[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandtyce.com dot. I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by Galactic Comics and collectibles. You can visit them
[email protected] or if you're in the Bangor main area, you can visit them at 547 Hammond street in Bangor, Maine, as well as follow them on Facebook and Instagram. But this episode features Joey Esposito and Sean van Gorman talking about their book the Pedestrian. Joey is a comic book writer known for his work on DC's Batman urgent legends, as well as Aquaman, Lost Kingdom, as well as many other comics, including the co created book Pawnshop with co guest Sean Vaughn Goemon. He also is coming up. Joey is actually writing the new Sesame street book or the first issue of the Sesame street book over, coming out on August 28. That's coming soon. Sean Vaughan Garmin is known for co creating toe tag riot as well as Secret Adventures of Houdini, as well as Pawn Shop and the pedestrian with Joey Esposito. So check this episode out, talking about the pedestrian. Before you do, visit us on capesandtyce.com as well as follow share all that stuff over on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blue sky, and threads, as well as rate review, subscribe over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all your major podcasting platforms. You can also check out our YouTube channel, but all that's
[email protected]. dot check that out. But this is Joey and Sean talking about the pedestrian coming out August 7 to your local comic book shop. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. You got Joey and Sean. How are you guys? Look at that.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Oh, fantastic.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: What I love about that is that you have actually a professional photo where there's so many people in the comic book industry who just have like, a picture from like, 1997. Yeah, to use for promotional stuff. Like, both of you have actual photos of yourselves on your website and stuff that are not like you standing next to another person at a convention, right.
[00:02:00] Speaker C: With a lanyard on and like, arms around. Yeah, well, I hate, it's so uncomfortable to, like, stand and smile and get your picture taken. And luckily, the one that I've been using is just one that my wife happened to take on a normal day and I didn't have to, like, think about it, get in my head about it. So it really worked out.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: That's because you're using the wrong people, Joey.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: That's also probably true.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: You get a professional person, they, they, they spend like, half hour getting to know you, and they loosen you up a little bit, and then, you know, then they run through. When I had mine done, I got mine as a co, as a co, like, graduation present for my wife. So we got, we got a, we got a couple of shots together, and then we each got our own headshots and we let her go first. I had a couple outfit choices that I brought, and, you know, it took her a little while to warm up. I was just ready to go. Let's do this.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: You can turn it on, though. That's like your gift.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: I do, I do have an ability to turn myself on.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Okay, that's a, that's a, that's a God given talent right there. Turn yourself on right there.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And then she went through, and then, like, towards the end of the shots, we wanted to get you set. She said, okay, so maybe we can just go through, like, all, like, the standard poses. Like, let's go through all of them. Let's do all the poses. And then, and then this one was an accidental one because they, they send me like 200 pictures afterwards, and I sent, like, the wrong number for it. So I got this one for free. Uh, this one is, uh, is the smolder.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: I like it. It's really cool.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Also, want to know how many people have cut outs of themselves in their house right now?
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Um, me and everyone at bad idea. And that's about it.
Because they, they had a, they had a booth a couple years back where they didn't have, they had like an anti booth. They just had like an enclosure and just standees of a couple of their writers. And I ran into, I think this was Baltimore and ran into Dinesh at that show, and I was like, well, looks, it looks like we have similar bad idea fountains here.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, it's one of those things that like, when someone goes away for a long time, like someone who works overseas or something like that, like, they cut out these things for their kids so they have like a, like a pillow with their face on it. Yeah, Sean's got that at his house, just, you know, hanging out.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. No one misses me ever because my.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Wife and I just were rewatching superstore. Have you guys seen Superstore?
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Awesome. Phenomenal. But they did an episode where they had a tornado hit, and they're reworking the store and they run out of time. So they just print out these huge pictures of what the aisle is supposed to look like, and put it in front of the aisle so people won't know that it's not actually set up, and the lady just runs right into it. It's hilarious.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: Looney tunes.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: This is definitely a watch for you, Joey. Yeah, definitely worth, worth checking out 100%.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: So, like, everything that ever has ever happened at a retail store, like, stupidly or funny, someone's like, that. That's not really. That really didn't happen. That really did happen is in this show, like, people, there's, like, in between shots, they just shoot, like, this guy, like, sitting on a toilet, going to the bathroom in the middle of the store. Like, it's a. It's actually, like, yeah, it's pretty funny. It's worth a watch.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: And they also really leaned into, like, um, you know, lockdown sales in a way. Like, most show, most scripted shows sort of, like, ignored Covid or pretend didn't happen. They were full into it. Focusing on the emotional toll of working in retail during COVID and Joey. Knowing as much of a fan of feels as you are is definitely something to check out for sure.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: I do love a sitcom. Emotional gut punch every once in a while.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: It's also, my wife was like, oh, yeah, I forgot about that season. That's fairly new, actually, in her mind. This show is from, like, ten years ago, and it's not actually that old of a show. And to have that, you know, timestamp on it, having the pandemic is actually kind of unique that they did that well in, was it mythic quest?
They did that pretty well, too, with the whole, like, working remotely and having, like, some of the actors, like, you know, zoom in during the show to make it look like they're working from home.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: I do. I do miss. I do kind of miss Covid TV. How, like, shows were just, like, getting back on somehow through, like, Zoom call technology. And it kind of. It made. It made television feel more personal. Like, like, watching some old clips of, like, Cohen O'Brien. Like, when he was doing that, I was like, oh, yeah. We were still.
I don't know. It made it more unpredictable because they were trying and there was a lot more creativity happening during the time. So I was like, yeah, let's. Okay. I like this.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Yeah, they're doing this for new things. This is what I do, like, all the time. They're like, oh, look at this. We can record this from your house. Like, yeah, this is my house. I've been doing this. You guys are learning how to do this. I've been. I know it's a, you know, multimillion dollar tv show. It's a little. I was born in that you can call us podcasters and ask us how to do it. No, you were raised with all I was born in.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: That's pretty good.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: I missed the news, though, because you could tell, like, who's making way more money. And the lower borders just have, like, weird triangle attic apartments that, like, they didn't really clean up that well.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Like, blink twice if you need help. Like, please. Like, you, you look like you're in someone's closet. Like, are you okay?
[00:07:23] Speaker B: They're hot plate.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: But yeah, the, the world has definitely changed, but it's definitely, like, this makes it fun. I think. I think what I learned about zooming and things like that has made it so that we can do things where, like, people are in multiple locations, which is awesome. We did a podcast that was on four different countries for other people on there that it just happened to be that the creators were in Thailand and in the UK, in the United States, which was really cool. Something you would normally be able to do. Like, we're not flying everybody in to do a podcast, right? You know, most comic book people don't fly anywhere to do a podcast. They always are going to be.
None of us make enough money to do it to go fly somewhere on the ends.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't get out of bed for less than 2000, but, uh, so.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: I mean, you are comic creators. Uh, you know, and you have the pedestrian coming out here, but what got, let's just start all, like, let's go back a little bit. Let's find a little bit about how you guys got into comics in the first place. Like, both either reading and collecting and writing or illustrating. Uh, I don't jo, you want to start with just, like, how you got into comics in the first place?
