Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandtights.com dot. I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode features award winning writer Mark Russell joining the program to talk to us about his upcoming one shot over at AWA Studios. They say upcoming. It's actually out. The day this episode drops, May 29, 2024, called Death ratioed over at AWA. He also is the writer of Rumpus Room at AWA and in the series that's going on right now and coming out in trade format this summer called traveling to Mars, as well as various other comic books that are out there. You should check them all out, including not all robots, which is a wonderful series he created a number of years ago. So check all those out. This is Mark Russell, award winning writer of book called Death ratioed at AWA Studios, dropping today at your local comic book shop. But before you listen, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blue Sky threads, all those things, like share, comment, all those things. Also subscribe rate, review over on Apple, Spotify, and all your major podcasting platforms. You can also find us over on YouTube and at keepsand tights.com dot. This is Mark Russell on an episode of Capes and Tights. Enjoy, everybody.
Welcome to the podcast. Mark, how are you today?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: I'm doing just fine, thank you.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: That's. That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, you know, you live in a world that, you know, I, you know, whether people like this book, don't like this book, like this interview, or don't like this interview, you will not probably die from it. That's a good thing, right?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: There's always an alternative out there if you're, if this isn't your jam.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah, turn off. Well, I was saying starting off, I mean, I want to get into a little bit about your comic history a little bit, too, before we get, like, full into it. But I was thinking to myself, there's no way I'd want to do this for, like, you know, for fun, for a living, for anything. If I lived in a world like death ratio, because I feel like, you know, the critics, the people who are critics of critics, I'd be dead in an instant. My head would explode immediately.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Sort of a revelation for me. And I thought for a long time, this is an indictment of comics, when really it's more of an indictment of social media, was how sort of, like, hypercritical people would be of things they hadn't even read yet.
I wrote two books about the Bible and I got far more grief online for messing with the Flintstones.
I think part of it was just because more people are talking about comics on social media than these books that people may or may not have read.
But, yeah, people had opinions about how I'd ruined their childhood before issue one had even come out. It's like, could you at least do me the honor of reading this book before you decide you hate it?
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Well, it's funny because I had that same thing happen to me. I released a review of a comic pre the release of the comic, and I really liked the. The new issue, the first issue of this series. And so I give a pretty high score, pretty high praise in most things about the comic, maybe a few things here and there. I said, hey, we could do this better or whatever. And I got an email saying that the only reason I gave a positive review is cause there were previous guests in the podcast. And this is like a week prior to the book actually coming out. And I'm like, this person hasn't even read it. They don't even know if it's actually good or not. They're just shouting me out for being a, you know, having no skin or having no integrity on this. And I'm like, what was I supposed to do? Give it a bad review?
Like, so people do jump to judgment before things come out? And again, in a world like death ratio, that would be a very, very negative thing. Even more in a world that we live in today.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: But, yes, before we get into this, you've been doing this for a little while. Not to call you out, as you've been doing it for a long time, but you've been doing this for a while.
What got you started in the comic book industry? Just this quick synopsis on what really got you into writing comics in the first place.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Well, I had been writing books, as I mentioned, and I thought that that's what my career would be as a writer, just writing prose books. But then I got the invitation to write Prez for DC as part of their DCU initiative in 2015. And I thought that was an intriguing enough offer where I felt like I had to have a better reason to say no than to say yes. And it was a sound like it would be something up my alley. It was about the world's first teenage president, and I could work in social commentary and be set in the future, so I could do sort of a. A science fiction, pre dystopian sort of story, which is what I wanted to do. And DC, to their credit, was totally on board with the things I want to do. And I had the advantage of not really knowing what I was doing.
