Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtites.com. I'm your host, Justin soderberg once again, we have someone from the comic book industry.
What a crazy world this is. No. I have today Jay Martin, music acclaimed music video director and storyboard artist from Hollywood who also has written a graphic novel, original graphic novel over at Dark Horse called Lost Boy.
In 1996 to 1998, he had a nationally syndicated comic strip called Tommy. He's a storyboard artist for movies such as The Amazing Spiderman Number Two, Constantine I Am Legend, ad astra The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and more. Martin is also an award winning music video director. As I mentioned before, directing music videos for artists such as Playing White Tease, Nas, Sean Mendez, Christina Perry, Daughtry, Kid Rock Trayu, Census Fail, Dashboard Professional, Taking Back Sunday, Death, Cab for Cutie and more. He's also wrote and directed his own feature film entitled Seven Minutes, which came out in 2014, is available online as well. We talked Lost Boy in his upcoming book Yellow from Dark Horse Comics over here on episode number 127 of the Case and Tights podcast. Before you listen, though, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Blue Sky as well as rate review, subscribe, all those things over at Spotify and Apple, all your major podcasting platforms. This is Jay Martin, illustrator and writer of Lost Boy at Dark Horse Comics. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. How are you this morning, Jay?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: I'm great, man. Thank you so much for having me on.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Absolutely. We're excited. I mean, I will say right off the bat, I am in love with Lost Boy. It's a great book. I am so happy to talk to you today. So we'll just get rolling into it and chat some comics, some graphic novel, some original graphic novel for anybody who's going to see it, this is Lost Boy out at Dark Horse Comics, dark Horse Books, whatever. Dark Horse. We're just going to say Dark Horse because that makes it simple.
But yeah, before we get started into talking about Lost Boy, really, let's just know a little bit about you, Jay. So you had a comic strip, Tommy, that was nationally syndicated, right? Am I correct about that?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: That is completely correct. So that was probably that was like in 19 97, 98 maybe back a.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Little while ago, but not too long ago.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, I did that right when I got out of college. So it was really exciting.
But, yeah, it was really like the wrong time for me to be in comics, I think. I think I was ready for it.
So I'm going back to my roots.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Exactly. But you had this gap, obviously. You did the comic strip.
Your dad was a cartoonist as well, is that correct?
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Still is. He still does comics.
He does like three comic strips. He does Mr. Baffo, Willie and Ethel. And cats with hands, and he basically just keeps drawing them. He can't stop.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Can't stop.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Can't stop.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: He must have been doing it for a number of years then now, I.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Mean, he's been doing it since I was I don't know, I think I was, like, probably maybe ten years old when he got syndicated with his first comic stroke.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So he's been doing it for yes, it's been his whole career.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's so cool.
Did comics to you comic strips really what get you into the medium of reading paneled stories and things like this in the first place, obviously, with your dad being a cartoonist and so on? Or did you actually read x men and different comic books itself, too?
[00:04:17] Speaker B: What happened was my father was really focused on being a cartoonist, and he couldn't work or do anything if there was a television set in the house.
So when I grew up, there was no TV.
And my brothers I have four older brothers who are around six and ten years older than me, and they were comic book collectors, and so there was just tons of comic books around the house, like bags of old Conan avengers, like, tons of comics. So I was just like, I would just sit and read comic books, and then I would try to draw the comic book characters. And then my dad had his office where he was doing these newspaper comics. So I was seeing the process, like the penciling, the inking, the zippetone, the whole how we do the lines and the lettering. It was like growing up in, like, a comic workshop and no distractions because there's no deviation.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: And that got you into it in the first place, and seeing that. But you then took a deviation, really, because you went into directing and storyboard art and stuff like that instead of doing comics. Right off the bat, I don't know much about you other than the small things that I've seen. Is this your first published book like this out there?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Never done anything like that.
