an audio tour of the indie master artist's latest book, Old Jewish Comedians, from Fantagraphics. We talk about the careers of Jerry Lewis  Bud Abbott, and Milton Berle and the lesser lights like Benny Rubin, Herbie Faye, and Mousie Garnder.

Drew also shares some his influences that led to his unique style of art and satire, tales of working with R Crumb, and Art Spigelman, and answers age old literary questions like "What night time TV soap star did JD Salinger stalk in the 80's", "What comic strip kept Vladimir Nabokov mystified/" and "Who is Menasha Skulnick ?"

Steve Niles made his mark in comics when he formed his own publishing company called Arcane Comix, where he published, edited and adapted several comics and anthologies for Eclipse Comics.

His adaptations have included works by Clive Barker, Richard Matheson and Harlan Ellison. Niles is best known for his horror noir chracter Cal McDonald the star of many mini series and prose projects, his original vapire tale 30 days of night will sooon be released as a major motion picture,

He's also working with comics legend bernie wrightson on City of Others, and on several other projects that come up in the course of our conversation. We'll talk about his work with Sam Rami, Tim Bradstreet Thomas Jane, and the pros and cons of comic creators on the web.

Wordballoon, in association with newsarama.com presents part 2, as we wrap things up with the writer of many Marvel Comics and  The Co-Executive Producer of NBC's Heroes.

We discuss the Buffy Season 8 comic book from dark Horse and jeph's eventual association with the series. We also get into a detailed debate about the amount of publisher wide events that DC and Marvel are serving non-stop to their readers. Finally we wrap up with an insider's view of the breakout hit tv series of this season, Heroes.