Why Marvel Should Buy DC Comics!

0:00Welcome to the Rob Lightfield Show featuring Rob's revisions. I bring five decades experience in the world of comic books and entertainment. I am not some bystander watching the industry go by. I am a full-blown participant having contributed lasting memorable works to the world of comic books that have informed the business and the art of this brilliant medium. If it's happening and streaming in movies, in comic books, in games, we are talking about it. We're discussing it right here. Hey everybody and welcome to another edition of the Rob Lightfield Show featuring Rob's revisions. I hope you are having the very best morning, the very best day. We are here to talk all things, comic books, comic book, pop culture, streaming television

1:00and you're going to get a lot of that today. We're going to roll it all up into one giant, healthy comic book, pop culture, burrito. As I've said in my, at the top of my show guys, I am in the business. I am producing comic books, sell out comic books. It's sell hundreds of thousands of units. Youngwood number one has sold a quarter million copies in the last year. We do that through the direct market. We do that through direct to consumer. It is a crazy model that I have continued to pour into but we get comic books into people's hands through stores, through live streams, through mail order, through websites. I'm doing this 41 years, this year 41 calendar years and every time I think I've seen enough, I realize I have seen too much, okay? And today we are going to talk about the crazy world of comic books and how it's affecting everything that is going on in the culture because if you did not hear Paramount Studios

2:08won the bidding war for the rights, for the ownership, the right to own Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers' discovery was the company that was up for sale. Now in case you've been living under a rock or were born three days ago, Warner Brothers has been sold three times in the past 25, 26, 27 years. AOL time Warner, okay, that came about because AOL back then when you thought of AOL, you thought of the dial up, okay, AOL, AOL. Many of us don't even have our AOL accounts but some of you in comic books and entertainment I know who you are, I see you, I thought I would be the last guy with an AOL account. But I jettisoned mine 12, 13 years ago but there are still some of you that I will email today in entertainment and in comic books that have AOL accounts but here's a deal, AOL had

3:13time Warner for a very generous amount of time at which point AT&T came in and they bought them. Let's call it a decade ago, whatever, it's in that realm and then they sold them to discovery and David Zazlov. Warner Brothers just keeps changing hands, the stability never quite settles in before someone else flies in and now Paramount is the Ellicence, the tech family, these are tech bros, these are giant tech billionaires who are not satisfied with their acquisition of Paramount in the fall, they set their eyes immediately upon acquiring Paramount Studios and saving Sherry Lansing who's family previously owned it for decades, that they turned their eyes towards Warner Brothers, gotten to a giant bidding war with Netflix and we've seen just attitudes fly all over the place, everybody has a different reason for favoring

4:14one company over the next because I've read them all, I've read all of the opinions on X, on Facebook, on threads, on Instagram, all the time. It started out that well it couldn't possibly be good for the business if Netflix gets them because Netflix hates theaters, which Ted Serendos, God bless you, buddy, what a success story, incredible, but he had been on record for many, many, many, many, many years, basically as an opponent to the theater experience, which why wouldn't he? Because Netflix has transformed the way that we consume media with Netflix, my wife and I, we watch Netflix all the time, it's like you, it's probably on in your house once a day, that is quite the kingdom. Then it shifted, Ted Serendos went out, he did a media offensive, he did a lot of interviews, I read them all, I watched them all, I'm gonna support the 45 day window, I'm gonna support the theater going experiences, it didn't stop the theater owners and other unions from

5:14filing grievances and in complaints that said this will be terrible for the business. In the meantime, the Ellisons have, for better, for worse, right or wrong have been painted as ultra conservative and their ownership of everything they touch is somehow adjacent to conservative influence and so they are suspect as far as pretty much everyone in the media has, has approached and has painted them and here's what we know. We know that they won, Warner Brothers, with a $31 per share, a grand total of $110 billion. That is a big chunk of change and we won't know anything until this deal finalizes, which it feels like according to everything that I've read and everything that I've consumed. And here's the deal, why I'm bringing this with you to you guys today is I could choose

6:17to ignore this and not embrace it, but it's happening in the news and in my, when I'm not drawing comic book pages, what's it got to tell you, man, it's, oh my gosh, I have just, some days I feel like I've bitten off way more than I could shoot. If I was an athlete, which I am not, but if I was the, my usage rate would be way up, I was doing 100 pages a year for the last decade, basically five Marvel comics a year. I felt like that would be a minimum contribution. This year, I have gone up to 190 pages in the last 12 months. I have nearly doubled my usage rate, so I am worn out, burned out, but I hope you get none of that from this show. I hope I come to you fresh, freshly scrubbed. I did just run from the shower down here, okay, you deserve a freshly scrubbed host as early as it is this morning, as early as we are beaming this signal into your devices. Thank you for listening. Whatever platforms that you listen to us on, but when I'm not drawing comics and doubling

7:18my usage rate and pulling my hair out, I am reading and following the news. I am listening to podcasts. When I set, settle down to rest at night because you're like, where do you get this time? I turn on podcasts and I'll listen to them for 40 minutes. I'll remember when I left off where I dozed off, I'll wake up the next morning and as I'm waking up, that's what I'll listen to when I am driving in the car. When I am going to get lunch, going to get dinner, I even convince my wife, I was such a beautiful weekend, we went out to the pool, Southern California has its benefits most certainly. My wife and I grew up here, we were born and raised in Southern California, so we went out to the pool and I queued up while we were outside for 90 minutes podcast instead of music. And so we were listening because I wanted to consume all of this different information that was coming from industry experts, not run-of-the-mill gossip. These are people who edit and have been chief, editors and chiefs publishers of major Hollywood trade magazines, major financial papers, major financial reporting and one of the expert

8:23kind of witness testimony that I'm going to bring to you in regards to some of this deal is from a prominent Wall Street guy who ran JP Morgan Chase for years. He has some very educated financial concerns and data breakdown in regards to the debt and the specific financials that are behind this deal. This is all of great interest to me because of course the geeks in us, the geeks, we love Transformers, we love Turtles, we love GI Joe, we love the Justice League Batman, all the things that DC has. So all of these are in this giant stew that is now a part of the merger, that is Paramount and Warner Brothers under the stewardship of the Ellisons because the Ellisons believe and again even on some of these podcasts and financial papers that I'm reading, you

