Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandtites.com. I'm your host, Justin Soderberg, back for another episode with David M. Bouer, his third time on this podcast, but this time around to talk about the one, the only ghostbusters. David is one of the writers on Ghostbusters back in town. Over at Dark Horse Comics X is a four issue miniseries that is going to happen in between Ghostbusters afterlife and the upcoming Ghostbusters frozen Empire. A wonderful story about using characters that are in the first of these two movies that the newer Ghostbusters movie, I should say first, but actually the third in this line of Ghostbusters movies, Ghostbusters afterlife. And so we talked that. We talked a little bit of Kanto, a little bit of killer queens, a little bit of everything in between. David is the writer on this Ghostbusters back in town, which is available March 27. So make sure you tell your lcs that you want it and pick up all the issues and then go see Frozen Empire on March 22 at theaters everywhere. But before you do, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blue sky, as well as rate review, subscribe, all those things over on Apple, Spotify, and all your major podcasting platforms. You can see the video portion on capesandtites.com as well as our YouTube channel. This is David Boer talking in Ghostbusters back in town from Dark Horse comics right here on capes and Tights podcast. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome back, David, to the podcast. How are you today?
[00:01:35] Speaker B: I'm doing great. I'm super excited to be back here talking about fun new comics.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: I know, right? It's just fun. It's funny because you've come on to talk your comics before, and this is still your comic, but it's someone else's property that you're doing talking Ghostbusters here. And it was kind of funny because it's so official with these things, too. I got to get rid of these questions and things we talk about by the higher ups. Make sure you don't say anything you're not supposed to say, right?
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yes. And yet I still end up saying just whatever I want.
The consequences come or they don't come. I don't know. So far so good.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: So far so good. Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: We just sort of wing it and see what happens, right?
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. But before we get jumped right into blossom, what have you been up to? You've been doing conventions, other stuff, obviously. You've been working on dungeons and dragons. What else have you been so, yeah.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: So dungeons and dragons has been coming out the last couple of months. The con circuit has not really started in earnest yet. I think we're looking at maybe Wondercon. I'm not sure when this is going to air, but Wondercon is sort of the big, I think, first show that really kicks off the con season in March. I think it's the end of March. Last weekend in March. Yeah, this year. So I'll be going to that, but not tabling or anything.
It's been a lot of head down writing work as we start this new year. So Ghostbusters, when we talk about it, it's going to be kicking off at the end of March, right around the same time as Wondercon.
So, yeah, I think that's going to be really the big start of my getting out of the cave, as you can see, to actually rejoin the human race after head down after a chosen.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Time away from human race. Whereas before, a couple of years ago, it was a forced time away from human race, now we're actually just choosing to take time away from the human race and do things and work on stuff. But, yeah. So you're doing Ghostbusters. It's pretty cool. When I saw, I saw that they were doing another comic book and things like that, and then it was connected to the movies and that you were working on it. I was like, okay, first of all, home run right here. But then obviously, your other creative team on it, too, is dynamite as well. So it's not just you nail it here. So Ghostbusters is back in town, comes at the end of March, and is connecting the two films. Am I right about that? Is that the idea?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Yes. So it's loosely connected. We were given a lot of freedom to sort of do what we wanted to.
The setup is basically after Ghostbusters afterlife, which takes place in Oklahoma. The Spangler family, which is Egon's daughter and grandchildren, and Gary Gruberson. If you haven't watched Ghostbusters afterlife, please, anybody who's listening, please go watch it.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Go watch it and come.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: It's a, it's just a fantastic tribute to everything that came before, while also pushing in a brand new direction. So our direction on the comic was there was this new movie that was coming that for a long time we didn't have the title, so it's now Frozen Empire is coming. And in Frozen Empire, the family, the Spangler family, has moved to Manhattan, into the firehouse. So they've become sort of this new Ghostbusters team picking up the equipment and the mantle from the original Ghostbusters team that we know from the. So the comic takes place between, I don't want to spoil too much of it, but basically we're kicking off this new life for the Spangler family in Manhattan as they're sort of coming and going, moving into the firehouse for the very first time.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: It's awesome. I got a chance to look at it. Caitlin over at Darkware sent me the first issue to look at. It's wonderful. The artwork's amazing in it. I think the story is great. And are you working with Greg pack on this? What's the connection there on that?
