Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandites.com. I'm your host, Justin Soderberg. Back for another episode for Horror Week 2023 right here at Capes and Tights. This episode features comic book storyteller, horror comic book writer and artist Joseph Schmalkey to the podcast. He's returning for another episode with us to talk horror comics, his comics, We Don't Kill Spiders, Seven Years in Darkness, and so much more. Make sure to listen to all the content and read all the content right here on Horror Week at Capes and Tights. Visit capesandtites.com slash horror. You can also visit us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Blue Sky and Rate review. Subscribe all those things over at Apple and Spotify and all your major podcasting platforms. But this episode is with our friend Joseph Schmulke talking horror comic books. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome back to the podcast, Joseph Schmuckey. How are? Good, good. I serve very loosely, man. How are you, man?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: I'm excited that it's october. Yeah, the best time of the My house.
We got a little delayed on decorating this year because my wife wanted to redo the deck. But finally the Halloween stuff has started to make it outside.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Yes, we talked about that with my wife and I were like, it's actually becoming, like, all of September all the way to Thanksgiving for us now.
Decorations, horror movies, Halloween themed things. It's like a two month, three month expansion of thing nowadays when it used to be just for the month of October. We're excited for the fall and all that stuff as well. But, yeah, it's a fun month. It's your favorite month, right?
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's me and my wife's anniversary on Halloween. Married it'll be 13 years, 13 years ago.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Crazy great year for that, right?
[00:02:03] Speaker B: 13 years and Friday the 13th.
Yeah, me and Ryan Wing got the small space over at Queen City Cinemas, so we could watch two of the Friday the 13th movies this Friday.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Which ones are you watching? Do you know?
[00:02:23] Speaker B: I won't be at my booth past 530 because I'll be heading between city cinemas.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Do you know what you're watching, though? Which one?
[00:02:32] Speaker B: I get part four and part six.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Those were our top two. My favorite one is part four. His favorite one is part six.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's so much fun. I love it.
I hadn't watched so just preface this. I mean, we've known each other for a couple of years now, but I have not been a huge horror movie fan or not fan, but just hadn't been into it or horror things in general until about five years ago. And I think me reading a lot more horror comic books got me into the genre of horror. And so the past two years around this time, I've been just binging horror movies. And so I've been able to watch all the Friday the 13th and Halloween. And then this year, I expanded a little bit more. I just watched the Sadist. Have you ever seen the Sadist?
[00:03:21] Speaker B: No.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: 1960 something or something like that. I was a recommendation from our friend Jeremy Dauber, who's watching like 300 and some OD horror movies and research for his book. But I've been watching some obscure ones and all that stuff. But it took me a while. I hadn't even seen Friday the 13th, the first one, until last year. I know, it's bad.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: No, it's not bad. It's one of these things like growing up, that's what my mom and my father liked. My dad was a classic Universal monster, black and white film type guy. And my mom was into straight up, slashers like brainless don't go into the woods. Nightmare in Elm Street.
Just horrific slasher films. That was her favorite genre. She actually didn't like The Shining, so I had to see that one on my own at a later date because she was too freaked out by it. But yeah, I think it's great to embrace it later in life. I always figure that people that haven't really been into horror movies, they would never at this point, because it's like a teen when you're teens, you'll get into it. But yeah, I think horror has become a lot more intelligent over the last couple decades as well. So there's that studio, A 24, they just churn out nothing but really bizarre horror stuff. I just saw lamb.
I wouldn't necessarily say it's horror, but it teeters on that border. And then this year they put out the film Talk to Me, which I think is one of the best horror films that came out in 2023. And of course, they put out Hereditary and Midsummer.
I can't remember if they put out The Witch, but The Witch came out in the last decade and so did It Follows.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: It Follows is really it Follows is a crazy movie. I just watched Hereditary this year for the first time, which was amazing, and It Talked to Me is on my list to watch in the next week or so. I put together a list of movies that I need to get intake over this next couple of weeks and that's on that list. And I watched the Witch earlier this season.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Actually, Paramount and Hulu have a whole bunch of new stuff that they put out this year as well. And I've just been working my way through whatever they're putting out that day. I'm like, okay, I'll give it a try, because most of this stuff is a new idea.
Horror is like one of the last pieces of cinema that doesn't have to be a billion dollar film to make.
They very much got like an seventy s eighty s aesthetic to filmmaking where a couple of million dollars, they make a pretty good movie. Sets don't have to be like crazy elaborate or anything like that. And it's all practical. At least the real ones are. If it goes too digital. It kind of looks like dog crap.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: I was just reading up. My wife and I are watching the Castle Rock TV show that was on Hulu for a little while, and they actually I was looking at the notes. The only special effects they used a lot in that show was like fake snow.