9:26got to get five paragraphs in to get the actual information beyond the noise. But when they say, you know, can Congress stop this merger? No, they can complain, they can win, but the clearances lie somewhere else and it is likely that at the end of the day because these mergers always find a way to go through. If 20th Century Fox, which was sold to Disney for $70 billion in 2019, if arguments about monopoly and market share fell flat then, it's going to fall flat now. I truly believe no matter who controls which house, the Senate, these deals find a way through. They make it, if you look, if you Google and look through, it'll be, oh, this guy paid so and so some money, this guy paid this organization, some money, this board, some money. Everybody will agree to these terms, they'll make adjustments, they'll write checks and likely this deal will power through. That's my perspective on this Warner Brothers discovery went through,

10:32AOL went through, AT&T Warner's went through, Disney buying Fox for $70 billion. I mentioned that a few shows back and somebody always, there's always somebody in the comments who wants to come in and they want to show how much smarter they are than everybody else, including myself. I don't pretend to be a smart guy, I just try and bring as much research as I can to bear when I form an opinion and then share that opinion with you. This is an opinion show. I'm going to give you some, this is all speculative today. I'm going to give you very much why I believe that the title of today's show, why Marvel should buy DC Comics. I'm going to tell you why I think that is more likely than you believe. It may never occur, but you will not be able to convince me by the end of the show that there is anyone that could sit you down, look you in the face and strenuously plead that that is in no way possible. No one's going to be able to do that.

11:33These opportunities are out there, they're discussed, people kick the cans, they kick the tires, that they are always doing their check-ins or their delaying, something that may be set to happen, may happen a few weeks later, kicking the can down the road. But they are absolutely everything is on the table when you have what would amount to, what looks to be $84 billion in debt that the elephants will be entertaining as a result of this deal going down. That again, I have vetted that all weekend long through all the different financial papers. And so when people are like, well, this may not deal, this deal may not happen. Disney Fox was a shocker to me, that happened, but somebody always comes in. Disney Fox, I mentioned it, someone comes in, they want to prove that they're real bright and they're like, no, but they've made this decision and they understand.

12:3570 billion means you have to make $140 billion to break even on that 70 billion. That's just plain old math and that does not even, that's not true because you have to spend to make. You can say, but live on the two Avatar movies came out since Disney Bot Fox and they both made billions. Okay. So let's say that they cost $300 million to make, maybe $400 million to make and market both those movies. And so then you're looking at 1.4, 2 billion, whatever the second one did more than the third, but yeah, they made profits. There was a financial breakdown in deadline.com. I read it to you. I shared it with you a couple of years ago, Deadpool Wolverine, 1.3, 1.4 billion. It ultimately provided profits. The money that spends, the money that matters after all costs expenses, marketing that Disney profited like $400 million. Okay. Off a 1.4 billion dollar gross. Again, we are learning. Thank God. I think the heat is out there and we've turned up

13:37the furnace enough that now the reporting on these movies is coming in as as as clear as they possibly can because they were muddling, they were muddying the waters and and they being the media that was reporting the box office because for a long time, they were not letting you know, they were not informing you that and so many people still believe this. I have neighbors, friends that if you see that a movie opened $100 million, they think the studio made $100 million. The studio made half of that. The theater keeps half. This is now part of the reporting and we can rejoice because that's smart reporting that's informed reporting that makes you smarter and makes you more knowledgeable. What happened last year is some of the big studios didn't want to put the number that they had spent in the marketing. It used to be there and now it's gone away because you know what the numbers are getting so massive because you said, what life, why did the marketing numbers disappear? I'll tell you why because it makes the overall number so egregious

14:37that that that beating that number and the reality of being that number, beating that number becomes much more difficult and unlikely and what they want is for you to cheer them on as a winner. Winner winner winner. I don't have it in front of me. In 2019, I believe Disney had six to seven billion dollar movies. They told everybody who was looking in their direction that they had six to seven billion dollar movies. You know what? I'm going to do this right now. I'm just going to Google 2019. I'm going to go to my box office mojo and we're going to do this together because this is where this came from. Just as we are walking down and I am giving you this information. So I have my special box office mojo subscription. So let's do it. Let's go to 2019 because this is going to stagger you if you've forgotten this. This is really very crazy.

15:42Get out of here. Don't be doing this. Okay. yearly. Here we go. It jumped on me. yearly. Let's go. 2019. Because again, this was a big, big, big, Avengers endgame, $2.7 billion. Lion King was number two, 1.6 billion. Frozen two, 1.4 billion. Sony had Spider-Man Far From Home, 1.1 billion. Captain Marvel, Brie Larson, 1.1 billion. Joker made $1 billion. This is all worldwide international box office. Star Wars, Rise of Skywalker made $1 billion. Toy Story 4 made $1 billion. Aladdin made $1 billion. So you got Disney as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, $7 billion movies, $7 billion movies.

16:48I was there as I've told you you just don't understand when you're in a whole age, but even more importantly, D23 that year, D23, 2019, Bob Iger, Kevin Feige come out. They cheer. They want you to know that they are on track to have their $7 billion movies. They know that Rise of Skywalker is likely going to make $1 billion. At the time, probably it was $5 billion movies that had made a billion each, but they were projecting. We are projected to have. Those are big numbers. I know from my studio executive buddies at Disney at Marvel that that was something that they dined out on. That's something that they wanted to pummel over other competitors. Their rivals. In sports, when you run up the score, you discourage the other team. We've all seen the basketball team, the baseball team, the football team give up because the score is so unobtainable at that time. It's a three touchdown lead. There are always incredible success stories. There are always incredible comebacks. But Disney and my executive buddy, I will not name him, not today, but at some

17:49point I will, was like Rob, they do that to discourage the other studios to make the other studios realize just how powerful and influential they are. That's the year they buy Fox. $70 billion, but every one of those, the 2019 was a, was rarefied air. And if you go, what's that contrasting with this year? With 2026, you're looking at, I believe there's three billion dollar movies for 2026 guys. And so you can, I mean, seven of the nine or 10 in 2019 belong to Disney. Okay. So we are now at a much lesser threshold in regards to successes. And what they don't want you looking at is all the cost to get there

18:49because then it makes the overall total look less than it appears. You have movies in the two billion range. They are most certainly like ridiculously freakishly profitable. You're like, Rob, what is this matter? This isn't a movie podcast. We're getting to it. When you have 85 billion dollars debt on the books as paramounts about to half, you know, they had 10 billion dollars debt before they went paramount did the paramount Ellison Skydance conglomerate before purchasing Warner Brothers. And with that, they have 84 billion dollars. I get this from a gentleman named Bill Cohen, William D Cohen. Okay. He is a co-founding member of Puck. And here's what you need to know because I've never run, I have not run a a a a a giant financial firm. William D Cohen

19:56was at Merrill Lynch and then was a managing director at JP Morgan Chase. Okay. Six years in the financial these financial realms with these incredible financial hats that he wore. He worked at GE Capital and since 2013, he is a trustee on the National Humanities Center. He's an author and he has written several books on Wall Street. So he co-founded Puck, which is one of the best newsletters that I subscribe to. And in it, he said the following. He talks about how leverage this is. This being this deal paramount and Warner Brothers is going to be one leveraged puppy. I'm reading directly from his exchange with Matt Bellany office Puck newsletter. Well, this is going to be one leveraged puppy. According to the just released paramount Skydance 10K, the company has a little more than $10 billion of net of net debt right now.