[00:05:40] Speaker B: So Greg sort of did an outline for the story, and I kind of took up the mantle to write the scripts and work with Jason Reitman and Gil Keenan, who's directing the new Frozen empire. The Ghost Corps team, sort of the team that oversees the Ghostbusters franchise. They're very involved in all of these stories, so I got the chance to really work closely with them in creating a comic book that is something that we all just love and can't wait to get out there.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Have you been a lifelong Ghostbusters fan? I mean, is David like, a fan of Ghostbusters? From a young child to this? Is this like a dream come true?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. The reality is that Greg and know Cage fought for this. No, I'm just wonderful.
No.
So I've worked with dark horse for a long time on killer queens, and now Kanto's there with them.
And killer queens sort of was what got me on the radar with this editorial team and Sony and Ghost corps and all the folks behind the Ghostbusters sort of universe.
So now I've just completely lost my train of thought. What was your question?
[00:07:00] Speaker A: How did you get behind this is your Ghostbusters fan? How did you get into this?
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Sometimes these opportunities come up, and it's not something that you're not in the fandom. So you're like, do I want to do, am I going to do this justice if I'm not, like, a huge fan of this? You kind of find your way in for Ghostbusters. When they came to me, I was like, look, I have watched Ghostbusters two, which was my entry because it came out in 89 and I was ten years old.
I came to the original Ghostbusters sort of after it had come out, because I think it's 84, but Ghostbusters two with Vigo the Carpathian and the pink slime under the city and the sewers, that was, like, my thing, and I watched it so many times when it came on cable as a kid, I watched the Ghostbusters cartoon. It was after school Saturday morning. I loved the cartoon. I ate the cereal. We bought the Ghostbusters cereal from the. Loved that. So when they said Ghostbusters, I was like, of course. I have such a nostalgic love for this whole franchise. And then I had watched afterlife before they had even talked to me about it, and I really loved what they were doing. So I was like, yeah, of course I want to come into this new aspect of the universe, sort of this forward looking new direction, and be a part of it and being a part of this larger, I keep saying universe.
It's like family. Ghostbusters is all about family, right? Whether it's your found family or your family by blood. And to come into this Ghostbusters family has been just like a dream come true moment.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: With the dream come true must come also some sort of anxiety or stress to the idea that Ghostbusters has a family or following. I wouldn't say to the extent of maybe Star Trek or Star wars or things like that. And they have a big following, and people love the movies and the comics and stuff, but in the animated show, but to do something wrong, meaning that I've talked to people who write Star wars or Star Trek, and it's like sometimes they have this anxiety of stress that there's a lot of people who could judge what you're doing and how you go about things that this is not. You're ruining Ghostbusters by doing a certain thing. Does that go into your mind at all, or do you just tell the stories that you need to tell and that make the most sense in your mind?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: In, I think about the fan reaction, but in the way that sort of how I would react as a fan, there's always going to be those fans that are sort of unhappy, and then you get the really sort of unhinged ones who are like, we don't want any of this to reflect what's actually going on in our world. We want 1984 back, please. Thank you. Yes.
If those fans get pissed off, I don't care.
But I think about it, and as a fan, if I'm happy, if I'm satisfied, because I'm a fan of the franchise, so I know what makes me happy. And if folks aren't happy, then it isn't a zero sum game. In Star Trek, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, any of that, by writing a comic book that you don't love is not taking a piece away from the 1984 movie. We're not removing, stay puffed from the universe forever and ever, so you can never experience that again.
It is not a plus one, minus one sort of scenario. So you get back to zero.
