Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capes and tights.com. I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode we welcome back Ethan Sachs, writer of Star Wars Bounty Hunters, as well as the recently released Star Wars Django Fett over at Marvel Comics, as well as the co writer of the book a haunted girl with his daughter Naomi Sacks, which came out recently and in a trade feedback, coming out very, very soon at a bookstore and local comic book shop near you. Ethan has also has writing credits of old man Hawkeye, old man Quill, Kiss zombies, as well as Galaxy's Edge and alliance over there at Star wars universe as well. So check out this episode here for Star Wars Week on the Capes and Tights podcast. Before you do, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky threads, all the social media platforms as well as rate reviews, subscribe all those things over on Apple and Spotify and all your major podcasting platforms, as well as over at YouTube and capesandtights.com dot. But this episode is Ethan Sachs, comic book writer for Star Wars Bounty Hunters and Star Wars Django Fett. Check it out, everybody. Thanks.
Welcome back to the podcast. Ethan Sachs, how are you today?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: I'm doing very well, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Excellent. I'm glad because last time we had you on to talk, a haunted girl, which just wrapped up and is coming to trade paperback this summer. Well, actually technically not summer because it's June 4. It's before the summer. But you know what I mean. It's coming out soon.
I bet you're excited. I bet you and your daughter are excited.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: May 21, so almost upon us.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Oh, is it May 21 now? Oh, it's because it's coming out. Is it bookstores on June 4? Is it possible?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: No, I think bookstores May, I hope it's May 21 because we have a signing on May 22. We're literally, like, landing from Japan, visiting the in laws on May 21, doing the signing on the 22nd, and then flying to Ireland for a wedding on the 23rd.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: So that'll be an interesting, it is true. Bookshop.org, comma, which I use a lot to, like, support local bookstores and things like that, says June 4. So.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Really?
[00:02:06] Speaker A: But previews world has it the 22nd, and I'm guessing Amazon does, too. So.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Well, I'm hoping, because otherwise it'll be a really ugly signing.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Just sitting there twiddling thumbs, signing pieces of paper, like, just put this in your book. Don't worry about it.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: It's like the Star wars action figures back in like, 1977 where, and I remember this, to get an IOU before you actually got them.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: That's weird. Yeah, because this is previous world. So bookstores is, Amazon says June 4 too, but diamond does say or so. Yeah, previous world does say the 22nd, which means that that's there. But I don't know. You have to figure that out on your own.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: That's not my problem. No. But it's coming out soon. Haunted girl. It's amazing. Wonderful story that you and your daughter, um, co wrote. And I'm excited for people to actually get in their hands if they haven't yet, because if they missed the first few issues, it's always one of those things that do you continue buying single issues or do you wait for the trade and those things. So we're excited for people to actually get it in their hands, uh, in trade format. But you guys are too.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Definitely excited about that.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: That's awesome. Then I wanted to start off by that because I, it's such a phenomenal series, and my co host, my co host for my comics of the year had it in there as his top, one of his top ten comics of the year. So, uh, we're pretty, he was pretty excited about.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Thank you. I mean, that's an honor. So there's a lot of great stuff out. So just to be on that list is a great honor.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: We've worked. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. But, yeah, we're here to start Star wars. Not to push that off the side, but that's the topic of conversation for today here on the podcast. So we talked, we touched on it when you were on last time about a little bit about Star wars on your, on your history of the universe and so on. But you've been a Star wars fan since you were a little lad. Is that true?
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm fortunately, or unfortunately, old enough that I was four years old when the first movie came out. And I still, it's like one of my earliest memories. I still remember vividly sitting in the movie theater in Times Square in New York City and just the star destroyer going overhead, the John Williams music kicking in and turning and seeing my father smiling at me. Cause he had seen it already before me. Um, so that was his second time, but, yeah, so it was, it was a, you know, something clicked in my brain, and it kind of changed the course of my life after that.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: At least it's, at least it worked out well for your dad. Unlike some people. Like, I feel like when I move show movies, like, to my wife or, or eventually my son's three. So some things don't click yet, but, like, the idea of showing someone something that you're really excited for, like, so your dad was probably really excited for you to see it and have this happen and have you be like, so it would have been. Would have been awful, but at least it worked out in his benefit because you were actually excited to be there for sure.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: I got my daughter into Star wars, although I tried when she was, like, four, the same age as me, and it didn't click. And then I tried again at six, and it did.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: So there you go. So nowadays, like, my son will throw on, like, young Jedi adventures on Disney plus and stuff like that. So, like, luckily there is this thing, and he has the little golden books that have, like, things that he sees, pictures and stuff. And I was listening to last week in my car, the audiobook of Air of the Empire. And so he can see from the backseat, he sees, like, the little Star wars like, image of the audiobook, and he's like, dad, you listen to Star wars? I'm like, yeah. And he was, like, mimicking some of the words that were happening so he can understand a little bit going on. And so he knows Star wars, but not to the point where he's going to be a fan of Star wars yet.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Fair enough.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: He'll get there, right? You know, just a time.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Hopefully, he won't be like my buddy and be kind of negative on Star wars, but, yeah. So you've been a Star wars fan, and then you ended up becoming a writer of Star wars over at Marvel. And what was your first Star wars story? What book was that? Do you know?
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Yes. So the first comic that I ever did was a ten pager about Mace Windu called the weapon, and it was one of the books in age of Republic special.
I want to say 2018 sounds about right.
And that was so special to me. I got a mace Windu lightsaber tattoo, and I have a replica mace Windu lightsaber.
I have original art on the wall from.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, basically, it was Paolo Villanelli, who knew that we would kind of work together so much in the years to come.