20:59He says not terrible, not great. With this 111 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers, paramount will be adding another nearly 60 billion of debt to their equation from three Wall Street firms Bank of America City Group in Apollo. So let's call it $74 billion of net debt. Maybe more, maybe less. He said that's still a lot of money. Maybe more, maybe less. $74 billion of debt. So let's go back to 2020. How does this affect DC Comics? 2020 was called the Blood Bath. DC Comics over one tumultuous three day period that the press was blowing up. They were laying people off right and left. A third of their staff was let go. Google DC Blood Bath 2020. You'll see articles from the Hollywood reporter. You'll see articles from the beat Heidi McDonald. You'll see all manner

22:02of order of reports and articles that are weighing in on all of the names, all of the vice presidents, all of the executives that were purged. There's an interview with Jim Lee when he talks about their mission statement and how, you know, this is going to be something that stabilizes them that they're going to operate at a much leaner, meaner capacity, which they did. And then in 2022, when Zazlov with his discovery bought Warner Brothers, he sought to make three billion dollars in cuts. He took off on a lot of debt. Now, what did he immediately start doing? He wanted to look for three billion dollars in cuts. You can Google that too. WB DC layoffs 2022, 2023. They were much less than the 2020 and it was reported that the reason that they were much less was because DC had successfully leaned down. What was lost in that purge,

23:05beyond one third of their staff, executives, VPs, names like Bob Harris, like Henken Ols, was overhead. Their office space changed, their workspaces changed, their approach to making comic books changed because we are now talking about publishing and the Ellisons are tech bros and the debt that they have taken on dwarfs, the debt that Zazlov took on. Matt Bellany, who is interviewing Bill Cohen, says, yikes, wasn't a debt overload by Zazlov and the discovery people, the exact reason the combined Warner Brothers discovery never achieved sustainability and ended up having to be sold. The fundamental problem with these companies is the melting ice cube of linear television and now Ellison is taking that melting paramount TV business and doubling down in a bunch of more TV networks, TNT, Cartoon Network, TBS that don't have much of a future.

24:10So he's saying, wasn't this the same problem that the previous ownership had in that they were trying to shed debt? So here's what I heard. Here's what I heard and this is why I am going to give you the speculation today. Over the weekend across all the different podcasts, some of which are on the puck network, some on the ringer. They are going to look to consolidate and cut costs. How do you consolidate and cut costs? You let people go, you let labels go, you sell networks. They're like, they don't need all this. They're smashing together to studios. You want to know perilous this is already this morning and I'm going to show you pictures because I took the screen grabs under or chart nightmare or chart nightmare. Okay. This is called the tight 10. This is the tight 10. So the Titan team paramount has this what I'm holding up here is a 10 executives that report to David Ellison at paramount 10 executives. This is George Cheeks,

25:19the chairman of TV media, Dennis Sinelli, the chief financial officer, Dana Goldberg, paramount of paramount pictures, co-chair of paramount pictures, Andy Gordon, chief strategy officer, chief operating officer, Josh Greenstein, co-chair of paramount pictures, Cindy Holland, chairman of direct consumer, Jeff, Jeff Shell, president of paramount, Jesse Siskold, president sports entertainment, Barry Weiss, CBS news editor-in-chief Melissa Zuckerman, chief communications offer. That is the team paramount. Okay. I'm holding up. That's David Ellison. He's the big billionaire boy that just bought Warner Brothers. That's his paramount 10. This is the current org chart right now as of today for David Zaslov at Warner Brothers. Okay. You've got free a liar or Aliyah, chief legal officer, Casey Blois, chairman, CEO, HBO, HBO Max, Bruce Campbell, chief revenue strategy officer, Mike DeLuca, Pam Abdie, co-chairs of the

26:23W and CEOs of Warner Brothers motion picture group, Channing Dungee, chairman and CEO of US networks, Robert Gibbs, chief communications and public affairs officer, Amy Gurdwood, chief chief people, bear with me people, James Gunn, co-chairman and CEO DC studios, JB Peretta, CEO and president global streaming games, Peter Safran, co-chairman, CEO DC studios, Louis Silberwasser, chairman, CEO TNT sports, Brad Singer, chief financial officer, Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO, CNN worldwide, Gunner Widenfeld, chief financial officer, Gerhard Zeller, president, international, they all report to this man who until the deal goes through David Zaslov is the president, the chief CEO. That's 26 CEOs between two companies,

27:26two studios, two networks, paramount network, HBO Max, they're smashing them all together. An article I wrote about too many CEOs, the CEO bloodletting, the org chart disaster, these are called in it, I read that many of these people are just incentivized to let their contracts run out. If you're asking, when does James Gunn contract and Peter Safran, they have till one year from now, April of 2027 is when their contracts are up, will they be renewed? Will they not be renewed? That's not for us to know. That is something that only David Ellison will decide and maybe we'll be informed a few months prior. There's a lot of doubling repeat. There's too many CEOs in the kitchen, okay? How do you immediately reduce debt? You sell off networks, you sell off labels, you license, you can't possibly make enough product.

