In our Comicpalooza 2015 Special, we discuss childhood influences and the importance of licensed properties in comics with a wide array of guests: World Champion wrestler (and comic creator) Booker T, Katie Cook, Peter David, J.M. DeMatteis (albeit briefly), and returning guest Walt Simonson. Our featured guest this week is the great Louise Simonson.

Louise Simonson will be the focus of an upcoming Creator Spotlight episode. We'll get to Walt eventually...we suppose.

Brought to you by

IDW: Katie's My Little Pony comics continue to tear up the sales charts, and you can now get a lovely hardcover edition of J.M. DeMatteis' Augusta Wind from your local shop (along with tons and tons of other great comics from IDW).
SaneBox: Stop "Hulk-ing out" over your email. Get a no-credit-card-required, 2-week free trial and $25 off your new membership when you sign up by visiting SaneBox.com/esn.

Guests

Booker T (Reality of Wrestling website/Twitter)
Katie Cook (website/twitter)
Peter David (website/Twitter)
J.M. DeMatteis (website/Twitter)
Walt Simonson (Facebook fan page/Twitter)
Louise Simonson (Facebook fan page)

Uncut, isolated, and extended interviews in the Artist Edition feed post in the days following the main episode. Subscribing to the Giant Size Channel feed gets you all Giant Size episodes plus Artist Edition interviews and extras.

Katie Cook (extended and uncut)
Peter David (isolated)
Walt and Louise's uncut interviews will post after their respective Creator Spotlight episodes later in 2015.

Reading List

You only get a small (probably surprising) taste of Booker T Huffman's autobiography here. From Prison to Promise reveals a more fascinating life story than you knew.
Katie Cook not only writes My Little Pony, but she's also done Fraggle Rock. She also does a great, kid-friendly strip called Gronk.
Peter David's novel Artful may soon become a comic. John likes Vendetta, Peter's Star Trek book billed on its cover as a "giant novel".
Walt Simonson's work on Alien with Archie Goodwin is absolutely gorgeous, and his Raiders of the Lost Ark features material in the script cut from the movie before release.
Louise Simonson created a great team of kids called Power Pack among many, many other things. Try out the first volume of those stories in advance of our digging further into her work in an upcoming episode.

Show Notes and Links

G.I. Bro: The Comic made its debut at Comicpalooza.
El Rey Network runs a Kung Fu marathon each Thursday that enrages Booker's wife.
Katie, like all right-thinking humans, loves Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo. Check out our Creator Spotlight episode on Stan.
Peter David grew up loving the Adventures of Superman TV show, which introduced him to the fact there were also comics made of the man in tights.
Peter recently didn't rip the new Fantastic Four movie to shreds, one of the more reasonable takes on the internet.

ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF GIANT SIZE

Fan Expo Dallas! Nick Bradshaw! More from Steve Epting! The Super-Shy Jimmy Cheung! Amanda Conner! Jimmy Palmiotti! More from Neal Adams! So so so much more...oh god we were so tired by the end!