Because obviously they're in a place that they were trying to film. They weren't filming in the snow. And so they had the snow. And I was like, that's pretty crazy to think about that. There isn't if you think about horror films, they're mostly practical effects. There are some special effects that need to be added afterwards, but that makes it I don't know, a lot of us like more practical effects, movies in general. But yeah, it makes it so you can't look as bad sometimes if you have not very good special effects, it makes the movie look even worse. I'd rather have bad practical effects than bad special effects, if that makes any.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: You can like if it looks real, if it looks tangible, it just, I don't know, has a different vibe to it. If you look at anything that George Romero was doing earlier on, and then anything Tom Savini is involved with. Right. And then, of course, you've got The Thing. The 80s John Carpenter is The Thing, which is probably the greatest practical effect movie ever made. Like, nothing else has come close to it, as far as I'm concerned. Cronenberg he does some videodrome and there's a couple other films that he uses a lot of great practical effects to.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
I think just like any genre of movie or any genre of book or anything like that, the more you intake, the more you can actually appreciate or critique on your own and things. And so that was one of the things that I not growing up watching very many horror movies. When you watch one every five years and it wasn't very good or it was extremely well, you just don't know. On the scale of things, it's hard to really get the genre. Now that I've been intaking hundreds of horror movies over the past couple of years, I've been able to say, oh, that's a good one, that's a bad one, because of the fact that I have more knowledge and it's more to it that way.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you've got Hillbilly Horror and you've got J Horror. You've got all these different sub brands of the horror genre, and some are just fantastic. And even the really bad ones, you can find some merit in them every once in a while. I did watch I don't know, if you watch Shutters the Last Drive in with Joe Bob Briggs, he gets his hands on probably the most unwatchable shit, and then he does commentary. He cuts in partway through the showing of the film and he talks about it and that actually makes it really watchable.
They did a VHS night, which was stuff that was made on a VHS camera.
It's bad, but it's worth watching if you're watching it narrated, by the way.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's something I would never have gotten into if it wasn't for and it brings me back to the idea of horror as a genre wasn't really up my alley until I started reading horror comic books. And I don't know if it was just the merge of two of my or one passion, and I liked it and I really loved comics. And then I started reading horror comics and that made me go, oh, maybe I like some horror movies and I picked the right ones. Maybe I don't even remember what the first in my binging of horror movies was to watch. It might have been like Halloween or any of those movies just because they were in the popular culture, sure. But horror comic books and then I still love horror comic books. And now I'm starting reading a lot more horror novels, and horror has just become part of my if you're going to give me an option now, I'm going to choose horror over anything else, including superhero and big two books and comedies on TV and stuff like that, which is something that I used to just gravitate towards in the first place. But yeah. So you obviously grew up watching horror movies like you mentioned. But what got you into like, was it just your love for horror in general that got you into writing comic books in the horror genre?
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Me and my family, we used to collect eerie comics and what was the other one? Creepy. And of course tales from the crypt and stuff like that.
Really, the first comic books that resonated with me were the ones that were like terrifying storylines.
Spiderman's craven's last hunt. I mean, it's pretty dark. It deals with like a monster rat person eating women in the sewers of New York City. You've got got. It's a very dark book and it does border on a horror movie. So that was like one of my first attractions to mainstream comics and then of know, my love of the older mean the history behind comic books is the top selling books were always these horror comics until the comics code authority came along and started saying that children were going to become degenerates by reading books. So that sort of killed the entire horror industry in comic books. And everything shifted towards superheroes. But even superheroes used to be like super violent and over the so it wasn't until Alan Moore came around writing his run on swamp thing that they were like, you know, we don't really need this comic code authority anymore. And what was he writing? He was writing swamp horror. So yeah, that's always been my attraction to it. It wasn't necessarily the movies.
I worked briefly for like three and a half years out in Hollywood. I made a horror movie. It's not very good. I'm doing a screening of it.
It's one of the weekends right before Halloween, around that time, and it'll be live on YouTube.
I worked out there. I don't really like working with producers. Actors are a lot to deal with, and I went to school. I'm a classically trained painter, and it was really hard for me to sell my work off because you spend a month on a piece and you want to get some value out of the efforts that you've put into this thing. And it wasn't really affordable, and I don't have a name at the time.
So I was like, I need to find a way to get my artwork into people's hands. And I like to storytell and comic books was a natural, and it was something I wanted to do when I was like 13. So I came back around, followed this childhood dream of making comic books, and I didn't want to make superhero comics. I never did. So it was a natural way for me to just go into comic books and tell the stories that I wanted to tell. And that's the awesome thing about comics, is I don't need a budget. I don't have to work actors or producers. It's all based on my talent and my ability to storytell. So, yeah, earlier stuff is a little bit rougher than the stuff that's coming out now, but, yeah, I've been able to tell some pretty cool stories using horror as mostly the backdrop for everything I do, with the exception of one book.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: There is a resurgence, I believe, and maybe it's just because of my pay, I'm paying more attention to it, but I feel like there is a resurgence in horror independent horror books out there right now with a lot of big name people writing horror books and having a horror attachment to it, which is pretty cool. Like I said, that's what me I did like a breakdown one week of my ten books I was picking up that week, and it was like seven of them were in the independent horror genre, and three of them were like either superhero or something else.
It's just so much fun for us fans of horror to see this nowadays. And there's again, same thing with movies. There's different styles and different types of these horror comic books. But I mean, you just created or just released the first four issues of seven years in darkness, which you've come on and talked about pre release, or right around the first release of the first issue when it was at CEX, or when it went to CEX, I should say, because you released it pre CEX yourself.
This has obviously been something you'd be working on for quite a bit of time. How has the journey been so far for these four issues that have been released?
[00:14:49] Speaker B: It's been well received, so that always makes me happy. There's actually five issues in the first year.
The last issue is like a standalone story and it takes place between issues three and four. That's probably the best issue that I've produced so far. Currently working on the next year right now.
So I'd like the trajectory to go up. I'd like it to get better with every year.
I'll probably be done introducing most of the characters by the middle of or the beginning of year three, and then it's more of a journey at that point because now you've got all these characters sort of interacting with each other through this seven year span.