But, yeah, it was kind of cool. And as my daughter told me, I was so excited because I created this villain, wataku the Grimm, that's sort of this warlord that uses children slaves, and he looks really cool, has this animal skull helmet. So I was all excited. And he dies on page eight of a ten page story. So I was telling my daughter, Zidane, put a small piece into the canon of Star wars, and they're like, you know, live on forever and all this kind of stuff. And my daughter turned to me and she's like, we'll live on together forever because you killed him eight pages into a ten page story. So that was a life lesson for me. So, like, after that, I pretended to kill characters, but didn't actually kill major characters so that could come back to them.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: It's perfect for your daughter to put you in your place and say, hey, you know what?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: You're wrong.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: This is this.
But I mean, that started things off. And obviously Marvel was excited to have you continue to write Star wars because you ended up doing some of the adaptations and things like that around movies and the ride, Galaxy's Edge and things like that. Right. You ended up doing those miniseries along the lines of that.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, those were.
It's funny because I don't know that at the time, there was a huge demand to write a theme park related, and I don't think I was so excited to be asked because, you know, I realized that this was a play will sliney, the artist, and I realized this is a place that people will go to and, you know, be as close that you can get to experiencing that for yourself. So just to be a part of that was amazing. To get to see the creative bible.
Sorry, I'm losing my voice a little bit.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: You're good.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Getting to see the creative bible of, like, you know, the concept art and the maps and all this kind of stuff, you know, months ahead of time. It was just a privilege. And same thing for allegiance, which was a prequel to Rise of the Skywalker, where that one was kind of weird because Mike Sieglaine, head of Disney Publishing, kind of brought into marvel this laptop. I remember it was a very secretive hush hush and showed, like, essentially storyboards for the first, not even 1st, 3rd, because everything was so secret, so we had no idea. It kind of, kind of ruins it a little bit for you because you don't, you know, you know, you don't have that as a fan. Getting to see it for the first time in the theater with all the effects and the music and, you know, the acting. That being said, it was still pretty cool. So I got to kind of see a little bit of it, and I got to play with these characters that, that I certainly love and Ray and Rose and Finn and Poe and, you know, and the other thing for me was special. About that book was I came to comics through, I was a newspaper reporter before that, and I covered entertainment and covered movies. And one of my last interviews for the New York Daily News was actually Carrie Fisher. It was the first and last time I ever interviewed her for the Force Awakens. And so she had passed, and, you know, it was kind of cool for me, who grew up. She was, like, my first crush as a little kid and Princess Leia and getting to write these kind of emotional political speeches for her, having a moment where she could sort of be with her daughter's character in a scene and talking, and that was kind of special for me, so I wanted to sort of pay homage to her. So those kind of series were special in their own way.
Luke Ross.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Yes. So you got to pair up with Luke Ross on that, which is your partner in crime over at Django Fett right now, too.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I've been so lucky with artists. You know, everyone from Paolo Villanelli will Sliney, Luke Ross, and then all the, too many to name right now, but, like, all the sort of fill in artists on bounty hunters just, it's been really lucky. They've certainly elevated, you know, my hack scripts into. Into art, you know, literally and figuratively.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, you could. It's the partnerships that's so great about comic books is the fact that you have a partner in crime. It's not just you doing this. It's not you alone. And in a thing, like, obviously, in the Star wars world, I'm guessing you have a lot of people that are involved in this, not just, I mean, you did, you know, haunted girl. It was you. It was Naomi. It was your art team. It was. That was your group. This is obviously, there's people talking and telling you what to do, what you can't do, who you can go so on and so forth. It's. My buddy is a comic book artist, and he did a variant for teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles number one, that's coming out here pretty soon. And he had one of the turtles, and I can't. I'm not going to mess it up. So one of the turtles skateboarding on the COVID but only Michelangelo can only escape. Or so there was, like, this one of those things where they're like. So you had to, like, it's a little bit simpler in the turtles world. You could just tweak a few things, and it becomes the other turtle. But he's like, yeah, he submitted it to IDW, and IDW was like, nope, sorry, you can't you can't have that turtle scale. It was splinter skateboarding or something like that. And, like, you can't do that. And so you had to change it. But that, I'm guessing, is also involved in writing a Star wars comic book because there's people that you say this character's off limits, or you can use this character or whatever, for sure.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: I mean, you know, we have. I'm lucky in that I have both my amazing Marvel editors, led by Mark Benician and the Lucasfilm story group, like, just basically giving guidance, giving, you know, and it's not like the notes are not intrusive at all. Like, they're always make it better. You know, a lot of times, if you can't use a character, you can kind of suspect why, like, oh, they're coming up. You know, like, we couldn't use that much Boba Fett early on in bounty hunters, and then you see book of Boba Fett comes out. And so, like, at that time, I didn't even know he was, whether or not he survived the Sarlacc pit. So, you know, even though we were set well before, I think, like, you know, there was stuff happening, and so, you know, that's the kind of thing, like, occasionally, but they're always cool. They let me use a young tassue leech. That was something I pitched, and they were like, oh, that'd be kind of cool, as long as you don't kill him because he needs to die in the Force. Awakens can kind of make this work. And so they're always very supportive and helpful, and they're, like, the biggest fans.