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Sure. I don't remember a time in my life when comics wasn't a part of it. My parents grew up collecting and reading comic books.
And so basically, since I was very little, you know, superheroes were always around, and that's kind of where my comic journey started. Certainly reading Superman comics when I was a boy, just a boy, the death of Superman happened, and that was just sort of like, the got its hooks in me, and it's been, haven't looked back ever since. And, you know, of course, as you grow up, you kind of discover creators that you love. You discover artists that you love, and you follow them from their superhero books to their creator own books and just sort of going on that journey and realizing the true potential of the medium.
At a certain point, I just realized that is what I wanted to do, and we've been trying to make it happen ever since. And here we are.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Here we are right now.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: That's how that, that story ended here, by the way. Everybody just, they know this is all a culmination to this episode of the podcast right here.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yep, this is a, this is Joey's official retirement.
[00:09:38] Speaker C: Yes, I made it.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: I'm done.
But, I mean, Shawn, what's your kind of journey to this?
[00:09:48] Speaker B: I've always been into comics. I've always been into drawing. I've always had lots of interests that were all sort of encouraged growing up. I probably had trouble picking one thing because I was always trying to do lots of different things.
And then sort of in my mid twenties, I kind of focused on art and started putting together my own books. This was when print on demand services were sort of coming out and seeing what their offerings were of, like, what other creators were putting out and seeing and seeing that going, I could do better than that. And so figuring out how to make a comic made a comic. It was done. So I figured I would make another one. I started working on one that would eventually become secret adventures of Houdini. It was sort of a action adventure series based on the life of the real Harry Houdini. And we then kind of started figuring out how to get books in stores. And the first shop we went into, we had copies of the book, and their first question was, are you on diamond? And we were like, no, what's that?
And so they explained, well, it's not really a comic unless you're on diamonds. Like, okay, well, we're going to figure out how to make this happen. And then we left. And then someone came in randomly to the same shop and just ordered our book. And the store had never heard of it. And then that shop emailed us, like, a couple weeks later, like, hey, do you have any copies of your book? And we said, yeah, absolutely. So we had, like, three copies left to our name.
Through a random happenstance, we became friendly with the then head of Disney Pictures, who had a chance opportunity where he found out I was an artist. Like, oh, you're an artist. We had become very friendly, and I said, yes, I'm an artist, and we have a book that's coming I'd love to show you. And so we gave him a copy, and he loved it. And he said these words, that doesn't happen.
Well, I don't really do the publishing too much, but we just bought Marvel. I can make some calls for you.
So sure enough, we get a phone call from Axel Lanza's assistant at Marvel. He sends us off to sit with Axel at Marvel, and the first thing Axel says is, thank you so much for sending me a comic book, because I never get to read comics anymore, which blew our little minds because you think, oh, you work at Marvel Comics, you must get to read comics all the time. Not the case when you are working at that level. You see, the pieces of the comics eventually come together. Then you send them out and don't really get to sit down and process and enjoy them because you're already off to the next one. So as this is happening, he had pages of, like, editorial notes for us that we took. We incorporated, and we're making another copy of the book as stores are starting to order the book. So we had three. They ordered five. So I had to take one back from my mom and my grandma. Well, get these back to you, I swear. And the book sold out in a day, and they were getting phone calls for days about this book. So then they said, hey, let's get some more. We don't have any yet. Here's why. But maybe when the new stock comes in, we can do an event at the shop. And they said, great, what do you want to do? I said, I don't know. Maybe we can lock me outside of the shop or something until we sell all the books. And they go, great, let's do that. And then I go, oh, cool. And then, oh, fuck, now I have to do that.
And this was in February, New York City, forbidden planet, Broadway, 12th street.
It rained all fucking day.
And I'm locked, and I'm chained to a light pole outside of forbidden planet. And I was out there for 8 hours. Lots of magical happenings throughout the day. Like, the cops came. They tried to shut it down.
A cop asked. A cop said that they were responding to a 911 call about a man chained to a pole being stabbed repeatedly, and then asked me if I was stabbed.
I check, no, officer, I'm fine. And this went on for 8 hours until I was finally out. But that's, this event led to that book being picked up, and that's how I started having comics published.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: I will say, sean, you're probably one of the most unique stories of saying how your books got published, but that's, you know, there's some unique ones out there, but that's probably pretty unique out there, isn't it?
[00:14:33] Speaker B: I think. I think a lot of it was we were kind of looking at the scene. We, me and my writing partner at the time, came onto the scene. We started going to shows, started going to shops, and we're looking around, and from what we could observe is that just a lot of people doing the same thing. Everyone has a table, everyone's talking about their book.
No one knows who we are, who's going to give a fuck about what we're doing.
And on top of all of these random things that are happening, we're realizing that the energy that's happening here doesn't really happen for a lot of people. We want to match that chaotic energy in our own way. So then after that, I started going to comic shops and conventions with a straight jacket, and we would, we would, I would do straightjack escapes at chose to, like, get people over to the booth and repop. Hated this. They really hated us so much. Especially Javits, the security of Javits, because we would just shut down traffic for two minutes while we would do this. I would be rolling on the floor in a straight jacket. My buddy would be handing out cards for the book, and we would sell some books. And my favorite would be when we wouldn't sell any book except for one guy would come over and be like, hey, listen, I don't really read comics, but I gotta, you know, I gotta give it to you. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta get your book.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: The first time I met Sean, he was in a straitjacket.
First time I met him in person.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: I should say Cyril, as they say.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Yeah, in real life. Yeah, exactly. That's just, it's, it's fun too, because, I mean, you're also, like, you're not. There's too many people who take things seriously too. And I feel like that's also part of it, is the fact that, like, you get to create comics. Like, that's a fun thing that a lot of people want to do, and you're not taking it too seriously. You're trying to do something different, trying to do something unique, and that's just kind of cool. And I just can't imagine if I got to a comic book convention and someone was in a straitjacket, I don't know what I would think. First of all, I'd be like, what is this person cosplaying as, like, are you cosplaying? You just walk around a straight jacket, no one would question it. You're just cosplaying.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: I cosplay as myself every day.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:16:40] Speaker C: But also, I think you touched on something that I really admire about Sean, and I think a reason that we work so well together is that we take the work itself really seriously, but kind of the bullshit around it, you know, like, we're trying to sell the pedestrian while the world is burning, and, like, we can't take it too seriously. We can't take ourselves too seriously because this is, you know, as much as it's an expression of our own thoughts and feelings and art and whatever, ultimately, it's for people to read and enjoy, and that's something fun that should be celebrated. Even if the work itself is, like, serious, so to speak.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah, you have to keep it. You have to make. There's enough people out there who make. Don't take writing and illustrating the actual book seriously, and it shows, but taking and actually creating the actual item seriously is important. But then the stuff that goes around it, and some of it you can control, and some of you can't control. And that's the big thing.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Too many people that get in their own minds and try to stress themselves out by things you can't control. At some point, August 7 comes, and if people buy the book, they buy the book. You can't go there and put them in a straitjacket until they buy the book. That would be frowned upon. I'm pretty sure the cops, we could.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: But there would be consequences.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: I disagree.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: But you're right. You know, like, there is a way.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Of doing it that'd be fine.