28:27Go back to Disney and Fox. You'd have to break even and make 140 billion, you're going to have to spend much more than that in order to achieve superiority financially on that $70 billion investment. It may never happen in their lifetime, Disney has parks, yachts, experiences, they have a brand new head of operations, a brand new CEO, the guy who is taking over for Bob Iger, they have many different concerns beyond the $70 billion debt that they took on several years ago. Now Paramount and Warner Brothers are in the same situation and the first place you look at, where are you going to cut? Where are you going to cut back? I'm going to go back to tech bros, a pair of tech brothers. They are not necessarily paper guys, publishing guys. Everything I read to you today is from digital magazines. Not one of these magazines, articles that I hold in my hand,

29:28then none of them are tactile. This breaks down that when it comes down to raising, you're going to raise money and lessen your debt by selling off pieces. There will be pieces sold off. No one knows what they are, but here's where I am coming to suggest to you that it is not out of the realm of possibility that when looking at DC Comics publishing, when looking at the expenses of putting out DC Comics publishing, no matter how well they're doing, that it may not be the worst idea to sell off the publishing label. They are never going to sell off their rights to make movies and media off their characters. Those are going to remain in the DC Comics Warner Brothers, the DC Entertainment Warner Brothers side of the ledger forever. They're not going to let somebody else make Batman and Superman movies, at least not yet, but the actual publishing of the adventures, as I have said to you many, many times, and I have had entertainment attorneys, I have had agents say they don't need to really make tell another story ever in order to give stories to adapt and put

30:32the screen. I ask you right now, what is the last biggest character that emerged from DC Comics, and why is her name Harley Quinn? Because we all know it's Harley Quinn. And Harley Quinn debuted the Batman cartoon, the Batman animated series. That's where Harley Harley Quinn originated. She did not originate in a comic book. She originated a cartoon, something that you should commit to memory in case there is ever a quiz. She then was later adapted, reverse engineered into the pages of the comic books and became ridiculously popular, especially in this last 10, 15 years. So you sit and you go, had they stopped and not produced anything new. Now there's great storylines. Let's go to quarter vowels, great storyline. I'm going to say this again in a later podcast, I'm going to say it today. I was on a panel with a bunch of DC creators in the big column of a call, upstairs, whatever July, early August of 2011 before the new 52, the DC 52 arrived.

31:36I was doing Hawking Dove. Everybody was announcing their books. I was happy to be up there. I had never met Scott Snyder before. I was making his acquaintance for the first time there on that panel. And as he spoke to the crowd, not to me to the crowd, in talking about what he had planned for Batman. At the time, I don't know that they had an artist. I was not aware that they had any artist that I've gone back and thought about it. They certainly must have had Kapool at the time. I just don't remember that being part of the sale. But when he talked about the quarter vowels, when he talked about the secret society, this kind of rich, dark money, power brokers that had been controlling Gotham and had influenced the Wayne family going back decades way before Bruce was born. Afterwards, I said, Scott, I'm reading that story. This, I love eyes wide shut. I love illuminati. I love secret societies. I love everything that the quarter vowels kind of consists of. And I was like, I'm totally on board. I can't wait. We have not yet seen them.

32:38So 2011, we're, so 15 years later, they have not made their way into a movie. Maybe, maybe they won't. Maybe in the upcoming movie, with Robert Pattinson, maybe in the second movie, we'll see a glimpse of them. I wouldn't rule it out. But there's no confirmation that that's going to happen. But again, that's 15 years. Okay. To put it mildly, my daughter was seven when, when I heard that from, from the, uh, from the dius, from the panel. My daughter was seven. My daughter is no 22 years old. Okay. So time passes. Harley Quinn is the last big, significant character that DC Comics has introduced. So this argument that you could turn everything off. Look, you could make a youngwood movie without me ever making a new youngwood comic. You could make a spawn movie without ever making a new spawn comic. So they look at what is the need for this? And then the

33:41publishing divisions are not exactly giant money earners. You've heard a lot in the last couple, uh, days, weeks, eight million sold by the absolute family, huge, eight million copies in the comic book marketplace. Since they launched in October of 2024, that is significant. But even if they were making three dollars a book, four dollars a book, that is nothing compared to in publishing it's great. But in these, the eyes of these big conglomerates, it is nothing compared to the fuel that a giant hit movie or a hit streaming show can generate for them. Ted Sarando's changed television by us hitting subscription buttons by hitting subscription buttons on our television that keep going up, that keep going up. And then times that times 200 million. Okay. They said something like the combined Paramount Network and the W and HBO Max will have 219, maybe more subscribers now. Huge. Now, now, now go to the 15, the 18, whatever platform you're doing,

34:42charge that you get hit a month. As profitable as our comics can be, they are generally, and this has been told to me guys, I'm not telling you I'm repeating to you what has been messenger to me. Now, if you yourself, you, uh, owned a line that was doing eight million and you are operating out of your own offices and that revenue is life changing, but it is not life changing to a giant conglomerate. So I propose to you that DC Comics will be something that they consider licensing. We keep talking about this and one day you're going to be like, it finally happened. It was not an indulgence that we did that did not have its basis in reality. It is absolutely a reality. Paramount has three giant franchises. Let's say four. I'm going to throw Star Trek in there, Transformers, G.I. Joe Turtles. Those are the Paramount huge kind of pop culture assets.

35:43Now, one of the thumbnails and some of the memes that I've been seeing being passed around is Turtles and Optimus Prime and Snake Eyes and Captain Kirk shaking hands with the Justice League and Bugs Bunny and the Warner Brothers assets. But G.I. Joe comic books, Transformers, comic books, Star Trek, comic books and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the TMNT comics are not published by Paramount. They are not published in any way by Paramount companies. The Turtles are owned by Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon has licensed the Turtles to IDW for the past two decades, maybe longer, but at least the last 2020-24 years. Skybound is the current holder of the comic book licenses for Transformers and G.I. Joe and Star Trek wherever Star Trek is. I'm not sure where Star Trek is right now, but Transformers, G.I. Joe Turtles are with two

36:48different publishing companies. Skybound image and IDW. They do not own a publishing company. Those revenues are brought into Nickelodeon, which is owned by Paramount and to Hasbro, which has a licensing deal with Paramount. So Hasbro licenses the rights to make films to Paramount and then Hasbro licenses the comics for those movies that Paramount makes based off their toys. They licensed those out too in the past. Devils do. IDW and currently the extremely successful line of comic books from Skybound distributed by image comics. So Paramounts, a middleman on one, they own the Cartoon Network that owns Turtles on the other. They do not own a publishing company. They do not participate in comic book profits. So this model that I am giving to you works. It works right now. It's happening. So now consider that Marvel Comics walks over and tells WB, we'll write you a check and take

37:55publishing off your hands. We'll write you a check. What's that number? They can write a check equal to the profits that DC is making on their books right now. Disney, Marvel can do that right now. They can write that check. What's the number? Fill it out. 20 million, 30 million, whatever whatever it is to license per year. Once they get those under their own publishing umbrella, but you just said publishing doesn't make money. Disney is a different animal than Paramount, a different animal than Warner Brothers. Disney has a greater platform with which to release all published materials. My wife went to Disneyland with all her friends just a couple days ago. She sent me pictures of the Disney, the Marvel comic books, the Marvel magazines that are in the stores in the parks and their parks are all over the world. Disney stores in the mall also have Marvel comics now. Disney has digests and collections that exceed your local comic book store.