It's like, on one level, they're the Jedi council, and they have the wisdom and they have the encyclopedic knowledge and all the databases at their disposal. And on the other hand, they're all a bunch of excited fans.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: I've always said that to people, people who complain about, say you did something in bounty hunters that they didn't have in their mind that would, a bounty hunter would do, or the story went a direction that they didn't have pre written in their head, is that 90% of the people who are working on these comics from the writers, the artists, you know, everybody, the letterers, are Star wars fans. So, like, these are not. These are people that are getting the ability to actually live out some of their dreams and their fantasies on, on paper, as well as the people who are working upper, you know, studio, there are people who are in the job because they're good at growling people and doing certain things, but most of them have a background of being a Star wars fan. So I always go, if this is the direction that your team wanted to go, great, I'll go with it. Just because it wasn't what I maybe have thought should have gone or whatever doesn't mean that I'm right and you're wrong. You're all fans too. This is not your hired guns. This is a, you're all fans of these things. You wouldn't have taking the job to write a bounty Hunters series if you're like, I don't like Star wars. You know what I mean? 100%.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: There isn't at least that I've seen in my window working with. We had weekly zooms with the other Marvel Star wars writers, Charles and Greg and Alyssa and Mark Guggenheim, occasionally. Others, like Rodney Barnes and Justina Ireland and Daniel Jose older, would sort of parachute in and everyone's excited. No one's cynical.
No one's doing this because it's like, yeah, I need a job and I don't care about Star wars. There's none of that. They're like, oh my God, wouldn't it be cool if. And everyone reverts to an eleven year old in these conversations.
So I just think there's something unique about this franchise that's just not, I think a lot of us came into it, whether, depending on how old you are or whatever, whether it was through the originals, the prequels, or even the sequels, the animated.
Some people came in through Clone wars and things like that. So whatever it is, they love it. So there's none of that. It's just not a cynical that I've seen, certainly.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: And the cool thing, I think, and Marvel owns it, but Marvel's thing with the MCU versus the comics versus the tv shows, or the older tv shows versus the animated and all that stuff, is that at one point they weren't all connected in a way that you could have written a Boba Fett story in the comic books, for an example, if this existed in the MCU, because the fact that it's not in the same quote unquote universe, so it wouldn't have mattered. Do what you want. Have fun with it in the comic books, because in the movies it's a different thing. And luckily we have this in the Star wars world, whereas they're connected. So the idea that what you're seeing in the comics, it can relay into the movies or the tv shows and things like that, there are more of a big, wider, multimedia universe. I have sitting next to me you can't see. But the collection of the high Republic books, the novels, it's like those are canon, and those are going to be used potentially, hopefully, to make movies and things like that in the future, or a movie might come out of one of the books that are over here and so on and so forth. So that's why it's a little different, I think, than other universes in the sense that there is more control over Boba Fett, for example, because he had a tv show coming out and so on and so forth, which is really cool because I like the idea that you can't sit in front of a tv all day and watch the movies like you don't have the ability to. I was just mentioning listening to an audiobook in the car. I was able to intake some Star wars fandom without having to be in front of a screen. And, you know, maybe I'm reading a comic book or so on and so forth. So that's what's cool about the Star wars galaxy. I should say the universe that is different than anything else. I think it's out there is that there's so much interconnectivity and things to keep track of. I don't want to be the person up top making sure this is all working correctly, by the way. I feel like that's a headache.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, they do a good job of it, though, because you're right, this is a franchise. You take whatever, like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or whatever it is, the books are separate from the movies. The movies might be adaptations of the books. You mentioned the high Republic, that's its own world. And if they do make movies out of it, and certainly, like, the acolyte coming up is tied into it, is that will be, if there'll be separate stories, they're not going to adapt a book, because sort of the philosophy is all of these things. The books, the comics, the theme parks, the video games, the live action, the animated tv movies, it's all parts of a larger puzzle, and they all are important pieces, but you don't have to look at all of them if you don't want to. Like, you can. You can be a more casual fan and just see the movies or whatever, but if you do, you're rewarded by, like, all this rich extra layer, you know, of stuff. And the great thing about the high Republic was it started as this publishing initiative, where basically it gave them the writers freedom because it wasn't all, like, mapped out already in other forms. And so they could just sort of go where their imaginations went without any kind of guardrails, pretty much. And look at this wonderful thing that came out of it. And so the way I see it is it's all one of those medieval maps where the edges are not drawn in because they hadn't visited all over the world. And so as different writers or artists or actors or directors or whatever, as they map out the parts of the gray areas on the map that weren't filled in, then we see a whole new part. But it's unlimited.
There's a sort of, I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: No, it does, because it's the same thing you're doing with something like bounty hunters. All the stuff that you're writing in Bounty Hunters is not like an adaptation of what happens on the book of Boba Fett or mandalorian or things like that. These are like side stories or stories that include some of the characters you might know. But this is what happens in between this movie and this movie or this show and this show or whatever, or this book in this novel, whatever. All these things happen in the in between stuff like that. Same with Star wars properties. Main storyline is stuff that happens in between things. Because as we know, it's not like episode one leads into episode 2345, you know, like, it's not like there isn't little time gaps and jumps in between things and, and when you're seeing Darth Vader on the screen in a new hope, and then you don't see him on screen, what's happening at that moment, you don't see him on screen is a lot of the stuff we get in comics and things like that, which I love because it gives you more to the universe that we already love.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's the limit with that franchise. There's just nothing that, you know, there's no era that can't be explored or doesn't have, you know, fans or.
It's just an amazing.
I, no offense to any other franchise, but there is something deeper, more beautiful, I think, than any other franchise, at.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Least to me, which is funny because it all started with a new hope. And the idea that, that, like, people passed on it makes me laugh because I was watching recently because we were doing this review of a new hope with my buddy Paul Eaton, and I watched the Empire of Dreams documentary that's on Disney plus. And, like, how, like, he, George Lucas was trying to sell it to a few different, you know, companies, and Fox is the one that ended up taking it on but, like, I always like, it makes me think of a Google thing when, like, Google approached Yahoo or whatever to buy. To buy Google back in the day and they're like, man, and now look at Google now. It's the same thing I look back on and I'm like, these production companies who almost. Who passed on this to be what it is now is fascinating as all hell. And to be a. I mean, just the sequel trilogy made $4 billion, do you mean.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: But at the time, unlike anything because at that time, Sci-Fi was considered, like, okay, like, cheap b movie material other than maybe 2001. And there wasn't really much in terms of a big budget successful. I don't even think that was successful financially.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: No, I don't think so either.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
There wasn't much of that. So it was kind of considered.
