to listen to us.
Speaker 5: And in today's episode, the State of Animation, we are
Speaker 5: going to be doing a little short news section previously
Speaker 5: on talking about the Animation Guild contract which was recently ratified,
Speaker 5: and the impact of dog Man and its recent success.
Speaker 5: You might be like, what's dog Man if you don't
Speaker 5: have kids, but we'll talk about it because it's one
Speaker 5: of the most successful comic books in the world and
Speaker 5: now it is a very successful movie. And then we
Speaker 5: will be catching up with Harlequin season five, The future
Speaker 5: of the DC Animated Universe. What's happening with that Blue
Speaker 5: Beetle animated series We've been promised, and we're going to
Speaker 5: talk about one of the biggest new series that's dropped
Speaker 5: recently called Common Side Effects.
Speaker 3: But first previously on First Up in News.
Speaker 1: The Animation Guild, which is the union that represents five
Speaker 1: thousand workers in the animation industry in the US. It's
Speaker 1: very important caveat only in the US, ratified its new
Speaker 1: contract with a voting quorum of seventy six point one
Speaker 1: percent in favor. And this new deal provides protections along
Speaker 1: with wage increases and stipulations about.
Speaker 3: How, when and why AI could be.
Speaker 1: Used, including the ability to consult with productions to identify
Speaker 1: alternative tools to generative AI.
Speaker 3: Modes of creation.
Speaker 1: This is obviously a huge deal, but also it's a
Speaker 1: again it's a relatively small deal in a world in
Speaker 1: which we're seeing a lot of animation take place.
Speaker 3: Outside of the United States.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and also as well, it's like any union kind
Speaker 5: of deal. It was ratified with seventy six percent, but
Speaker 5: the negotiators had included kind of more ambitious demands like
Speaker 5: allowing members to opt out of using AI or to
Speaker 5: opt out of having their work used to train AI,
Speaker 5: and that did not come through. It also did not
Speaker 5: agree to guild wide staffing minimums, which had been a
Speaker 5: big deal. But it is an agreement and it means
Speaker 5: people can keep working and are going to keep working.
Speaker 5: And like Jason said, it's actually pretty interesting when you
Speaker 5: think about it in the context of this being five
Speaker 5: thousand jobs within the US, but when we're watching companies
Speaker 5: like Amazon with Invincible, and you know, other big companies
Speaker 5: go like Netflix with production IG Studio IG going to Korea,
Speaker 5: going to Japan, going to these different places. So yeah,
Speaker 5: interesting and notable for state of animation. But we'll see
Speaker 5: where any of us are by the end of the year,
Speaker 5: because who knows.
Speaker 1: The comment from the Animation Guild Rep. Steve Kaplan says,
Speaker 1: in part quote, disagreement is the next step forward in
Speaker 1: our goal to create the strongest contract for our members.
Speaker 1: The advanced sins made here are plenty, but there's also
Speaker 1: much work to be done with regard to addressing the
Speaker 1: priority matters that were not fully answered, which Rosie kind
Speaker 1: of touched on there, including some more detailed AI protections
Speaker 1: and stuff about minimum staffing, which is something that the
Speaker 1: Writers Guild is also dealing with. Next up, dog Man.
Speaker 1: You may if you've been to the movies recently, you've
Speaker 1: seen the trailer for dog Man, Yes, which is a
Speaker 1: adaptation of the comic book series by the same name,
Speaker 1: created by Dav Pilkey, who is one of them. He's,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the most successful illustrator creators out
Speaker 1: there right now. The story is about Again, if you've
Speaker 1: seen the trailer, you know about this. This is about
Speaker 1: It's It's basically the most cudly form of copaganda that
Speaker 1: there is exactly.
Speaker 5: It's up there with Paul Patrol for like kids copaganda.
Speaker 1: I think Paw Patrol is significantly more fascist than dog Man,
Speaker 1: but still it is like a cute and cudly version
Speaker 1: of coppaganda in which a doghead is placed on a
Speaker 1: cop body.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I like sadity of the fact that it's like a
Speaker 5: dumb cop and his very smart dog a blown up
Speaker 5: because the dog the cop is dumb, and the doctor
Speaker 5: basically put the dog's head on the CoP's body.