But yeah, I think it's been highly successful. The first two issues went to second printings. The first issue went actually to third printing. We decided not to do future printings on three and four because we're doing collected. I'm calling it a progress report.
Kids get sent home with a progress report so that'll have all four issues from year one in it and it will be coming out a month after the shamir worm. So if anybody missed the initial four issues, they'll have a chance to catch up on everything and then we're putting out the trade around San Diego this year or next year. And then I have a Kickstarter going right now, actually for my other title, which is We Don't Kill Spiders. And the graphic novel is it got funded in 15 hours. So that was pretty awesome. Unlocked a stretch goal to help me launch the second volume. So I'll be working on that in seven years in darkness for at least a couple of years together and probably not taking on too much else.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: That's pretty awesome. It's so funny to see being a fan of yours but also being afraid. I love seeing your success. Obviously I was one of the backers at the very beginning of this run on the Kickstarter, but I kept on going back. Every time you share it, I'm like, okay, I backed it, but I want to see where it's at. And obviously as a backer, you want to see the stretch goals and things like that, too. But I just wanted to see the money go up for you because I wanted to see you become more successful with the book.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: I had done murder Hobo back in June, right?
June, July. And we turned it around really fast. Like everybody got their rewards already.
And that was purposeful because I was like, it's going to take a little bit longer to print a hardcover book. I have to do it overseas for cost reasons.
But yeah, I was nervous me and Rich would all were in.
We were leaving Rose City, comic Con in Portland, Oregon. Flying back to Portland, Maine, and I was like, oh, man, I got to launch my kickstarter. And I timed this really poorly. I'm not going to be able to be there for the first couple hours of the Kickstarter launch. We're going to be in the air. So I had my wife actually launch it and I did a whole bunch of pre launch posts and stuff like that. And then when we landed, it was like 50% funded already.
I was very nervous though.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: I think in the future you just now have to not pay attention for the first five or 6 hours and just it will do its thing.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I wish. Honestly, I think that's really bad idea.
Poorly planned it, but yeah, my anxiety level was not through the roof for once. That's the thing. When you're doing crowdsourcing, it's like another job on top of the work that I already do. So I do writing artwork, I handle all the business aspects of this, which nobody talks to you about ahead of time. But if you're going to do this full time, there's like basically two days of my entire week is doing emails and reaching out and paying bills and stuff like that. So buying supplies, it's a constant grind like this. So I work seven days a week, but I work for anyone. So there is trade off and it's a lot of hurry up and wait type work at times, where you do variant covers for companies and you got to wait to hear back from the company whether or not they want alterations. So you're in a certain mode and then you stop and then you got to pivot to another job. Sometimes when you're in a creative field, it's really hard to go from one mode to another. So that can be difficult at times. But overall, the horror stuff just keeps flowing though.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And you throw in the things like convention, things like that.
Throw you for a loop too. Like you were mentioning your eyes were in the air, so those conventions don't help either.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: In a while. Yeah, I cut back a lot this year and next year it'll be even more just because I have to still produce stuff. Right. I'm busy making material. I can't show up to every show because I've got stuff that I need to get out into the world.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Are these two seven years in Darkness and We Don't Kill Spiders, two of your favorite creations you've made over the years? Or is these just ones that are favorite spiders?
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I ended up getting into I had to put it on hold for a while because we were dissolving black Caravan, which was our imprint, and I was waiting to get the rights back and everything like that. So that kind of put everything into a stalled position for it.
And the Kickstarter was actually, in all honesty, a way for me to gauge whether or not there was still an audience for it.
There is.
I will be continuing.
I always saw that as like and I've said it before I could write and draw. We Don't Kill Spiders for the rest of my life and I'd be happy.
Seven Years in Darkness was my escape from the drudgery of not being able to work on We Don't Kill Spiders.
I committed myself to a seven year long project that is growing with my daughter. So she also loves horror.
I took her to see some films this year I probably shouldn't have taken her to.
I took her to see talk to me. And I took her to see Evil Dead rise.
Yeah, that was not the opening sequence for that. I was like, wow, I was a father, right?
She's of course manic laughing, and she's like, yeah, you should never brought a twelve year old to see Evil Dead Rise. I'm like, yeah, well, but she enjoyed it.
So one of the things with Seven Years in Darkness is we talk when she gets home from school and she tells me how her day is going and all the drama and stuff that's unfolding within the middle school. And I think it's just kind of fascinating. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I start remembering what I was doing when I was eleven or twelve, and that's like feeding into the characters that I'm developing. And as those characters get older, their personalities change over time and they start to have different interests. So the book grows with.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: It'S just so much fun to know. Seven Years in Darkness has been a fun journey to see over the past year or two.
Just seeing it grow and seeing the fans seeing people buy it. I mean, Galactic Comics and Vangor, every time he orders issues, they sell out immediately, which is really cool to see. I help Paul every once in a while with some pull lists, like pulling people's pull lists, and I'm like, oh, you're out of Seven Years in Darkness? And he's like, oh gosh, I got to order more every so say that again.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: It's the biggest complaint I have about the book is no one can get their hands on it.
And I'm like, well, you got to take it up with your store, man. Yes.