I mean, the only reason George Lucas got to make it at all was because american graffiti had proven such a big surprise hit. But then when he came out with something that was completely different than american graffiti, I don't know. I don't know that anyone knew what to do with it, especially as, like, the. But, you know, the costs kept going up and there were all these. And then they were seeing dailies that looked ridiculous, you know, now it seems like. Well, of course, but there was just no blueprint that showed that that was going to be successful. And, you know, because it's what made the other blueprints for all the other, you know, summer blockbusters to come. But at that time, it was just not, you know, not something that anyone, I mean, in hindsight, it looks brilliant, but at the time, probably, I can't blame a single executive for thinking, like, what did we get ourselves into?
[00:22:32] Speaker A: I just picture, like, it failing and, like, blaming, you know, fox executives, blaming George and all that stuff. But then the people, now that it was actually successful, those people now going, look, see, we knew what we were doing. Yeah. We were so smart there.
And the fact that, like, it's so big now that I mentioned that there's a Jedi adventures that's on Disney plus and my three year olds watching and so on and so forth. There's little golden books. There's obviously all the merchandise rights. Now, you did a 42 issue series, ongoing series, about just the bounty hunters. You know what I mean? Obviously, that's a bigger group of people in the lore than some of the others mini series that have happened and so on. But, like, the fact that the bounty hunters got their own comic book series, you know, is fascinating to me. And it went 42 issues. Did you even expect that it would go that long?
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Not at all. There was no way when we started, like, you don't. I mean, I was a little naive, I think, when we started, because I put some plot threads that actually, some of them I didn't wrap up till issue 42, but I always knew how I wanted it to end, and I hoped it would last more than a year at the time. There's no guarantees beyond arc to arc, and often the sales side has to make a decision whether or not to continue. But I think the unique part of what Marvel's done these last four years is they had, by setting all these books in the same time period, we could do those crossovers. We could have things that happen in one, have an impact in another. And so that was kind of like a really cool golden age, because most of the time in Star wars comics history, over the past 40 plus years, it was basically like, sometimes there'd be something set in one era, or there was very little sort of interaction between these stories. And I kind of feel like the line was small enough that as a fan, you didn't feel overwhelmed. But if there was an event that you had to buy 74 books to understand the event, there's nothing like that. It was the four main books, usually an event series, maybe an offshoot miniseries here or there.
So it kind of was like the best of both worlds.
Best of both galaxies.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: The metaphor would be. So that was something really unique and cool, especially with Alyssa's Aphra. I got to really sort of have some cameos of some of their regular characters and all that kind of stuff. So it was Glenn, like, once in a while, Chewbacca would come and beat up Valance, and then Darth Vader would come and beat up Valance, and so sort of had an all star team beating up Valance at various times.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: I mean, 42 issues is a long run now in any galaxy, let alone Star wars, because, I mean, like, let's be honest, I've seen, I recently said this to my buddy. I was like, I read a comic book series. It was five issues, and after issue two, the publisher announced that it was promoted from a mini series to an ongoing series. I was like, oh, that's really cool. That's awesome. It ended at issue ten. I was laughing because I was like, okay, that didn't really. That wasn't an ongoing series at that point. It's still a, what? Mini maxi series at that point. And max series. I'm like, it's not an ongoing. Ended up to ten issues, but so, like, ten issues now is like, oh, my gosh, ten issues or twelve issues or 15 issues is crazy. Some of the marvel ones, obviously your Spider Man's, and those ones get 50, 60 issues. But like, most series nowadays, especially one, like I mentioned, this is not a Darth Vader. This is not the doctor aphor that's been going on for a while. This is a. The bounty hunters, a group of people, it's like to see this go, 42 issues. Obviously, they had faith in you. They had faith in the sales. People were buying it, and people liking the reading and the illustrations in it.
But are you also somewhat glad that now it's over, that you're now allowed to move on to something else?
[00:26:36] Speaker B: You know, not really, I don't think, first of all, I just really also want to credit Marvel, because a lot of times the decisions, like, when to cancel a book, is very much driven by, like, the trade paperbacks and, like, oh, you finished an arc, now's the time, because it's going to. And so the natural endpoint would have been 41 at the end of the dark droids. But then so much was left unsaid. And so I had asked for a final issue, like, so I could wrap this up. And then they not only gave me the final issue, they gave me a 30 page final issue so I could. That allowed me to do, like, not only wrap up bounty hunters, but also, like, there was a dangling plot thing from Guggenheim's Chewbacca, or Han Solo and Chewbacca. And there was something that we pulled from the Yoda series as well.
But also I was able to get Paolo Villanelli back for an eight page coda. In my mind, it was sort of like return of the king, where after it ends, there's sort of a bit of a coda and what happens to the characters afterwards.
So that was kind of like, that helped me wrap up some of the threads that I'd wanted to. And the funny thing is, like, whether it was going to end in twelve issues or 42, that last page was how I wanted it to end. And that was valent, first of all, valent smiling, which you don't see very much. Yeah, 42 issues holding his hand to the. Towards the reader.
And the line was, it was going to be some love interest. That was not Europe. I didn't want it to be Europe because I felt like that would weaken Europe. She's just sitting around waiting for him to get his crap together.
So I had no idea the romantic part of it or whatever. But what I wanted for me, the theme of the book was Valens being the sort of PTSD veteran.
