When you hear that Jack Black and Kyle Gass (better known as JB and KG of the Greatest Band in the World Tenacious D) are doing a live streaming panel for New York Comic Con 2020 Metaverse, you can bank on chaos, comedy, and an octopus with genitalia. The duo recently released Post-Apocalypto, a 180-page graphic novel published by Fantagraphics and illustrated by Black himself.
The comedians/musicians chatted with moderator Petra Mayer about how the epic tale came about.
Black explained, “Yeah. So obviously when Trump won the election me and Kage [KG] were inspired to write Post-Apocalypto ‘cause we looked at each other and we were like, ‘it’s the end of the world. What are we doing? We got to do something about this.’ So we made this post-apocalyptic, I guess you would call it a warning, to the world of our impending doom. And we basically wrote it and created this work to save the world. I guess that’s the simple answer, wouldn’t you say that’s about right, Kage?”
Gass chimed in, “I think we wanted to save the world as best we could. And so we had to do it with our rock and our doodling. Jack’s doodling.”
Black continued, “And the thing about it was, it was also an opportunity for us to explore our favorite genre of post-apocalyptic cinema and graphic novels. It’s the best genre there is. It’s the most entertaining. I think we can all agree. You know, Road Warrior…Terminator. These are the best movies ever made. You’re also going to see a little pinch of Wizard of Oz, which some people think is the first post-apocalyptic adventure if you count powerful, powerful land destroying tornadoes as an apocalypse of its own.”
The pair continued discussing the importance of robot sex as the surrogates of the future, specifically how Terminators give “tremendous physical pleasure.”
Mayer pointed out how the book pushes boundaries and asked, “What came first? The story, the music, or the giant, I’m going to call it, Dicktopus?”
“It’s sort of like an octopusian beast that has all the genitalia in the universe,” Black mused. “Sorry I got lost in the dicktopus. First came the terror of our impending doom that we were going to have a massive power-hungry idiot at the helm of our country and, you know, the destruction of the earth seemed imminent. So what came first was we wrote that song, right? You know, hope. It was a song of hope.”
The panel attempted to open up questions to the live audience, but it was slow going due to technical issues. One question that did get an answer was, will there be a sequel to Pick of Destiny?
“Well, I mean, in a way, Post-Apocalypto is Pick of Destiny 2 because it’s Tenacious D in. That’s all it really is about. So the question is, what will be the next Tenacious D in? What will that be?” Black questioned.
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