39:04They have a much bigger distribution chain. They can conceivably come over and say give us those comics. Let us run publishing. We will pay for the right to license those and we will run publishing through our apparatus, which is Marvel comics and the idea that now the DC universe of characters and the Marvel universe of characters are under one label. You can you can see a Marvel universe, a DC universe, and then a shared universe. That would equal the check that Marvel is paying. You're like, but Rob, by your own admission that if it's feminine, yes, they would. But Marvel, when Marvel has something that works, they know how to drain every last bit of juice out of it. Godzilla predator aliens. You've seen it. Some of you have told me those are the only Marvel comics you bought in the last year. Godzilla versus Spider-Man, Godzilla versus Avengers, Godzilla versus Fantasy IV, Godzilla versus X-Men. And then you know what now? Godzilla versus the entire Marvel universe. Whatever Marvel paid for that license, they more than tripled it. They know how this is

40:10done. They know your appetites. They know the extent with which that this could get done. What have they doubled down on? What was the number one book of the last year? What was it? I'll wait for it. Batman Deadpool. Deadpool, Batman, Batman, Deadpool, top the charts. You paid extra money for it. I would suggest that they were both less than satisfying, but they were patched with little chachkis, backup stories. It was a special event book. Imagine event books every year, produced by Marvel featuring the DC characters. And those books distributed across the theme parks, because now Disney characters are going to walk right into Disney Warner Bros. characters licensed by Disney at Marvel Comics. We'll walk into every Disney experience, whether it's on the yachts. I've never been on one of the Disney yachts. Maybe they have publishing, maybe they have a comics, magazines, in their gift stores. They can make this work in a way that is greater than what is currently being done. But

41:15but I love the absolute. Yes, the absolute books are great. Marvel probably likely wouldn't touch them. Can you imagine them asking Scott Snyder to come over and hey Scott, you've done such a great job on absolute. Can you now apply that to the X-Men? Would you not be excited? Would we not all buy X-Men? Yes, we would. Scott Snyder. The again, speculative. This is 1,000 percent speculative, but I am walking you through a scenario that I and all my experience in comic books finds more than likely. Okay. Am I putting my credibility on the line? I am. I've been around. I've seen a lot of stuff. Did I see a world where skybound outbid every other person to get transformers? And GI Joe, what I have seen that 10 years ago, no, I wouldn't. It's the world we live in now. Robert Kirkman had other bitters. You think he just made a secret deal? Hasbro ticket out to everybody. Marvel made a bid. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, an entire podcast about 20 plus years ago. DC showed up. Dark horse showed up. Wild storm showed up to get the, to get the Star Wars

42:15license to get the Star Wars license. They, they welcomed the competitors. They welcomed the people that walk in and, and, and, and place their best bid. It's not just always money. It's what are you going to do with this? Where are you going to take this? How are we going to feel good about this? I believe this is a scenario that is, that is 100 percent possible in the next three years. Marvel walks in with the check. We'll take publishing. It'll make your movies even more interesting because they're now Marvel adjacent. They're Marvel adjacent. And it would also open up a license, a reverse licensing stream with which to get Spider-Man and Superman in cinemas because I'm going to tell you what's going to happen with theaters. Theaters need big hits year round all year round. The summer and Christmas season is not enough to sustain them anymore. They need big, big, big hits. I already heard somebody joke about Superman and the Transformers being an automatic go to once this deal goes down. And can you imagine that would be huge. The Justice League and the Transformers. We're talking three billion dollars just in curiosity money alone. Everybody goes to see that movie. Everybody paces the movie and they probably start charging you more for the big

43:20hits. I saw a memo from AMC that was outlining a memo from AMC outlining that they are likely going to start charging more for better seating. You guys always know you go on your apps, you go to reserve your tickets. And if you're too late, all the middle down, I mean, especially the IMAXs in Southern California. Whoa, good luck. You're going to have to get scattered off the left, scattered off to the right. You guys know what I'm talking about. You've seen it. You've experienced you've had to change your date. Go to another day, not the day that you originally wanted. Maybe not the days you originally wanted. They're going to charge more for the prime seating. It's going to be like the Disneyland of old when I was growing up an E-ticket, a B-ticket, an A-ticket. Okay. They're going to charge us more for the big blockbusters. They're going to have to. The theater experience is already becoming more experiential. It's not just seeing movies anymore. Okay. It's about, is the wind blowing on me? Is there water blowing in my face? Is my, is my chair rocking?

44:25Have you seen the 40X? It can be exhilarating. It can also be nauseating. I've, I've experienced it both like, oh my gosh, I'm in a hurl or oh my gosh, I can't believe how much fun this is. Okay, Top Gun Maverick took a minute. But once I was strapped in and thrusting forward and left and right and backwards and wind was blowing on me. Did I turn off the water? Yeah, I don't want to be sprayed in the face. Okay. But there's the iMacs. There's the 40X. There's the curved. There's SDX. Everything has a, as a name now. And they're more. They're, they're a higher price ticket. You're paying it. I'm, I'm paying it. Increasingly, we're going for the experience. Not just the viewing pleasure. What are they giving me? Well, to do that, they're going to be bigger, bigger movies. And this is why I do believe Marvel and DC will in the next decade, 15 years, you will see a Superman spider and something X-Men, Justice League, something along those lines on the big screen. They're going to follow suit. It's not out of the realm of possibility anymore because we aren't satisfied by just the superhero movies. Marvel alone is showing up next summer. I mean, I'm sorry, next Christmas, this Christmas, Doomsday, which we already know has 20 stars.