[00:18:06] Speaker C: We do the best that we can with the tools that we have and the platforms that we have built for ourselves, which, you know, are just like a little, little, tiny race platform. But, you know, you work with what you've got, and hopefully you put this thing out to add a new rung to the platform for the next thing.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: So we've got kind of a history of where you two both came from. You know, where did I know you guys worked on pawn shop together? But, like, how did that pawnshop relationship, you know, sometimes I talk to people who are creators together. We talk about, like, obviously to the pedestrian was your first book together, but not Pawn Shop was the first book you guys worked on together. How did that relationship come together and make that book?
[00:18:47] Speaker C: Before this one came, Pawnshop started as all great modern relationships do, which is on Twitter.
I had this idea for Pawnshop, which is a slice of life story interconnected through the central hub of a New York pawnshop. And there's each chapter follows a different charActer, sort of a day in the life, and I just put out a call on Twitter to find an artist to collaborate with on this project. And Sean, far and away, like, as soon as I saw his. His art, it's like, this just works. And then later, once I saw him in a straight jacket, I was like, this guy, he's got. He's got balls. I need to work with someone like this.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: I was waiting for you to say that. He, he said he put himself in a straitjacket until you say yes, that he can work with you on this book.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think, like, they turn blue.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: Tears everywhere.
[00:19:41] Speaker C: The showmanship really sold me, but, no, just Sean's style was a perfect fit for the book, and. Yeah, and we sort of hit it off from there.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: The partnerships, I've always seen the partnerships that people get along and understand each other and see the illustrator and the writer know where the other one's coming from. It shows on the page if they have a really good relationship. And I feel like that's what I saw in pedestrian. Like, the writing and the illustrations kind of work so well together. Um, but before we get too far into the pedestrian, Joey, you have an elevator pitch. What? You tell people what the pedestrian is. I know it's kind of hard to, to explain to some people, but, like, what's the, uh, what is elevator pitch for, for the pedestrian?
[00:20:25] Speaker C: The elevator pitch would be. It's a story about a street level hero who never breaks the law to fight crime. And it's quirky and it's fun, but underneath, there's a war brewing about the secret ancient history of street signs. So it's a little bit Twin Peaks, it's a little bit madman, it's a little bit Power Rangers. It's everything that we love about media and comics in particular, just kind of shoved into one project. And I think it's as close as we've come to, like, really just transmuting our blood onto the comic book page.
That's a long elevator ride.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Is this something you've been working on internally for a long time and it's just now coming to fruition?
[00:21:16] Speaker C: Yeah. This was a pandemic project that we started on, that we started as kind of like a Webtoons series because it was Covid, and who knows what the future of being in public is? And so we decided to kind of work in a digital comic. But then as we got going, we decided this was pretty good, and maybe we should show this around. You know, we didn't show it to anyone for the first year that we worked on it. And then by the time we did, the response was, was really positive and something I'm super proud of with this project in particular. You know, Sean and I have worked on other pitches before, after pawnshop, and nothing really took off. But with this, we were really confident in it. We had lots of conversations. We took it to every publisher you can imagine that existed at the time. And we did get some offers that weren't great, and we knew what we had, and we were like, why would we do this deal when they're not really offering anything that we couldn't do ourselves? So we may as well just either wait for the right opportunity or just continue doing what we've been doing and do it on our own. And so we, I feel like we really took ourselves seriously and believed in the work, and I think it paid off.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: I would say it paid off. I got the email from, from Melissa at Don't hide pr, and I originally was like, what the hell is, what the hell is this book? Like? That was, my initial reaction was like, what is going on right now? Like, I feel like the pedestrian, the illustrations, the character design makes you just want to know. And I think that's one thing that will draw people in on new comic book day when it's sitting on the shelf is the, I've got to see what this book is about. And hopefully the LCS's are actually saying, yeah, you got to pick this book up. But I'm just saying, like, when you look at the COVID you're going to be like, what is this all about it? Because it kind of reminds me of that guy in, like, seattle that was fighting crime. Like the superhero that was, like, real life. Like, the guy that was just, like, going on. Like, honestly, when I saw that picture, I was just like, oh, it kind of looks like this guy who's just, like, a good citizen going out there and trying to fight crime as a superhero. Obviously, in the pedestrian, it's a lot more going on than just that. But, like, on the surface, it kind of gives that feel.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: Yeah, that's totally right.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
There are, you know, real life, you know, costumed heroes who put on spandex and do things for the community, ranging from people who, you know, do lightsaber fights for charity or people who, like, adopt Personas that go out. There's a great documentary, I forget the name of, about a group in Florida that kind of goes around Florida doing good for the community. And I think that's a lot of, I think a lot of that seeps into the pedestrian. It's always been an easy sell. After, when things started up again, we started making short ash cans of the first six pages and then a splash page where I would go to shows all over the country and would just have, like, you know, a little sandy of the character on the table or my banner behind me and just having on the table, and people would just come over and being like, what is this? And I had a woman at New York Comic con a couple years ago with a cane walks over and says, excuse me, um, is he. Is he jaywalking? I'm like, no, he's not. He never. He never breaks the law. This is the pedestrian. He follows all the rules and still finds a way to help people. And she goes, oh, I really like that because I jaywalked once and I got hit by a car.
And so that's why I have this cane. I would like a copy of this, please.
So this is, without a doubt, the most strongly received piece of work we've ever done. We've sent this to every publisher that looks at things, and a lot of publishers didn't know what this was either. We love this. This is amazing, but we don't know how to position this.