So I didn't really know what a comic book was supposed to read. Like, I hadn't read comics since I was in college or what, you know, my. Or what a DC comic is like. So when I was thinking, okay, writing a comic book, I was thinking back to the comic books I read in the nineties, like, the indie comics, like Dan. I was thinking about eight ball or, you know, life in hell. And so I think that's what a comic should be. So I tried to, I think that's sort of informed myself ever since where I really am trying to write an indie comic, albeit oftentimes using characters from, like, the big two or, you know, already existing ip.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: It comes off as a thing like that, where you have the. You have the strong ability to write both those sides. Like, I feel like there are some people who just, like, tend to only be able to write independent comics and some of those people who only write, you know, the big two or the superheroes and things like that. I do feel like your writing style fits both ways. And I feel like you have ability to do a big, wider genre of things. But, like, the satire, humor comics are what really has taken off, in my opinion, for you. Like, anything you write that has that, you know, fun, light hearted.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: But, like, I think that's what I'm primarily known for. I think that if I have a brand in the industry, that's what it is. I'm known as a satirist or as sort of like a guy who does. Who links already existing characters to social commentary, which I guess is a more belabored way of saying I'm a satirist.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: I mean, because, like, I just, we were, you know, it was obviously rumbus room that came out recently in trade format as well, which, again, has that, you know, it takes things a little light heartedly, a little bit like this is. Can you imagine if this actually did happen? Kind of thing? And then same thing with death ratio is the same thing I do. I wouldn't want to live in a world that death ratio is there. I wouldn't want to also meet the characters from Rumpus from either. So I don't want to live in either one of your comic book or any of your comic books. I also don't want to travel to Mars.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: So I think that's what a lot of these comics are about, is about. This is what we want to avoid, right?
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: This is where we don't want to go. So a lot of it, what I. What I write, I think, is sort of warning people about what I see as the waterfall ahead on the. I mean, we might be rafting along now, like, pleasantly, but there's a waterfall ahead, and I feel like that's kind of the common theme of my work. It's like, we should probably start heading for the shore.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Do you feel like some people take comedy or humor comics as there's, like, a strong difference between whether or not someone's gonna like it or not like it? Like, they're gonna either really like it or they're gonna hate it. Is that. Does that you feel a similar thing? Like, there's. Comedy is so subjective that, like, some people might love your book, some people just might hate it. There's no real in between.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: There's definitely an obstacle you have to overcome. When somebody says, this is a humor comic book, and I'll be honest, it's like if somebody hands me something saying, oh, this is a humor comic, I'm immediately, you know, it's almost like, like I'm holding a, like a, like a soiled diaper or something. It's like, I don't know if I want to open this.
So, yeah, there's a hurdle, because, so it's so hard to make a good one that you have to sort of overcome that attitudinal barrier to get someone to read a humor comic. It's weird because, I mean, the title of the entire medium is comics, but there's almost never any funny ones nowadays.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: It's more horror than anything, which I'm okay with, is I like the horror.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: But, like, I think that one of the reasons why there are so many horror comics now, aside from the fact that it lends itself very well to our current narrative in society, is that people don't have the same sort of, you know, gag reflex when they hear about horror as a genre as they do. They hear about humor, because it's so much easier to do horror. It's so much harder to do humor well that people, oh, horror. Okay, I'll check it out. You know, if nothing else, there's probably going to be some. Some messed up scenes in here.
So I think that it's much easier to get over the hurdle of, like, somebody's initial resistance of reading something you wrote. If it's a genre that they feel reasonably confident they'll get something out of.
Which is why I made a terrible career choice in writing humor.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Exactly. That's kind of funny. Is actually do you feel like now, if you did write something that say, you straight up horror comic book, you're like, I'm gonna come out and do a straight up horror comic book or a straight up superhero comic book on your own, independently, do you think you'd have a hard time trying to sell that to your fan base or to the fan base because of your now connection to this?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: I think once somebody's in the fan base, like, once somebody is, like, familiar with me, and they decide they're not repelled by me, they're interested in what I'm doing next, it really doesn't, the genre doesn't matter.
I feel like people who have followed my career realize that I write in a lot of different genres, that I'm not just a satirist or a science fiction writer. I do a lot of different things. And I think that's part of the appeal, is that you never know what you're going to get with the next book.
It's for everyone else where it's like, the genre can be an obstacle or it can be an asset, which is why, you know, I try to, like, keep a foot in the superhero world, because that's what draws a lot of people to my writing. I think that's where it's like, they might not know me, they might not care about me, but they'll read a Batman comic. So, you know, it's where I feel like you build your following that. And I feel like the superheroes, the superhero comics, I think, have gotten sort of unfairly or perhaps fairly sort of maligned in people's minds, is just sort of like, repetitive professional wrestling storylines, like, who have we not fought lately? Who have we not teamed up with lately? But there really is sort of profound thought experiment at the base of superhero comics, which is, what is the correct way to wield power? Or if you had the power to change things, how would you do so? And I think that it's just, that's a much harder.