Speaker 2: This is not me putting my projection of policing on this.
Speaker 2: This is literally, like the description, this is what the copies.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and but dog Man can't talk, even though the
Speaker 5: other animals can.
Speaker 3: That's right. And here's the thing about dog Man.
Speaker 1: The kids be loving it. It's a hit, huge hit,
Speaker 1: both in book, both in book and movie.
Speaker 5: Form, exactly like it's actually hard to put into words.
Speaker 2: Yes, how popular.
Speaker 5: In twenty twenty four, dog Man the Scarlet Shredder by
Speaker 5: Dad Pilkey, which is the twelfth book in the series.
Speaker 2: It sold twelve million.
Speaker 5: Six hundred and sixty seven and eighty copies in the
Speaker 5: US alone.
Speaker 2: That's this man sells more.
Speaker 5: Comics than X Men, Spider Man, all that stuff put together.
Speaker 3: Oh way put together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this has been.
Speaker 5: The situation since day dot with both Captain Underpants and
Speaker 5: dog Man. Dog Man is a spin off of Captain Underpants,
Speaker 5: and he is just absolutely one of the people keeping
Speaker 5: the book publishing market and the comic book market afloat.
Speaker 2: And it's very.
Speaker 5: Interesting to then see how this movie, which outperformed what
Speaker 5: they thought it would made thirty six million dollar debut,
Speaker 5: get into the top ten openings of January of all time,
Speaker 5: and it also opened ten million dollars more than when
Speaker 5: they did the Captain Underpants movie, which was open to
Speaker 5: twenty three million dollars in twenty seventeen. So yeah, very
Speaker 5: interesting to see this. Another success for Dave Pilky. This
Speaker 5: man is unstoppable. And if you are a comic book
Speaker 5: lover who has kids, then you've probably already seen it.
Speaker 5: But if not, Dave's Pilky. He's a he's a guy
Speaker 5: that the kids love.
Speaker 2: They can't get enough. And there's a lot of.
Speaker 3: Captain Underpants books enough.
Speaker 2: They cannot get enough of dog Man.
Speaker 5: So that's a huge win for animation and also a
Speaker 5: big win for Universal who made this movie, put it
Speaker 5: out there, and have now come.
Speaker 2: Up with the biggest opening of twenty twenty four so far.
Speaker 1: It's they basically found buried treasure with dark Man. And
Speaker 1: here's the great thing about about a dog cop that
Speaker 1: can't speak, can't lie up. Next, we're stepping out of
Speaker 1: the airlock to talk about the future of DC Animation.
Speaker 6: Wow, okay, DC Animation, what's next?
Speaker 1: Let's start with Harley Quinn Season five, which is ongoing
Speaker 1: right now. I believe it's on episode three on HBO
Speaker 1: and Max. I have not yet started watching this excellent
Speaker 1: and hilarious new season to an excellent hilarious series. But
Speaker 1: our super Joelle has been watching it, and so let's
Speaker 1: tap her in.
Speaker 3: To talk about it. Joel, what's the update on Harlequin
Speaker 3: Season five?
Speaker 5: Y'all?
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 7: What I really appreciate about season five so far, it's
Speaker 7: like you've been following this journey of it's really should
Speaker 7: be called Harley Quinn Poyson Ivy.
Speaker 3: I really it's a little hardsome to me.
Speaker 7: That's just called Harley Quinn. It's really about the two
Speaker 7: of them in their relationship, and you see, like a
Speaker 7: classic friends to lovers are from like seasons one through
Speaker 7: three and season four, they're officially together and they're like
Speaker 7: trying to figure out what the relationship looks like now
Speaker 7: that Ivy has moved on to become like CEO of
Speaker 7: the Legion of Doom, and Harley is trying to be
Speaker 7: a good guy with the Bat family, and they're like,
Speaker 7: our jobs are in opposition to each other. How do
Speaker 7: we work through that? So keeps it always grounded in relationship,
Speaker 7: which I love, But they also never forget that they're
Speaker 7: in a DC world and so Gotham is going through
Speaker 7: it's like fourth Apocalypse since the show starts they've got
Speaker 7: giant rats knocking helicopters out of the sky and lakes
Speaker 7: of losing like green sludge that could turn you dead.