I'd always wanted to. It was sort of in the back of my head, if I ever get a chance, I want to, because as I get older, I got really into reading graphic novels and appreciating the art form, and especially yeah, it became like a thing like, go to comic book shop. And I really liked that sort of OGN, very interested in that creatively, but I never felt like I had the time because I'd be either shooting or trying to pitch on a shoot or developing something, and I was just in that other world, and I think I didn't even realize it until not even with lost boy. But I think with this new project, comics take time. It's like a very time consuming exercise.
It's a lot of time.
Even the writing it and everything is just like, yeah, I get up at, like, 05:00 every morning to write and draw these comics to get them out.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: It's funny too, because I'm guessing you have a special appreciation for those people who have an artist or a writer. There's a team because you have Frank and yourself and then obviously you have an editing team over at Dark Horse and things like that. But it's you, you're doing all the lines, you're doing all that stuff, you're coloring it. It's a lot of work. You mentioned that. And so people have a special appreciation who have other people to do the work for you. You're doing everything. So it is even more work than some other people get to do.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: It's fun work, I really enjoy it. But it does just takes time. You can't get around the time it takes to draw a page of comics.
It is what it is.
You're at the desk a lot more like doing music videos. It was a thing where you'd work.
Probably the best year I ever had doing that is you'd have a shoot basically every month or so and prep would be a week and then you'd shoot for a couple of days and then you'd edit for a week or two. Maybe there's visual effects, but it was like there was time.
There's no time. I'm out of time. Just like getting up and I don't know, it's a lot. I mean, it's funny to think about.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: Do you like just like the torture of writing and drawing comics? Because you just mentioned how I didn't say easy, but it's different doing directing music videos and things like that. So you did your Tommy comic strip and then you went on and you did music video tour. How did you get into directing music videos? How did that come about?
[00:08:46] Speaker B: I always wanted to direct music videos.
Not having a TV. This all goes back to not having a TV. My friends when I was in high school would make me, they would they would put those tapes in like a VHS tape in and they'd record MTV for like 3 hours or whatever the length of those tapes were. And they'd bring me the tapes. It's like, here you can watch videos and you can have some culture. I was like one of those.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: It bring me it have the in excess video and whatever the cool videos were, but like hours of it on a tape. And I had, I had a VCR and I hooked it up to my computer monitor. So that was sort of my entertainment system. But I would watch videos, just hours of these videos.
And I was kind of obsessed with the art form and I had done the comics and I think I was at a time in my life where I felt like my father was a cartoonist and I wanted to do something different. It didn't feel right. And so I was like, let me try something else. And I went to graduate school at Pratt in New York.
And I was there, and I was studying painting. And I went to this art exhibition, and it was storyboards. There's all these storyboards from movies. And I can't remember what movie in particular, but I saw the artwork and I was like, oh my God, this is what I do. It kind of looked like comic book art, black and white. And I immediately started researching it and basically decided very quickly that I would just pack up my stuff and move to La. To try to become a storyboard artist.
And I did that. It was funny because I found this agency that represented storyboard artists in La. And I was like, oh, I saw their website, and they had people who did all these movies. And I was like, oh, I could just do that. And so I made a portfolio and I drove out there and I literally went to the place, showed up, and I was like, hi, here's my portfolio. And I was like, this is going to be no problem. And they looked at it and they were like, yeah, you can draw comics, but you don't know anything about movies or film. This is great. And I was like, so it's not going to happen right away. And they're like, yeah, you got a ways to go. And so I just started scrambling. And I had a fortunate occurrence.
I was just trying to be out and meet people and try to meet someone who could help me out with this. And I was at a party, and I met this guy named Mark Bristol. And he had just storyboarded the Thin Red Line for Malek and and we're at this party and he's like, you really want to be a storyboard artist? And I was like, I do. And he's like, if you're serious about it, come over to my house at 10:00 A.m. And I'll show you the ropes. And so I did. And he spent the day with me and basically just showed me what he did, showed me the process, taught me about film language. He showed me some books that would sort of film school books that would help me figure it out and kind of set me on the right course.