It's a much harder to have good things, good answers. It's harder to have meaningful things to say when answering that question than it is to have answering the question, well, who has this character not fought lately?
So people tend to gravitate towards the easier problems they can solve with the superhero comics. Whereas if you're willing to take a shot at the harder questions that superhero comics pose, you can really write stuff that's as meaningful as you would find in, know, Tolstoy.
I don't say that, you know, ironically or sarcastically. I'm serious about that.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think it's just funny how you mentioned, like, when people follow you in, like, your writing. Like, I'm a person like that where artists for, obviously, artists have a little bit more, I think, of a following specifically to their style of art than maybe writers do. But, like, if you see your name on a comic book, I'm at least reading the synopsis and at least maybe picking up issue one, just to be honest. I know you're writing, and I like your writing on a comic book. I mean, I just. I was doing some research and things like that, and I had been, like, numb to trying to follow what the next series from Marvel, like, next big, you know, crossover event was going to be. And then Bloodhunter or Bloodhunt came. Came up, and you're doing Blood hunters, which is, which is a series, or the one of the mini series over there at Marvel. And so, like, immediately I was like, okay, I gotta read this comic book. Even if I'm not gonna read all of the Blood hunt crossover, I'm like, I'm gonna read this one because of you. But it's funny, I was in the comic book store the other day, and it was like someone was like, no, I read superhero comics. Or, no, I read horror comics, or, no, I read this. It was funny how segregated in the genre some of these readers were that they would, like, wouldn't cross over between two things. Like, I don't read independent comics or whatever, and I'm just like, it's funny how, because you mentioned that if you like someone's writing, you might like them in different various genres.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: And I think part of that fear is that people have been burned before. You know, people have. Have, like, read some really bad superhero comics or some really bad, you know, humor comics or whatever. And so they tend not to want to go, you know, go back to that restaurant.
But I think the way around that is. Yeah. Finding creators that you trust, artists and writers whose work you really love, and then trusting them to take you safely through genres that you might not otherwise have enjoyed in the past, and sometimes.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: So this. The death ratio. You also partnered up with Lacy, who I'm a big fan of. You know, our friend Daniel Krauss did a book with them, Trojan. It came out a couple years ago that was actually wonderful. And Lacy has this really unique art style that I really, really, really enjoy.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: It's beautiful. Yeah.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: And that partnership between you two is also making me go, yeah, I wanted to read this comic.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think Lacy was an inspired choice. I think Axel was the one. Axel Alonso is the one who put Lacy on the comic. But, yeah, it looks really good. And I think the right sort of balance between this is sort of attractive, this is futuristic and sort of utopian and also horrifying. It's like the expressions on people's faces and the emotional sort of, like, energy that the characters have is completely contrary to the technological sort of prowess of that civilization, which I think is what the undertone of the comic is about. Like, isn't it amazing, this technology we've created with which to destroy our own lives?
[00:14:42] Speaker A: So obviously we see this every day. We see it in real life. People judge people via the social media. It doesn't go to the extent, most of the time, where someone is, like, physically harmed by it or so on and so forth. It just usually is emotional, and that's not great either. But I'm saying, like, where did this outside of that story originate for you? Is this something that's been in the percolating for a while, or is this something that's more recently came and you put on pen on paper?
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's a story that I've had for a while, and part of it just is my growing concerns of the groupthink that social media creates. And I'm not, like, saying this from a, from a pulpit or from a perch of being above it all. I'm saying this because I started realizing how it was changing my online Persona, like, about how I was trying to, like, sort of preempt criticisms and criticisms that didn't even really mean anything. Just, I just don't want people clapping back at me. It's like the, why do you hate waffles? You know, it's like, which is a common, you just say that people know what you're talking about because it's so common. It's like you could say something as anodyne as I love pancakes on social media, and somebody will say, well, why do you hate waffles? People will respond to something you didn't say just because it allows them to feel like they're contributing or just allows them to feel like they're a little superior to you, which is fine. If that's the way you enjoy the Internet, then I guess go with God. Who am I to say that's wrong? But as a creator of content, as somebody posting, you begin to sort of think how you can please the waffle people as you're writing about pancakes. And that changes you. That changes the way you write, not just write the way you approach the world because you're thinking not, or what do I think? Or what are my opinions? But what is the aggregate superposition that is acceptable, that will preclude criticism, even criticism that has no merit whatsoever, and that's dangerous. That's going to turn us into. That's going to turn us into a human mush.