45:29Robert Downey Jr. I googled it after I talked about it on a podcast. I did this gate pod. And there are all manner reports. Oh no, it's not $100 million that Robert Downey Jr. It's 80 million plus incentives perks. You know, they are spending giant amounts of money to bring you this giant entertainment that they are counting makes two billion plus in theaters that makes sense. And then there's the marketing. Deadpool Wolverine had crazy amounts of marketing. It was the most, I'm sorry, crazy amounts of licensing. It was the most licensed movie Marvel has done in five years. Doomsday will eclipse that probably by half. So do I see Marvel, comics going in? Let's not let's let's let's continue. Scott Snyder, will you take over the X-Men books? Will you do your same showrunner? Will you give your same showrunner status to our titles? Then guys, what's the big cherry on top? Jim Lee. We want you to come back and we want you to do the X-Men. Scott's going to do this, but you're going to get your own X-Men book. In my estimation,

46:31Jim Lee back on an X-Men book because he's burned some of his trust on hush two in that I've read retailers like I'm going to really be cautious about ordering anything from him and rightfully so you should be. But the Jim Lee of this scenario brings Brett Booth, brings Ryan Benjamin gets the wildstorm crew back together. It's very covers by Jay Scott Campbell. Probably calls Travis to rest up. Are you going crazy yet? Are you going out of your mind? Is that is that making you like, oh my gosh, is this the best thing ever? Yes, you're thinking that as I'm saying it. Jim Lee back on X-Men, he does every third fourth issue. He kicks off the story line. He's going to end the story line. He's going to do the in-between chapters, but now Brett Booth finally has a great purpose. Jay Scott Campbell on covers, Travis Charest back painting covers. You got Ryan Benjamin doing other off-sue. You bring Lee entire wildstorm apparatus. Of course, Scott Williams is there. Of course, Alex and Claire is there. If Jim Lee has spare brain cells, he calls Chris Claremont,

47:31but in the meantime, you got Scott Snyder show running everything else. That Jim Lee scenario, that comes close to selling a million in the same way that when they put a hundred covers on Star Wars number one in 2014, that sold a million. They can do this. This would make them a ton of money. And we're not talking a million to 399. We're talking a million at like 99. They're going to make sure they're getting close to $5 a book on that bad boy. And the sky is the limit, guys. Taking DC and implementing it with Marvel with the right of a check and you're like, why would they be doing this again? Why? Why did David Zazzle, if I mean, you look for $3 billion of cuts in his company because he had debt. The fastest way to reduce debt is to shed skin in the game. Shed companies, shed labels, shed expenses, shed costs. Somebody else is more than happy to write that check. Hey, maybe the twist in this is that it's

48:32not Marvel. It's another company is it conceivable that it can be one of the other people I don't want to say skybound because then Robert Kirkman will call and yell at me. Why did you say my name? I'm just you're a big shot. You're out there. You're your company's a big deal. Do I believe that Robert Kirkman could write a check and commensurate to what Marvel could? He outbid Marvel on Transformers and G.I. Joe conceivably, why couldn't he do the same? I believe publishing is an asset that they will look to shed. That's the bottom line. That's the umbrella that I'm sharing all this with you. I believe that publishing is the asset that that Warner Brothers will go, why do we have this by selling it? We remove the offices, the executives, the costs, the staff. Now we just take in money. We just take in money for these publishing adventures while publishing is still of interest to many people and collectibles. We'll just make movies. There is no way under any scenario in case you're wondering that DC does not again get the rights to every new story that Marvel makes. So again, if they

49:33publishing licensing agreement that Marvel would enter into to take DC off Warner Brothers hands as they are looking to sell networks and other aspects of their catalog to bring down this drastic $74 billion in debt that my good buddy, Bill Cohen, went on puck and told me about, okay, I don't know Bill Cohen. He's not my buddy, but he is a big, a big Wall Street guy, okay? 2022 to 2023, David Zazlov, fresh off acquiring Warner Brothers, wanted $3 billion in merger costs removed, lessened by cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting, laying off, laying off. We are now talking $70 billion of a debt, $74 by some estimates that Paramount is carrying. That's not operational costs. That's just the cost of doing the deal, the transaction of Paramount and Warner Brothers being purchased in the same 12 months. I am looking at DC publishing as an asset.

50:35This would be a great boon to the entire publishing industry. It would be a tremendous boon. But let me tell you something. In the world of creating our own, no one's worried about this merger. You know who's not worried about get from a giant conglomerate merger? I'm going to give you a fresh name. I haven't said them on the show, but I want to congratulate him. Brett Bean of Dork, the biggest explosive success of the last year, the little engine that could. Guys can sell probably a hundred thousand of his second issue, maybe more. The book is like a hundred-dollar book run. It's been out for about four weeks. Brett Bean's not worried about a Warner Brothers merger. Robert Kirkman's not worried about a Warner Brothers Paramount merger. Todd McFarland, Rob Laifeld. We've got our own little lives, our own little units that we have created our own realities from. I have done nothing but pay all my bills for 41 years drawing comic books.

51:41From the comic books come everything else. We got young bud toys coming out any any week now. I'll get the shipments. I'll share them with you. They'll be available on my live streams. They'll be in your stores. They look great. I've seen them. They're on the way over from from China. Those toys are based on comic books. I drew everything that I have participated in is something that I created. Whether it's Deadpool or Cable and turn around sales on New Mutants or all of the catalog materials that I have in my extreme catalog that I publish through image comics or do direct to consumer. The creator own guys aren't stressing this at all and I'm not saying DC should stress it. I think it's a great gig. I think you could drastically improve everyone's fortunes. Every comic book I told you would be a massive success. Jim released just two days ago a shot of gambit across a double page or in a story that Tom King is writing for the Superman Spider-Man book that DC is publishing. Is it is it in March or May? It generated a lot of success. Jim even said in

52:48his post I hope this tweaks some form of nostalgia with you. People went crazy. There's only further that this provides further evidence that Jim going back to X-Men at Marvel under the umbrella of this deal. Now Jim can go back to X-Men under any circumstances but I am certain that Marvel would make it the sweetest deal possible given these circumstances. One of the reasons that they're going to write that check under this scenario, under this speculative scenario were they to purchase DCs publishing and only publishing. One of it would be to tell Jim look we're going to incentivize the hell out of you coming back and Jim would be the biggest thing in comics. And think about that after the semi train wreck of a publishing schedule that Hush 2 has been after it was supposed to carry the flag for the company. He would he would entertain all new heights with this scenario as I've laid out. He could be cutting a deal right now in X-Men for all we know