And so then I started doing student films and trying to get a real portfolio.
And then I went back to that agency and they were like, okay, we'll represent you.
And then I started working as storyboard artists.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: These are the small jobs that I think that even the most rudimentary people who watch films don't understand that they're there, including to the point where if know told someone, I was you know, Jay Martin was on there. And to me, some of your credits like, hey there, Delilah, was like, my high school years. And so was honestly, if I'm right, I saw that you directed Senses Fail music videos and those bands I saw most of those bands live in concert, and it's my wheelhouse. So seeing that was like, oh, this is kind of cool. But if I explain to them that you directed a music video for that, the little comments will be, wait, there's directors for music video because just be honest, people out there. There's directors for pornography videos. There's directors for anything that's on screen like this. So you may not think it because it may not be the primary the music is the primary spot of what they're trying to promote, but there is people who have to put these things together. There's a whole team of people who have to do this. And then to the other point where that is the storyboard art. There is storyboard art for the majority of major motion pictures that are out there that get people the idea of what's going on.
Does being behind the scenes of music videos and being behind the scenes of storyboard artists help you in making Lost Boy? Has this been a journey that's helped you become a better comic book artist and comic book cartoonist?
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think I could have made Lost Boy without spending a lot of time studying film. I mean, it was really helpful for making the book and for making comics in general because it's visual storytelling. And when you storyboard a movie, you're essentially making a comic book of what the movie will be and you're limited by the aspect ratio of the frame, whereas in a comic book, you're not and you're able to like but it's very similar.
Making Lost Boy and storyboarding a movie is like the only difference is when making Lost Boy, you can spend some time on the frames and make them really pretty, whereas when you're making a movie, they're like, give me all the frames. Like, I want the scene at the end of the day quick. We'll do like, on those movies like I'm Legend or Constantine, not a Constantine. That was a little different. But a lot of these movies, you'll do so many versions of a scene, it'll be this version and that version.
You're not precious with anything you do in that world.
You'll draw like 100 drawings and they'll all end up in the trash and then you'll do it again the next day and the next day. And it's very much like doing storyboards is almost like a service is like you're working with the director to show them what they're thinking or give them a version of a scene and then they're looking at it and being like, either that's the way we're going to do it, or, wow, good thing we didn't do that. It's terrible. So it's more like I don't think people realize it's a process that's more than the end result storyboards are to do.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: You get to keep a lot of those personally or you mentioned in the trash, but do you have ones from the movies you've worked on.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Personally, I think technically they're like the property of the studio. So you'd have to leave everything at Warner Brothers or wherever you were.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: So what you're trying to say, Jay, is that you don't have any legally.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: I have some from these new movies I do. Because once Internet and everything came out and I was super late to go to the tablet, now I draw everything on the tablet, but I was so late to that.
I was doing pencil and paper.
Way later, I remember doing a job where I was in a bulletin with, like, four other storyboard artists working on this movie, and I was the only person doing pen and paper.
And I realized how annoying it was because I was at this production company and everyone else was doing everything on their tablets. And I had to go into the office and I would scan everything on the computer.
I'd have, like, a stack of drawings. I'd go in the office and I think I was, like, driving everyone insane because it was like, what is wrong with this guy? Why is he coming to the office? Why does he keep like, he's in the copy room all day.
That's what I was used to. Because I was just like, I don't.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Know, because someone just hands you a stack of papers and like, hey, copy boy, can you please copy? No, that's not what I do for a living.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: I'm not the copy boy. I'm drawing this stuff.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: It's funny how you mentioned the tablet thing, because I use a lot of tablet. My day job as a creative director for a brewery and do a lot of our marketing, our beer can labels and things like that. And we just did one for the local I say local, but the regional theater. We have a professional theater here. And their 50th, right? Yeah, their 50th season at the Penobscott Theater Company is this year. And so they just kicked their season off and they wanted to do a collaboration. Beer at the brewery I work for in honor in releasing it. They also for their 50th season, they have now bought the building next to them and have a bar that is like preshow post show. You can get drinks. You can actually get drinks preordered, so that when you go into the theater, when the intermission happens, all you need to do is go back to the bar and it's waiting for you at the bar so that you can drink it a little sip there during intermission and bring it back into theater with you. Which is unbelievable.