He was put together physically and putting himself back emotionally. And then by the end, he was in a better place. So, like, going to tear him apart for 42 issues, literally and figuratively, you know, like, rip out his heart literally and figuratively.
But by the end, he's kind of. Kind of more at peace with himself. And so that was the journey, that emotional arc that I always wanted to do. And being able to do it over 42 issues is much easier than over, say, ten.
So that was, that was nice, but I wanted that kind of breaking the, you know, like, as if he's also extending his hand to the. To the reader. And I knew the line was going to be something like, you know, I have no idea what comes next, but let's find out together, you know? And so, you know, even the characters that I co created with Paolo and others, like Tonga and Losha, the, you know, the couple, they'll live on with other people taking over the stories at some point, you know, whether it's writing in other bounty hunters or just seeing them come into other things. So at most, you're a custodian for a while, and that's an honor. And so it's kind of nice to know someone else can pick up these stories.
So I just wanted to make sure at the end of this issue, these various characters were in a place that someone else could take that baton and run with it.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's the thing that's cool about something like the galaxy or the universe at Star wars is that, you know, if this was a.
I don't know. Let's take saga for an example. Brian K. Vaughn's coming back from his little hiatus again to do saga, and that needs to end. That needs to end. And no one else is going to take the mantle up from saga and move on with any of the characters, unless it's Brian cave on and Fiona, they are going to do that stuff. So with this, it's one of those things that you tied up some loose ends in Bounty Hunter's number 42, but also left some things open and some characters, like you mentioned, so that other people could play with them, because unless someone dies, they're in a universe that anybody is allowed to play with them. As long as, you know, they're hired by Marvel, you can play with them at your house, too, if you want to write your own stories. Or am I saying, like, professionally, that Marvel's gonna hire someone, or Lucas is gonna. Lucasfilm's gonna hire someone to create these new books, like bounty Hunters book or something like that. Can use those characters, like you just said. So it's kind of cool because you have the ability to tie up some loose ends, but also, like, you don't have to tie them all up. You don't have to be, like, a nice little bow on the end of it. It can be a little, you know, scraggly on the end so someone else can finish the stories.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know what I learned is don't kill the characters off on page eight of a tenant.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: But it's also comics and Sci-Fi and fake pop culture stuff. So, like, no character is really always dead, let's be honest.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I don't love bringing back actually dead characters. I do love people thinking they're dead and then turning and then dropping little clues that they're not. So, like, when Tonga looked like she was dead in issue four, in issue five, there was, like, a missing, or there was, like, a panel where the escape pod was seen and there were footsteps seen from it. So, like, if you're looking for it, there's your clue. And then she came back, I think, like, three issues later or something.
So things like that, I've often used, you know, like, a spaceship blowing up where valance is in it. So you think, like, how is it going to get out of this one? But, you know, if you actually see.
And it's a little tougher to do that. Like, I don't. I don't. In Star wars, also, I don't think you can do, like, a cosmic. I mean, okay, Darth Maul recovered. I'll grant you that. But most of the time, like, you can't really have a supernatural explanation of how someone comes back.
Like, there has to be grounded in the sort of the rules of the, of the world, you know? That being said, if it's a Jedi or Sith, you can get away with a lot more force. Goats and such. But, like, certainly for bounty hunters, if I kill off a bounty hunter, they.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: Have to stay dead.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Unless it's a droid, in which case they can be repaired, I suppose.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: I mean, the parent company too. There's clones and there's clones and actually, in Star wars, too, but you know what I mean? Like, when Peter Parker's clones and all that stuff, there's clones that kind of trick people. But I also feel like that sometimes is, like, not lazy writing, but, like, weird writing, because, like, okay, you could have just been like, oh, wait, there's just a clone. It's the same thing as, like, at the end of, it was all a dream. It's like, okay, that you suck. You should not have done that.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: To me, it's difficult to do well. I mean, people have done it well. It's difficult to do well because, you know, people are kind of desensitized. Like, you kill off a character, it's like, oh, not again. You know, and they bring it back. So I don't love doing that personally.
You know, if there's a fake out and you've breadcrumbed the sort of the truth, then I feel like you can get away with it. But, like, once they're actually dead, I kind of don't want, want to, but I haven't really killed that many characters in this series. Probably the biggest was Nakano Lash, but that was like a character that sort of lives on in flashbacks, but for the most part, like, none of the major characters. If I actually killed, I would have killed Dengar if I could have. But he exists elsewhere in canon, so that jerk got a reprieve.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: I mean, you mentioned the idea of, like I said, maybe I mentioned and you mentioned about the idea of someone else playing with your characters that either you created or you've had the idea to use the marionette and play with over the past couple of years.
You're now getting the chance to use a character like Jango Fett. That is an odd character to a lot of people who, again, it's one of those things that's cool about the Star wars legacy and lore. And I like a lot is I like the idea of using characters that are not, like, super popular. Like, obviously, we just had a yoda series. It's obviously a Darth Vader series. That series with, you know, Obi Wan. And in those series, like, those ones make sense to a lot of people because those are iconic characters that people know a lot about and want to read and stuff like that. But, like, Django Fett's not one of those ones that's, like, jumps to the top of list. That would be like, oh, yeah, that person needs their own comic book series. In my mind, when I originally thought about it and I could be alone on that island. But. But obviously you didn't think so either because obviously you're writing this book.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: I pitched it and they said, yes.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Okay, see, there you go. Like, Django Fett is when we met in attack on the club.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: What I love about Django is I love two things like, first of all, he has that coolness factor that Boba Fett and the Mandalorian have, and I guess Bo Katan and the armor, the weapons, all that kind of stuff. Also, I kind of feel like having written Boba Fett a little and having written Jango Fett, Boba Fett has, has a kind of darkness that clings to him. And I think part of it is having that seismic I lost my father when I was 22, and he was a kid when he lost his father, and his father was his world to him. And so I kind of feel like you both have him trying to live up to this standard and also just that he had this void in his life for his entire life.