53:49and heading back to DCs and heading heading back to X-Men and he sending you sublimal messages with that drawing. Double page of gambit meant to entice meant to grab your attention with Disney doing a renewed focus on on the X-Men in the next couple years coming out of Doomsday coming out of Secret Wars finally giving you Disney X-Men movies. I believe it's a pretty safe place to be like I said in the way you do it. Jim does certain specific issues and then the guys that Jim had a wild storm the guys that kind of reflect his own stylings go in and give you that taste and you love it you're in love with it. It's it's it's something that you would go you would flip over. Scott Snyder over on Marvel is something that they desperately need a showrunner showrunners. Everybody who is doing something at Marvel right now is the third or fourth person they asked. I happen to know the one and the two and the threes that turned them down. They are not operating at a full complement of best talent ever. I've said this I've I've

54:50put it out there. I've tweeted on X we it's called X we still do tweets. Look the people the top people have been saying no to Marvel repeatedly again and again and again. Kudos to them that they can put together a skeleton crew to continue to get the workout. There are other aspects of Marvel's failure to examine articles have been written. The podcast that I put out about his Marvel tanking was one of our most listened to most discussed most shared podcast ever the numbers on that show are insane. I thank you. You had opinions many of you reflected what I shared in that podcast. You didn't come at me with opposition. You came at me with 1000% understanding and agreement. It's exactly how you're feeling. We're all watching it. One person said to me is this the new normal is the marvel that we are experiencing now the new normal. Well, let me tell you what would change that new normal is them writing a check for DC publishing. Making that argument and how do you know you know, you know, the Ellison's one paramount or one or others away from Netflix read any of

55:55these extensive articles in the Wall Street Journal in Puck in New York Times in deadline. They were lented. I mean, they were relentless. They would not take no for an answer. They kept coming. They kept coming. They finally up their bid. They started at $19 a share. They entered at $31 a share. They weren't going to walk away until they had what they wanted. All it takes is somebody to knock on the door and say, I'm willing to pay this much for DC publishing. I'm willing to pay this much for DC publishing. You guys, I don't even know if we should call it DC publishing. I'm going to wrap up with this at a little research before I jumped on. In the month of April, in the month of April, DC Comics is publishing 55 single comic books, 55 single comic books. By my count, I went to two different sites. I counted them all out. 32% of their line in April is Batman. 32% 18 of those 55 comics are Batman adjacent. Batman, Batman family titles, a barber Gordon title, a Batgirl title, a Batwoman title is a Batman title. Nightwing is a Batman title. Batman and Superman in the title is a Batman title. So it's

57:01not just Batman and Detective and Absolute Batman. And there are fact similes, three fact similes, three Batman facts similes in the month of April. 32% of DC's output, 32% is Batman. In truth, they should be called Batman comics. Okay, BC comics, Batman comics because Batman is paying all the bills all the time. I mean, 32% of their output in April are Batman related titles. You can open up your app. You can look at your solicits. I did not count trade paperbacks. I did not pack collections. If I did, that number goes up. If I did, because I stopped, I stopped scrolling after six Batman collections. I decided not to include those. These are just the common books between the staples. That's what I'm talking about. This handsome thundar from Dynamite Entertainment. 32% of DC's output in April. Now that may go up in May and in June. But in April, it's 32%

58:07of their output. Batman comics. Batman is a priority. Batman is a big deal. You put that line of comics into Marvel's publishing. Look out. Look out. Okay, that's all I gotta say. Guys, I threw this speculative aspect of what's going on out because out to you guys, because it is all over the place that they are looking to cut costs to slash debt. And how you slash debt is you let things go. You change the terms. You sell them. You license them. You decide that we're just going to take money in on this. This is going to happen. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But the scenario with which the publishing, the two biggest publishers engage in a giant form of licensing is something. The speculation is not going to go away. We indulge it today. But there's going to come a day where you go, oh my gosh, like a shit. Transformers, GI Joe turtles. These are giant pop culture icons. I would say they are in the top 10 of worldwide globally recognized

59:11intellectual property. The turtles transformers GI Joe. They are not published by paramount. They are not published by Hasbro. Those are licensing deals and they have been for almost the entirety of their existence. Thank you for indulging this. I do not believe that this is far off. I do not believe this is something that could not happen. And as I said, no one, you think they're going to give them a heads up. This will happen in a back room. Maybe someone will, maybe maybe when the deal is finalized, it will leak out. Someone will hear it, but it'll be done. They're not going to go and consult the people at DC Comics before they do this. The person that approaches them at the highest level will be circumventing all of those chain of commands. You already got 20 plus CEOs fighting. Those articles, those pictures I showed you about all the CEOs, it's like the org chart nightmare. And they all only want to report to the CEO.

1:00:12They all only want to report to David Ellison. And it's like, well, is the head, the one thing that everybody agrees, just in case you're wondering, they agree the HBO, the president of HBO is not going to report to anybody, but David Ellison. It is the most prestigious label. It is the most successful of the networks, much more so than paramount plus. And they believe that Casey Boys is going to report directly to David Ellison and circumvent that. But everything else is up. Look, their speculation for James Gunn, Peter Safran, everybody down this list, way too many CEOs in the kitchen, the organizational chart nightmare. Okay. So there's a lot of bickering. The person who who presents some of these opportunities to buy networks to license labels, to license publishing will go way over the heads of any of these people and go directly to the source that can facilitate it. Thank you for indulging me. I do believe if Marvel were to buy DC Comics, DC Comics and Marvel Comics would benefit many, many, many more comic books sold, many, many more team ups, crossovers.

1:01:18We would all be the beneficiaries in the end, especially if the smart moves as I've laid them out today were taken. If somebody like a Scott Snyder was given a significant role in reshaping Marvel Comics under the umbrella of this new merger, if Jim Lee were to come back and do the X-Men under the auspices of this merger, also it will give Jim a chance with his wildstorm catalog to unlock them and team them up with Marvel characters in a way that we haven't seen in a very long time. Wildcats X-Men would become probably a regular fixture, grifter and punisher. Your mind can just run away with it all. So this is speculative. I've said that 34 times because I want you to understand. I understand what I'm indulging in today. We're having some fun with this, but I believe I do not believe that you can convince me it is not a potential reality. Okay. Hey, as always, thanks for listening. Appreciate you guys. What an incredible audience. Thank you. When I am not broadcasting,

1:02:20doing my podcast, I am on socials. Social networks. I am on X at Robert Lifeeld. R-O-B-E-R-T-L-I-E-F-E-L-D. Blue Check tells you it's really me. I'm reading your replies, your comments, your mentions. We're going back and forth. We're having fun. I love the interconnectivity. It's true. I love it. I love that. I can reach out and talk to somebody from Alaska on my couch in California. Talk to somebody in Switzerland. Talk to somebody in Budapest. Okay. This is so incredible. I love it at Robert Lifeeld. It's a mouthful. Blue Check. That's me on X at Rob Lifeeld is the Instagram handle. Another blue check tells you it's really me. I'm reading your replies, your mentions. Sometimes I'm arguing with you. Some of you guys haven't read a lot of comic books and it shows and you're showing me when you argue with me on my Instagram feed. I have read more comics. No, how should I say this? I have forgotten more comics than you will ever read. Period. Full stop. It's funny to me when you go, but the red hole can't beat Greenhawk. I'll show you the pages where he did. I'll show those to you. But Superman, Wonder Woman could never put the down Superman. I'll show you those pages.