But I did the can artwork and redid their facade. Like they just did a facade. Grant so they have this new, beautiful looking outside of their building, and they're like, this is what we think that the can should look like. So I illustrated the entire outside of the building, and I did it all digitally and it wasn't until I was at the theater over the weekend for their opening night that I realized I should have done it on pencil and paper because I could have then maybe auctioned off the original art as a fundraiser for them.
But now I'm like the original art here's the iPad that I drew it on.
There's no original art anymore. I mean, I could just print it. Technically, if I print it once, that's the original art. But it's not the same. So I wish I would have done it that way.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: So you talk to a lot of comic people.
What do you do?
What do people do that do all this stuff digitally for their original art?
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Do they just go, so what's happening? I think more I talked last two weeks ago, this episode was with Leona Kangas, who they're a comic book artist and they're wonderful.
But they are starting to do more pencil and paper because the value of that original artwork and sometimes it's like we'll do pencil and paper for covers because that's what people want for you. The original artwork for the front of the COVID of Lost Boy is the one that people are going to recognize and see. And so maybe that if someone's a huge Lost Boy fan, they want that original piece of artwork more like your third panel inside the page.
It's an original artwork, but maybe it's not as recognizable to a lot of people as the COVID is. So like, Liana is doing a lot more like covers, pencil and paper and then interior work. They might switch to an iPad or some sort of tablet so that it doesn't really matter. Also, these people who are with comic book art vendors, they're going to want original art. So a lot of people are going back. Some people like sketch on an iPad to make sure they get what they want and then do the later on stuff on pencil and paper so they can have some sort of original piece of artwork. It's a mixture of people. I think it depends on what you want to do with that artwork afterwards.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: I mean, I like that idea of selling it. That seems like a good, lucrative I think those guys that do it the old school way, I think they're doing well.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Well, and that's the thing. It's conventions. A lot of the fact that this is your project, obviously, and other people who are working for the big two. So someone does a cover for like an X Men book and you go to a convention and you can sell that original artwork, it's probably going to make more money off of that original piece of artwork than you are that you got paid to actually do the book. Because daily page rates and cover rates aren't what they should be. And so a lot of people keep that original piece of artwork so that they can then sell their original artwork later on and not have to draw another thing. Plus, they could probably make, depending on the artist, upwards to a couple of $1,000, which is probably more than what they got paid to do the book in the first place. So I think it's a mixture of whatever. Personally, I'm not good enough to do an illustration on a piece of paper once and be like, this is good. I had to redraw that so many times that if I didn't do it on an iPad, it probably would have taken me way longer and I was on such a time crunch that I couldn't have done that.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: It is so much faster on the tablet because that command Z, you're like, okay, no.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Well, where you want someone on a page, if you have your deer in Lost Boy in a certain spot, but you want to move it. If it's on a tablet, you can put it on a different layer and move that deer around a little bit. All that stuff is something that you can't really do easily and quickly, you can on a piece of paper. But I think you're going to get better final product, in my opinion, if you use it as tablet, because you're going to get what you want on the page, not what you are time crunched or what you're oh, I don't want to redo that again.
That's why I think tablet sometimes is better end product because of that.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
I don't know why it took me so long to switch over, especially with the storyboarding, because everything's getting scanned in and sent down the line to Previs or whatever the next department is.
So when you just draw it, obviously it's already in the computer.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yes, it's already done for you. I literally export it. And then if they need a change, they need a change and it's on physical paper and you need to erase something and change it, then you have to do that and then go back to the Copier, scan it in again and send it. This is like quick change. Send the PDF off again to your editor or whoever, and they're like, Sounds good, that looks good, much better. And you can move on. This takes less time.