I think folks are going to like what we do. And we also have the luxury. These are fairly new characters, right? This family is sort of new characters, and we introduce the old characters and sort of give that fun service to those characters everybody loves. But ultimately, this is kind of us going in a new direction with it. So we kind of have a lot of freedom to just sort of play around with who these characters are and how they fight ghosts because it's a different dynamic. Four blue collar guys versus a family. And it's a family dynamic now with teenagers.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: And I can see where you're coming from. Then I was thinking, as I asked that question and you were talking, was that Star wars, people who write Star wars comics are writing comics that include Luke Skywalker in it as a main character. And they're telling new stories with Luke. So if they screw that up to someone else's Luke, you're touching their initial love, whereas this, it's the next generation of stories, not. It's not like you're going through and adding on to the original Ghostbusters. You're adding on to the Ghostbusters afterlife that happened only a few years ago. That has only been in the minds of people for a few years now, not the 84 version of it.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Right. And Ghostbusters, I think, is different in kind from this other franchises because we haven't been sort of saturated with ghostbusters. So I think fans for the most part, are happy to have more ghostbusters. Some might be better than others, you might like some more than you like others. But the fact that we're getting more, my gut is that the fandom is excited to have it be expanding rather than being protective about what exists out there.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I can see that. I definitely think that I use the afterlife movie. Talking to so many people about if another franchise is going to reboot or reset or do something with their movie franchise that this is the basis they should use is the afterlife movie because it's just so well done. Like if I said if any other movie ever wanted to do a reboot but didn't want to touch the original, didn't want to say the original didn't exist, that we'rebooting the whole thing. The afterlife blueprint is like something that people should use because it's just so well done because it existed. But we're going to move on and tell our own ghost stories. We're going to do it now. This is all there. We're just going to do our new stuff. And I think that's such a perfect way of doing it. I was thinking to myself that they could do that. They talked about the new Jurassic park. They could do it with that if they ever wanted to. Touch back to the future. Back to the future. You could use like Marty's kids or doc, right?
You could go forward with that. Yeah.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: There's 35 years that passed between the original Ghostbusters and afterlife, right? So it was 84 to 2019. So 35 years. This is going to be 40 years this year.
And embracing that time lapse with introducing the new family to me was such a, it's such a clever and sort of, it's so clever because it's really obvious to me that you just embraced this new generation. If you want to get a new generation of fans, you just give them characters that they can see themselves as when their grandfather was a ghostbuster in 84. Because honestly, the teenagers now their grandparents are getting to be us, which is really these eighty s kids are having grandkids who are teenagers. So ghosts and busting ghosts is terrifying. But nothing is quite as terrifying as realizing that you're old enough to be a grandparent.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Luckily, I'm a few years away from that. I was born in 86, so I'm only two years past when this movie came out. My second child is about to be here. So see, I have a three year old and I have one that's due in March. So I got a while before I'm going to be a grandparent.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yes, that's true. So the kids in the 80s are.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Not quite grandparents, some people, but they're getting clumbia. Think about it. If I had friends of mine who have 1819 year olds, that's not like they had a kid at 18 or 19 years old when they were fresh out of high school. And that means that if they got married, like my parents got married at 18 or 19 years old and had a kid, they're not that far off from being a grandparent. So you're not wrong on that. It's just I'm thinking to myself, I started a little late with the kids thing. So like, I have a three year old, so I'm not worried about that for a number of years. But in the end, Dave, you think the possibility I could show them afterlife before I even show them Ghostbusters? My kids, you know what mean like, it's possibility that I end up putting that movie on because it's so much more not kid friendly, but there's people they can see on the screen.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: There's ways for them to identify with what's going on in afterlife. Whereas in the original Ghostbusters, there just wasn't the kid entry point. It was a fun sort of family movie, but it was all starring.
You can't do that now with movies where I guess you can, but it's very hard to.
I look from my perspective as a writer and pitching ideas and things, and it's very hard to get a movie going for families all ages where you don't have at least some of those characters that kids can identify with. So I think you're right. I think showing afterlife to kids, getting them hooked in and saying, well, you know, all these things they talked about and Egon, Phoebe's and Trevor's grandfather, this is what they did in the show them the movie. Of course we'll snicker because it's all dated and nobody's using cell phones.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Part of the charm to the whole movie, though, is that in the aspect of having these contraptions that are doing things that nowadays, it'd all be like if it was designed and created now it looks so different and all that. But Star wars lived off that, thrived off that with the idea that the first three movies in the story of Star wars were all these special effects, whereas the those movies obviously had different special effects and they actually prequel. So in a sense, I could be like, see this and then watch the prequel because it's older and stuff. But yeah, I don't know. I just feel like there's that fan service to see the older characters in there. But in the same sense, having characters that are basically similar characters, if not to stranger things where kids are like jumping and thriving over stranger things right now. So it meets so many different things and entry points for people that Ghostbusters now is talked about all the time again. And that's what's cool about it. And that adding in the comic book aspect of it even makes me even happier. But you've dealt with a lot of, you've written young adult stuff. You obviously written stuff like Kanto and stuff like that. So you have this ability to talk to younger kids or younger people as well as you've written some more of adult things. So you have that ability to do both. Are you balancing that with this new back in town like we just talked about with the movie having a little bit of both. Like, a little bit of attention to younger people and to the people who have been the 84 fans.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So a couple of, you know, I've been talking to some other folks for publicity, and a couple of people have mentioned balancing humor and horror. Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is.