And we kept trying. We kept going to the other publishers. And finally, when we got to magma, we were kind of left with the question of, we love this. We're going to consider this and get back to you. I think just the question is how we sell this, which we knew how we sell it, because we've been selling this, we've probably, over the past couple years of just short runs of this ash can. I've either sold or given away close to 300 to 400 copies of this ashcan, and the one I've sold to for a six page ashcan for $10. There's a market here. So people either picked up a copy of this or gave me their email address for our mailing list. So the community's there. We just need to cast as wide of a net as we can to just get as many eyeballs on this as possible. And the retailers that we've been in contact with have been fantastic. Really strong responses going, you know, reporting in on the reactions from. From their customers, because we've sent a little, these standees to the other shops, people coming in and going, what is pedestrian? And why can I stop thinking about it and just putting it on their pool list? So we're very confident. We're getting early words. Final word cut off was last week, and the early word is, the numbers are very strong. They're at enough. They're at levels of magma's other books for, you know, Joe and I are relatively unknown creators. To be at a level of a book that one of their known creators has, I think, really says something about what this project is going to be.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: It's unique, it's interesting, it's, you know, but that's, I think there is something to be said in the world of comics we live in now is there's so much to read that I feel like a lot of it, I would say, like 50% of it is the same thing with different suits on. And so, like, having this ability have a story that makes you go, what the hell is this made? That's what drew me in a little bit. You know, when Paul Eaton at Galactic Comics said, hey, I got this email from Joey Esposito, you should check this out. And then, like, honestly, the day later, I think, is when I got the email from Melissa that said, hey, you should check this. Check. It was original, like coming out from all angles. Yes, it was original. Well, it's funny how you say that. I just got six or seven emails about the same Kickstarter campaign because the creator I backed on this Kickstarter had backed a bunch of their Kickstarter, and they posted the update on each one of their Kickstarter. You know what I mean? Like, they do the, hey, I got another project going on and I got 76 or seven emails from the same creator saying, I've got a new Kickstarter. And I'm like, I don't know if I like that or I hate that right now, but we're talking about it. Exactly. It was kind of nice. I got the original email just saying, hey, check this out from magma comics, the pedestrian. And then I was like, oh, I got to go back to that email that Paul, my buddy over at Galactic Comics, sent me, and he said, you should check this book out. Big thing to us is that Joey is from Maine. So that to me is like, okay, it's few and far between these people. We're known for Stephen King, and that's about it right now. No. And so we have this love for people that are from or live in our state. And so I want to read this thing. And I got it. And I was like, I literally emailed him, said, I don't know what to say. My original reaction was like, you need to read it and we need to have a conversation about this right now. And he's like, okay, fine. And he's emailed. He went on vacation. He emailed me back. He's like, I read it. We need to talk. And we actually honestly haven't got a chance to talk yet. It was kind of funny. It was like his ships in the wind.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great.
[00:29:07] Speaker C: I'm so glad to hear that.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: It's just so fun. I will say that the story is amazing. I think the writings are beautiful. But I also think that the suit design is amazing. We just touched a little bit on the suit design, the character design itself. But my biggest love of this comic is you can tell that he's speed walking. It's just like, you can. I don't know how you did that, Sean, but it moves fast. But doesn't it just, I don't know, trying to think of, like, I don't know. I've ever thought of someone speedwalking in a picture. And this totally does it.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that was the very first piece of this because I had sort of come up with this character design and this idea for this character who was sort of like, if you had the flash, but he didn't run, he could just walk very quickly. And I thought that was immensely funny. And, you know, came up with, with this suit based on the little blinking man and the don't walk sign and thinking, oh, what if? What if? Maybe street signs are some lost knowledge, perhaps?
And, you know, this idea was, you know, probably made the basis of a couple strips I had maybe a couple of bits, but not much more than that. And that's when I tapped Joey after working with him on pawnshop and a few other projects we've tried to get off the ground over the years because Joey is phenomenal at writing rich, emotional characters. And we thought it'd be really interesting to play with the mechanics that we did in pawnshop where we had all these different little stories in this town that interconnected with each other. And we thought it'd be really interesting to have the pedestrian be the thing that ties these stories all together and then eventually build to see that this is all, there's connections here and the pedestrian going through. He's not fighting monsters. He's helping people parallel park or helping you find your wallet.
In some instances, he's doing some more extreme, uh, traditional comic heroics. Uh, but really, this is, this is a man who's seemingly building a community in a place where there is not a community. Uh, as Joey mentioned, we worked on this during, uh, during lockdown. So a lot of 2020 absolutely seeped into this where we're talking about things like touching on things like social justice, isolation, uh, how corporations can break apart, communities being divided by misinformation. And we thought instead of, you know, we're not here to preach to anyone, but we think that there is a way we can kind of bring people together in a way that, you know, we're not seeing much of anymore. Because these days, depending on who you're voting for, you say a couple wrong words and that person is no longer your friend forever. It's a very combative atmosphere where you have to be careful about what you say and how you feel about certain things as to not either trigger or offend another person.
And that's unfortunate.
There have been times in our lifetime where we've been able to bridge the gap and work together on things because I honestly think that during lockdown, we had an opportunity as of people where everyone on the planet for one moment in time was affected by the same thing.
There was real opportunity to empathize with one other and really come together and kind of have maybe even the Star Trek moment that leads us to wearing silver suits and flying around in space. Because if we could get over our differences, our states, our gods, and work together as in a humanist person to person atmosphere, we would be having this conversation in space.
[00:33:16] Speaker C: I like that you went to Star Trek in my mind, one. Yeah, that was our Ozymandias psychics squid moment, and we blew it, you know, which is like, much more cynical, but I like your version better.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that was, that was a, that was a manufactured tragedy where Ozymandias wasn't wrong.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I echo everything that Sean said like this.
I think we are aiming for a lot of nuance in the story.
Good people making bad choices, bad people doing positive things, things like that.
Because that's how life is, regardless of how black and white things are painted so often. It's just, it's simply untrue that that is how the world works or that how people work.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: So it's. Yeah. And this not seeking. I've read the first issues. It's kind of hard sometimes, too. And I only like that too, because I talked to another creator recently and they were like, oh, we could send you the rest of the issues. I'm like, honestly, it's nice to talk to you after only reading the first issue because it kind of puts me just slightly above the person going to buy it at their lcs on release date. It's like, I guess I have a little bit more information, but I don't know, the whole story. And, but also like this, this pedestrian shows up out of nowhere. It does things without looking for awards to say, hey, look at you. You did this. But it also is the most realistic of a superhero in real life. Like, if the pedestrian could exist in real life in the sense that, that cities aren't getting. As of right now, as of the first issue, cities aren't getting demolished and they're saving these, like, you know, world ending things. And that first issue kind of gives that glance glimpse at like, oh, this is just a regular person doing nice things, wearing a suit and you don't know who it is. And you're like, what the hell was, I feel like you tell that story to someone, you'd go home and someone was like, hey, someone. Someone stopped a car from hitting me and helped me walk across the street and so on and so forth. And someone was like, how much did you smoke before you left for work today? Like, what is going on right now?
[00:35:21] Speaker C: Right? Well, that's the vibe we wanted to go for, too.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: And you didn't even mention the guy was in a costume. Because then you mentioned that part is like, why didn't you start with that aspect of it?
[00:35:31] Speaker C: But we, like, Sean likes to bring up Ghostbusters in that. You know, that's a world that's very believable, very familiar to our own except for this one crazy thing that's going on and like this few number of people who are aware of it.
So that's definitely an inspiration that we had with this, is keeping the world believable, having the characters who surround the pedestrian have real lives and just like normal problem paying rent or bailing out of school or whatever it might be. And they're all sort of connected by this idea that their community doesn't really exist. Their town is on a downslide, a once nice little small town that's just kind of, people are abandoning, stores are closing, corporations are ruining it.
And I think that's all like real life relatable stuff. Even though there's this wacko and spandex walking around very well, but still just like kind of an oddity.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Yes. Well, I would love the pedestrian. And we talked. Being from Maine, I have this. The past couple of weeks have been crazy in the world in general, as we know. Recording this the day we're recording this with what recent events happened over the weekend. But the, but it's a, in the Bangor area here in Maine, we had a restaurant close abruptly. We had a grocery store close abruptly. We had an announcement of another place a fellow brewery is. I worked for a brewery in the day. For those who don't know, those who listen to the podcast all the time, know that.