And also the software is just so much better nowadays. I mean, I can't imagine me trying to draw on the original tablets compared to what they are like now. Like the fact that someone can just go to a store and buy an iPad and download some software and at least do something. It might not be the best software out there, but there's something for them to draw on, which is pretty cool. I can just picture my son, he's two, like the first time he ever draw draws it's, like on an iPad, not scribbles. Like, I could just picture that. It's not even on paper.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: New world.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: It's crazy. It is a new world.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's people that do comics on their iPad, like huge artists.
I see that on Instagram. It's like on Procreate. They're doing whole books, which is amazing to see.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: And then you get to coloring digitally is a lot easier, I'm guessing. Was this digitally colored as well?
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I started it pen and paper with Lost, but then I ended up doing it like 80% of it is all on the computer, and it's all colored.
I always did color on the computer. Like when I did storyboards for movies and stuff, I would scan everything in, and then I would color it in Photoshop with one of those tablets.
Not like the one that you doesn't have the screen on.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: We're getting into Lost Boy here. Let's talk some Lost Boy then. So Lost Boy is the original graphic novel out at Dark Horse that was released in August. You and Frank svetkovic. Did I say that all we think, but Frank is the letterer of the book, and you did the writing, illustrating, coloring all the artwork on the book. It's beautiful. Beautiful book. That's one of the first things that I saw when I picked it up. The COVID is very I'm a big cover kind of person. When someone sees a cover, it draws you in. I wanted this because Dark Horse PR sends out an email every month saying, these are the graphic novels that are coming out next month. And so you get that, and I scroll through, and I hate to say it. I'm not a big Hellboy fan. There's a lot of Hellboy stuff in there and all that stuff. And then I get to this Lost Boy, and I'm just like, the COVID the name. I was like, I need to read this. And then it wouldn't download for me from their email. And I was like, oh, God, no. So I finally got it to download, and I read it, and I was amazed by it. And my LCS owner, I was like, did you order this? He goes, I didn't even know it existed. And I said, well, that's a problem because you need to and so then I let him, quote, unquote, borrow it. He's in LCS. He has access to this too. He just doesn't have it on the list. Borrow the PDF. And he's like, oh, my gosh, I need so he ordered a couple of copies for the shop because of that. So it's now on the shop.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: I appreciate it.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Unbelievable. Do you want to give a little elevator pitch on what Lost Boy is, exactly?
[00:27:00] Speaker B: I guess it's an unusual survival story about a young boy who's lost in the wilderness, and he needs to find a way out. And it's a surprising way he discovers to make it through.
I don't want to give too much away.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Exactly.
My biggest line was being saved is not always what you expect or how you expect it. It was what I feel like I don't know, there was something that's heartwarming, but sad, touching. There's a little bit of everything in there, and it's technically a young adult graphic novel. Is that correct? Yeah, but I always say this when I talk to people about their young adult graphic novels. I'm always like the misconception. Someone needs to know about young adult. It means it can be read by young adults and up.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Right?
[00:27:51] Speaker A: It doesn't mean because it's for young adults. It means that you can't read it as an adult, a young adult graphic novel. It just means that it's able to be read by young adults. It's not offensive. There's no nudity in it. But you can read it if you're 75 years old, and you'll probably get a similar reaction to it, maybe a different feeling about it, but you'll still get to read it.
This is a young adult I don't want to read that.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, like, appropriate for, I guess, ten years and up. I think younger than that might be a little scary.
There's some stuff in there that might jarring, but I think for, like I don't know. Yeah, young people can appreciate it, and.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Everyone it's kind of like the warning would be that it says for adults only is the same thing that the young adult thing is. It's just telling you that we've looked at it, we reviewed it, and said that someone ten to 17. You're okay to read this? It's fine.