When I write Boba Fett, he's very much like, it's a very, he's not like a happy go lucky, you know, swashbuckling kind of character. And I feel like Django, from what we've seen in Canon, which is not as much as you think, you know, in the prequels, was more of a kind of Clint Eastwood. Well, Clint east obviously played different types of, but he's more of us, you know, kind of, he'll have a quip, you know, he'll. But he's also at the top of this game. And so I loved that he was a lighter version in terms of how you write him. And also, there wasn't as much baggage of what we know about Django that there would be if I did a Boba Fett series or if I did, certainly if I did a mandalorian series, which is tough because his story is being written as, like, now in real time, you know. And so I feel like, I feel like this was a pretty kind of cool to get that coolness factor of the look and the weapons and that kind of story.
But without having to, without.
I could set some of what will be canon about him because this is set just before the phantom menace, so everything we really know about him is really coming a few years later. This is before Camino.
This is when he's cementing his reputation as the best in the business. And, yeah, so it's kind of a fun, it gave me creative freedom, but I also had a character that, yeah, maybe he's not as famous as his son, but he's just as cool looking and all that is just as cool. So I kind of felt like, you know, I certainly felt no risk in it. You know, obviously, I'm not the one making the financial case for it or whatever goes on behind the scenes. You know, but, yeah, I think, you know, I think it came out.
It's gonna sound like a humble brag or something, but, like, I think it came out exactly the way I wanted it to. And so, yeah, I hope. I hope one day to do more.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: Is it. Is it a five issue miniseries? Is that the plan?
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Four issue?
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Four issue miniseries?
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Fairly tight, kind of. It's not a story with a lot of slow exposition. Heavy, you know, character.
What's the word I'm looking for? Like, dissecting, you know, his own childhood or something. It's.
He's kind of thrown into a situation and has to kind of fight his way out. So.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Yeah, issue one right here. Issue. Well, by the time this is in a release on beginning of May, this episode. So that's issue two will be out.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: On the show Wednesday, I believe, 24th.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Yes. That'd be awesome. And did you plan to match up with Luke Ross again, or is this just happens?
[00:38:32] Speaker B: No, I'm almost never in any control with that because, like, so much of it is on the artist schedules and, like, what Marvel has artists working on, you know, so that was just a dumb luck on my part, you know?
But, yeah, I mean, we work really well together, so it was just like, I know what he likes to sort of do, and I, you know, he has some, you know, some freedom and things like that. He just. He just fantastic.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Honestly, that's great. It's always great when you always have that previous relationship. Like, I always feel like the first episode with a person like yourself on the podcast, like, okay, getting to know the person, how do they talk, how do I do these things? And then the second one makes it a little bit easier. So I can understand the same thing with a writer artist. Collaboration is, like, the first time is like, getting to feel what people's, you know, how they do things and how they work. Then the second time or third time, you work with the person. Like, okay, I know this person. If I send Luke something, I know what's going to come back because I know how that person works. So I can just imagine it being a little bit easier than the first couple times that you work with someone.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And also, like, you know, Nolan Wood Woodard, who's the colorist, they work so well together. And so, like, the colors, it just really, you know, there's a. Shouldn't spoil too much, but there's, like, they go to a sort of mining planet, and you can practically taste the dust in the back of your mouth. Like, it's so gritty looking and, and then when the exhaust of the jetpack goes off, like, you just really, the flames are warm, and it's just all these subtle things that a colorist brings to the table, too. They just really work well together.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: Does this series lead up to episode where we see him on the movies, or is there some gap between what you said there.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: Can't say.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: Can't say. Can't say.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: I will say there's some twists and some things I think longtime fans will be excited about. I know that's a cop out answer, but I feel like anything more than that is going to be a bit of a spoiler.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: I just think it's cool because I think there's, like, two sides to a coin here of using a character like this, where a character people know. But like I said, you mentioned it's not the most flashy of all the characters that are out there, because Star wars can do that because they have the ability to say, honestly, a four issue miniseries that just says Star wars on the top of it's going to sell some comics because those who are just Star wars fans are going to buy them every time anyway. Django Fett fans are going to be like, oh, this is really cool. People, fans of you, if you luke and so on and so forth, and all that stuff leads to sales of comic books and people reading the book. But then there's the other side of it, like independent comic books.
Kyle Starks and Ryan Brown are just doing this new series called Barfly, and it's a character that was in the background of Patton Oswald's in Jordan Bloom's book, minor threats, that's sitting at the bar. And now they're making a full miniseries off of this dude sitting at the bar because people love this one character, and it's like this two sides of it. If you do your own independent creation, you can do whatever you want. And then this stuff where you have, like, such a big fan base that it's like, you really have to suck at writing this comp Ethan version. Not, not do at least somewhat well. But then they sell four issues pretty easily, in my opinion. But like I said, like, you have to really been, like, issue one has to, like, be awful for not at least do somewhat. Okay, yeah, yeah, fair enough. Star wars name does well for you.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: You know, it's, it's never a slam dunk. It's never a sure thing.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: You know, but at the same time, I also think, like, I don't mind writing a four issue series versus, like, oh, it's got to be an ongoing or something, because if you have a story that kind of. The pacing works better or whatever, I mean, that's what I pitched. I pitched a four issue series for this. I could have extended it to, like, a six issue thing, but I kind of feel like it would have felt, you know, extended, like, you know, this is one mission, and I felt like it works better as a four issue.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Obviously, you answered a question I had is, like, which character are you really looking to write right now? And obviously, you did it with Django Fett in this series. But, like, I'm not saying you have to say these characters, because I don't want. There is things in the world. Are there specific characters that you're being honest with you?