I never really described it that way, but that's exactly what Ghostbusters is. It's this beautiful mashup of humor and horror. So it's scary, but it's also super funny. So I can't tell you the joy that I took in writing the comic book and balancing these two things, putting in these scary monsters that know, in ghosts and ghost creatures and just like, blanketing Manhattan with creepy crawlies and then being able to write Gary's one liners and Phoebe's dad jokes and just know.
Callie just rolling her eyes at Trevor and Trevor just stumbling, know, trying to be as cool as he can be and not succeeding very much.
That's Ghostbusters to me. They can face these giant terrors, the things that go bump in the night, and you always know somebody's going to throw in there. That's a line that's just going to cut that tension and make you giggle before they take out the bad guy.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And then having someone, your creative team behind it. Is it de la quante blue?
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah, de la quanti. I have not heard Blue's name spoken out loud. It's all been via email.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: I try to look these things up ahead of time, too, and I always like, oh, yeah, I'll look that up to see because it's probably some sort of previous interview or pronunciation online, and I didn't, and I was like, oh, crud. Now I'm going to have to say this, but Blue's artwork is so great. Yes. And then obviously colors by Mildred Lewis and letters by Jimmy Bettencourt. But the book itself is so cool because it just reminds me of an animated show. That style of artwork is so great and so approachable because I think sometimes I read a lot of horror comic books and they're gruesome and sometimes they're very grungy if the words they use it are very chaotic. And this is just so clean and crisp. It doesn't take away from the story or the opposite. It's just so easy to just comprehend and get through. I love the entire team on this one.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Thanks. Yeah, I think it's interesting. The style is so we sort of embraced the comic as it's just like the cartoon from the cartoon from there was a extreme. Ghostbusters had a different style. There's all these different iterations of Ghostbusters in this universe. They all have their own sort of identity. And it's fun to me that we have a comic that doesn't look like afterlife, doesn't look like the cartoon that came before, doesn't look like frozen Empire. You know what I mean? It doesn't look like the video game.
It is its own iteration of Ghostbusters. So, yeah, I'm really excited to have that out there and add to this sprawling, wonderful haunted universe.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: And now you're attached to it. Now you got Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, David Boer. They're all in the same sentence. That right?
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Same breath.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: I love it. Can't say one without the other now. It's the way it works.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: I will say there is some fun to this because, like release day, we're doing a big signing event, like a big release day event at we can be heroes, which is a shop that's close to me in southern California. And they're going to have the LA area Ghostbusters, the group, they're going to have an ecto one. I don't know if I'm supposed to be sharing all that, but I'm totally putting it out there for promotion purposes.
But it's like that kind of.
It's being a part of something where those kinds of things are also part of it. I've never had that experience. I wrote Firefly and nobody flew serenity in to assigning. I wrote D and D. I did get a group of cosplayers that cosplay the DND cartoon characters, which was kind of cool. But I've never had an event like this.
Know it's going to be built around such a beloved franchise and such beloved characters that I get to be a part of that.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: That piggybacks on one of the questions I had written down, which was writing your own creation like Kanto or specs or those things, versus writing something like Ghostbusters, where there is rules, people you have to check in with things you have to do. Obviously, you don't want to tell something back in town that they might touch in Frozen Empire or potentially a third movie or things like that. So there are things that you might have written down and sent to them and then like, don't touch that yet because we might actually get to that or that's in the movie or so on and so forth. What's it like, the difference between, obviously you just mentioned those pause things like having the Ghostbusters area come to you and get to see all the guys with ecto one and all that stuff. But what's the writing process like having to have deal with some? I mean, do you deal with that a little bit with dungeons and dragons, too? Or is it just. Yeah, what's intellectual property versus your own creation?