What? I'm getting at it. But yeah, it released in bookstores everywhere, because that's the cool thing about graphic novels compared to floppy comics is that the original release of it, I think it was the 23rd at local comic book shops and, like, the 22nd at bookstores everywhere. So there's that cool thing about everybody gets to bookstores. Get it? So pretty much everybody has a local bookstore.
Comic book shops are a little harder to find depending on where you live, but a local bookstore can get this if they don't have it already, so I highly recommend it on that aspect of it. Have you been working on it for a while? Is this a project that you've been doing for a number of years, or is this a project that took a year to do? How long have you been working on Lost Boy?
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Boss Boy took a few months.
It was during the pandemic, and my wife was like I think being in La. Was very stressful, and she was like, we got to get out.
Let's explore while we can. And so we packed up the family and we went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for we ended up staying there almost a year. But it was when we were in Santa Fe and the kids were on Zoom School. And my basically, she represents writers and directors, and she's a manager. And her business was still going, so she was on Zooms and working with her clients and I. Was basically in charge of making sure the kids didn't run away from their computers during Zoom. So we would be like, in this house in New Mexico. And it was like, me and our two kids and I picked up this project, and I was like, all right, I'm going to get back into Lost Boy. And I just would do it. While they were at school, we were all sitting together in a room.
It was probably like two or three months of just drawing at the table with them and then maybe another few weeks later on to sort of finish it up. But yeah, it was like over the course of maybe like two or three, maybe four.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Mean, it ends up at a I pitched it around to a number of places. Was there connections? How did it end up at Dark Horse?
[00:31:18] Speaker B: I have a crazy story about this. And it all goes back to Sean Mendez, who wrote so he had, like an album coming out in the pandemic.
And his people contacted me, and they were like, hey, we're thinking of doing a Sean Mendez graphic novel to go with the album.
And I was like, they came to me because I always did the storyboards for his videos that I would direct. And we'd do these animatics and kind of like an animated version of the video before we made it. And so they knew all about me and drawing comics. So they were like, let's do this comic.
I spent, I don't know, maybe a few weeks just talking with them, going back and forth with ideas. And I did all this research about comics, and I kind of got excited about it. And then they were like, yeah, it just doesn't seem right. Or for whatever reason, they were like, no, we're not going to do this. But it kind of set me off on this. Like, I need to see this through.
I need to make this kind of this is the time. No one's shooting anything.
I'm in this place alone, and I can just do it. And so I basically took this idea that I had I had done, like, maybe three or four pages of a couple of years ago, and I just opened it up. And I was like, all right, I'm going to finish it to the end. I had the outline done. I had written the story, and I just started going. And that's what got it going. But then, okay, here's the crazy. This is where it's a funny story. I lost track. So I do the whole comic just all by myself in the back.
And then I end up shooting a video for Sean Mendez in Toronto. And so I fly up there to do the video, and we're prepping or hanging out, and I'm talking to his manager, Andrew. And I'm like, remember that comic book we were talking about doing way back when?
He's like, yeah, what are you talking about? And I'm like, well, I did it and I want to show it to you. And I showed it to him and he was like, dude, this is really like I feel like there's something here.
I'm going to give it to Sean's agent and let's see what happens. So they gave it to his agent at CAA, this woman named Austin Denisuck. And she basically gave it to started introducing me to the different comic book publishers and all the people in that world and different people she knew and Dark Horse specifically. And Dark Horse was like, this is really cool. We're interested in publishing it. And so that was the chain of events that went from to that book getting made.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, Dark Horse is a great place. They've got a great number of people there. I mean, I love there's a number of great creators going on there. There's people in the upper offices that are great there. Their stories are amazing to me. They treat the media they treat us pretty well as well. So that's pretty awesome that it ended up there. I'm happy that it's there in general. And then you release it. It comes out in August. And then what was it right around the time you released it that you were announced that you're doing another graphic novel? It was like a week later or something like that. The same week or something like that.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: I think they announced it like the same week it came out.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: So obviously Yellow is not because of the success of Lost Boy. This is just you already had this in the you had this in the hopper. I'm guessing that yellow was going to come at some point in the future.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Basically what happened is once Lost Boy got picked up and was going to get published, I had sort of made connections with all these comic book companies. And so I was kind of running around pitching comic ideas to to other people.