If your store won't order it, then you got to go somewhere else that has an online ordering system that you can put in your initial order. But yeah, I feel like it's a book that people keep missing the boat on too, for whatever reason, I can't do anything about. I've tried to lead these horses to water. I can't make them drink. So I always there's. There's several retailers that I send emails out to regularly. I believe Paul is on that list, and no one ever responds. So I'm just like, I'm guys, but if you guys don't want to make.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: I would say plenty of me. I always get the one in ten variant from him, so that's at least that ten copies. And you know, Paul's store, Glad to Come, isn't a large comic book store. It's a small store. So he has to obviously think of, but he orders I would say he probably orders 15 copies of each of the things, and then he orders the reprints and all this stuff and still gets to the point where people are like, when you have 30 members on your polis, not everybody reads Horror, not everybody reads Independent. And the fact that he still sells out that quickly, it's pretty fascinating. But he does still have a very few amount, if anybody wants, of the original store variant, he has like, I don't know, three or four left of those that are up on the shelf.
The bob takik. Yeah, those are still there's still a couple of those left. So if anybody wants those, go to Galacticcomicsandcollectibles.com. They are.
So. And then there's we don't kill spiders. We Don't Kill Spiders has been something that when I first found out about Joseph Schmalkey, was like one of those things that I really attracted me to. Your artwork style. That cover of issue one is just a beautiful cover, and the colors on there are just gorgeous to me. And so that to me, has maybe followed your career as a comic book creator. But what do you look for when you create a core comic book? Is there some sort of elements that you want to put in these books specifically, or is just each story is its own thing, or is there something that you're looking to try to get out of each horror story you tell?
[00:25:20] Speaker B: So it's all pretty organic.
One of the things I'm including in the hardcover edition is sort of like, this is the evolution of how this book came to be.
So we don't kill Spiders was like a general idea.
I really like witchy stories. So both seven years and we don't kill. Spiders are very witchy.
With seven years, I made this one academy in the whole world has all the practitioners of black magic study there, right? Well, if that's the case, it's not just a bunch of Americans. It's a worldwide thing. So it really helps.
I'm a history buff. I love reading about mythology as well, and particular cultures, mythologies. So I'm able to tap into all these major world religions and use their versions of angels and demons, monsters, and how would they practice magic that would be slightly different from Western magic. So that's that with We Don't Kill Spiders, the initial idea was I was reading a story about the Witch of Enoch. If you don't know what that is, you can look it up. I'm not going to go into it here, but she was a necromancer, and I was like, oh, and that's like a pretty common trope in role playing and stuff like that. And I believe at the time I was playing Diablo or something like that, and there's a necromancer class. And I was like, this is so interesting, the idea that you can speak with the dead and you're not just a diviner, you're a medium, and all these other things. So the initial concept was going to be modern day, and the necromancer was kind of like a street urchin that had lost their mind from the dead, constantly barraging them with messages and stuff. And then this necromancer was going to be hunting down a serial killer with the help of a detective that was more of like a James Elroy styled hard boiled cop. And I don't know. It wasn't working the initial script, because it was modern day. And it just sat on a back burner for like a year.
I wasn't really tapping into too many horrific elements, and I was like, yeah, you can't get away with that today because people have cell phones. They'd call this shit in yada yada.
I was always really attracted to sort of the sword and sorcery genre, know, Conan the Barbarian, stuff like that. And I was, oh, I kind of want to do that. But I like to have my stories take place in a physical world that we can identify, right? So it's sort of like Marvel and DC. Marvel. The heroes are in New York City, but in DC. They're in Gotham or Metropolis. Never really liked Gotham or Metropolis because they're not real places.
But I can level with the X Men living in upstate New York and Spider Man living in Queens and all this other stuff. So, yeah, I was like, all right. And I found one of these capitals of the Viking age and some small towns around it. And I sort of built this town that is historically accurate. I never say what the town's name is, but I'm like, all right, this is where it's all happening.
And I looked at did some history diving on how the hierarchy of Viking culture worked.
And once I started doing that, I was like, that's where this is going to take place. This whole thing is going to take place here.
That was the levels of where it went. And then I got to play around with deities that don't exist or that might exist in other cultures and added like, a serial killer with a Sonny Bean type background. And if you don't know what Sonny Bean is, he was the head of a Cannibalistic family. They based on Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre on The Legend of Sonny Bean kind of thing.
So that character there's, like a portion of her I don't want to give anything away, but a portion of that character that Sonny Bean Cannibalistic cult is tied into the we don't kill spiders story.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: I love it. I love hearing it. I love hearing it from the horse's mouth, as they say. But yeah, it's fine. Is this book going to be available for people outside of the Kickstarter, or is this, like this trade?
[00:30:18] Speaker B: One of the things that's happening now, and I haven't really announced it yet, but there's an atomic hearts. Comic comics, instagram and Facebook page.
That's how I'm going to be doing direct marketing, direct distribution. And those are properties that I just own. I'm acting as my own publisher basically starting next year. And so hardcover editions should be available, but there won't be a lot of them.
There'll be a definite cut off. Like, this is the quantity that I have to sell on the direct market.
And it'll only be a couple of hundred copies. But it's a hard bound edition. It's a little bit pricier than a comic book.
The idea is that after I put out this hardcover edition, I'd like it to sell out hopefully on the direct market because only so many people are coming to the Kickstarter, right?
But after those sell out, then I should have a budget to reprint it again as a soft cover edition. And I can make that more of an open order where however many copies are ordered will be filled type thing. And then the idea is that October of next year, you'll see issue one come out of We Don't Kill Spiders, volume two.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: And is that just going to be volume two in number one, or is it going to be a number five? Is it going to be the continuation?
[00:31:48] Speaker B: I'll probably be like another four to five issue series for volume two.