[00:37:12] Speaker C: No, wait, sorry, sorry to derail you. What brewery?
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Orino Brewing.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a graphic designer by trade and so I am the creative director there. So I've worked there for seven years, but like, a fellow brewery. And our friends at Bissell announced they were closing their, their location in a rural town.
[00:37:28] Speaker C: Oh, really?
[00:37:29] Speaker A: In their mile. In their Milo location. Three Rivers is closing at the end of the summer and a friend of mine's restaurant in downtown Bangor, he was actually my wedding, his restaurant closed. Tozier's market down the street, grocery store just closed. They actually announced multiple ones that are closing. And it's just like, it just, it resonates, I think, more now reading this book.
And obviously things have closed since the pandemic. Like, we've just seen a, you know, a rash of different places closing. But like, I don't know, recently it was weird when reading this again, like I mentioned glancing through it last night, kind of just reminding me like, oh my gosh, this is my backyard. I kind of want the pedestrian to show up right now. Like I said, I don't know where it goes with this issue. Like, we gotta read the future issues to actually see where it goes. But like, as of the first issue, I kind of want the pedestrian to show up in the Bangor area.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: I think there's. Yeah, I think Joey, I think Joey bringing up Ghostbusters is a great point because, you know, there, there will be these moments where, you know, the ghostbusters were at a glance, probably not the people we would expect to save the world. You know, Peter Venkman in general is a very selfish individual. I think my favorite moment in any media is where they're sort of like right after they lose their jobs at the university and they're drinking on the street in front of the university and they're like, what are we going to do? And Venkman has this wild look in his eyes, like, I don't know. And he's taking that slug out of the bottle. That's the energy I try to capture in all of my projects of like, I don't know, but it's going to be spectacular. We're going to pull something out of our asses that's going to be wild. And I'm starting to hear about, about those closures because we're talking about community and these are places where people commune. We get our food at the grocery store, we congregate. At restaurants, we drink the same beer from our local brewery. What does that say about the community when these types of businesses are not being supported in the way that they have to? We keep talking about the pandemic, but we're seeing that, I think deep down. And the sucky thing is that, but I think we all realize that being at home alone, having things sent to you from your phone, is very appealing. And I think, I think as a whole, we still haven't gotten out of that as much. Sure, maybe we go to the movies once in a while, but we all got set up to be at home watching movies with our loved ones. And leaving home is scary for several more reasons than it was before. It never feels completely safe these days because we're watching the news, we're seeing ridiculous things happening, and there are people who are hurting and who are not getting the help they need. And as this isn't, this isn't the case for everyone, but I think, in general, it's become very hard to empathize with everyone.
We probably, as a country, have lost our ability to empathize with our neighbors for several reasons, and we need to find a way to, you know, understand and forgive and move forward and work together again. And that's, and that's, you know, I don't think this is the roadmap to that, but I think the pedestrian is someone who is a blank slate. You can pin your hopes and fears on this person. This person is going out into the world, and he's doing his best to try to make the world a little better. Not in huge waves of smacking asteroids away from the planet, but small, quiet moments of like, hey, that really helped me out that day. I really appreciate that. And is there some cosmic relevance to this character? Sure. We'll get into that as well. If you take Superman, you strip away all the powers, what do you have left? You just have someone who you know is going to do the right thing whenever possible, and you can rely on that.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: It's, it's a cool, because you think about the big, bombastic fights you see in big two comics or even in some other, you know, independent, superior style comics, is like, it makes it seem like there isn't the small, lower level things going on. It means, like, everything else in the world at a Marvel comic is perfect except for the alien invasion that's coming. Like, it just seems like that's because it's always what the focus is on. And actually, most of the time, I should say that is, I just read Lisa Jewell's new book. Breaking the Dark was the Jessica Jones crime novel, which was fantastic because it literally was Jessica Jones. She talks about Madame Webb at one point. She talks to Luke Cage at one point. She mentions or meets with Danny Rand at one point. But, like, other than that, it's mostly just her solving a crime as an investigator. And to me, I'm like, that's amazing because I love the Marvel universe and I love hearing these people's names and these conversations happening. But she's just solving a crime. She's not stopping thanos from taking over the world or something like that. It's like the small street level things. And sometimes I think there's that, and then there's the mix in between. And I think that maybe that's where pedestrian is, where it is at. It's like, not just who stole my wallet, but, like, there's a little bit more hiding behind it again, that I think we'll all find out in future issues. But, like, for sure, I think there's a place for that where I don't think that some of the other in comic book publishers are doing right now.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: And, you know, I love. I love superheroes. I love superhero comics, and I certain, I love world ending crises and all that stuff. But also, I think when it's only, when you're only concerned, like, concerned with world ending stakes and physical stakes and action stakes, that's not always high. Emotional stakes, or at least when it's happening all the time, the emotional stakes don't feel as high.
And I don't know. I'm much more invested in a character who's worried about how she's going to make rent on time than I am about any superhero struggling with losing his powers or whatever it might be. And I'm not, like, shitting on superhero comics because I love that stuff. But I love the idea of exploring a supporting cast of a traditional superhero book with, like, their day to day.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: Yes.
You're also protecting yourself because you do write for other people, so you have to make sure you have it.
[00:43:53] Speaker C: I do.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: But, you know, I still like DC and Marvel. Don't worry.
[00:43:56] Speaker C: Listen, I promise I would tell you if I thought something was dumb, but it's just, I think it is something that isn't explored as often as I would like it to be. And I understand why, but I can.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: Relate to the people on pedestrian, whereas that's a big thing, and I think that it's a huge thing nowadays. I think that's you know, one of the things why Miles Morales got so big was people can start to relate to him more maybe than Peter Parker and so on. And there's this space for people. You know, why. Why we need some queer comics out there? Why we need, we need these comics out there? Because we need to be able to relate to people who find themselves in, see themselves in a book. And you can't. I can't. I love reading Marvel and DC comics, but I, you know, Marvel more than DC, but, you know, that's, you need to hear when you're there. But the, the. I like reading those big stories, but I also don't see myself in those comics. Like, I've never read a Marvel comic like, that looks like me or that it's me because I'm not fighting off alien invasions and big things that are world ending, but I could see myself in an apartment in the pedestrian, you know, I mean, like, I could see myself with this, this happening. I would love to beat the pedestrian. I want to go speed walking with them. That's what I want to do.
[00:45:07] Speaker C: It's great cardio.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: They'll have, like, a big rocky moment where the whole community is following them down the street.
Write that down.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: I do love that Shawn said that the reason why, Joey, you're writing these books is because you like to write rich, emotional characters. And that's the main reason why you're writing Sesame street, right?
[00:45:27] Speaker C: Yes, 100%. Grover is very emotional.
He'll let you know exactly how he feels. So I feel like there's a lot of crossover there.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: It was kind of funny. I was trying to explain to someone, I was like, Batman urban legends. He's writing the new Sesame street book, too. And someone goes, wait, there's a new Sesame street book coming? I'm like, yeah, I was surprised, too, but I'm excited for it, so I cannot wait for it to come out.