[00:23:38] Speaker B: I mean, my own creation, I'm just like, there's no guardrails. I'm just flying off the cliff over and over again. And I'm just like, with working on these licenses so far, I've been really fortunate where Firefly and DND are these sort of classic evergreen properties that they're taking in different directions. So there's a lot of freedom to sort of do what I want. Fitting in the larger plans for wizards of the coast with the D and D cartoon and that sort of those characters and their larger plan, I get that guidance. So I write what I think the story needs in a particular script, and then they come back to me with notes and they say, well, we need to swap this monster. Because sometimes they don't even tell me. They're like, we need to swap this out. And I know that it's because they're going to use it for something else.
For Ghostbusters, it's been fun because they definitely have given guardrails.
I've gotten the opportunity to see some of the things that are happening with Ghostbusters going forward and sort of the plans going forward. I got a peek at some of the frozen empire before so that we can ramp up to that. So I don't touch on some of the stuff that's going on there.
They have been really good about coming in and saying what is on the table and what's not and lots on the table. And then they've given me total freedom. So I'm on an eight lane highway and there are guardrails, so I don't go off the cliff, but I'm swerving around as much as I want.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's good. Like I said, it's good to have the guardrails, to know you'd hate to have a script written and been like, oh, this is going to be amazing, and then have them come back to you and be like, yeah, you can't do any of that. So it is nice to have at least some information.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Sometimes I do it, but I never write anything where I know for a fact they're going to kick it back. But what I do, if I don't know what their plans are, I'm doing this now with something else. I write what I think is the best, the best thing, and I send it to them, and 99% probability, they kick it back and say, no, we can't do that. But there's that 1% chance that they come back and they're like, wow, that's actually a great idea.
This is my pie in the sky. They're like, well, you can't do that because we're going to do it. Yes, give them ideas, but it's their idea, so they can do whatever.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Exactly.
It's funny. I think I heard a podcast with Kevin Smith when he was writing the Howard the duck. They were going to do a tv show on Hulu, and he was talking about how him and his co writers and things wanted to write. They're like, oh, we want to use this character, this character and this character. And he was picking out, like, obscure behind the scenes characters, and they're like, you can't do this one, this one, this one. And then all he's like, cool. And he kept on writing, and then he's thinking to himself, well, why can't I? Are they actually going to show up somewhere else in the Marvel universe? Like, what's going on? Why can't I touch these characters? And it got his brain working so hard. He's like, I got to start thinking about that. To this day, none of those characters have showed up anywhere yet. But he just was just amazed that I couldn't use whatever it was, random characters that didn't make any sense. But he's like, maybe they have a plan for these people in the future so that you're.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: And I think they do. And it's like, not like legacy characters, like know and Leia and that sort of thing, but other characters that show up out there. You almost are better to trying to use those characters that already exist because they may have lived their life cycle and whatever they're using it for. Yeah, but, I mean, we just write funny books, man.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
It just seems so much fun to you. The benefit to you, I think, is also this is obviously me speaking for you, but is that you've been able to touch things like Kanto and specs and these books that are your own and killer queens, your own creations that are still out there. And there's more Kanto coming, which is amazing, and things coming from over at Dark Horse and the future in the Kanto world, but also to be able to go in there and actually have the ability to touch someone's licensed property and do some fun things that, like I said, you watched on tv and all this stuff, and people are going into it already with a base knowledge. When I go and I picked up specs for the first time, we had no idea what the heck the world was about except for your little blurb you put on previews world that said so and so. And this is what specs is about. And until I read the first issue, then I got a grasp of actually what it was about. This is something like, I already have the basis of Ghostbusters 84. I have the basis of Afterlife to really kind of get an idea on it. So people already have that little information to go into the reading this book. It's kind of cool you get to live both worlds in this, and I think that's a pretty cool thing, in my opinion.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I call it the shared language. So it's very much.
I was just thinking about this recently. When you're looking at sequels, you get such freedom to do different things in sequels because you're not spending time meeting the characters for the first time, establishing the world, that sort of thing. Can you imagine if Avengers was the first Marvel movie to come out and we had to introduce all these different.
Wouldn't, it wouldn't be what it is. So when you have the shared language with the audience in a sequel, for example, you can use all of the real estate that you normally would use to flesh out that blurb that's in previews world. And you already know the audience understands these characters, so you can do different things with them now without spending time to introduce them. And I love that so much.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Well, I literally recorded earlier today an episode that comes out before this one. We reviewed the 1989 Punisher movie with Dolph Lundgren.