I don't know if you watch Star Trek the next Generation, but yes, but the big villain, or the most sort of harrowing villain is the Borg, who achieved this incredible technological advancement through a collective, technologically collected mindset, which, you know, I found terrifying when I watched it. I loved that show. But now I kind of think if that ever happened, if you ever did, like, connect everybody into a sort of Borg, they wouldn't be able to, like, they wouldn't be able to build a popsicle raft.
It'd be the dumbest civilization ever created, because the groupthink just sort of mediocrifies everything. Now, I want to give a little bit of a disclaimer. I'm not saying that people who do and say horrible things, racist or misogynist stuff, should not escape criticism. That is valid. And I think one of the reasons why you know this, you know, things like the me too movement and took off on social media, was because there had been no legal accountability for people for so long. If you were a powerful man, if you were Harvey Weinstein, you had pretty much insulated yourself from any sort of legal or commercial accountability for your actions. You were a vampire. And it's good. It's good that social media gave people an avenue to do an end run around the stagnation of the justice system and to bring these people to what little justice you could through, just through aggregated acknowledgement of what they did. That's not really what I'm talking about. That's not really what this is about. It's about, uh, trying to control your own thoughts or trying to commodore or trying to mediocrify your own thoughts to preclude any criticism whatsoever. There are people out there who do and should be criticized and hounded for what they've done, but the rest of us who are just trying to, like, talk about pancakes or, you know, talk about our pets online, shouldn't have to go through the, um, the wheel turning of, uh, figuring out how we can. We shouldn't be thinking about the response to our. Our thoughts before. Before we've even had them, because that.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Is, you have on one of your pages, and I want to give too much away from the book. But, like, you know, so to. For people who don't know about this, it's. It's. Arnold wakes up from a coma 20 years into the future and discovers a society is now ruled by social media. So, like, upvotes, likes things like that and dislikes. If you get enough of them, your head explodes and your life is basically over, or is over at that point. I mean, it's future. The future. So maybe you can survive without a head, but most likely not. Um, but there's a small as a panel where the guy walks by and says, have a nice day, and he goes. And he goes, well, screw you, then. And it hits the down vote button and his head explodes. Like, that's what you're trying to say is, like, that's not.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's like, 99 of the, uh. That's. That's the 99% of the interactions or the danger on social media. It's not that, like, you know, some monster's going to get canceled who deserve to be. Uh, that actually happens very rarely. And I think one of the big dangers of social media is that the monsters know who know their monsters sort of band together, and to, like, these sort of troll farms, you know, they band together for mutual protection. So it doesn't even do that very well. It doesn't even really go after the people who you think it, you know, should deserve some. Some social media retribution. They tend to, like, be the ones to escape it because they exist in these sort of niche realities surrounded by like minded people. They've insulated themselves. And so what it's created instead of, like, this sort of this democratized justice where everybody's held to the same standard, it's created a system of, like, freeway assassins where anybody could snipe and just use the weight of their harassment and their online bullying campaigns to drag you down while you can't do well, you cannot retaliate, you cannot protect, you cannot get back at them, because they're already encased in their own little social media niche, uh, from which they. They act with complete approval.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: I don't know about you, Mark. I don't have enough time to get on there and just shit all over everybody. I just don't have enough time in my day to do that. When I see that, I'm not in it.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Yeah, this is how I define toxic fandom is like, these are people who enjoy not enjoying things. It's like, instead of talking to creators they like and love and whose work they get meaning out of there, they're finding the people, they, they want, they want to, to keep from making more comics, or the people they want to get in your head and sort of mess with your free throw. When you're, next time you're writing a script, you're going to be thinking about some rando who came on and started railing on you on social media. And it's not that they think necessarily that their criticisms are valid or that they even feel as strongly about it. I think part of it is the joy they feel at knowing the next time you're sitting down to write, they're going to be living sort of rent free in the back of your head. And so you really got, it's, you know, it's hard enough to be a comics creator who's, like, solvent and working consistently as it is, but to have, like, people behind the hoops sort of waving their arms and screaming at you is like, makes it that much harder, and it's completely unnecessary. We don't really need that.