[00:45:50] Speaker C: That'd be cool. Just like, all you got to do is look at cookie monsters like crazy eyeballs, and you're like, okay, that makes sense.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Grover's always been my favorite character, especially, you know, we're talking about superheroes where Grover also has a superhero Persona, where this is a superhero who doubts himself regularly. So he's never completely sure of himself. But again, he's still going to do the right thing as Super Grover. He's not going to get it right the first couple of tries, but eventually he's going to keep, he's not going to give up, and he's going to overcome his insecurities. And do the right thing. And I would very much suspect that if anyone is interested in ringing the pedestrian, they should also pick up. Grover lends a hand because I feel like it's going to be a very similar vibe.
[00:46:36] Speaker C: Thank you, Sean.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: Similar but different. No, but it's exciting. I think it's exciting, too. I think this is exciting for all of you guys are almost, you guys have been doing comics for a little while now, but this is the beginning in my opinion. I think there's a huge future for both of you. I'm super excited about it because I think that the artwork's phenomenal in this book. I think the writing's phenomenal in this book. But you touched on the magma comics of it all, and obviously you pitched the book to a bunch of people and so on and so forth. But some people don't know who magma is because they are up and coming. And I think that the relationship and what you both, I think, have publicly said about your relationship and why you like working with magma. Do you want to touch on that a little bit right now? Like what it's been like to get this book out? I mean, the book hasn't even hit the shelves yet, but like, it seems like its been an exciting experience so far.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. Magma is a company that originally began as an imprint of heavy metal magazine that went independent a couple of years ago. Its a new company, but everyone behind the scenes is an old industry pro from IDW, all over the industry who know what theyre doing and have a very clear plan of how they want to offer their comics to the industry. And they're not chasing iP. They're not trying to make movies and tv shows. I mean, sure, that'd be great, but they're trying to make really good comics. And they had approached us back in last year at New York Comic Con, Bobby Conroe, back when he was in IDW, saw the pedestrian pitch. When we pitched, we were pitching to IDW a couple years back and he had come, found me at my booth and said, hey, we're doing this new thing with mega comics. If you have any pitches, we'd love to see see him. And we said, well, we still have the pedestrian. And he was like, oh, I really like that. Please send, send it over. And usually you send a pitch to a publisher, you either hear from them six months to a year down the road or never again because they either stopped existing or they pissed off too many people and they have to go away for a little while and then come back under a different name. That's another conversation.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: That was a perfect explanation of it, though. I really do like that.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: But Bobby was beyond transparent about what the process was. Like. A couple of months in, he, he checked in and was like, hey, we're still figuring out our first slate. We're looking for this for our second slate. We're still, we're still considering a couple months later, like, hey, we're coming really close. And eventually, when they, when they gave us the green light, they said this was something that we couldn't stop thinking about. We probably looked at maybe a thousand different books, and this is something that we couldn't forget that we kept coming back to. And that speaks to the strength of what this was and us knowing and betting on ourselves and knowing what we have.
And you touched on sort of a return for us. And this is very much returned in a very big way, because this was us deciding to maybe reinvent ourselves in a way of like, Joey has been doing lots of great stuff for DC and other companies over the years. I've been doing some cool stuff with the guy DW, like Star Trek stuff that I never thought would happen. But we decided that we were going to make the best comic we could possibly make, and we weren't going to take no for an answer. We weren't going to wait for permission to make this book. We knew what we had. We started making it ourselves. We had maybe ten shorts of ten, five to six page things because we figured we're going to be busy along the road. Let's do something that we know we can do. So we were inspired by Old Marvel Comics, a four chapter Marvel comic, where it's really just broken up into shorts of chapter one, chapter two. We worked off that model, then had a significant body of work. When we finally started working on this, we had maybe two, two and a half issues of content in the can that we had to shave off a little bit because we were writing it as a six page thing. We got four issues, and we have the ability to, if this does well, we could potentially do an ongoing, and if we can get to do what we want to do with this, it's going to be the weirdest, wildest payoff that we've seen in a comic in a generation. This is going to be some, like, crazy vertigo type shit. This is something that Grant Morrison would write on a bar napkin to pay a bar tab type stuff of like, oh, well, here you go. Here's a quick thing. There you go.
[00:51:22] Speaker A: That's such a cool way to hear, the biggest thing I think, I love when I have these conversations with creators like yourselves is you're passionate about it. And I think that there are creators that I've talked to, and obviously not going to call out anybody that are, like, pitching the book. They're like, okay, we want you to buy our book. We'll say what we need to say to you. Buy my book. But then there's creators like you two, who both feel like every time you talk, I've listened to you guys on other things, too. Blake's buzz, a buddy of ours over there, I listened to that. You guys did a great job on that. And each time you talk about the book or you tweet about the book or you put it out there on Instagram, it's always like, not just buy my book, but it's more along the lines of, you're passionate about this project. It means a lot to you. And I think that in an industry of comics means a lot because I think there's, like I said, there's so much to read. And I think that when you can put a face to a name, in a sense, that the names that are on the top of the book mean so much to the book, I think it also helps sell. I think you'll get sales. Just people going, I really like these dudes. I want to. I want to read a comic book by these people. And I think that is huge. I think, in this because I think that when you wear your heart on your sleeve, when you wear your heart on your comic, I think that it shows. I think both of you two, and not to mention Josh Jensen and Sean Lee's work as colorists and letterers of this book, not to mention those two people as well, because obviously, there's a team effort in this, but, yeah, I I can see it. I hope you can see it.
[00:52:43] Speaker C: Thank you so much for saying that and seeing that. I think that is exactly kind of where we're coming from. We like to say there's no plan b.
This is, I mean, we needed to do well, but also, this is all I've ever really wanted to do. So it's not just a job. It's not just, here's my new book. Yeah, buy it if you want.
This is, like, really important to me. This is what I've been built and constructed my life around, and I just, I don't really know how to do anything that I'm not passionate about, just something that I've had to learn about myself, just, like, where to focus my energies in the proper way.
But, yeah, I mean, speaking for myself, I love doing this. There's nothing I'd rather be doing. And this book is definitely the best thing that I've done.
And so I hope that comes across and people check it out.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: It's awesome. I'm excited.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. We're not here to sell a book. We're just trying to let people know that their new favorite thing is about to hit shops on August 7.
[00:53:51] Speaker A: It's wonderful. And I think that's, and I think you're reaching out to Paul Eaton of galactic comics and saying to the LCS, I think that's huge too. And I think, I know Paul will probably say, anybody said to you or will say at some point when you actually get to have a conversation in person, Joey. But, like, the idea that when a creator reaches out, I think that Paul cover carries every single one of Tony Fleece's books now, not just because they're obviously amazing books, but, like, Tony reaches out on a regular basis to Paul. Tony, living on the west coast, gets an email every once in a while from Tony being like, hey, have you checked out, you know, feral or whatever's coming out from me? And it makes Paul go, okay, now I'm going to carry all these books, you know? And so the same thing when, that, when he got that email events means so much to a local comic book shop and you were in there, it's not huge, but he can, he punches, packs a punch with that one store. And I think that you'll carry your book over unnamed creators because of that alone.