See, I would love to do issue five, issue six, seven. But the thing is, no one's going to buy it, all right?
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Because it's been so long, too, since you've actually released those in single issues.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
The market is designed to only buy issue ones.
Yeah, it kind of sucks.
I would love to have something that was more ongoing. We're going to test that with Murder Hobo. The current duration of series, basically as long as Ryan wants to draw it, I'll keep writing scripts and we'll see how far we can get with it.
But I don't think numbers will ever go up from what they are.
I used to love tracking down 342 of the X Men or whatever it was and being fine with that being the number of it.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Well, they're doing that with Skybound, is doing that with Transformers is Transformers number one. But GI. Joe is like 302 because they're taking over. Yeah, but I'm like that's so confusing to so many people who are like, I didn't read Transformers comics, but I was like, I'll give it a shot. It's Daniel Warren Johnson. I love all his work and I'll give it a shot. And I really liked Transformers number one. But I was like, I don't know if you're taking over 302. Is it a new story? Is it a continuation? Whatever it is, it was just weird to me. But I feel like we one kills betters needs number one, legacy number five, like Marvel.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that I have considered in the past is doing legacy numbering. But I look at my series all of them as being more like hellboy. Right? He'd five to six issues, and it'd be like Seeds of Destruction. That's that series, so it won't be called Volume Two. My wife's suggestion was that I actually just finish at least the first couple of issues before I give it its subtitle.
Because originally I was going to call it Goat with a Thousand Young, but that's like the longest title in history.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Especially with it we don't go Spiders. And then that it's like, if it was at least one word, if it.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Was like the yeah, it's already a sentence statement title. So it's yeah. Same thing with seven years in darkness. We were thinking about doing something like that, and I think it was Andy Schmidt, the publisher, he's like, no, we're just going to call it Year Two. I was like, okay. Yeah. He's like, yeah, it'll be year three, and then it'll be year we. You got to kind of simplify it at some point. So if I can find a one word phrase for Volume Two, I will. Or it might just be called Volume Two.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: There you go. We don't know. We'll find out right when it comes out.
Tease it a little bit. Leave him wanting more.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: But yeah, right now. And I was getting discouraged about the pages. I'm like, man, there's just not a hell of a lot happening here. There's only like one panel on every page. That's creepy. But that's the thing you're trying to do with a horror comic.
You can go for the gross out, which of course I do.
But really, if you're trying to create suspense and stuff like that, it's a lot of people looking terrified in the darkness, walking around hearing noises, and then all of a sudden you get this one panel revealed that's not maybe totally revealing of the thing. That's like hanging out in the darkness or the terror. So creating that sort of element, it's all about your page turns. It's all about the mood lighting. And sometimes you're just drawing some pages where people are walking around like, everything's fine and then stuff goes awry and that's not that interesting to draw. But you have to draw it, and.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: You'Re still enjoying being the creator, drawing and writing these books. Like, we don't kill spiders and stuff.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: I'm not going to lie, I'm probably a little bit of a control freak. So there are people that I am intending on working with for two other projects right now besides so Murder Hobo is with Ryan G. Brown. He's taken over as the partner on that book. Jason lynch is still co created by him. So the Kickstarter, he actually got paid out of that because that's how we do it.
But yeah, it's just me and Ryan working on it now. And then I'm working with JK. Woodward on a sort of science fiction cyberpunk meets the Old Gods book called One Last Trick.
And I've vetted an artist who hasn't fully committed yet to working with me on another project. It fell apart. I had another artist attached and that person couldn't keep the commitment, so I had to move on and find someone else. And again, We Don't Kill Spiders and Seven Years In Darkness are the two titles that I'm focused on just doing interiors and writing those stories. So I have other stories that I want to tell, but I can't do the artwork for them because I'm already over committed to these other. So I figure I can produce like eight issues a year. Quality writing and drawing, I can't do more than that, so I can write more, but I can't draw interiors. And I did meet with Dark Horse and DC Comics at Rose City and had them and Phil Jimenez and had them all review my books and there weren't a ton of critiques that they had that were terrible. They all seemed to really enjoy what I'm doing, but it also solidified. I don't need to really work with another publisher or anything at this point.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah, you've been around. I think your name carries some clout too. You have put out good number of stuff that's high quality and so people like I said, that's why the Kickstarter. I feel like the Kickstarter did well because A, they're both murder Hobo and We Don't Kill Spiders have fans from before as well as your new fans that you've potentially gotten with Seven Years In Darkness and other stuff that you've released in shops and met the cons that added to that as well. I'm the kind of guy who is 09:00 in the morning when you launch the Kickstarter. I got to make sure I get my pledge in immediately. But there are going to be people who want the immediate satisfaction of going into a local comic book shop or going to your website or some website ordering it.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: A lot of people don't use Kickstarter.
There are some people that only shop on Kickstarter and then there are other people that they're never going to hear about me unless it's in their comic book shop because they're just not utilizing social media or anything like that. And that's fine.
And that's part of the reason there is a direct market that still works is because the majority of people, they're really just too busy to do all this online crowdsourcing stuff and I don't fault them for it. So, yeah, I think everybody that backs the Kickstarter is getting something unique. Of course there is the Kickstarter exclusive book plates, which I'll never produce again. Those are all signed and numbered.
When you're doing crowdsourcing, you really have to have something special on there that they can't get anywhere else ever again. That's a key.