1:03:24Over on the Instagram account, we're having a great time. We're comparing, contrasting, picking favorites. All manner of fun stuff. Thank you guys for joining in. Thanks for being a part of that community. Instagram, Rob Lifeeld. I love hearing from you guys. Blue Check, R-O-B-L-I-E-F-E-L-D. Over on TikTok, I'm real Rob Lifeeld. That real Rob Lifeeld. Another blue check signifies it's really me. We have been blowing up over there. All the content. Many of it crosses over with our Instagram content, but the audience is so much different and younger and vibrant and funny. And so I love seeing you guys over on TikTok. Give me a follow. Real Rob Lifeeld. Blue Check, that's me. Hey, guys, I have a community over on Facebook. It's called Rob Lifeeld. Figure that. Rob Lifeeld, Marvel, Extreme, and Beyond. I would love for you to join with us. We have great artwork, great discussions. Each and every episode of this show is given a dedicated post. You can come on. You can discuss. You can parse the information. You can share your opinions

1:04:28of everything that was discussed on this show. So we look forward to you being a part. Myself, we're a gentleman named Terry Salah. S-A-L-A. We'll click you on through to the other side where the co-administrators of the group. We have great times, big smiles, lots of great discussions about the comics industry. Rit, large, are happening over on Rob Lifeeld. Marvel, Extreme, and Beyond. I hope you can find a way to join us. This week, Youngwood Forrests and Stores. Youngwood Forrest has several covers, one by the incredible Eric Kennedy, who is doing Absolute Batman 17 and 18. I think those comics are blowing up right now as we speak. Murat Michaels, from the Extreme Studios, from Brigade. He has a Brigade themed cover. Why? Because maybe Brigade is in the comic book. Battlestone and Brigade have been featured in several of the issues. Issues 2, 3, and 4 of Youngwoods. We build towards our big 100. Issue 4 has a Number 98 Legacy Variant. I hope you're able to get that in your store. Issue 98 Legacy Variant, Issue 5 will have a Number 99 Legacy Variant. And then we're off to 100. When we hit Issue 6,

1:05:33we are at 100 and there's no looking back. It'll be 101, 102 from then on. A lot of you guys have been asking me this. This is your answer. Youngwood Forrests out in Stores this week, March 4th. I hope you get a copy. I hope that your store has copies for you. There are multitude of opportunities to get a multitude of covers. When you get those, join me on my live stream. I'm on What Not and Ebay this week. Watch my Instagram, my ex, my TikToks for links to the Ebay Show because it's not under my direct name. But my What Not is Rob Life. I'll get on What Not, download the app. Follow me. Engage with me. And you will be exposed to all manner of exclusives. Youngblood, exclusive covers, exclusive art, exclusive signatures. All manner of original art sketches, prelims, everything makes it up, up, up for show and for share on my live stream. We have a great time, great community. All manner of different people. There could be two different nights

1:06:34and two different communities showing up, depending on what's going on in their lives. Some people may be out. Their daughters may be going to winter formals or their visiting colleges. Or they're working late, but above all else, we join together across all these different live streams, whether it's Ebay, look for those links on my socials or on What Not, get What Not, download it, follow Rob Life, and you'll be alerted when I go live with all my exclusives. We made a special collector's edition for issue four, for issue three, for issue two, for issue one, of Youngblood that is only available through me, through me on the store. Ask me about last blood. It's an exclusive comic book that is yet to make a direct market. I wrote and drew all of it. The 60 pages of the first two issues, a side hustle, a side story called Final Stand, which we are digging, more out Michaels, and I are doing that together. But we got a lot of big plans, a lot of big books coming your way. I'm excited to share all of it with you. Direct consumer is a priority with me. It is driving massive amounts of sales and transactions and getting comics into the hands of people.

1:07:36When you don't have your Youngblood, when your store does not have Youngblood for you this weekend, if that were to be the case, we will have it on my show. I make sure I carry a full stock of my own, whatever it is, exports, Deadpool, comic books from the last 20, 30 years. They all cross the screens during our live streams and we would love to share them with you and we would love for you to be a part of it. Thank you so much again for listening to show. Thank you for all the things that we share with each other. I enjoy the back and forth. I enjoy the inner connectivity, the discussions that we have. They are lively. They are robust. They are inspiring. I hope that you are doing the best that you possibly can, that your mental, your spiritual, your physical, and your emotional being is exactly where you need it to be. Times are tough. It's chaotic. It's getting louder. It's getting crazier. They want to make us crazy. Don't let them. Don't let your job drive you nuts. Get off that treadmill. Take some me time. Get off this crazy hamster wheel. The treadmill. Take time for yourself. I say all the

1:08:41time because I live it. I go, I do, I have that ice cream sundae. I tell that guy, hey dude, dude, you got to put more whipped cream on that. That's not enough hot fudge for life. I need that. Okay. I go out to really nice, nice dinners. I go out to cheap burger joints to taco stands. We go to the hoody toody Italian place. Okay. I'm always hanging with my wife, married my best friend, married the absolute love of my life, but a killer, incredible partner. We just have so much time. We pour life into each other. Our kids, our friends, our family. You are your priority. Okay, don't forget. So whatever it takes, go into that diner with that friend, grabbing that meal, walk around the lake, take a long drive, go get a snack, go watch a TV show, a streaming show, grab that graphic novel, that comic book that you've been putting off, indulge, get lost in it, renew, find new energy. That is what I'm rooting for. That is my wish for you. I hope for you,

1:09:44the very best wish for you the very best to boom. This bumps into this blue Yeti microphone wishing you nothing, but good times all the best. I'll be right there as always right out there. Pick me up there right into the tree because we will wait for it. Most definitely absolutely and drumroll place inevitably. We will talk again real soon.