[00:42:37] Speaker B: I have a pitch that I really want to do with Jyn Erso in it.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: You know, but there was tons of other characters. I always joke, you know, my. I got into this into comics indirectly through a spec script I wrote involving a murder investigation to Greedo's death. And I would love. I love Greedo.
I have a soft spot in my heart for him. I have a soft spot in my heart for Mace Windu because that was my first wedge Antilles. For whatever reason, I like weird characters I've gotten to write. I would like to one day write a story with a Jedi at the forefront, maybe not necessarily like Luke or something like that, because it's a little.
It's almost like writing Superman or Spider man. It's like there's no safety net with that because it's, like, the premium character. So I kind of like. I like writing a little bit of the offbeat characters that you can maybe take in surprising directions and things like that. So, you know, maybe it's a kid fisto story or something. I don't know.
But, yeah, I do. Like, you know, there are tons of characters, but also, like, there are times people, you know, someone will approach me and say, hey, we need, you know, like. Like, allegiance, the prequel to Rise of Skywalker. I was not anticipating getting the chance to write that, and so that came to me, and so hopefully there'll be other things like that.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: Ethan, you're putting yourself in a situation where Marvel and Lucasfilm just look at you and go, we need a story. And be like, okay, cool. I'll do it in the Star wars world. Okay, I got you.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. It's. It's not. It's not, as my father used to say, like, find a job that doesn't feel like you're like, at the circus shoveling elephant dung.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And you're doing it right now in mace window speaking. Mace window. You know, Mark Bernardin's writing an amazing Mace window series right now, which is awesome. And it's actually a book coming, a novel coming out this summer, too.
That's gonna be really cool, too. So I'm excited for Mace window getting some attention. His purple lifesaver, I feel like, has.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Been an underused character, and I would point out this. No disrespect. Well, some disrespect to Yoda, but had Mace Windu been running the Jedi council in the prequels, there would be no original series because he would have wrapped that up before he was on top of everything, and Yoda didn't really listen. So I feel Mace window is underappreciated, and had he not been betrayed by Anakin, would have wrapped it all up very quickly, and the Jedi order would be thriving by the era when the original trilogy took place. There would be no empire to fight, so you wouldn't have original trilogy. So, yeah, so Mace Windu is undersung because he's just a real badass. Jack.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: I love the idea that this is never going to happen, but I would love an alternate universe, like a what if. Mace Windu, that would be an amazing series.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: Is that an interesting story, though? Because it's. I think so.
I wiped this out right at the beginning, and so, but what about some.
[00:45:49] Speaker A: Sort of tension, like, in that moment, a what if and then, like, the, like, a four issue mini series at the very end, it's all sunshine and rainbows and things like that. But, like, in that moment could have been a lot of, like, tension or things like that. But I was just like, that's pretty funny. But the funny thing is, I haven't seen much of it. I don't know. And I'm not. I'm 37, but I've been a big Star wars fan for a while, but not, like, dire. Like, this is the first legacy Thrawn book I read was the heir of the Empire. It was the new Thrawn alliances comic book that I made me. Like, I want to jump into that book and read that, but is there much what if out there? That'd be kind of a cool thing if, like, what if stories in Star wars would be kind of cool, too, though?
[00:46:24] Speaker B: I think they dabble with that. But I just, you know, when you have a franchise where what happens matters, like, you know, it matters if something happened in a movie, it matters across all the various other stories, I feel like maybe you take a little bit of that away, you know, with a, I mean, it's cool, but there's also plenty of stories to tell in this universe. Like, you know, it doesn't have to always be the same, you know, core.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: Characters, and I'm excited to see where it goes. And we're, I just mentioned this morning was that we're going, 2027 will be 50. 50 years. Yeah. 50 years of Star wars. It's insane to think that it's been 50 years since a new Hope came out. And I can just picture that there's, like, minds turning behind the scenes over at Marvel and Lucas. They're just figuring that all out and trying to, and trying to figure out comics and movies and all that stuff to figure out what's going to happen on that stuff. But, like, are you excited to see where this is going? Like, obviously you're part of this. You get to talk to all these people that are behind the scenes.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Well, I don't get, it's not like we're what's going to happen.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: Like, you get to see, like, some of the Kevin, Scott, and Charles.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: It's an honor to be a small part of, you know, small cog in the, in the machine kind of thing.
So, yeah, I do. I do feel like sometimes, like I'm a part of it. And I think, you know, I, I've not had a character, like, make the transition to live action or animated yet, and one day I think it will happen. But when I wrote old Man Hawkeye for Marvel, they did it. There was a video game which incorporated an old clint, and it was pretty much clearly the look was inspired by Marco Caccetto's designs and all that and the loose story. And so that was kind of an honor. And I have action figures on my shelf of that Hawkeye. And so one day, I think probably, maybe not Guitaku, the Grimm, the ill fated villain who only lasted eight pages, but maybe one of the other characters might make an appearance, and that would be kind of cool.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: That's awesome to hear that you're truly a fan of Star wars, which makes it so much more fun to talk to someone about it. Like, obviously, there are, like I mentioned, pretty much all the people working on Star wars right now, whether it be from top to bottom, are fans of Star wars. This is not like, again, you don't choose just to do this because it's a paycheck. Some people might. But I'm saying, like, I would say majority of you guys, the reason you're doing this is because you have stories in your head or visualizations that artists want to write or put on paper and things like that, and that's why they do it. And so you wouldn't have just a, you know, I'm going to work on Star wars because I get to work on Star wars. People are excited and you can tell when you're talking Star wars, you're like, excited to be doing this. Some of it you could like, say, like, I can't believe I'm doing it. Like, this is your job. This is what you do for a living right now. It's great. Star wars. It's just amazing. But you also are, you did a haunted girl. Are you going to do some more independent stuff at some point? Create your own? Or are you working on Star wars alone right now?