We were talking about the idea that that was 1989, and they didn't do an origin story for Punisher, which is kind of weird to me. It was like the funniest thing. They just went in there and Punisher was just killing people and enacting his revenge. And we talked about Ghost. When Spiderman, the new Spiderman trilogy came out and they decided to just, this is Spider man. He got bitten by a radioactive spider. We'll show you a quick snippet here and there and how this happened. So if you don't know, they've been living under a rock. Here you go. But they didn't go into another origin story. And I think that was the greatest thing because we all knew we didn't need to.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: Well, we've seen it so many. I mean, we've seen that origin story 1 million times.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Afterlife just came back, came out a couple of years ago. So if you want to know more about these characters backgrounds a little bit in this thing, you could just go watch that movie, and then you can just pick up from where they left off. And so you don't have to worry about diving into who's all these characters, what they're about, who these things do.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah, and that movie wouldn't exist if it didn't stand on the shoulders of all the Ghostbusters that came before because you'd have to spend all this time meeting this family. Why are they busting ghosts? What's going on at this farm, and how are they connected to things that had happened before?
It's a lot of extra set up, and it just would have never sort of taken off the way that it did because the audience, you have that connection already.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: I think it's so much fun. I think that's cool. Also nowadays with the idea of connecting movies and comics, and I think that's one of those things that a lot of things nowadays come from movie wise, come from a basis. Like, we have a whole speculator market now on first appearances or whatever, because the movie is being made or whatever it may be. And it's cool to see the idea of taking dark horse comic and be like, no, this is in the exact same universe, in the exact same world as the movies. So if you watch the first movie or the first of the new movies, afterlife, and you can read this comic and you can watch the other movie, you're reading the same storyline, and that's what's cool about this stuff too. I love that. Hopefully, it might get some people that aren't into comics into comics, because they just watched afterlife and they want to read back in town.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: I mean, man, if you could do a special variant for opening Night of Frozen Empire, iced overcover.
Frozen. It's frozen in a block of ice.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: I thought were saying frozen too. I'm like, different property there.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Comic book and carbonite.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: Since CGC make some sort of, like, refrigerated encapsulated thing so that you can actually put the ice block in there with a comic on the inside of it's on your counter, the power goes out, and your comic book melts. That would be horrible.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: But, you know, I'm too far into the collector's market because if they were frozen, if they were encased in ice and you passed them out, then they got all water damaged and warped because they're water logged and then you dried them out and you send them to CGC, and you get, like, a 1.0 or something, but it's like a 1.0 opening night frozen Empire wet comic, and it becomes, like, the collectible to have the worse condition it's in, the more expensive it is.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Someone would have that comic, and they'd sell it for more money than you got paid to make the comic.
That's how the world works.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: I'll get my comps.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: There you go.
Yours would be the ones that are pristine. They're like, yeah, this actually wasn't in the ice, so there you go.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so those are super rare because.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: They never got frozen, but, yeah. So this back in town, Ghostbusters back in town. It comes out March 27, which is a couple of days before Wondercon, which is kind of cool too, but it comes out a week or not a week, but like five days or four days after the frozen Empire hits theaters, which is kind of cool in my opinion, because I was thinking about it, I'm like, you could watch afterlife at home and then go see Frozen Empire, and then on the following Wednesday, go pick up a copy of this and get into what happens in between. How many issues is this going to be, this brackintown one?
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Do you know? Four. It's going to be a four issue.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Mini, and that comes out monthly. So you'll have March, April, May, June.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I know it's done.
I think the art is finish.
Okay. I want to say I honestly can't remember, but, yeah, we're definitely in a production timeline where it's finished right ahead of time.
For me personally, that's March, April, May, June, and then June, the new canto starts coming out, and that's six issues. And that goes to the end of the year. So it's nice to have this pipeline of comics coming out once a month where I can go in and sort of wave them around and hope people.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Buy a copy in the idea of having be able to go see the movies. And by the time this series ends, I would guess that Frozen Empire would be on digital, so those people could watch it again, read the comic. It'd be a whole thing. It's actually a cool thing. And actually, I think I just saw, and this is obviously probably tentative, but Penguin Random House, I was googling it earlier. The trade of this would come out sometime in October. So that would be cool too, because October is towards Halloween. Yeah, Halloween.