[00:54:45] Speaker C: And I think, I think it's really important, and I know that not all creators have the time or the ability or whatever to make those connections, but this is a community, whether we're creators or readers or retailers or publishers. Like, it's such a small niche thing that we all need to be, like, in it together on the same page, working for, you know, the rising tide raises all boats thing. It's just we need to be part of each other's lives no matter what part of the industry we're in. And, yeah, I can't thank him enough for getting us on the show and just really helping us promote the book that we're so passionate about.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a fun thing.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we, you know, we do a lot of our business on the Internet, on, on social media, and putting, you know, but sending, sending the word out however we can. But comic shops are still the most important space for people to come in and discover a new product. Because of that relationship and that community, you've been coming to your local comic shop forever. What's new? It's, hey, it's Wednesday. What we got today? Well, we got the pedestrian for you. This is a weird book that you just need to look at. Just have it on your shelf. You're wandering around, you got your books, and, like, I got a few extra bucks. What the fuck is this?
[00:56:15] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:56:16] Speaker B: Pick it up. Like, I'm still, I'm still, I don't know. I'm looking at a couple pages. I still don't know. I, I need to have this because I need to talk to people about.
[00:56:26] Speaker A: I think he also, like, Paul likes to have me. I'm in the shop quite often, and I think that he likes to have me there too, because I do talk to people and I do read a lot more books than he gets a chance to do because I get them sent to me in emails and things like that and so on. And I get to read them weeks in advance. That allows him to say, you know, to get the ability to, like, tell people about the upcoming comic and so on and so forth. Because I'll just stand there and I swear every time I'm in there, he sells three or four more comics because someone picks it up.
[00:56:51] Speaker C: Sounds like you're a commission.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: I'm like, that's really good. You should really pick that up. You should grab that book and so on and so forth. So I'll probably be there on August 7, just standing there being like, yes, this one, this one right here and this one. And then he sometimes gets mad at me. He's like, well, why didn't you say that during foc? Because now I don't have enough for all these people. I'm going to reorder it. And, okay, it's a problem. That's the problem with the comic book industry, though. That's not his fault or my fault. It's the problem with the comic book industry because of the fact that it's hard to do. It's hard to know. It's hard to know last week that you needed x amount of copies in order that far in advance and so on and so forth. But it's not. And also, I'm trying to figure out when things are due. I'm emailing publishers being like, what's FoC? That was last week. I'm like, I do think it's important.
[00:57:35] Speaker C: To say for magma specifically, they're making Sean's covers for issues one and two fully returnable for retailers. So I think that's a great opportunity for them to order bigger than they might on something and maybe customers will really take to it. And that's not just the pedestrian, but all the magma titles are like that. And I think that's a great, really keeping the retailers front of mind and I think that's really important.
[00:58:02] Speaker A: It's hugely important. I think that also here the big thing to me and it's just one of those things. Hopefully it hooked us extremely well in Maine because I do think that there has. If the person behind the counter knows that a Maine person is involved in this book, it sells books. I think that's a huge thing about Maine. I think it's one of the things about working in a brewery.
Our beer is sold in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, sometimes in New York. But it's not going to be likely anytime soon in Vermont because Vermont people feel the same way as Maine do that they buy things from Vermont and Maine people buy things from Maine. And so it's one of those weird things that if the creator or someone has a connection to me and they're like, I'm on it. I mean, he carries. He carried self help. The new book by Owen King. Because it's Owen King. Like he didn't care about what the story was about. It was like it has the king name on it. It's probably going to do well here in the show.
Anything by Joe Hill, anything by Stephen King. We got to put it on the shelf. It's probably going to do well. So I love Maine, but yeah, best. Yeah. And the same thing with Ben's. Ben Bishop's done a bunch of great things for, for his store as well because of that. And Joseph Schmalke and a bunch of other people that are from Maine there that are making waves right now. It's pretty cool too to see that. Not that New York's not great, Sean. I mean, we're fine. You live in New York, it's different. But like, you know, we've had a good run.
I visited New York in August of two years ago and I got Covid. So screw New York. No, I'm just kidding.
[00:59:23] Speaker B: Well, screw you too, buddy.
What I love most about New York is that New York just doesn't care.
You could, you could be whoever you are and you can just walk around New York and no one gives a fuck.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: Know what you're doing yet? Nope.
[00:59:39] Speaker B: Like I finally did San Diego for the first time last year in San Diego.
When you go to San Diego, Comic Con, the whole community opens up, and everything within a two mile radius is San Diego Comic Con. This is what we're doing this week as, as a group, as a community, all the businesses. We're doing something Comic Con related. If you in New York, if you leave the Javits center in your costume, no one gives a shit.
[01:00:06] Speaker A: They just think it's another crazy New York person walking down the street in a costume, though, so.
[01:00:09] Speaker B: Oh, it was a comic con. Oh, whatever. I was taking the train up to the show a couple years back, and there was one of those fellas with the, like, animatronic animal ears that, like, responds to your, like, your brain waves or your sensors. So, like, you're having a conversation with someone, and your ears are, like, responding in real time of, like, yeah. So I really do think that. And there, like, an older woman, you know, sees this and is just very curious, like, oh, excuse me, may I ask you, what do you. What do they think of doing? And the kid is probably a little on the spectrum, so he's like, oh, I'm actually going to New York comic Con. It's like, oh, oh, is that anything like big bang theory? And the kid's like, actually, that show does not represent my community at all. And, like, the lady just like, hey, I'm just trying to, like, I'm trying to make conversation here, kid. I don't. I don't really give a fuck. I was curious about your robot animal years.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: You take this way too personally, actually. That's funny. The big Bang theory. Paul's at the shop worn, it's a flash shirt, and someone came in and says, hey, oh, that's the big bang theory shirt. And, like, oh, my God.
[01:01:13] Speaker B: Get out.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: What we thought, what they thought would help the industry of comics kind of hurt the industry of comics.
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it was very much sort of. I, you know, this is an extreme comparison, but I've heard compared to, like, a minstrel show of, like, oh, here's your nerd show doing our little dance.
This is for you. No, this is for people to make fun of you on CB's and then all the spin off of him as a kid.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:01:40] Speaker C: Which.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not getting into that, but, yeah. So August 7 is when the pedestrian hits the shelves, I believe. Is that correct? I'm so behind that information. Yes, that's correct. And here's the deal. Foc is passed. I think actually, I think this episode actually might drop on August 7. I think that's what the, the deal is. So go to your stores, motherfucker. Go to your stores and if you missed out on it, don't, if you go to your shelf, it's not there or whatever, tell the person behind the counter. That's a big thing I always want to remember. We're very introverted. Industry people there are very shy. We don't, we know, we're, we're nerds. We're geeks. We like, you know, don't like to talk to people. And so go over the counter and say, hey, do you have the pedestrian? No, we're sold out. Can you order one for me? Because they should be able to get it again hopefully in a recent reorder or so on the, and then, then you can get the copy. Tell them now, tell them whenever that you want to read the pedestrian because I highly recommend it and I think that people are going to love it, which is awesome.