[00:49:26] Speaker B: There's like, unfortunately, it's the kind of thing where like, because some of the stuff is not announced, I can't directly talk about it. There is another creator owned that I'm circling, hopefully, but I have no clue on when that gets done. I'm also doing another image book that is actually not mine, but it's, I'm like a, more like a work for hire.
And then there's also, there's another two books that are also not Star wars but are like different franchises that are really, really cool.
But none of it is announced, so I can't really dive in.
I think it like. And there's also a graphic novel based on a, or based on a board game called Blood Rage that was announced at San Diego last year. But I don't have a published date when it comes out. So unfortunately, once Django goes out, everything I'm working on is probably going to be a little while before it actually is out in comic stores. So it'll, you know, I am busy. It's just not in a place where I can talk about any of it.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Which, well, I've always said to people, too, is like, if you don't have something you can't talk about, you probably should because that means you have some end in sight to where you have work. Because, like, you always need to have something you can't announce yet because it hasn't been announced because you guys know about this stuff way, way in advance than we do. And so, like, you need to have that, hey, I can't talk about a thing because we need to go to work because we want more Ethan Sachs stuff.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: So they usually, like, make a big deal out of like an announcement or whatever. And so, you know, me blur out.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: Without boom, right now is like teasing us all. They're doing these, like, videos now that has like, welcoming and then it's like a person's name and it's like this summer and it's all it is. And I'm like, stop doing that. Yeah, but, but I mean, I'm guessing Star wars is in your future as well. At some point, if they want to attack you and do something, you're not going to say no.
[00:51:35] Speaker B: Something I'm waiting to hear back on.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: So that's cool.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: Really cool.
And I think is going to happen. But, you know, until it does.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Until it does, you can't say anything. There you go.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that was the ellipses.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Right.
But bounty hunters ended recently and obviously those trades are coming out and those things are all in the works for the. That a lot of them are out because obviously 42 issues means that it's been out for a while.
Yeah, seven.
[00:52:07] Speaker B: Seven trades. And I hope that we'll get the omnibus treatment. I don't know anything one way or the other, so.
[00:52:14] Speaker A: But it'd be pretty. So awesome. I would think that would be a cool thing to have an omnibus of it. But there's also, like I've said, that's a connecting book. So all those things like the war of the bounty hunters and all that stuff as well as, uh, a Hanna girl comes out soon. Uh, check out your local May 21.
[00:52:32] Speaker B: But we'll, I'll double check that because that was the date and I planned around it. And so if there's any change. Makes me a little nervous that you're seeing that on Amazon.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Well, so Amazon and bookshop.org say June 4. Uh, previous world still says May 22, which is the comic book release date. And we know some people might not know that the comic book and the bookstore release dates are usually separate. And that's why it's 21st and 22nd. Usually it's the day before comic book stores because that's how the publishing world works. Books come out on the first or the Tuesday and comics on the Wednesday. But, yeah, I don't know where else that would be. I mean, image.
[00:53:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
Because that if there was some kind of delay that I didn't hear about, that would kind of be the kind of thing.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: I don't know why comic book stores would have it. The date. You know what I mean? Like, it seems like a weird thing.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: Like I said, I'm going to be at a Barnes and noble on May 22. If there's nothing there, then that's a problem.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But check it out. Wherever comic books are sold, too, because a condo girl is a wonderful, wonderful.
[00:53:31] Speaker B: Thank you.
Also, I was just going to say that if you can support your local comic store, that's always in my mind, the best place to get, no offense to Amazon, I'm sure Jeff Bezos can afford to.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Absolutely. And it's one of those things that if you don't. If you're. If you go into your local comic book store on May 22 and Hana girls, for some reason not on the trade paperback shelf, just tell them and they'll. They'll get it in. Usually it takes a week or so, but, like, it's worth getting it in there because the artwork is phenomenal. I love the COVID because the COVID is not cover a of issue one, which I like a lot, but, like, it's really cool that sometimes there's another cover to have on your shelf. So if you didn't get the variant that had that cover on it, it's kind of cool. Um, which is awesome because it's more vibrant, too, than the Fico ASIO, and.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: The original one was Joe Cassada, so that's an embarrassment of riches for us.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: Exactly. But yeah, it's a wonderful story co written by you and your daughter Naomi. So I hope that people pick that up and get that too out there. But yeah, get Django effect, too. Django effect came out. First two wishes are on the shelf. The next two are coming in near future, so it's worth getting it for Star wars fans out there. And if you want to learn more about haunted girl, we have a previous episode with Ethan on. We talked about a haunted girl a bit more, so check that out, too. But yeah, Ethan, I really appreciate you coming on, talking Star wars and doing all this stuff with us and taking time out of your day.
You know, it's a much better world in New York right now, I guess, than it has been in the past. So hopefully get outside and walk around a little bit. It's warmer out.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me again. It's always a pleasure talking to you. And I don't know when this comes, but if it. If it's after. Before, after May the fourth, I'll say.
[00:55:14] Speaker A: With you, it will. Technically, we're going to back and forth on this, but it actually probably will come out on May 8. So we're just getting ahead of ourselves here.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: Don't forget I said may the fourth be with you.
[00:55:22] Speaker A: But no, we always may the fourth be with you maybe 8th always. Yes, exactly. But I appreciate you taking the time out again, and thank you so much and have a great day.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: My pleasure. Thanks a lot.
One.