I think everybody who is a fan of comics should want more good comics, should want creators to be on their a game at all times. I don't understand the impulse behind trying to stop somebody from creating something or to make it worse by interfering with their mental process.
It's like, yeah, I might prefer coke to Doctor Pepper, but it would never occur to me in a million years to go poison doctor pepper in favor of coke.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: You mentioned that the, you know, telling someone, if you want to, if you put enough comic creators down and enough of them decide to quit the business, there isn't any more business. So you can't read comics at that point. So what would be the point at that time to do that to that many people? My LCS owner, one day I was picking up the adaptation to the Mandalorian, so, right, Marvel published the single issue formats a adaptation of the tv show Mandalorian. And he looks at me, I have it in my hand. I put it on my polis. He bought it, I have it in my box. I pull it out of my box. I'm like, oh. He goes, why do you still buy this? I'm like, dude, you need me to buy this. I don't understand what you're trying to do, telling me when we put this back on the shelf and not sell a comic book, because I feel like this is your livelihood. So I don't understand why you're telling me not to do this. And so if you do it enough, then there's not going to be enough sales out there. And I sort of understand where this where it comes from, you know, it's the ability to do it from your home without any absolute repercussions in is what it is.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: I think we should think of comics and in most mediums as, like, an ice cream shop, where it's like, you go in and it's like, oh, my God, they got, like, you know, 30 flavors. It's like, I'm not going to be eating the, you know, the bubble gum ice cream, but I'm glad it's there for someone who likes bubble gum ice cream or the birthday cake flavor ice cream. Not for me, but, you know, I'm glad it's an option. And I feel like that's the way we should be approaching this, is that, like, there needs to be a lot of flavors out there that we do not enjoy so that they'll also find us a salted caramel. They'll find the flavors that we do enjoy. You shouldn't go into a comic shop or an ice cream store or any place, and it's like, all we've got is chocolate and vanilla.
That's not. I don't understand why you'd want to live life that homogenized. And I feel like that's what a lot of the social media sort of trolling and the toxic fandom is doing, or what it's trying to do is homogenize media into something they think they are going to like because they've had it before, you know, which automatically comes at the expense of something they might like, but they don't know they want yet.
Henry Ford, who's a horrible anti semite, but yes. But yes, he was right about this. He said if you'd asked the customers what they wanted in 1895, they all would have said a bigger, stronger horse.
But, you know, it's like you got to sometimes not listen to people or people that should withhold judgment if they ever want anything new.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: It's funny. With death ratio, which comes out May 29 from AWA Studios, it's a one shot, which we were talking just before recording, which we laughed about. I think I wrote it even in my review, that the only thing I didn't like about it is the fact that it was not long enough, meaning that I want more. But that's like. I think that's. I think that's a given to most things, and. And I just went, the current week we're recording this in is our website, Star Wars Week, and we talked a bunch of Star wars stuff. I talked, reviewed the first, you know, episodes four, five, and six with my buddy and so on and so forth. And I said, I don't care if things are good or bad nowadays. I'm just happy we live in a world that they're created. And so, like, I live in a world that Star wars stuff is on tv. Like, they just released this tales of the Empire animated show this past weekend. I'm just pumped this is out there, whether it's good, bad, or ugly. I just am glad there's new stuff out there.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: I think that's the right attitude.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: I want more because I liked it. So it doesn't mean that it needs more. It doesn't mean death ratio needs to be a five issue mini series or ongoing series. It just means I liked it so much. I wish there was more. And that's what I'm trying to say, because that's really nice.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like that's a much better way to leave somebody than, oh, I wish there was less.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: I think it was too many pages. Well, maybe we've watched the movies that were 3 hours long. They could have been two and a half hours. We know.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Like, we definitely use it, but, like, so you could do it. You could have been like, okay, this is gonna be a two issue or a three issue mini series. And by the time we got to issue three, you might have been trying to, like, add material to make this go further. Like, yeah, this probably should have been in one shot, so we could have been. It could have been worse.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I read somewhere that the official position of the lutheran church is that Martin Luther lived for ten years too long, that he sort of, like, jumped the shark at some point, and so they're. They're not paying attention to what he wrote after that, and that's not a good place to be as a. As a content creator, whether in comics or. Or Protestantism. You want to avoid that.