I literally think it's the dates, October 29. So that's like two days.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: It's interesting that the movie was originally slated to come out that weekend of Wondercon, so last weekend in March, and they moved it up a week.
And that had nothing to do with anything that we're doing on the comic side of things. But I'm thinking about it. I think you're right that having the movie come out the week ahead of time gets people into the shop the next week to buy a tie in comic book, sort of continue to live in that world.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: And I wish this is going to come out closer to this is going to come out in a couple of weeks. So obviously, final order cut offs and all that stuff actually is happening today. Is that it?
[00:35:52] Speaker B: As we are recording this, it is happening today. But that's okay. I'm sure if there is a sellout, which hopefully that happens, they will come back with a second print and you can get that.
I have a hunch. Dark Horse is always about first and foremost, it's about readers. So I have a hunch that they are going to print as many as they possibly can print to cover demand. So whether or not we get a second print, hopefully copies will be out there and they won't be ghosts.
Everyone listening, this is what you're getting in Ghostbusters back in town.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: Ghosts and dad jokes and fun stuff like that. No puns and dad jokes. We come to expect that, David, and that's we come to expect from Ghostbusters and from you. But no, that's just how it is.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: That was like ninja level dad joke.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: But the funny thing is a number of times that my local comic book shop, I'm not going to name publishers or entities or anything like that, but that something would come out and they'd go into the store and someone would be like, I want this. I just saw this on tv or a movie. Can you get me this? And they'd go on. The trades are like sold out and out of print and all this other stuff. And I'm always like, that doesn't make any sense to me. You have an opportunity to use marketing, which someone paid a ticket to go see and then potentially come in and buy more of your stuff. So the idea that this comes out on a Friday, and even if people don't go see it on Friday, even if they wait to go see it, it's in the trailers are going to be out there and people are going to be talking about it. It's going to be on social media, and then they're going to be like, oh, comic books coming out. That's badass. And they'll be able to go out and get the comic book on Wednesday and read it and so on and then hopefully read the whole series. It's four issues, people, and it's not that hard.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: Well, it was interesting when Canto first came out in 2019. Their first issue was really popular and people bought all the copies, and it's cool. But also, you can't get readers on board if there are no copies available on the shelves. So my evolution for the past five years has been much more in the camp of, if you want to do, like, limited variants and make those kind of the scarcity, then do that. But the main covers, you want people to read the book.
We're not in the business of making trading cards. These are comics, and they're meant to be read. So I hope that there's tons of copies everywhere and everybody can get a copy. I'll sign as many copies as you put in front of my face because I'm a monster.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. It's so much fun to see this. I'm so excited to see, like I said, I am entrenched in wanting to go see this movie and having more things that go around. The movie makes me so happy. And so when I saw this, I was wicked. Earlier on this, I'm emailing Gaitlyn over at Dark Horse, being like, hey, let's do this. Let's set this up because I want to talk about it, and it's so much fun. She sent me the uncorrected proof of it, the yellow cover on it, because she's just like, you need to read this before we talk to him. And I'm like, yeah. She goes, I don't have anything that's official yet, but here's this. Just don't share it with anybody else. I'm like, don't worry. I'll protect it on my iPad so no one else can see it and get out.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Your iPad catches on fire.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I flipped to the last page and just went.
But, yeah. So at March 27, the first issue comes out, and then every month after that. So make sure you tell your lcs you want it in your pull box, but you got canto coming, too. I wanted to touch quickly, briefly on Kanto. You have, like, hardcovers coming out or trades or what's going on? What's the whole thing going on?
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Flooding. We're flooding the market with Kanto. So dark horse, we talked about this last time. I think Dark Horse has picked up the license for us, for Kanto. And so they're releasing hardcover, newly printed hardcovers for all the volumes. So there's four volumes so far, and those start coming out. There's one in June. There's going to be two coming out in July and one in August. And those are going to have new back matter in them. So even if you have those IDW soft cover versions, you definitely want to pick up these beautiful hardcovers to go on your shelf. And in the midst of all that, we're actually completing what we're calling the shrouded man saga. So it's going to be six more issues of a miniseries called canto, a place like home. And this is the final confrontation, the wrap up of this. It's going to be a total of 29 issues over five volumes. And it's going to wrap up this big thaga, this big adventure that Kanto has been on, and that comes out monthly starting in June. So I think that would put us in November, December.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's so mean. It must be fun touching Kanto again.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: You there, freeze?