But yeah, other than that, I trimmed down the whole project because it's not overstuffed. There's not 20 different covers to choose from, there's not 50 different reward tiers. I made seven total and one of them was a one and done tier.
And then a lot of people will now consume their comics digitally and I've gotten quite a bit of digital backers so I thought that was really interesting as well. And I think everybody will be happy with what they get at the end.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: Of this, which is awesome. I was so excited for mine to come in. I do have my Murder Hobo Kickstarter stuff did come in already, which is pretty cool. I love that.
Excited for it.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: Good shape. I've gotten like four complaints that the post office said play hacky sack with.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Their great shape, honestly. So I'm very happy. I've had a couple of times where I've always been scared about that kind of stuff too. But for some reason even my stuff from Ben that comes from Portland area as well, off the Bangor is not usually as fine. I don't mean sometimes I've tracked it and it's tracked all the way to freaking Alaska and back, weirdly enough. But yeah, it came out great. Came out perfect condition.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Oh, it's just yeah. So finishing up here. Horror is a huge thing in my life now and that's why we did this Horror Week kind of thing over here at the podcast. And we're obviously talking to some other people in the horror genre. What's one movie that you guys, like you and your wife have on the horror docket every single season or a Halloween season that you have to watch every year?
[00:41:14] Speaker B: That's a good one.
I don't think my wife has a movie in particular that she has to watch every usually this year I've been trying to like I said, I've been watching like Hulu and Paramount and stuff like that for the new stuff. Because honestly, I think as a society we're getting too much into our member berries. If you ever watch Southbrook and want to know what that's? But we're not into trying out anything new. We just want to be comfortable with being refred the same old thing. And I'm guilty of it too, right? Like I've probably seen the thing 200 times or something. There is other cinema in the world to check out. So this is the year that I'm trying to get that mode. Listen, I watch horror movies year round, I watch a lot of them too.
But this year I'd like to try something new and something different. So like for example, I've been watching Yellow Jackets, which isn't necessarily horror, but it's definitely in that it's one of those subgenres, right? And I think it's know, I don't know why I didn't give it a try sooner. And the stuff that I said that was on Hulu, there was one like no one will save you, or something like that. I thought that was fun. It's the greatest movie on earth. But I gave it a try and I enjoyed it.
I think everybody should listen horror is booming right now. It's got the most creative ideas in it. You can see something you've never seen before, so give something new a try this year is my advice.
I would say my all time favorite still gives me kind of vibes is Nightmare on Elm Street Part One.
Freddie is absolutely terrifying. He's not joking around.
He's got a creepy vibe.
You can't ever really make out what he looks like. It wasn't until later films that you could really make out like how burned up he was.
Yeah, I would say that's your go to every Halloween is at least watch Nightmare on Elm Street Part One once.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: I agree with you in the idea of trying new things because I feel like the past two years has been like that right around the season when I get in the moon. Yes, I watch horror movies all year long as well. But this season is when I'm like, that's what I watch the majority of and it goes the opposite. So in May I might watch one or two horror movies in a month and a bunch of other movies. Whereas in October it's one or two other movies and a bunch of horror movies. But the past two years have been about there's so many horror movies out there that yet are either new or haven't seen before that I just like, okay, I need to see these so I can go back and watch some of these other good horror movies. But I could also watch some I hadn't seen before and I don't know the ending. And I think that's where I'm leaning towards in 2022 and 23 around this season is trying to watch the newer things. And I just watched totally killer. Is that the one that was on Hulu or is it Paramount, one of Totally Killer or something like that? It's a time travel killer horror movie slasher movie.
It's like Back to the Future meets like I don't even know, it's stupid silly. But again, I enjoy it because, I don't know, it's just this time of year I could watch a bunch of movies that are not that good and still enjoy them if they fall into that genre or subgenre of horror.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Have you seen society yet?
[00:44:55] Speaker A: No, I have not.
[00:44:57] Speaker B: Society is pretty good because you're saying that you're newer to it. That is not going to come across your table easily. Society, it's an intro and then last cut of The Dead.
Have you seen trained up? Asan.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: My wife and I are watching that this month. I have not seen that yet, but it's on the list.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: Oh, that's a fantastic film.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Yes, I've heard that. Wife. I want to watch it with my wife. And I just happen to do a lot of movies on my own and so that one that's a way for we have time together, kids asleep, stuff like that.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: And the Netflix series Midnight Mass is great. I watched it last month again, it's very cool on a particular part of the genre.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: John Carpenter has that new series coming out, too, that's based on true stories.
It's coming out on Hulu, I think it is John Carpenter something.
What is it called?
[00:45:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And he's like the last of the great horror directors, right? Because Wes Craven and Romero are both gone.
Guillermo del Toro's cabinet of Curiosities is amazing.
But yeah, anything Michael Flannery does, I think that's his name. He did haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor and then he did the midnight club, I think it was. All of his stuff is awesome. It's all horror based.
And then his newest one is coming out. It's the Edgar Allan Poe House of Usher.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: So definitely give that a gander. I just bought a whole bunch of books, too, that were like one reading, you have one little sitting and it's horror. And I think reading horror is actually a lot better if you're a creative, because first off, you're getting another voice to listen to. But the way that they set the imagery in your mind is always fantastic. But I found like 20 different books that were about 75 to 125 pages, each one's unique.