The conclusion that you lived ten years too long.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Too long.
Well, I mean, that's. Dana, I don't know if you were UFC, the fighter, Dana White, the president, whatever his title is now with the UFC, uh, used to say there is time when. When a fighter decides in their mind when they're thinking in their mind it's time to retire from fighting, that they should. There isn't, like, if you get this little, small moment in your mind that you think you should retire, that's probably the time when you're starting second guessing yourself. That's when you should probably end your. Your career as a fighter. I said, well, maybe sometimes comic books should be that way. Too, but I don't think so. I think most writers that I really like, please write until you pass, because I really want to hear what you have to say. Good, bad, or ugly again. That's the whole thing. And I think I learned that from. It might have been from Kevin Smith because he used to say that on the podcast, podcast all the time, which was just like, dude, I don't want to live forever. I just saw the trailer for the new acolyte tv show coming out this summer. I just need to live until that's out because I want to be able to see that. And then he see the next trailer, he's like, I just need to live as long to see that because I want to see that. And it's like, that's me, I think, right now where it's like, I just love the fact that these things are coming and you're making them, and people are writing these things, and that's where I'm at. And I'm glad that you're writing things like death ratio, and it's only a one shot, but I think it's perfect length. Was that designed because of the material you had for it seemed like it only lasted this long.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: It was sort of this idea. I've had it for a long time, but it always seemed kind of like to exist in this nether region where it's like, I don't feel like there's a series here, but it definitely feels more like it's more than a single issue. So, yeah, when they gave me the opportunity to write this as like a 48 page, I thought that was perfect. Like, oh, yeah, this is what it really is. It's like, it's like two issues, but it doesn't make sense to publish an issue number one, number two, and that be the series. So let's just do it as a one shot. I frankly think this is a great new sort of format, and I hope that that more publishers start doing this where you just get one shots that are odd lengths, 50, 60 pages, and you tell a complete story and you're not trying to milk it into a series or, you know, cram it into 22 pages. You're giving it the precise length it needs.
It's like if you went into a clothing store and they say, oh, we only sell smalls, it's like, well, it's like buying two small t shirts isn't going to equal one large.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Well, I actually see the publisher recently. I'm not going to call them out on it, but they did issue one and they did issue two, and then they released an issue that was super long, but it wasn't like, really advertised. Well, that it was super long and it had the same name of the title, but there was a colon and a name of the book. And my local comic book shop bought it thinking that it's another issue of a comic book or a one shot. And all it was was compiling issues one and two of the series into a one shot thing that was paper bound and all that stuff, like 999. And I was like, and he got a bunch of us polis people to buy it. Cause we're thinking same thing. Like, oh, I bet it's just a issue. It was the exact same thing. And I was like, well, that's kind of dumb. Now you got my money three times for this one comic book. And, and so this just coming out this way makes sense. And I think that, you know, I think it's at 599 or $6.99 a cover price, which is perfect because it's basically two shorter issues. And do one longer. Yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: You know, like how when you're at the grocery store and you, the, you, they have like the price for the product, but they also have, like, tell you, like, how much it is per ounce.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: You know, just so you know, it's a better deal. Like, uh, the bigger box is like, actually, even though it's more expensive, it's a better deal than the smaller box because per ounce it works. They should do that. Comics like have like a little thing at the bottom. Just, it's like, you know, it's, uh, thirteen cents per page or whatever.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Because that mean again. And I think that's what some people do. I mean, comics nowadays cost so much in the first place for a lot of people have a limited budget to buy comics. And some people will think about that. If you see 699 on a cover price, you immediately thought it was like.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Oh, it's super expensive. It's too expensive. But if you're getting like the equivalent of like three individual issues, it's actually a great deal.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: Yes. And guess what? A lot of people want the whole story. I mean, we just talked about the tales of the Empire show that released on, on Disney plus this weekend. It was six episodes. They were very short, whatever, but they released them all at the same time. And some people like that nowadays. And this is that it is. It could have been two issues, but I would had to wait a month or two in between issues. I would have been kind of upset.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: So if you gave me the option of buying 320 page comics that told a complete story for $2 each or 160 page comic that told the entire story front to end for $6. No savings whatsoever. I would still take the 60 page comic.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: I might pay a dollar more, Mark. I might pay the $7 for. Yeah.