[00:40:51] Speaker A: I'm here. Yeah, it must be fun just being, like, to promote Kanto again and not have it be like this behind this back burner thing. It must be nice to have, like.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Yeah. The last new Kanto that came out, I think, was, I want to say, august of 22.
So it's really nice, and folks are really excited. I just turned in the script for the fourth issue of this new miniseries that's coming, this final, and we all got super emotional about it because we're not pulling any punches.
We're not holding anything back. So everything is fair game as we approach this endgame with, you know, I don't think everybody's going to make it quite to the, you know, we've been dangling it out there about Kanto's fate at the end of all of this, so you're just going to have to wait and see.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: And. Yeah, that's awesome. I can't wait. It's so much fun. Are there still things working in Hollywood on this thing? And obviously you can't say much about it, but are there still wheels turning and things moving? That's really cool, too. And then you just wrapped up killer Queens volume two, which is awesome. That must be coming out in trade at some point towards the end of the year.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And we just got nominated for a glad award for the sequel. So both Killer queens and Killer Queens two have been nominated for glad awards. Killer Queens one was nominated for an Eisner, and so the collection of the second volume is coming out in May, I think.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's just May 20 eigth on Penguin Random House.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Right at the end. Right at the end of May. And then hopefully, fingers crossed, if we continue to sell well, we will get a third volume in there. I think third volume of four issues would be cool to sort of wrap up. I have a max story in mind. If the first volume was about Max and Alex together, the second volume was definitely about Alex. And so the last volume will be about Max and where he came from and who he is. So hopefully that.
Yeah, that's.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: I think that's everything that you can say. I mean, let's be honest, I've always said this to creators who are on here. If you have everything you can announce possible, then you need to get something on your schedule, because at some point it's going to end and you need to have something on that thing. So I'm guessing you're pitching more and doing all that stuff too. And I'll always promote and recommend people get specs that's available in trade as well. So check that out as well. Yeah, it was one of my comics.
I love that book. It's so good.
And then back in town. I'm so excited. Ghostbusters, man, I can't believe. I love it that you're doing Ghostbusters. This is so much fun to do this. So check that out. March 27. Yeah. And then see you at conventions and stuff. I'm sure you'll be doing signings like you mentioned, the Ghostbusters signing coming up. And then you obviously are going to be at some conventions this year. I'm guessing you'll be at some of the bigger ones. I'm not sure what your schedule looks like.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: San Diego, New York, LA Wondercon break.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: The highlights question are you getting invited to the premiere in New York City for Frozen Empire?
[00:44:10] Speaker B: Not that I'm aware of yet. I kind of wanted it. If it was in LA, I'm sure that would happen. But New York's kind of a bigger lift. So I may be enjoying it from afar, but I'll be cheering on the whole film team because they're all just amazing people and they've been so supportive. Working with Jason and Gil in particular has mean they send back ideas for dialogue, and nobody loves getting notes, except when they come from Jason Reitman and you're laughing your face off because they're so funny.
[00:44:49] Speaker A: There is a certain number of people, like, okay, you're allowed to give me notes and then I can take notes from you, it's fine.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Yeah, because I like dialogue. And then Jason will send in, he's like, what about this dialogue? I'm like, well, that's way better, way funnier than anything I just did. So let's use yours.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: I'm going to change this one word so it looks like it's mine because I have a revision on it. But still, yeah, I got to be useful somehow. But if you don't go to the premiere, you're probably obviously going to be there opening night to see this movie, to see what this awesome Frozen Empire looks like from Ghostbusters. But yeah, back in town. Available from Dark Horse March 27. Tell your local comic book shop that you want a copy because obviously this will come out past foc, but just tell them and they'll put one in your off to the side for you. So you make sure you grab a copy on opening or opening day. We're going to call opening day for comics. Let's go opening day for comics because whatever. But I appreciate it. Again, David, for coming on, chatting ghostbusters and comics and everything in between. Enjoy your life in general until we talk again. I'm sure you'll be on at some point in the future. We always love having you on, so I hope you come back.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: Thanks, Justin. It's always fun to chat with you and hopefully the next thing is like, blow the doors up, right?
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Exactly.
Thanks, David.