[01:02:35] Speaker C: And if you, if you are picking it up and it's between August 7 and August 12, Foc for issue number two is, is still happening. So you have plenty of time to.
[01:02:45] Speaker A: Catch up and get that second issue in there and so on and so forth. They will be available on the shelves at collective comics and collectibles. I'll throw that out there because they'll have them up there. And hopefully sometime you'll come back, Joey, to visit. Absolutely. Paul or myself or both.
[01:03:00] Speaker C: I'm going to email him first, though, to make sure that he's going to be there and they'll, yeah, call ahead.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: Joey, what's so funny?
[01:03:05] Speaker A: He says he did, he doesn't ever go on vacation and he goes on vacation the 4 July and he asked me. So Garrett's awesome. Garrett's a wonderful employee, so on and so forth. But poll lists, he gets very overwhelmed. So like when the, he has like 45 people on that small shop on a poll list and he says so in Polis, you know, he pulls comics. He gets the comics in on Mondays and Tuesdays. He pulls them, puts them in the box on Tuesdays usually just to get it ready for the, for Wednesday. And Garrett was just like, I don't know, man. I don't know if he'll be able to do it and so on and so forth. And so Paul texted me and was like, are you around? And I'm like, well, actually I'm off that day. I'm on vacation cause I have extra time and I'll swing in. I'll do the polls for people. And then he, I saw him on Friday and Paul goes, what are you doing Tuesday? It's my wife and I's anniversary. I'm like, I thought you never went on vacation, dude. Like, what is, what's going on right now? Why are you keep on taking Tuesday off? You do the poll list. You're throwing Garrett under the bus here. So I'll probably be there on Tuesday to do it again. But I'll just make sure he has plenty of copies on the day that stream comes out. I'll just put it in everybody's box. They won't.
[01:04:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: Don't worry.
[01:04:04] Speaker C: I appreciate that.
[01:04:05] Speaker B: It's like when you go to the bar and you wait a really long time to go to the bathroom and then once you break the seal.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah, every time.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: One vacation. Oh, that was, I kind of like that. I'm going to keep doing that.
[01:04:16] Speaker A: But then he realizes that he has to pay this guy to be there. He doesn't have technically pay himself, you know, like this cost to go under this thing. But no. Yeah. August 7 at your local comic book shop. And then I know August 28, I think that's right around there. And Sesame street comes out as well. Right around there. That sounds right for that as well. I haven't read that yet, so I can't really give a. It's probably going to be amazing, but whatever.
[01:04:39] Speaker C: If you have kids, you'll love it.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. See, I have a three year old and a four month old. Actually four months today.
[01:04:44] Speaker C: Perfect.
[01:04:45] Speaker A: And so they'll, they'll destroy it. It's fine. Don't worry about it.
[01:04:48] Speaker C: That's what it's for.
[01:04:50] Speaker B: There is no basis in fact on this, but I've heard in this issue it's finally revealed how you get to Sesame street. So you better go pick.
[01:04:57] Speaker A: That would be mind blowing. No. And then, yeah. So grab pedestrian from magma comics at your local comic book shop. I'm super excited for people else, other people to read it. Benefit of reading it ahead of time as I get to read it ahead of time. The downside is there's one other person that I know I can talk about the comic book with because he owns the comic book shop. But other than that, I can't really talk to people about it. So I cannot wait for August 7 and other people get to read it.
[01:05:20] Speaker B: And if this is hitting on or close to August 7, this will probably be announced by then. But Joey and I will be doing a little bit of a tour that we're working on. Definitely on the east coast. We're still locking down shops, but on the day of release, we will be signing at Third Eye Comics in Annapolis, Maryland. So any third eye faithful who listen to the shop buy third Eye or die and get down there, because, you know, third Eye, third Eye doesn't fuck around with their signings. Joey's gonna experience this firsthand that they start with a line 20 people deep, because that's how loyal their fan base is. And so we're really looking forward to saying hello to everyone in Maryland.
[01:06:00] Speaker A: My local comic book shop is Galaxy Comics, but my online local comic book shop is third eye comics. I'll tell you that right now. I always say that people in the same thing with Paul at the shop, if someone's like, like, oh, do you have this back issue? And I'm like, paul's like, I can't get it. I can't reorder it. I'm like, check out this website. I go on there and see if there's available on there, because I just feel like they do things right at Third Eye. And if I lived in Annapolis, Maryland, I would be going there. So I think that's a great thing. And also, they do a great deal on the signed comics, if anybody wants signed comics, because they end up getting a bunch signed by you to keep in stock or whatever. And I think it's like, instead of $4.99 cover price, it's like $12.99 or something like that. And it's like something absolutely not nearly what it should be, what the value of it should be to people. People probably selling those things on 30, $40 on the Internet.
[01:06:41] Speaker B: Anytime I sign there, they always get an extra stock of signed copies. So if you order from Third Eye comics for your books, if you happen to order these books through Third eye, at least for number one, any stock that gets ordered will be signed for shipping.
[01:06:56] Speaker A: Yes. It's awesome. So people should check that out for sure. Third eye is great. I do love third eye, but, yeah. August 7, local comic book shops. You should be picking up the pedestrian. I really thank you guys for coming on and taking time out of your day to do this, and thanks for having me. I was debating on whether or not we were going to use a different software. We've been toying around with software, so I didn't get you the link until early today. Like 1201. I'm sending you the link. I'm like, oh, crap. I got to send these to these people to record it.
[01:07:21] Speaker C: We made it.
[01:07:22] Speaker B: We both sat down like, wait a second. Here's the link.
[01:07:25] Speaker A: Well, I said, because I said, melissa, I'm like, I'll send it to you ahead. Of time because Melissa's excellent at this, their job, a wonderful, wonderful pr person. And I love you, Melissa. Yes, exactly. And so I usually send it right away and it's in the link and it's in the, you know, whatever. And I'm like, oh, I was toying around with other software, and I ended up just saying, I can't do anybody else's software. They're all, there's lags or there's just all kinds of things. So I was like, and I went to send the link. I'm like, oh, I never sent the link. That's stupid of me. But, but thank you for taking the time out to come on and talk comics and the pedestrian and so much more right here on the podcast. We'll have to have you guys back at some point in the future.
[01:07:59] Speaker B: There are some people who, there are some people who are addicted to listening to podcasts. We're addicted to being on podcasts and talking about ourselves.
[01:08:06] Speaker A: So anytime in the world of comics, you got to talk about your comics for people to buy them so that, you know, that's a good thing to do.
[01:08:12] Speaker C: That's my greatest struggle.
[01:08:15] Speaker B: Have your money ready.
[01:08:17] Speaker A: Exactly. I appreciate it so much, Joey and Shawn. We'll have you on again in the future for sure.
[01:08:22] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