[00:32:12] Speaker B: Because I want to know. I mean, I don't want to, like, have to stop and wait a month if I don't have to. I want to know how that, you know, so things come up in life, and you might not go back and get issue number two, whereas if you get the whole story in one blow, it's like, that's the way I want to read it.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I'm going to call you out here. I would have rather led traveling to Mars all at once, but, you know.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I think this is part of what comics as an industry is starting to realize, that, like, this is why the trades are starting to sort of, you know, be more important than the floppies. It's like, this is people's preferred. People don't necessarily want to, like, read serialized if they don't have to. I think one of the great things about comics is that it gives you a chance to sort of read a little bit of a story before you invest in the whole thing. But after issue one, do you really need to keep publishing issue? I mean, people, I think after issue one, if they probably know whether or not they want the whole story or.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Not, and that would be kind of a cool way of doing it. I think there was a publisher who tried that once, and they changed their model on or like that. But, like, I also like the idea that there's some companies, I think I know the Universal Monsters Dracula series is coming out. It's not in a paper trade. It's immediately went into hardcover. I know Peacemaker over at DC's black label went from, like, floppy comics to a hardcover version of it. And I think that's cool because it gets me enticed in something that's a little bit more, I feels like there's more value in it because of the hardcover or it's, like, more sturdy. As a collector, I think, you know. Well, I'm a big fan of floppy stupid. Like, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: The good thing about the, the hardcovers is that they're sort of the perfect item for both the reader and the collector. It's like the two sort of sides the market, the peanut butter and the chocolate meeting together into a perfect Reese's peanut butter cup. It's like, oh, it's like, this is the same thing that we could sell to somebody who's just like, a reader of comics, just wants a story, and equally to somebody who's a collector. And it's like, well, I've got this beautiful object to show off to my friends.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: It fits on the shelf. That's the thing is, trades on a hardcover just fits on a shelf. Nice. I mean, it is what it is.
It's an OCD thing for me, too, but, yeah, but you have. So death ratio comes out May 29. It's a fun, like I said, it's a look and a window into the world we live in now. But 20 years later, that your likes and dislikes, you might take a little bit more. Some people might take a little less to make those likes and dislikes. Some people, like myself, would probably think twice about when I give out those likes and dislikes. I mean, likes are one of those things that you can give out to anybody. The dislikes thing is one of those ones where you'd be like, ooh, I think it's a little bit.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's kind of what I. If there is a takeaway, that's the takeaway. I want. I want people to think a little more intentionally about how they are, how their presence on social media affects other people, and also about, like, how the. This sort of stratification that it creates pushing us into these little camps and, you know, so we can get away with trolling or whatever, how toxic that is. I think that, you know, social media overall is, you know, potentially a good thing. I enjoy, I go on social media every day and helps me promote my work. You know, it gives me, like, a sort of platform for little quips or observations. I have, uh, I I think in a lot of ways, you know, it's sort of like when they first discovered how to distill liquor, and nobody had ever had hard liquor before. It was a pandemic because people were just drinking it like they were drinking wine or beer or something. At some point they realized, oh, no, you don't drink this the same way. You just have, like. Like a shot and you leave it alone. And I think that we're at that point with social media where the jin craze era is hopefully over, and we could begin realizing how to drink it in moderation and keep it within the proper context of our lives.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's one of those things that I, you know, I use my phone way too much, but I don't think I use my phone too much. On one specific app. So it's not Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. I'm using other things. Goodreads. I'm on it. I just feel like it's there too much in my first place. But I don't find myself. My wife and I were just talking about the other day, I don't find myself on my personal Instagram or Facebook or whatever, posting a lot of infings. And so I don't get the likes or dislikes that I think normal people would get, because I'm just like, oh, yeah, I haven't posted on my instagram in a month. On our podcast Instagram, I'm there every day posting things and so on and so forth. So that's probably where I'd get a little bit more of a connection of people disliking things and things. And so, yeah, but now I'm not worried about my head exploding. So for now, I'll be okay. We got 20 years from now, what's going to end up happening is, you know how, like, the Simpsons has, like, predicted everything at some point in 20 years from now, something's like, oh, Mark Russell wrote a client, Jeff.