Speaker 7: So they decided to go to Metropolis to catch a
Speaker 7: break and to bring some new energy into their life
Speaker 7: they're suffering from. We've been in a relationship the honeymoon
Speaker 7: periods over. What does our relationship look like now? But
Speaker 7: in Metropolis it's it's all steel and shiny and hyper clean,
Speaker 7: and there's something going on under the surface. Everything looks
Speaker 7: really good up top, but like, what's going on underneath?
Speaker 7: You get into some more of Ivy's backstory. How did
Speaker 7: she turn into poison Ivy? It's all really really good
Speaker 7: and fun, and I have so many questions about how
Speaker 7: the show is still on the air. It confuses me.
Speaker 2: Five seasons in five.
Speaker 7: Seasons of an animated show is very long.
Speaker 2: We are woman led show, mm hmm.
Speaker 5: It's in the aut animation space of like it's varying
Speaker 5: towards Rick.
Speaker 2: And moy for longevity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at this.
Speaker 5: Point, like, which is very brad that we get shows
Speaker 5: like this? Okay, how do being moved to Metropolis got them?
Speaker 5: Such like a fantastic location for those first four seasons.
Speaker 5: How does being moved to Metropolis impact the season.
Speaker 7: It's interesting to see them outside of their native home.
Speaker 7: If Gotham is the dark, edgy place where everyone really
Speaker 7: knows their name, that's the that's their home. They have
Speaker 7: long standing reputations that have really defined who they are
Speaker 7: as individuals. They could step outside of those reputations when
Speaker 7: they go to Metropolis, which is really fun. So there
Speaker 7: I've seen as like an inventor and somebody who just
Speaker 7: like loves the planet and wants to save it, and
Speaker 7: that's great. So she's not a villain in the eyes
Speaker 7: of the people there, and it changes how she sees
Speaker 7: herself and for Harley, she's a chaos agent in a
Speaker 7: very sterile controlled world. And so far they have Lena
Speaker 7: Luther's introduced this season, and she's very fun. You could
Speaker 7: tell there's she's evil, but like how evil and to
Speaker 7: what angle?
Speaker 1: You don't really know yet.
Speaker 7: We're only a few episos, We're only three episodes in,
Speaker 7: but she sort of keeps protecting Harley from her own
Speaker 7: consequences and you're like, how long is this gonna last?
Speaker 7: And does she need Harley? And is she trying to
Speaker 7: drive away between my favorite.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, is this that turning into a
Speaker 5: like a love triangle like we had early on with Catwoman.
Speaker 5: I'm very excited because the third episode is called Floronic Man,
Speaker 5: so that means we're really getting into more swamp thing territory.
Speaker 3: Here, but kind of absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really excited.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for checking in, Jos And what
Speaker 5: would you watch your one line pitch for somebody who
Speaker 5: hasn't listened to it, who hasn't watched it yet and
Speaker 5: wants to watch it.
Speaker 7: If you like queer women behaving atrociously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's diabolical.
Speaker 7: Limits You're violent, but super funny and yet somehow still grounded.
Speaker 7: And it's got some of the best second dary here's
Speaker 7: the real one. ALENTII plays clay Face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, he's pop bad.
Speaker 3: He's excellent.
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks guys, Thanks to all.
Speaker 1: Next up in DC Animation News, more Blue Beatles stories.
Speaker 1: The Blue Beetle movie didn't hit in the way that
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers was hoping it would, but they're not giving
Speaker 1: up on the superhero and are looking to continue his
Speaker 1: stories through animation. Miguel Puga has been working on the
Speaker 1: project since early this year, and we'll serve as the
Speaker 1: project showrunner, with director Christian Martinez said as writer, there's.
Speaker 3: No real date yet.
Speaker 5: No, it's exciting we get the Soolo Marduena, who plays
Speaker 5: Blue bet Ol Jaimehnandez in this. He said, I'm ready
Speaker 5: to come back with hitting hot, this anime, with this
Speaker 5: animated project, hoping to get it settled out this year
Speaker 5: to show everyone next year.
Speaker 2: So fingers crossed. And I think it.