I really got excited about doing another book. And Yellow was a project that I'd been developing for a while. And so I brought that to Dark Horse and they were like, all right, let's do this too.
They just announced it. But yeah, that's going to come out in May, I guess.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: It's funny, but obviously the publishing industry does not mean that you may not because of you, but because of a bunch of different factors that you might not hit deadlines. Like there may be a publishing a paper issue or a shipping issue or whatever. But if all things go well, it comes out at local comic book shops on May 15, which is my birthday.
It's a great birthday present for me, Jay. Thank you. I appreciate it.
With a bow on it. Yeah. No, so I was like laughing about that. And I'm like, oh, actually, whatever. It's right around my birthday, so I can say it's a birthday present. The funny thing is I'll get the PR thing like months earlier or a month earlier, read it anyway, but no matter when it comes out, I'll get to read it in that time. But no, I saw that and I was like, it's always one of those things. I don't care. I'm 37 years old. Birthdays don't really mean much anymore except for the fact that I'm getting older is the only thing. But no. And so when I saw that, I laughed. I was like, oh, that's kind of a cool thing. I'll be able to promote around there and have that out there. But if it's anything as well illustrated and written as Lost Boy, I'm excited for it. And that's one of those things that popped up to me.
One of the things I love about Lost Boy being a young adult thing was the fact that not only is it good for them young adults because it's a story wise, but it's easy to read. I think that's one of the biggest things to me. I think there's so many books that I've gotten advanced copies of out there in the past couple of years that I've got into the first couple of pages and I'm just like, there's just so much going on. I need to know 17 different characters and different storylines and so on and so forth. That with this being a simple number of characters and the simple number of things that are going on, I was able to just not bust through it in a way that I ignore things, but I was able to almost read it once and okay, now I want to do it again and read it and pick up on other things that are going on. Some of books I just can't get through. And that's the thing. And so to me, easy to read is not saying that it's simple, but there's something to a very smooth reading book and Lost Boy definitely fits in that category.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Cool. Yeah, I'm glad. I think that's the idea when I'm making this stuff is making it accessible so you can enjoy the story and not be.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: The writers and director strike the writers and actor strike and stuff like that. I don't like talking much about movies and things that are on TV, but I'm watching a TV show right now that has the very first episode was like they introduced like 50 different people and we're now six episodes in. My wife and I, I am trying to figure out, okay, that's who that is and also the fact that this is actually based on true events. And so that part also frustrates me because I'm like, I should know who that person is, but is it that person? I can't tell. And that's me. And that's one of the things. I actually never got into Game of Thrones or anything like that because there's just so many things going on my mind is not sharp enough for all that stuff, especially when family members are sleeping with family members. That also screws up everything.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: That's the brand. If you're not into that, you're not into game.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: It's like, okay, wait. Hold on a second. Isn't that his mom? I'm so confused right now. And no, it is. You just have to be okay with that. Okay. Makes sense.
But no.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: What they do on that show.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: Lost Boy, is for those people out there who are really against floppy comics because they don't want to wait month to month or so on and so forth. They wait. They're trade waiters. That's perfect. Also about something like Lost Boy, it's an original graphic novel, so all the story comes out all at once. You can read it all at once and get the whole thing. It's available at local comic book shops and bookstores as well as you can get it probably digitally on the Internet, I would believe, too, out there, if you're a digital person. We just talked about digital drawing. There's also digital readers, but picking up a physical copy. We recommend buying it at an LCS, your local comic book store or bookstore. However, buy it anywhere. That's my big thing. You may not like big box stores, but if they have it, get it, because that also shows Dark Horse and all these other companies that sell it. That's worth stocking it. And then maybe Jay will get more than just yellow, and there'll be more books coming on in the future. But we want to finish up here pretty quickly here soon. But what is yellow about? So people can get ready for that one, too.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Okay, so yellow is a story of a soldier who flees the battlefield in a sort of semi futuristic civil war. And he's wounded, and he doesn't want to be in this war, and he doesn't want to be anywhere near it. So he runs away, and his journey is the story. That's awesome. Basically, it kind of explores what this country would be like in the middle of a horrific civil war. Like kind of like what's going on in Ukraine right now. But imagine that in America, in a fictionalized version of America.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: That's awesome. And so are you done with that already, or are you still illustrating it or you just wait? Because bookmark is also different. If anybody doesn't know, comic books can be faster. Bookmark is usually about a year before you get something coming out.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: This book is I'd say there's a little bit of work to be done yet, but it's basically done.