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: Oh, God, I hope that's not true. I hope that that never happens. And they're making these works never become prophetic. No.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: And they're making some nice, amazing lotion, too.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: You know, I hope they're anti prophetic. I hope they have some effect on people, like, going the opposite way.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Well, someone said, like, about the AI thing, it's like, haven't we already learned this from Terminator? So maybe the same thing when someone's like, well, maybe we shouldn't do this because Mark Russell wrote about it in a comic book one. So we probably shouldn't do that. But, yeah, death ratio.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Oh, death ratio is out May 29. So I'm excited for people to read it. That's one of those downside things that I get as a person in the media, that I get to read it way in advance. And now I'm, like, wanting to tell people about it and talk to people about it, but I can't because they're like, I haven't read it yet. I'm like, oh, come on, please, just buy it and get it. And so, yeah, it's a fun look because it's not real. It's a comic book, people. And. But the problem is, it gives you thought. It makes you think more than maybe just a stupid comedy, straight up comedy. Comic book does, like, a one that's there for laughs. And things like that. This actually has, like, social commentary in it, which is amazing. And I think that makes you think. And that's. I feel like you're a very smart writer, which is, you know, that's why I'm. I like your writing, but it also makes me go, you're smart, but you're writing dumb things, if that makes any sense. I don't know if that.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: I take that as a compliment.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Okay, good.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: I try. I always try to write dumb things smart.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Because that's also rumpus room as available now, also from AWA Studios, available in trade format. And you have traveling to Mars coming out this summer. Is that a hardcover? Is that what I've heard?
[00:38:31] Speaker B: We are doing both a hardcover and a soft cover trade. So the hardcover will be available through a Kickstarter campaign, which should launch soon. And the soft cover trade should be, I think, comes out in July.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Okay. That's awesome. I'm excited for it because I think it's a wonderful series as well.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: I feel like it might be the best thing I've ever written, so I hope everyone checks out. Traveling to Mars, that's.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: It's, it's, it's, it's, it's wonderful people. You should really try it out. And you have a bunch of other stuff coming out too. I don't have. I don't think we have time to talk about all the other stuff you're working on. You're a pretty busy person right now. But I do think that I read the first issue of Blood Hunter, Blood Hunt, the mini series.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: That's the only one I'm in. I'm only in that one issue, but I am doing Batman dark age with Mike and Laura Allred, and issue two just dropped of that. So we're, there will be a total of six of those. So I'm excited for that too.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Well, you're a busy person, Mark, so just keep it up. Keep writing. Stuff. Like these books I've read already. I think you had a talent. I think the award ceremonies have given you some awards. So you're good. You get your awards now. You just keep writing while you're writing and don't change a thing. Does that work?
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Thank you. Yes. The good thing about winning award is that once you've won, one can lose as many as. It doesn't matter how many you lose after that.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. You now say you're award winning writer and damn, done.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: No idea. They have no idea how futile I have been.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: It's the same thing about, like, a New York Times bestselling author. You just be like, I'm done. I don't need to do a bestselling book anymore. I just have to write a book because I've already had that title. I'll use it forever and ever and ever. But, yeah, I really appreciate, Mark, you taking the time out of your day to talk to us here on the podcast. And again, death rate shoot comes out May 29 from Awa. Everybody should pick that up. It's a one shot. It's worth taking a chance on because I think it's wonderful. So. Absolutely. Thanks again, Mark.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: Thank you, Justin.