Speaker 5: Is really really cool that this is like one of
Speaker 5: the only characters that James Gunn saw value in bringing back.
Speaker 5: And I totally understand because the movie is actually totally charming,
Speaker 5: fun suite, but it hit during the Jewel strikes. Sholo
Speaker 5: couldn't promote it, neither could anyone else. And I'm really
Speaker 5: happy that we're going to get to see how May
Speaker 5: come back Hi May rays and find his way in
Speaker 5: this new DC world. And as we know from Creature Commandos,
Speaker 5: if we get him and animation, then it's likely that
Speaker 5: we could also see him come back in the live
Speaker 5: action stuff.
Speaker 2: So I think that's very excite.
Speaker 1: In other news, ongoing series happening right now on hbon Max.
Speaker 1: Common Side Effects created by Steve Helly, who was a
Speaker 1: producer and I think a writer. Also on the office
Speaker 1: end veep Uh and Joseph Bennett, who also created Scavenger's Reign.
Speaker 1: The whoa criminally criminally underrated animated series, only got one
Speaker 1: season at.
Speaker 2: One of the best shows ever made.
Speaker 3: Just truly unique.
Speaker 1: Show, I believe on Netflix now you can watch right now.
Speaker 1: But the show is about the culture of an outlaw
Speaker 1: psychedelic drug entrepreneur who is being chased by the Feds.
Speaker 3: Here's a quote from Helly.
Speaker 1: We were interested in guys like Terrence McKenna and Paul
Speaker 1: Stammetz and Wade Davis, fringe figures who for better or
Speaker 1: were start introducing new strange ideas into the world. This
Speaker 1: really tickled me because as a person who in college
Speaker 1: went to a lot of raves, I am very familiar
Speaker 1: with Terrence McKenna, whose those voice talking about the the
Speaker 1: the animal vegetable, when you take into your life the
Speaker 1: nosis of the light filled vegetable, the psychedelic plants that
Speaker 1: have stabilized the sane societies like I have heard that
Speaker 1: voice droning over ambient music in the back chill rooms
Speaker 1: of raves so many times, and this show really captures
Speaker 1: something of both the wonder of that kind of culture
Speaker 1: and also the outlaw aspect of it of it too.
Speaker 3: It's really fun. The art style is kind of like.
Speaker 1: Nothing else I've seen, is very interesting.
Speaker 5: I'm really happy that we're kind of moving away from
Speaker 5: the Rick and mortification where everything looked like Rick and Morty.
Speaker 5: Just like after Archer, people try to make stuff look
Speaker 5: like Archer. Rick and Morty is one of the biggest
Speaker 5: shows in the world. Everything starts to look like Rick
Speaker 5: and Morty. This show has its own unique aesthetic and feel,
Speaker 5: and also, I think something that's really fun about it
Speaker 5: is it has this kind of, like you said, this
Speaker 5: outlaw tendency where it's like it's about conspiracy theories, but
Speaker 5: it's also about the reality of big farma, and it's
Speaker 5: also about people who are interested in weird stuff. And
Speaker 5: it's also about like what drugs become legal, what drugs
Speaker 5: become illegal. There's a lot to it, and I think
Speaker 5: that if it keeps going as it started, this could
Speaker 5: become kind of up there and seen as like one
Speaker 5: of the great auto animation shows.
Speaker 3: It's really really fun. Well, we're off Thursday, but we'll
Speaker 3: be back Friday.
Speaker 1: With a reaction to the long awaited Captain America Brave
Speaker 1: New World.
Speaker 2: He Taya.
Speaker 1: We go into this film with a mixture of excitement
Speaker 1: and dread, and we'll be talking about the Yellow Jacket
Speaker 1: Season three, the premiere here it comes.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 3: Is it good?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 3: To watch it? To watch it?
Speaker 2: We have no idea.
Speaker 1: And then we'll be covering the finale of the excellent
Speaker 1: Your Friendly Neighborhood spider Man with special guest show runner
Speaker 1: Jeff Tremil.
Speaker 3: That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and
Speaker 1: Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5: Our executive producers are Joe Alminique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3: Our supervising producer is Abuza.
Speaker 5: Part Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wack.
Speaker 1: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 5: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and
Speaker 5: Heidi our discord moderator