There's probably a little bit more artwork done that needs to be done, but it's basically done.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's exciting. And it's cool to do that. Are you doing comics now? Is this your thing, or are you going to go back?
[00:41:56] Speaker B: No, I'm doing another project with Dark Horse additionally.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: I don't know if I can disclose. But I'm not it's a little under wraps. But we just started the project. But I'm just illustrating it and working with some other creative teams. So it's kind of fun to be on that side of that's.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: That's really mean. If Sean calls again, are you going to do another music video? How does this work? Are you going to go back into music videos? Are you still?
[00:42:23] Speaker B: The hard thing is the time, the comics, so much time.
I'm usually bothering my agent about getting me a video. But I feel like I'm trying to wait till this comic stuff is like, I don't know. I love it.
It's it's enjoyable. It's great to see the book come out. It's a different world. It's something new.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: It's awesome. I love it too. I love the intermediate. I talked to Patton a couple of weeks ago. Patton, Oswald and actor, comedian, all that stuff. And also drawing and illustrating comics. It's really cool because to me, any way we can get people to read and take in comics is a great thing. So if someone was a Pat Oswald, fans of him in King of Queens or Ratatouille or whatever, and they're like, oh, he wrote a comic book, awesome. I'm going to buy that. And then fall in love with comics. Same way if someone's know seen a movie that you storyboarded or so on and so forth, finds the connections and knows that you illustrated and wrote a comic that they might be into it. So I love this.
There in a couple of weeks, I'm talking to David Desmolchin, the actor.
He wrote comics for Dark Horse. And so that's pretty cool in that sense. So those are kind of cool things. I love that cross promotion almost about these things. I might be able to get someone to read this book who's not a comic book person if I explain to them that you directed such and such music video or storyboarded such and such movie. And they're like, oh, those I have a frame of reference for. So let me try this out in that sense, too. So that's how I got people to listen to my podcast with Pat and Oswald, who is this guy? And I'm like, then you know these certain things. Oh, that guy. I'm like, yes. When you see his picture, you'll understand who this person is.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I listen to that one. Minor threats.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Minor threats. And the alternates just came out last week. And Tim Seeley, who's an unbelievable, unbelievable comic book person, as well as Jordan Bloom, who great director and writer and all that stuff as well in his own right. But yeah, I highly recommend it. And I'll give a little spoiler not of the book, but in the world of the fact that this is a strong contender for Comic Book of the year. Our top ten comic Books of the year here at Capes and Tights. So I'm really happy for it. So people should buy it and read it before we get to the end of the year and it ends up on the list. How about that?
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Awesome, man. Thank you.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: I really like it a lot, so I'm really happy you made it, and I'm excited for yellow. You can find Jay, you're on Instagram, Twitter, all that stuff, too, so you can look at J. Martin. I think it's just J Martin.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Is my instagram.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Okay.
So find them on social media out there. Buy Lost Boy, and when the preorders are available, they might be available soon to yellow. Pre order yellow as well, and get that one out there as well. And then keep an eye out for more stuff coming from Jay. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to talk to us and talk comics and all that stuff. Yeah. Thank you so much, Jay.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: Cool, man. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. Awesome.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: Enjoy the rest of your day.