There's a lot of new horror coming out all the time. And this is the month to check out that stuff. Also on my daily walks. Every day I listen to Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities or Lore. I listen to Morbid podcast. That's always a pretty good one. That's these two women from Fall River, Mass. And they cover a lot of serial killers and Spooky.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Is I just Googled what's the name of that series? It's coming out. It's called suburban screams. It's on Peacock with John Carpenter and it's some sort of like true crime horror thing. But Google gives you this other questions people have asked about John Carpenter. Someone literally asked which is better, the Thing, 1982 or the 2011.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: So the creator of the 2011 version has come out and fully said, like they screwed up because they had the practical effects being done by the same company that did them in the 80s. But then they threw digital effects over the top of it because they thought that's what the audience wanted.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: The paranoia isn't really in that movie either, the way that it was in the because people are who was the thing? And at the end, are they both the thing or is one of them the Thing? And you always hear the child. You can't see his breath or some stuff. So he was clearly the thing at some point.
I don't know.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: I'm currently halfway through Salem's Lot. I've never read any Stephen King books, honestly, ever. Which is one of those things that as a Mainer, I feel like people hate me for it. But no, I'm reading Salem's Lot. I love it. It's great. I actually just downloaded on my prime membership has it. Amazon just did this thing with called Creature Features and it's like a five or six mini stories or short stories from like Joe Hill, Grady Hendrix, Josh Mallorman.
Who is the other one? So some of these guys who have written some substantially good horror books over the know josh Mallorman did Bird Box, joe Hill, obviously Joe Hill has done a bunch of stuff. Who was the other one that was in there too? There was someone else. I literally just download or just put it on my prime because it's included in your prime membership. So I was like, I'll read these, they're all like, I don't know, hundred something pages, something like that.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Honestly, shorter stories for horror are awesome as well.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Who is Paul Tremblay who did Cabin in the woods? He actually just said that movie came out, whatever it was. And then Jason Ma and Chandler Baker. There's like five or six stories that are doing that too. And a lot of times nowadays I'm reading I'm doing some of them via audiobook, which is great too. And some of them have a pretty good person who is reading it, or they have sound effects in the background or things like that to add to the experience of reading. Because that's another thing horror is one of the reasons between difference between horror comics or novels and horror movies is that you don't have sound effects and you don't have music and all that stuff to add to the ambiance of reading it. So you have to actually try to put that into some sort of either descriptive words in a novel or in the imagery in a comic book, which can be difficult. But Joseph is nailing it and give.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Them good direction on what you're looking to create there. And then it's on the letter, which is a whole other talent entirely.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: You use pretty good lettering. We're big fans of DC Hopkins so we don't kill spiders.
Lettering by DC is amazing.
[00:51:19] Speaker B: Did you hear what Eddie Gein done?
[00:51:22] Speaker A: Yes, I read that last year.
[00:51:24] Speaker B: That's horror and it's based basically in reality.
Of course, there's some liberties with hallucinating and seeing things through his own perspective, but the story itself is nonfiction. And if you're into that, horrific nonfiction because the truth is always more horrifying.
Double in the White City by Eric Larson.
It's all about HH. Holmes. If you haven't read that, fantastic read if you're into history as well. But a great Halloween type thing to listen to if you have an audiobook of it.
Do you know who H. H. Holmes is?
[00:52:11] Speaker A: I don't think so. Dane doesn't sound familiar.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: He was like the most prolific serial killer in American history. And he's been tied to being Jack the Ripper and everything. I think it's kind of bull. But he had a murder in Chicago during the World's Fair and there were just like greased up walls in it. And he was the only one that knew the layout of the building. So he could pull out like a wall, gas you in your room, then drop you down this chute, and then he would sell your skeleton to medical universities. So he was like a con artist. He was a thief, and he was a serial killer and highly fascinating story. And it all takes place all of Eric Larson's books take place with a true crime and a world, some sort. So he's got like eight or nine nonfiction stories out there that are great to read. But Devil in the White City is the best.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: Shamir Worm comes out in January. Is that correct? Is that the tentative dates for that?
[00:53:22] Speaker B: Yeah, Lunar featured it on the COVID thing, which I thought was really cool. I did not ask for that.
It's always good to have some sort of recognition for the work you're doing. I also think it didn't hurt that the Solicitations are in October and it's clearly a horror story.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: Yes, that's really funny. I don't know I saw online, but Colin Bunn's Legacy of Violence volume Two has my poll quote on the back of the Trade from the website. And also I was just reading the digital advanced copy of it. I was like, skimming through. I got to the very and normally I know the end of the story. Okay. It says the end at the bottom or like, to be continued. And I'm like, okay, I'm reading the digital copy. I just scroll up and do a different book or whatever. But I was like, oh, I'll see what the back of the COVID looks like. Or sometimes these advanced copies don't even have them. Sometimes this just literally starts at the panel and goes to the last panel on them. And I scroll through and I'm like, it's like 1030 at night. I'm looking at it. I'm like, holy shit. What the hell? This is awesome.
I told Paul's going to go to Galactic Comics and turn all their volume twos around. So the back is facing out.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Well, you got to use that now. Want to get boats on the back?
[00:54:33] Speaker A: Exactly.
Shamir Worm is out in January, which is awesome. Again, you're going to be able to look for we don't kill spiders and so on, stuff like that. You also have a cover coming out for Tinian's new book, right?
[00:54:46] Speaker B: Yeah, the Deviant next month comes out.
We're just waiting to get Final Trade dressing on it before I can really show it off. I've shown the art, but we wanted it dressed because it is newer title. I'm not into the virgin cover, to be honest with you. No, I prefer my stuff to be dressed so that 90% of the people that are walking up to me at a show, they don't know what it is that I'm selling. So if it's a virgin cover and I have to explain it, I'm kind of wasting their time a little bit. You always have to have a good elevator pitch for these things. But the Deviant looked really cool. I've never drawn a creepy killer Santa before.
The original version of it was denied because they thought I made him too fat.
I had to make him skinny. But I saw Megan Hitchinson just had her variant come out. That one looked creepy and cool as he james just keeps churning out these awesome horror stories. So I'm really curious. They didn't show me any of the interiors for this. It was just the general concept of the Claus.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: So that's amazing.
Yeah, because, I mean, the World tree was amazing, too. And the trade of that comes out right around the same time as Deviant comes out on the first issue of that one too.
[00:56:06] Speaker B: Still in issues and I think by the time it's done, the trade will come out next Christmas. Something like that.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: Yeah. It's so cool. Two of my favorite seasons are back to creepy, horrific serial killer Santa Claus is like meets my top. So when I saw them tease that, I was like texting Paul at Galactic being like, oh my God. Because I love tinian stuff, I love creepy stuff, and I love Santa Claus. So you add all that together and you hit a home run there for me.
I'm excited for it for sure.
[00:56:41] Speaker B: That was my newest variant that I've done this year. Now is what I call the dry zone, where most of the companies don't put out. It's garbage time for you won't see number ones come out again until March.
That's when all the new big series will start as March, April, May, somewhere in there. And then that builds into some sort of San Diego.
There's another big release of stuff. October is pretty much the last month that you're going to see the really big number ones coming out. Of course, James Tinian much very popular writer, so his first issue coming out in November isn't really going to hurt him, especially since it takes place during so makes sense.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: That's pretty awesome. I'm excited for that. And going forward, it's going to be amazing to see more we don't kill spiders and more. Seven years in darkness.
I'm so excited.
[00:57:43] Speaker B: April. April is issue seven years in darkness, year two. Issue one comes out then, and how this book comes out is bimonthly, but for some reason it always takes longer. That's not my doing.
The publisher has to amp up their game, I guess. But issue four, I think is supposed to come out this month at some point.
[00:58:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:58:12] Speaker B: I haven't heard anybody see it anywhere yet, but yeah, it's supposed to be out soon. So keep your eyes on your shelves for issue four. Shamir Worm comes out in January. The progress report will be out in February. So if you missed issues one through four and you enjoyed the Shamir Worm, you'll want to catch up and see how everything got to where it was. And then year two, number one comes out in April.
[00:58:42] Speaker A: That's awesome. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Happy Halloween and happy anniversary to you and your wife, and I'm so happy to talk to you again. We love having you on here and chatting. Thanks for taking time out of your day to talk horrific things and more here on the podcast. Thank you very much.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: Are we going to party at Bangor this week?
[00:59:02] Speaker A: I guess mean, I don't know for sure. I got the whole weekend set. I mean, my wife knows I'm not, so she's she's pregnant right now. So it's next year's convention up here that's going to be a little bit more difficult. Now we only have a two year old who's pretty good, and so he goes to bed.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: You're amping up for punishment. Is this the second or third child?
[00:59:22] Speaker A: Second child.
[00:59:23] Speaker B: All right, last one.
It's when three and four that I'm like, you're in trouble.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: I don't want to be outnumbered. That's me personally. I like the idea that I have one kid, one parent. I have one, she has one. We can hold on. We can share duties.
[00:59:42] Speaker B: My life changed when both of my kids finally entered school, and now they're both in middle school together, so it's fascinating to watch them grow. And I did get complaints early on about my oldest daughter drawing so many scary things until we had a parent teacher conference where I had to tell them what I did for a living. And then I think it was the guidance counselor just got up and packed up her stuff, and they're like, where are you going? She's like, this all makes sense now. There's nothing wrong with this kid.
[01:00:17] Speaker A: We have an idea. We now know why.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I was like, wait, did you guys think she was like, possessed or something?
[01:00:27] Speaker A: Okay. The priest walks away from they were standing outside. The priest is outside ready to do exorcism. No, they're gone. We got it. We understand now.
[01:00:34] Speaker B: Above our fireplaces, Jason Voorhees and Fredy Krueger. Like giant pictures of them. I'm like, this is our is. This is how we live. It's a constant state of horror, which is funny because Ruby dresses in all black loves and watches all the horror stuff. And my other kid is like pink and ponies and fairy tales, and she can't stand horror. And we took her to see that movie Talk to Me, because we all watched the Trick. I want to see that. And at the end of it, she wouldn't talk to me for like an hour. She was just like, pissed. And I was like, what? And she's like, you know how I feel about movies like that. And I was just like, I didn't know I was going to end that way.
Not giving anything away. You should see the movie. It's good.
[01:01:24] Speaker A: Well, now I. Feel like I have to see it before I see you on Friday so we can talk about it.
[01:01:29] Speaker B: But yeah, that's one last thing I can say about horror is you can never predict how a horror movie is going to end. Most action movies, you can figure out how this is going to go down, right? You know how John Wick's going to end, you know how The Avengers is going to end, but now you have no idea how a horror movie like it can end funny, it can end sad. It can end horribly. 90% of the time, the monster is still around and it's probably going to kill the person off in the next movie.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: But thank you so much, Joe, for taking time out of your day to talk to us. I look forward to seeing you this weekend.
And yeah, keep up the good work.
[01:02:14] Speaker B: Thanks, man, I appreciate it.
